Melmail_9494 wrote:
Hi guys,
Just a quick question. I am considering going to SSD. I am not that
familiar with the ins and outs of SSD vs. regular HDD but do you think
SSD is worth the extra outlay?
Thanks
Win7 to Win10 = worth it
Older OS = not really worth it
(older OS don't make wasteful disk usage like new OSes do)
Windows 10 is always scanning stuff, so an
SSD makes it perform more as intended. Using
Windows 10 with a hard drive, makes it "seem slow".
Windows 7 through Windows 10 have partitions aligned
on 1 megabyte boundaries. This is specifically to
suit the arrangement of Flash chips on things like
USB sticks or SSD flash drives.
If you use Macrium ReflectFree for the cloning function
from HDD to SSD, you can verify and fix the alignment
for best flash-chip operation. (I formatted a disk using
WinXP once, then installed Windows 7, and the alignment
was wrong, and I fixed that alignment problem with Macrium
during the clone to the SSD.)
As for the "extra outlay of cash", that's a value judgment.
If the computer uses a HDD, you will "eventually get
your answer". Using a hard drive does not stop any
of those OSes from working, you just have to wait
a bit longer.
It's the seek time of the HDD which is the issue,
rather than the datarate alone. A modern HDD can
do 200MB/sec, so the sustained data rate is "decent".
But the seek time is 15 milliseconds or so, and
modern Windows does a ton of tiny file reads when
Windows Defender scans the disk. Or when the Search
Indexer reads all the files, while generating an
inverted search index file. Once the seek time is
accounted for, the average HDD data rate is not remotely
near to the 200MB/sec number. Whereas on an SSD,
you get a bit better response. (Windows NTFS stack
is the eventual bottleneck.)
Even SSDs do not have perfect response on small 4KB files
(because the files are smaller than the Flash page size).
If you want perfect response, you'd use an Optane drive,
which uses a different kind of Flash memory (it's
byte-addressable). The cheapest useful one here is ~$1000.
And the "2.5" form factor" looking items on here, have
a connector your computer doesn't have. The PCIe cards
are a better choice in the average computer room. No
4KB files would hold you back with one of those,
and you'd win your CrystalDiskMark bar bet with it.
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us...0x-series.html
"...chalcogenide flash"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_XPoint
No, real people don't buy those. They're for Enterprise
big bux usage. They even do memory caches using those cards.
I haven't heard of any "gamer kiddies" using those :-)
Just not worth it. But good CrystalDiskMark... Or
you need to win "computer boot time contest". Who
would not spend $1000 to be able to brag about their
boot time ? Even my Windows 10 on SSD, doesn't boot
particularly fast. No Tomshardware "10 second" boot
times here, unfortunately. And if you dual boot Win10,
even on an SSD, it's even slower. And unbearable on
a hard drive.
Sample usage in my computer room:
Typing Machine Test Machine
Win8.1 (HDD) Win10 (SSD)
Win10 (SSD) Win10 Insider dual boot (SSD)
Others (HDD) Scratch drive (SSD) [Currently Win7 and two Linux OS]
Win8.1 (HDD)
Win7 (HDD)
Many other HDDs for backups, data
As you can see, I don't have a lot of SSD drives here,
but they're all busy. The SSDs are mainly for boot drives, but
the scratch drive is used for some data-full projects. I sometimes
tether the scratch SSD on a USB3 cable, for sneakernet transfers
to the Typing Machine (the scratch drive is actually connected to
this thing right now). My SSDs are low power, and the USB
bus power is sufficient for them (as far as my power meter
can tell me). There are some Kingston SSDs with higher peak power usage.
https://www.startech.com/HDD/Adapter...P~USB3S2SAT3CB
Paul