SSD worth buying just for windows?

[mikeo01]

Subjective to the task at hand. For me, it's nice to have, if it were the price of a usual hard drive.

I spend £84 on mine and although it's super speedy that extra couple of seconds here and there in my opinion isn't worth their current price.

For me, I went from a Corsair cache drive to a real SSD and the only difference in my experience (just general feel) is those boot times. Everything else is pretty much the same. Next time I'd probably opt for a caching solution + hard drive.

At the end of the day if you're using an SSD and a hard drive you're still going to have noise from the disks anyway. If it's a slow 5400rpm drive then I'd say it's worth it. Current 7200rpm drives seem to be fine for everyday stuff. Some operations suffer on it but then again depends if you need the speed (if you see the spinning Windows circle too often).


I think it's more of fancy addition that cost's a whack. After a while of using it I feel that £84 could of been saved

[Saracen]

Each to their own.

....

Absolutely. That, in essence, was exactly my point.

....

Other folks can do what they like, and eat breakfast with the start-up screen. I like to eat mine browsing the web on something that's already up and running.

Personally, I don't want to be looking at a PC screen at all when eating breakfast. I might be listening to morning local radio, reading a paper or magazine, watching (recorded) last night's Newsnight, or sitting on the patio, watching the birds in garden, with some quiet music in the background .... though at this time of year, not so much the latter.

I certainly don't want to be in the same room as the PC(s) while eating breakfast. Or browsing the web. Breakfast, for me, is supposed to be a calm, relaxing time, winding up for the day ahead.

But, each to his own.

The point was that the minute or two a PC HD takes to boot is only dead time if you sit there watching it do it. For anyone turning the PC on in the morning and turning it off at night, it's at best a minimal benefit, and if you do *anything* else productive for that 2 minutes, then the SSD saves YOU no time at all in PC booting.

[watercooled]

I'm somewhere in-between TBH. Like Saracen, shaving a few seconds off boot time doesn't really bother me one way or the other. As for system responsiveness, yeah it feels somewhat quicker, depending on what you're doing it can make quite a difference. I also tend to notice a difference going back to using a HDD system, when working on friends' laptops for example.

In terms of responsiveness, SSDs just seem to cope better (as they should) with heavier workloads without bogging down; in other words you may spend less time waiting for IO tasks to complete.

I personally keep my system fairly clean of bloatware etc, I have very few things running at startup, choose light versions of software where possible (e.g. not Adobe Reader ). But for users who're less selective and/or have a load of stuff running at startup, an SSD should hold performance/boot time better than a HDD.

I also strongly agree what Saracen said about data reliability, I really wouldn't consider an SSD remotely more reliable than a HDD ATM. Either can fail spectacularly with no warning, but especially worrying IMO are the sudden, bricking, total-loss failures that have plagued some SSDs, whether it's firmware bugs or not coping well with power loss. Also as I've mentioned, if you're fairly heavy on disk writes, it's entirely possible to cross the rated PE cycle count in a reasonable amount of time. It may be worth considering keeping unnecessary writes off a SSD; you just didn't need to worry about that with HDDs. No, it's not a catastrophic issue, but it's worth bearing in mind nonetheless.

[HalloweenJack]

Saracen if your pc is taking 20 minutes to start then you honestly should look at the why - mine takes 20 seconds or so

[Saracen]

Saracen if your pc is taking 20 minutes to start then you honestly should look at the why - mine takes 20 seconds or so

No, you misunderstand me. It takes 90 seconds, maybe 2 mins. I said it could take 20 mins (not that it does) and it still wouldn't matter, because I'm not there watching it, I'm elsewhere, doing something else.

So, 12 seconds, 2 minutes, 20 minutes, it makes NO difference to my day-to-day usage.

[ik9000]

No, you misunderstand me. It takes 90 seconds, maybe 2 mins. I said it could take 20 mins (not that it does) and it still wouldn't matter, because I'm not there watching it, I'm elsewhere, doing something else.

So, 12 seconds, 2 minutes, 20 minutes, it makes NO difference to my day-to-day usage.

