SSD Drive upgrade?
Discussion
they just drop straight in, they're much faster, quieter, and possibly last longer. But they're way more expensive and smaller capacity. I wouldn't use one in a laptop because it just wouldn't give me the data space. In a desktop is popular to use them for the o/s and programme files (eg, the c: drive) and slave off a traditional drive for data.
I put a OCZ Vortex2 SSD in my midrange HP laptop and it transformed it. The programs load instantly and the boot time is easily less than a minute. I dont do much gaming so cant comment on that but installation was easy they are all 2.5" so no size worried. 1 thing make sure you can enable AHCI in your Bios for an extra speed.
Hi, did a fresh install on my desktop to avoid any potential issues as I wanted to make sure it was detected correctly as an SSD with TRIM enabled etc. However more recently with my dell 10v I just imaged the old hard drive straight over to the new SSD with no issues, so I think it works okay either way 
Edited by va1o on Wednesday 3rd November 23:27
Don't go on manufacturer (unless it's Intel) - go on controller firmware.
The SandForce chipset as mentioned above is good but plenty of drives are out there with release candidate firmware or somewhat-less-than-fully-tested code. The Marvell controller (with latest firmware) as used by the Crucial C300 (my choice) is good, but the original release was buggy.
Given the number of units of high-end SSDs being sold and the number of manufacturers writing *controller firmware* - there simply isn't the sort of rock-solid testing being done before these things are shipped.
Hence, even though I've been lucky so far with my two Crucial C300s (they are fast but also near-mechanical disc capacity at 256 GB), if someone asked me to recommend an SSD for varied use (plenty of random I/O, not just streaming media etc.) and I'd be subjected to endless aggro if the choice turned bad, then I'm afraid I'd take the safe option and say 'get an Intel X25-M G2 in the 160 GB size' as Intel's firmware architecture is very good and has been around longer than most.
The single most important thing regarding performance of SSDs is the architecture of the controller firmware. All brand new SSDs will perform super-fast, since they are empty. What separates the good SSDs from the bad SSDs is what happens when the drive starts to fill up, and 'used' blocks get erased and re-used.
Think of an SSD as a lot of little CD-RWs. A fresh empty one can be written to immediately, and incrementally - if you just want to add 46 bytes then you can quickly with no other operation required. However when the entire 'CD-RW' is full, you can't write over it without wiping the entire 'disc' clean - even if you only want to write 46 bytes, you have to clear out the entire 'disc' first.
Optimising this process by spreading reads and writes around, garbage collection in the background, even plonking a LOT more flash on the SSD than actually claimed (so there's 'shadow' storage available for fast write when the drive appears full) are all various techniques used. I'd check out Anandtech's great series of articles about SSDs for the full detail.
However if you want a fully-tested, fast and reliable SSD, then I'd go Intel. They may be lacking in capacity and performance compared to the 'latest and greatest' - but their performance is stable, consistent, and the firmware has been thoroughly tested in the wild now as it's been around a while.
Nobody (AFAIK) has found a bug that corrupts data - the bugs people complain about relate to slow performance - but with more and more advanced 'optimisations' being attempted by controller firmware developers, there's a risk that a nasty bug will creep out on one type of drive at some time… and a bug that corrupts your data silently is one of the few things in the IT world that scares me…
Another thing worth thinking about is that most of the SSD vendors who support their product and offer firmware updates as and when available (OCZ were always very good for this) assume you are running a basic PC and not a Macintosh. Flashing SSD firmware seems to be for old-school BIOS PC users only - I wouldn't want to attempt it with a Mac running Windows (because of EFI). This is a pain in the arse if you're a Mac user with no PC kit lying around (like me).
