Only as fast as the weakest part, and that part is a SATA mechanical HDD.

Small 60GB SSD for only the OS on C, a 120GB SSD for drive D. Load the pagefile on the nose of drive D, then the 4-5 sims that are the biggest hogs you run. Use a SATA HDD as E for everything else.

It'll make a believer out of ya.

And I still need to do the video I'd promised. -oops-

Did you write in a post somewhere which SSD you got, Allen? Did you go for a Sandforce one, or a Crucial M4 or Samsung 830?

This is the one. guod pointed out that it was on Shell Shocker sale -- and I "bit"

Corsair SSD

Looked good for the price. But, I'm no expert

Did it come with the 1.3.3 firmware installed? Not that you'd need it, just wondering: Corsair forum thread

From this review @ TechReport, the Force 3 already performed well in the bang-for-buck rating, so if you got a good deal on one...

Thanks for the link. The information helps as I didn't do much additional studying -- guod, in effect, recommended it -- and I went with that as I only had 3 hours to make up my mind I was aware they used "asynchronous" memory to keep the price down. A couple articles said it did not make much difference in practical situations.

I assumed it did not come with that firmware -- only because that's relatively new firmware -- and I'm not usually that lucky

However, I checked. By golly, it did come with 1.3.3

My total net delivered price (assuming they honor their rebate) was $120 -- which seems like a decent discount for this model. Amazon has it for $170 today. Newegg has it for $130 after rebate (same rebate I got -- Shell Shocker added another $10).


Regarding comments about my testing with Windows 8 and so forth. I agree. My observations don't represent a true objective comparison of before and after -- like one would get from Anandtech or Tom's. Rather, I'm saying how it "feels" when I use it. These days I'm more interested in how something "improves my experience" than a "measurement".

Fair enough Allen - you've got a good drive, and I'm sure it'll feel nice. My comment is really that for $120 or so, a SSD represents a nice upgrade (especially considering how expensive GPU's can be!)

After using my system a couple days, I've got a "feel" ( ) for it.

I tend to agree with what you're saying.

I only have one SSD. However, given the size constraint (only 120GB), its better to NOT use it as the System ( C: ) drive. Rather, perhaps it should be used as you indicate for D:. I don't want to waste the space by having all my normal C: drive stuff on the SSD.

The SSD shines when huge amounts of data must be moved quickly. For a handful of games, that means fewer immersion breaking hesitations. For some data hungry applications, SSD speed gets the data-movement job done fast enough to keep my mind from wandering as I wait.

So, for the next part of my experiment, I'll remove the OS from the SSD. I'll focus on getting only games, activities, and apps that seem to suffer disproportionately from slow disk access onto the SSD.

Is the type of SSD manufacturer or brand line important? Or is any SSD the same regardless of manufacturer? Keeping in mind that I am talking more about "feels faster" or significantly faster... obviously if one SSD is 0.001 seconds faster than the other, I won't really mind especially if the faster one is £10 or so more expensive.

I guess we've all established now that SSDs are faster than HDDs, what I want to know is if there is any distinction within SSDs themselves that could affect any purchase decisions.

JAMF's link above does a good job of comparing differing SSD approaches. While some SSD perform nearly alike, there are differences -- sometimes large. There can be a big difference in price/performance depending on which SSD one picks -- among the SSD tested.

Other articles I read indicated that the failure rates for SSD are higher than advertized -- but improving. Maybe a good reason to NOT make the SSD the system drive. As I mention above, I'll be reconfiguring mine to be a storehouse for data/games that benefit from fast data access. Pros seem to recommend that in articles -- along with backing up the data elsewhere -- say on a standard HD

Well, the price is attractive, and I have to pop open the case anyway... and I have $170 credit at Best Buy... and I'll be close to the store at lunchtime.

My budget says thanks a bunch


There are SLC and MLC types of memory in the SSDs. (Chime in anyone...) SLCs are more reliable and MLCs are higher capacity.

I use a Seagate Go Flex USB 3.0 500GB external drive for nightly backups.

WC

--- edit ---
Hmmm, not going to do it for now. The SSDs in the $100-200 price range are all MLCs. The experts I work with say get the SLCs, but they are a lot more $$$.

Seagate makes a hybrid Momentus XT which uses SLC flash. I'll look at those but don't really need it right now (I was looking for a big improvement in load times). I do hear good things about these 2.5" form factor hybrid drives re boot times in laptops.
Momentus XT

--- edit #2 ---
After lunch - Best Buy had the Momentus XT - 7200 RPM, 2.5" form factor, 500 GB, 32 MB cache, 4 GB SLC flash, $150. It's mine now.

My new GTX 580 should be here today, too - Christmas in March.