SSD recommendations, please?

[ttjph]

Thanks for the pointers, everyone!

I've gone for a 250 GB 840; Dabs had about the best price.

Will see how it goes once I've done a clean install...

[smarty2]

Perhaps my Kingston SSd Now was kak then since I have not noticed any difference in performance?

[jaygeraghty]

I bought a cheap crucial 60GB SSD, and I noticed a performance increase. Windows boots quicker, copying/moving files is quicker, in game performance is a little better.

[smarty2]

I bought a cheap crucial 60GB SSD, and I noticed a performance increase. Windows boots quicker, copying/moving files is quicker, in game performance is a little better.

My OS W7 64 bit ultimate is on an M4 SSD and my steam folder with other games on too, is on an old samsung spinpoint, out of program files in its own dedicated folder and defragged to put all files to the beginning of the disc, obviously the OS will boot quicker with programs because of windows being on the SSD, however that includes Railworks/ME3 etc with no noticeable reduction in performance compared to my old Kingston SSD which had the steam folder on it in exactly the same configuration (except for de-frag), until proper comparisons can be made I am maintaining my findings in my particular case with my system specs.

[ttjph]

Just to add that I'm now up and running again with the 840. Windows boot (and restart) is significantly quicker, both getting to the login, and loading Startup programs (Task Manager and Core Temp) once logged in.

RW runs fine: scenario loading is maybe a bit quicker (although not as much as I was expecting); tile loading stutter is still there but perhaps a bit briefer; and I think it's getting fractionally better FPS for some reason, but I haven't done any explicit measurements.

I'm only on SATA II; I've put a 1 GB Windoze swapfile on the SSD and a 2-8 GB swapfile on the (remaining, slower) spinner for the moment. My motherboard doesn't support AHCI so I'll just have to carry on without it.

TBW (total bytes written) is around 125 GB after installing most stuff I want (50 GB of space actually used), and I'll keep an eye on it from month to month. Expected lifetime is into many TB as far as I can Google - if it stays around 10 GB/day then apparently I can expect at least 5 years, if not more. (I've discovered CrystalDiskInfo for this, which gives some interesting stats for both hard drives if you're a geek like me - my spinner has been powered on 3578 times and has run for 13421 hours!)

[gptech]

It'd be worth checking on the wisdom of having a swap file on the SSD, with plenty of RAM the need for a swap file is open to debate too.

[ttjph]

My thinking is that part of the benefit of an SSD is as a fast cache. I've currently got 180 GB free, and the system only has 4 GB so it uses much of that when running RW. I've limited the swapfile size on the SSD and I'll watch the daily average TBW, for now - I might try reducing it to 512 MB if the daily writes look large, but I've seen some articles suggesting that most swapfile access is actually read anyway.

Most reputable sites I've read seem to suggest that having some swapfile is a good idea.

[tads1970]

I'm only on SATA II; My motherboard doesn't support AHCI so I'll just have to carry on without it.

I'm only on sata II,and forgot to load the proper drivers in before install of the operating system (W764bitpro)checking my bios>Intergrated peripherals it says
On Chip Sata type was Native IDE,but changed this to AHCI,rebooted but computer was just resetting.A quick check on the net and a registry edit now all is well
and it loads sata drivers in,instead of universal IDE,in AHCI mode.

Daz

[gptech]

Most reputable sites I've read seem to suggest that having some swapfile is a good idea.

Yes, there are still older apps in use that throw a wobbler if they don't find a swap file, my concern/doubt/hunch is about having it on the SSD....I'm sure I've
read more articles saying "DON'T" than I have saying "it makes no difference" hence why I wrote "It'd be worth checking ..."
I'm old fashioned enough to still have a hefty swap file myself, and I subscribe to the school of thought that says "set the min and max values to the same amount, saves Windows pausing to resize"