I understand your point and I'm not saying you're wrong. but i have times when i've shut the machine down and then realise i need to do something else. A quick boot/shut down is massively useful then. Same when you need something off it in a hurry. Eg. the other morning i realised i hadn't checked train times for getting to my meeting. Comp booted train time got and shut down again in all of a few mins. No real delay. My old comp would have taken the best part of 5 mins just to get into XP.

[Saracen]

.

I understand your point and I'm not saying you're wrong. but i have times when i've shut the machine down and then realise i need to do something else. A quick boot/shut down is massively useful then. Same when you need something off it in a hurry. Eg. the other morning i realised i hadn't checked train times for getting to my meeting. Comp booted train time got and shut down again in all of a few mins. No real delay. My old comp would have taken the best part of 5 mins just to get into XP.

Well, again, all true .... but as my machine is primarily a work machine, I'm either in work mode, or I'm not. It's very rare for me to shut it down, then want it again, in the way you describe. There are, however, times when I'm doing something, like hardware installations, that might require several shutdown/restart cycles, and then, a fast boot is nice. But .... for the once or twice a year, is it worth £80 (or whatever) on an SSD?

The answer, for me at least, is "no".

What this really brings me to is that my comments so far have stressed one main point .... it's in the eye of the beholder, as it were. It depends what the buyer's PC is, what it's used for, and how it's used, and how they value "snappiness". There is, IMHO, no one-size-fits-all answer.

Which brings me back to the remark of yours I quoted, and picked up, which was

this. Once you've tried it you won't go back.

That may be true of you. It may be true of quite a lot of people, especially on a forum like this. It is NOT true of me, and won't be true of a lot of non-techy users. Suppose someone uses their PC for office type tasks, and general admin. Will they benefit? Maybe, but enough to be "worth" fitting an SSD? Very likely not.

A friend of mine uses a PC to control a knitting machine. Worth an SSD? Nope. Another friend drives a radio transmitter. In fact, so do I - an elderly PC driving a packet radio modem and an old transceiver. Worth an SSD? Hell, no. These are, of course, very specific uses, but my main machine (where the SSD would be) is used as a 'work' machine (Word, Photoshop, business accounts, etc, plus email). If I'm doing "quick" tasks, like a bit of casual web browsing (like right now) I do it on a tablet, because I can be in the lounge, in bed, on the loo, sitting in the garden, or whatever, and it's instant-on, instant-off.

Not everybody uses a PC in such a way that an SSD will give much, if any, benefit. THAT is my point. You may "never go back", and that'll be true of many advanced users. It MAY also be true of the OP ..... but it may not.

All we can do, really, is to try to give an accurate view of what effects it'll have, and let the OP decide how much difference that'll make to him, and therefore whether it's "worth" the money it'll cost.

Whether you love them, or I couldn't really care less, isn't material. Sweeping statements, without a contrary view, do the OP a disservice because it is NOT a universal truth that an SSD is "worth it" to everyone. They aren't, and I'm proof of that. Most people on this forum at least, and very possibly including the OP, are likely to take your viewpoint, and that's fine.

But my opinion is that anyone suggesting they are [i]always[/] "worth" buying is wrong, because that presumes that other people will have a similar usage pattern, and value system, and that categorically is not always true.

[ik9000]

right - let's poll for the consensus of opinion. Get some statistics in the mix....

http://forums.hexus.net/general-disc...sing-them.html

[Saracen]

right - let's poll for the consensus of opinion. Get some statistics in the mix....

http://forums.hexus.net/general-disc...sing-them.html

Statistics? Hmmm.

Every done stats? Or market research?

I remember an apocryphal tale from a uni Stats courses. A Presidential poll some decades back predicted a landslide Republican win, only to be confounded by a major Democratic result. Post-game (as it were) analysis showed the poll was done by selecting from the phone book. Thing was, in those days, if you had a phone you were affluent, and if you were affluent, that automatically induced a strong Republican bias. So by selecting the sample from the phone book, you bias, and even pre-determine, the result.

Guess what happens if you 'poll' a performance issue like this on a computer forum?

And, if 99% here advocate SSDs, it says little or nothing about advisability for a SPECIFIC person, without knowing their usage profile.

