SSD Drives

STARRIDER

STARRIDER

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I would like to know the ins & outs of SSD drives
Is it easy to replace my existing HD (system drive)..what the benefits are etc..I have a 5yr old machine running XP Pro Desktop,4 gig of ram etc.Would appreciate any information or links to any info for the layman..Hope you can help ;)
 
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There are a few threads already in this section that would be worth a read.

You'll get different opinions on what size you need and what benefits you'll see. It can depend on how you use your computer. If it is on 24/7 the very fast start ups might not be such a benefit. If you always have your usual programs open and running then fast program launch might not be so important.

My PC goes off every night and gets turned on in the morning. I don't leave programs I'm not using running once I'm done with them. So for me a SSD is a huge improvement. Boot up takes 30 seconds once the bios logo is gone and it is ready to use at that time not just showing the desktop and loading stuff in the background.

For me there is no going back :)

I have a 128Gb drive and have not done any registry edits or other complicated stuff to move the users folders etc to another drive. All I do is to not use the My whatever folders for storing things and just choose save locations on another hard drive. After a year I have 50Gb free on C:

Fitting is easy and if you use your PC anything like I do it will seem like a new machine. How fast lightroom etc respond in use will not change though as that is down the the power of the processor etc.
 
Thanks Neil & Robert for your quick response..lots of good info there..now why didnt i find these posts..lazy in me old age ;)
Thanks again :thumbs:
 
The main thing to note is to change to Win7 (preferably 64bit) when using a SSD.

It makes setting up the SSD a dawdle.
 
One thing to bear in mind with SSDs is that backups are still just as important, actually probably more so with SSDs given the nature of the failures encountered.

The normal spinning rust hard drives will often present warning signs before they pack up entirely, giving a bit time to get the data off. Even when completely failed the data can still be recovered by a specialist recovery outfit, admittedly at a quite a price.

With an SSD failure it's pretty much a forget it situation. For a start it's generally a sudden complete failure without warning, and secondly they are extremely difficult to recover when they are in this state. We've had a couple from customers without a backup, and sent them off to a highly specialised data forensics lab who have been able to recover stuff from drives we thought had no chance. However in the case of these SSDs not a single byte could be recovered.
 
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Slaphead said:
One thing to bear in mind with SSDs is that backups are still just as important, actually probably more so with SSDs given the nature of the failures encountered.

The normal spinning rust hard drives will often present warning signs before they pack up entirely, giving a bit time to get the data off. Even when completely failed the data can still be recovered by a specialist recovery outfit, admittedly at a quite a price.

With an SSD failure it's pretty much a forget it situation. For a start it's generally a sudden complete failure without warning, and secondly they are extremely difficult to recover when they are in this state. We've had a couple from customers without a backup, and sent them off to a highly specialised data forensics lab who have been able to recover stuff from drives we thought had no chance. However in the case of these SSDs not a single byte could be recovered.
Click to expand...

So I would say from reading that, the best use for SSD is for the boot/system data to enable quick booting and loading of apps and store other data to conventional/multiple HDDs?
 
Mikesphotaes said:
The main thing to note is to change to Win7 (preferably 64bit) when using a SSD.

It makes setting up the SSD a dawdle.
Click to expand...
I know i should change to Win7 (64bit for Photoshop etc.) but i think that is a bit out of my depth re: chipsets,motherboard,cpu's .. just dont think i'm brave enough :shake:
 
STARRIDER said:
I know i should change to Win7 (64bit for Photoshop etc.) but i think that is a bit out of my depth re: chipsets,motherboard,cpu's .. just dont think i'm brave enough :shake:
Click to expand...
In which case an SSD may not be for you. XP doesn't support trim on the drive. This can make it slower over time. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM
 
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