Speeding up general Performance - What to go for?

3Gbps link seems to have the most effect on light workloads, so really speaking if you have a lot of programs open a SATA II link will make the SSD suffer slightly. But <1ms seek time like stated is the most important, I suppose it depends if you are going to really use the full 6Gbps bandwidth to it's full potential.

scaryjim: so you are saying I would probably be a bit disappointed with 128GB in capacity, and would benefit more from the SSD caching software to do the dirty work for me? It's a shame there's no real caching software out there for standard SSDs, because were restricted to 32-60GB depending on the SSD.

I don't really consider myself a power user, but the idea of pretty much forgetting about the SSD and letting it do it's thing is a good idea, it's like Superfetch but better.

Depending what you go for, you can get cache specific SSDs from £40-60 depending on the capacity, so if you need more it's going to cost you another £40-60 which is quite expensive.

There are 3rd party caching software such as "FancyCache" but it may not reliable.

A 64GB cache sounds nice.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mikeo01

scaryjim: so you are saying I would probably be a bit disappointed with 128GB in capacity, and would benefit more from the SSD caching software to do the dirty work for me?

---

No, I'm saying I would be disappointed with 128GB as my main OS/programs drive ;) YMMV, as always.

It's probably worth checking the size of your Windows, Program Files and Users folders as they stand, just to see where you're at. I have a 120GB SSD in my laptop and love it, but I don't play many games on my laptop (I think I have NWN, Drakensang Online, and 2 Puzzle Quests on my laptop - that's it), I don't download large files to it regularly, and I know that when I upgraded I was running with around 60GB of space used, so > 50% capacity on a 120GB SSD. With my main desktop, I was using a lot more space than that, I know the HTPC (which I set up with a 100GB system partition thinking it wouldn't get used for much gaming - more fool me ;) ) has just about filled the system partition, and my work laptop has > 150GB used space. So IMNSHO a 128GB OS/Programs SSD will leave you constantly fretting about how much space you're using and whether you should install such-and-such a program to the SSD or a separate HDD. And I know I wouldn't be happy with that - but again, YMMV.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mikeo01

It's a shame there's no real caching software out there for standard SSDs, because were restricted to 32-60GB depending on the SSD.

...

There are 3rd party caching software such as "FancyCache" but it may not reliable.

---

Well, FancyCache appears to be in beta, and it looks like the company that makes it is a commercial entity so it'll have a license cost anyway which you'd need to add to cost of the SSD. It looks like there isn't much open source development going on in caching, which seems odd to me given how much of a speed boost it gives a HDD to have an intelligent SSD cache.

I'm also not sure how much additional benefit you'd get by increasing the cache size - since it should only be caching commonly used files, it may well be the case that more than 60GB of cache is wasted as it will be caching files that don't really get used often enough for you notice. tbh, once you factor in the cost of commercial software, I think the cache drive bundles are pretty reasonable in terms of cost - small capacity SSDs have always lagged behind in terms of £/GB and for the simplicity of just adding it to your existing computer, setting up the software, and letting it do its thing ... yeah, I reckon it's worth it :)

I was taking a look at my disk usage at home, and IIRC I have used around 50-60% of it (500GB HDD). But if your 100GB SSD is full up with games I am sure mine would be. I could fit everything on to it if I moved all personal folders to the HDD. I don't really play many games anymore, they are just there on the disk in case I fancy something different for once. But then I do have about 6 games I do regularly run, or will run.

Other programs I am not so worried about because they take up next to nothing, but I can confidently say I could full up a 128GB drive easily.

And bummer on the fancycache, it is odd there's no open source software because it's a big step in computing and I would of thought developers would be itching to bring out something great for users to use, install and forget, no one likes to micromanage :P

Also, I thought the caching software manages that, I didn't know it just left the files on there. ExpressCache (SanDisk) allows you to wipe the cache which is a nice feature.

I do think it's worth it, but then it depends what you are expecting your computer to perform like.

I will add up everything when I get home ,see how much space I really need ;)

The choice is entirely down to how much effort you are prepared to put in. You seem happy enough doing research into cache drives, so I'm sure you could easily do the research needed to set up a regular SSD.

How many programs would you want to install to an SSD? How much space would they take up?

Yeah I could set up a regular SSD with a bit of research. Shouldn't be a problem.

I suppose I am in the middle of the idea of leaving the SSD cache everything by it's self, or having to manage what I put onto a standard SSD drive.

Programs wise, I am not sure, it varies, if I see a program I want to install I just install it without worrying about space.

Actually, this may be a better indication, my old 250GB drive was a bit too small, I had to manage what I put on that because I was always close to filling it up. That was my old drive back when I had Vista so I didn't have a massive collection of games, only small games.

I know my personal directory takes up about 20GB, but that's mainly folders with random patches, files and installation files in. So with that out of the way probably around 15GB.

I know my current drive takes up around 300GB, but 60GB of that is just copied files not in use.

Come to think of it, I don't actually use that much in terms of capacity, it's just random bits and bobs I have lying around that take up the most room.