Do a poll by all means, but don't think it tells you anything much relevant, other than that largely techy computer people want SSDs. The vast majority of non-techy users probably wouldn't know what an SSD is, but by and large, you won't find them on a forum like this.

[finlay666]

Made perfect sense at the old job to replace primary drives with SSDs, boot went from about 5 minutes on another devs clean machine to under 1 on mine, and then for the dev tools the speed was a significant increase too

for a £50 drive and say £50 an hour for everyone to have 12 restarts a year (usually more with the tools being used) it had paid for itself in under a years worth of work

It's nice to have for most users (especially the impatient boot) but not essential, price wise if it's not sub 50p/GB and 250gb+ I'm not interested in even thinking about buying it

[ik9000]

Do a poll by all means, but don't think it tells you anything much relevant, other than that largely techy computer people want SSDs. The vast majority of non-techy users probably wouldn't know what an SSD is, but by and large, you won't find them on a forum like this.

And yet the OP posted where? oh that's right, on a tech forum just like this! She wants to know what techy computer people recommend. So for the population sample that is the Hexus users the poll will provide sufficient statistic. I get your point that you don't care about SSDs for you. The OP isn't you.

[Saracen]

And yet the OP posted where? oh that's right, on a tech forum just like this! She wants to know what techy computer people recommend. So for the population sample that is the Hexus users the poll will provide sufficient statistic. I get your point that you don't care about SSDs for you. The OP isn't you.

Nor is the OP you, or anyone else on here. The question was whether they're "worth" buying, and if they are any benefits other than boot times, not whether they're right for you, me, or anyone else here.

I know this is not about me. Nowhere, absolutely nowhere, have I said that, or that the OP should not buy one. So don't make out that I think it's all about my view.

You, however, said flat out buy one, you won't look back. What you don't seem to get is that without knowing a lot more about what the OP wants to do, you don't know that. It is simply cobblers to suggest they are always a good idea, and "worth it" to all people.

There has been a fairly thorough coverage of advantages, mainly speed in various situations, but there is also a cost, and whether the benefits justify the cost is subjective. That speed increase is nice, but how nice depends on the individual's usage.


It would be a mistake for the OP to assume that a bunch of techy people wanting or benefitting from SSDs necessarily means that he/she will UNLESS they are doing basically the same things with their PC.

But if you want techy advice on computers, what type of forum would you suggest you go to for advice? Gardening? It does not follow that they necessarily have the same usage, so when discussing benefits, the context, and usage is directly relevant.

The OP asked if there were benefits other than boot speed? Yes, there are. I've said several times that most people will benefit, so don't pretend I think it's all about me. I've also covered some of the benefits, which is much more balanced than "just buy one".

So heed your own advice, and don't make it all about YOUR opinion. The only opinion that matters is the buyers, but objective actual information on benefits, or otherwise, helps inform that evaluation. The OP has decided to buy one. Fair enough. At least, hopefully, it's after a balanced outlining of the benefits.

Put it this way.

They give a speed benefit, in several ways.
How much that matters varies according to usage.

The fact that you, and most people, love them proves that a lot of people love them.

But the fact that ANYONE is not convinced that the benefit is huge proves, categorically, that saying "just get one" is bad advice because it ASSUMES the buyer will evaluate the benefits in the same way as you, or the majority, and for all you know, that isn't the case.

A poll is useless in this context because all it does is express whether the majority, on a loaded sample base, find them advantageous for THEIR situation, not the buyers. My situation, and I'm not alone, demonstrates that. Had I posted this thread. I'd have got thd same advice from the majority, including your "you won't look back". And you WOULD have been wrong about me, and MIGHT be wrong about the OP.

Helpful advice is, as many posts have, to describe the benefits, but to put it in context, because those benefits depend first, on usage, and second, on a subjective assessment of the impact of them. Unhelpful advice is a blanket "get one" because it assumes the benefits the questioner will get without knowing the circumstances, and doesn't provide the context.

[Jonj1611]

It's all a bit academic now as the OP has already said they are going to get one.

[ik9000]

It's all a bit academic now as the OP has already said they are going to get one.

when? I must have missed that.

[Jonj1611]

They edited their original post

[ik9000]

They edited their original post

so they did. Random.