SSD recommendations, please?

[ttjph]

My 150GB, 10krpm WD Raptor boot/system drive has died, so I need to order a replacement pronto.

I'm thinking it's time for an SSD, but which one? I want decent performance for RW (mostly random read?) but don't want to spend silly money, so say £150 max.

I could probably live with 128 GB but I gather there are reliability and performance benefits to larger drives. The system has a 400 GB data drive already. Mobo is SATA2 I think (3 GB/s).

I'd appreciate it if people could post me some links - I've started looking at Dabs, but I'm sure there are other places.

Thanks!

[RichyV]

Without a doubt - hands-down, this one...

http://www.ebuyer.com/410473-samsung-12 ... tAodUicAUA

[tads1970]

Yeah that seem's ok for the price.Personally I'm opting for a OCZ RevoDrive3 120GB PCI-E SSD with my next pc build from scratch
they are not cheap but there is nothing faster for read/write.Decided to treat myself and document every step from sourcing the components
and putting it all together here at Uktrainsim.System will be AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8350 Black Edition 4.00GHz.Nice little project for me.

Daz

[KGBUssr]

I have a Dell Precision M6400 laptop with all my simulator stuff on it, and recently upgraded my storage;

My primary drive is the Samsung 840 Pro, 256gb from here http://www.rlsupplies.co.uk/product.php ... ct=2203202 slightly over your budget but a great performer - and my secondary drive is a Seagate ST750 750gb hybrid, bought from Scan Computers.

No problems with either item or vendor, the software with the SSD copied my stuff over flawlessly; I'm running Win7 64 bit Ultimate, 16gb RAM, and have the Core2Extreme X9100 processor and a Quadro FX3700M graphic card, and it runs most routes well, and even the heaviest resource-munching ones adequately.

The SSD has made a huge difference to boot time and loading times for TS2013

Regards

KGB

[RichyV]

Sorry, I should have added a note on my post that the link was to the Samsung 840 Pro - but the 128GB version...

[adrianinwales]

Hi KGB

I'd be very interested to hear of your experience with this - just a rough idea of your improved performance would be great!


you said: "The SSD has made a huge difference to boot time and loading times for TS2013"

Thanks

Adrian

PS never thought I'd write to the KGB!!!!

mind you the old toolbox I took everywhere was labelled: "Keepa da hands off - Mafia moneybox"

[smarty2]

For not much more you can get the Samsung pro 256gb more reliable under tests than the ocz. I would recommend installing your OS on the ssd and your railworks/games on a normal hdd there is very little difference in performance and you are not writing deleting so much stuff as you would with it all on an ssd which has a finite number of read/write cycles.

[ttjph]

Thanks all! The Samsungs seem popular. Will wait until tomorrow morning to purchase, to allow any further opinions to roll in.

For very similar prices I can get a 128GB 840 Pro, or a 250GB 840. Speeds look pretty similar apart from write; the 840 Pro has a 5 year warranty vs 3 year for the 840, but will wear-balancing tend to mean that the larger drive lasts longer for the same usage? All other things being equal I'm tempted by the larger capacity.

I hear the point about keeping frequently-changing data off the SSD... but if I do put RW on it, it may help with the tile loading stutter which would be a nice thing...

[RichyV]

Thanks all! The Samsungs seem popular. Will wait until tomorrow morning to purchase, to allow any further opinions to roll in.

For very similar prices I can get a 128GB 840 Pro, or a 250GB 840. Speeds look pretty similar apart from write; the 840 Pro has a 5 year warranty vs 3 year for the 840, but will wear-balancing tend to mean that the larger drive lasts longer for the same usage? All other things being equal I'm tempted by the larger capacity.

I hear the point about keeping frequently-changing data off the SSD... but if I do put RW on it, it may help with the tile loading stutter which would be a nice thing...

Certainly will help with the tile-loading stutter, without a doubt.

Yeah - will always be a trade-off between price and performance - if you can stretch to £180ish get the best of both worlds and get the Pro 256GB!

Don't worry too much about the IOPS - on a higher-end SSD, the rate of writes will mean it will still outlast the 'usable years' of most PC's...

[smarty2]

I would challenge the assumption regards stutter, I had an ssd failure which had railworks on it (prematurely imo) and ended up installing the steam folder on an old samsung spinpoint and I can confirm there is no difference in load times nor performance in comparison, I do have the OS system on an M4 ssd though and as stated regards read writes it will make that 5 year guarantee unused, I would go for the 256 gb 840 pro.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-Series- ... +pro+256gb

[gptech]

The tile loading/stuttering is more a problem with how the game "looks ahead" than the read speed of the storage media, though admittedly potentially faster reads and transfers could ease things.

[RichyV]

I have a Samsung Spinpoint and an OCZ SSD - the loading times have halved (at least, and is probably more than that) and the stutter (that was never dreadful, but still noticeable) has almost (but not quite) disappeared for me...

[gptech]

I have a Samsung Spinpoint and an OCZ SSD - the loading times have halved (at least, and is probably more than that) and the stutter (that was never dreadful, but still noticeable) has almost (but not quite) disappeared for me...

But the question is what exactly has enabled this boost?---is it because the game is on a faster drive or, as smarty has found out, because Windows is on the SSD?
There's no doubt that loading times are lessened when data is transferred at a greater rate, and I guess we can't make absolute statements about stutter until someone has done a full suite of tests using an SSD in all the possible combinations---as far as I'm aware nobody has put forward any data with an SSD used in the role they were designed for, as a fast cache for frequently accessed data.

[chezafield]

smarty's observation of no increase in load times after switching the RW folder from an SSD to HDD seems a bit out there to me. Certainly be interesting to test the "RW on SSD might perform no better than RW on HDD as long as Windows is on SSD" notion, but I don't have any free area on my HDDs to create a non-TrueCrypt partition to move my Steam folder off the SSD. If I get new 4TB drives as planned in the next few weeks, I'll be able to temporarily wipe my old Barracuda and stick RW on its outer tracks for a decently fair test

[RichyV]

Hi,

My Windows install is on its own SSD.

I have several spinners and SSD's.

With TS on a spinner (SATA3) the routes load slower and there are noticeable lower frame-rates due to tiles loading (I presume...) and stutter.

With TS on a (separate) SSD (SATA3), the routes load at least twice as quickly, possibly quicker, and the stuttering is almost (but not entirely) gone.

Tested to distraction (lol!) and it's definitely a repeatable phenomenon on my PC...