I have recently installed a 60Gb SSD on RST to a 2TB drive and got what i exected programs opening quicker, how much quicker i dont know but they open quicker and my games load quicker and appz open quicker and thats what i wanted. That said its only the ones i play or access regular that are cached because it takes a few times of access before the controller moves them files to the SSD cache so if like me you play 2 to 3 games at a time then move on to the next you will get the benifit of SSD access time from the cache from what you do regularly. When it comes to installing, copying and reading anything else to or from the drive its the same basic speed as the normal HDD drive about 190MB a sec as ive benchmarked that. I dont know how quick the cache fills up but on Intel RST you are limited to 50 something Gb which sounds a lot but if you play a few games at a time and open a few other programs often i am assuming you will hit the 50Gb cap and start purging the cache and could simply be rotating amongst what you do and not getting the full benefit of the access time. This is where having the dedicated SSD C drive ensures you get maximum access time every time for what you have installed on it i.e. the bulk of what you open every day or often and in conjunction with a second SSD cache drive gives maximum performance for your money. Thats why its best to have an SSD C drive and go as big as you can afford and for the extra £10 or £20 to double size your crazy not to.
The Asus website says your board has 6 x 6GB sata ports as well unless this is a typo.
http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_...specifications

Yeah, exactly. I worked out that realistically I'd need a 256GB SSD, and that works out perfectly for my purposes. I can have about 10 big games installed concurrently, which suits me down to the ground. If I wanted to install more, I'd be perfectly happy to remove a few.

I could use a 512GB SSD in the future, but it wouldn't really change my usage of the PC in any meaningful way, because I don't need that much.

I suppose, given the reducing costs, you could always go with 2 128GB SSDs in RAID0 ;)

EDIT: is it just me, or have SSD prices gone up in the last 6 months?

Mike

on my 120Gb C drive i have Win 7 64bit, Pagefile, BF3, Office 2007, main appz such as Origin and Steam and my docs and pictures and have 22Gb free. These are the suff i open every day so its not a lot and the drive is almost full.

Not really surprising if there isn't any open source caching software for Windows, I think you would need to be quite well woven into the OS for it to work well. As I said before, the low end is probably well served by ReadyBoost. The high end will just buy a big SSD and not want caching in the first place and/or buy a ton of RAM so the disc doesn't get used much :)

Under Linux there are a couple of block cache drivers around which look OK. Under BSD (or Linux if you like building drivers from source) there is ZFS which can make use of an SSD natively.

I have only started looking at SSD prices so I wouldn't know if they've gone up, if they have I wonder why. I was reading some forums and it was from last year and most were stating different prices than I am seeing now.

2x 128GB in RAID 0 would be speedy! :D but you could get a single 250GB for the price of two 128GBs :P

The SSD cache solution is appealing to me at the moment, RhinoUK just stated how little room left with just a few games, and I have Ubisoft, Origin and Steam, 5 games in total. And I have a lot more software than that you listed.
Cache drive is sounding more appealing for now :D

DanceswithUnix: Under BSD natively, I really hope Linux picks up with things, it's a superior OS compared to Windows in my opinion. Explains why all the caching solutions are OEM then.

About native use of SSDs then, how about Windows 8, have they incorporated anything that'll use SSDs? They have Superfetch and Readyboost, couldn't Windows use that on an SSD?

I haven't read up about Windows 8 really, gave it a miss for now, I am still with Win7

Presumably if you had two SSDs you might achieve better performance even if they are not in RAID.
If you had OS on one and programs on the other there must be lots of times when the OS and programmes are making requests simultaneously?

Performance goes hand in hand with price, two SSDs would out perform one, but then the price sky rockets.

Same with HDDs, dual bandwidth for two separate things. Plus the HDD on the OS can focus on the OS rather than panicking about other read and write tasks :P

I can see where you are coming from, but its same as any configuration, you got to cough up the money :( I\'d happily put drives in RAID if I could :P

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

... the low end is probably well served by ReadyBoost. ...

---

Hmmm, intriguing. I was under the impression that ReadyBoost only really acted as a swap file with faster random access than HDD, but reading up it looks like it also caches read and written data. Is it effective even when you have a large amount of RAM? I quite often see my Win 7 machines with 4GB RAM show free RAM that SupoerFetch isn't using for caching - does that mean ReadyBoost also wouldn't be effective?

You now, I really quite fancy buying a cheap cache drive, buying a couple of decent sized USB sticks and one of these, and doing some performance testing for what provides the best speed up :D

If superfetch could determine the files quick enough.
I think there will be some latency involved by using USB. Anyhow, Corsair Flash Voyager GT, some performance on a well known USB flash drive.

Most boards have the "Turbo mode" or "UASP" to wip up more performance, whether it makes that much difference depends. Small files it may be alright.

Right just had a look, program files (x86), 91GB. Program files 9.1GB. Windows takes around what, 22GB say? Full :P

Most of the program files is Ubisoft, and I use all those games. 30GB worth. Subtract some games I don't use (To the calculator, my Maths isn't good!)... 83GB. That includes all general software. Plus 9GB of 64-bit programs. It's getting close. That's without any personal files. What a shock to myself, 45GB worth of files in my personal directory. So slightly over the 15GB I originally thought :P

I could fit everything onto a 128GB, but as you can see I would have to consider what can go on there.

EDIT:
I wonder, could you buy the SanDisk Readycache, sell it on and use the provided ExpressCache software for a larger SanDisk SSD

EDIT:
Looking at benchmarks for the Corsair Accelerator and SanDisk ReadyCache looks promising, Sandisk has good read speeds whilst Corsairs have good write speeds. If I can get a Corsair for around the same price I am going for it! :) Caching at this stage sounds the way forward for me! Thanks for everyones help :D if I get a SSD cache drive I will be sure to report back on how its going :)