It appears Apple have pulled a world-class SSD out of the bag with the units in their current Macbook Air models - however it doesn't sound likely that Apple will start selling retail SSDs for people to stick in their Windows boxes any time soon. Hopefully whatever Apple have done with the new Air will be copied by some SSD firmware developer somewhere and the existing drives made faster…
Bottom line is though that *any* modern SSD will be massively faster than what you're used to. By 'modern' I mean not a 'budget' old drive using the Jmicron chipset. It's well known, and that firmware is truly appalling - not sure if there's any way it can be 'updated' because the very architecture is at fault, not bugs in the code - but those drives are ones which will be fast until they fill up - at which point the drive will introduce 1-2 second blocking pauses whilst wiping blocks… and make your machine feel broken, not just slow… Even the Indilinx controller in cheaper OCZ drives is good enough i.e. nearly as good as Intel. Anything faster than Intel is gravy IMO.
The SandForce chipset as mentioned above is good but plenty of drives are out there with release candidate firmware or somewhat-less-than-fully-tested code. The Marvell controller (with latest firmware) as used by the Crucial C300 (my choice) is good, but the original release was buggy.
Given the number of units of high-end SSDs being sold and the number of manufacturers writing *controller firmware* - there simply isn't the sort of rock-solid testing being done before these things are shipped.
Hence, even though I've been lucky so far with my two Crucial C300s (they are fast but also near-mechanical disc capacity at 256 GB), if someone asked me to recommend an SSD for varied use (plenty of random I/O, not just streaming media etc.) and I'd be subjected to endless aggro if the choice turned bad, then I'm afraid I'd take the safe option and say 'get an Intel X25-M G2 in the 160 GB size' as Intel's firmware architecture is very good and has been around longer than most.
The single most important thing regarding performance of SSDs is the architecture of the controller firmware. All brand new SSDs will perform super-fast, since they are empty. What separates the good SSDs from the bad SSDs is what happens when the drive starts to fill up, and 'used' blocks get erased and re-used.
Think of an SSD as a lot of little CD-RWs. A fresh empty one can be written to immediately, and incrementally - if you just want to add 46 bytes then you can quickly with no other operation required. However when the entire 'CD-RW' is full, you can't write over it without wiping the entire 'disc' clean - even if you only want to write 46 bytes, you have to clear out the entire 'disc' first.
Optimising this process by spreading reads and writes around, garbage collection in the background, even plonking a LOT more flash on the SSD than actually claimed (so there's 'shadow' storage available for fast write when the drive appears full) are all various techniques used. I'd check out Anandtech's great series of articles about SSDs for the full detail.
However if you want a fully-tested, fast and reliable SSD, then I'd go Intel. They may be lacking in capacity and performance compared to the 'latest and greatest' - but their performance is stable, consistent, and the firmware has been thoroughly tested in the wild now as it's been around a while.
Nobody (AFAIK) has found a bug that corrupts data - the bugs people complain about relate to slow performance - but with more and more advanced 'optimisations' being attempted by controller firmware developers, there's a risk that a nasty bug will creep out on one type of drive at some time… and a bug that corrupts your data silently is one of the few things in the IT world that scares me…
Another thing worth thinking about is that most of the SSD vendors who support their product and offer firmware updates as and when available (OCZ were always very good for this) assume you are running a basic PC and not a Macintosh. Flashing SSD firmware seems to be for old-school BIOS PC users only - I wouldn't want to attempt it with a Mac running Windows (because of EFI). This is a pain in the arse if you're a Mac user with no PC kit lying around (like me).
It appears Apple have pulled a world-class SSD out of the bag with the units in their current Macbook Air models - however it doesn't sound likely that Apple will start selling retail SSDs for people to stick in their Windows boxes any time soon. Hopefully whatever Apple have done with the new Air will be copied by some SSD firmware developer somewhere and the existing drives made faster…
Bottom line is though that *any* modern SSD will be massively faster than what you're used to. By 'modern' I mean not a 'budget' old drive using the Jmicron chipset. It's well known, and that firmware is truly appalling - not sure if there's any way it can be 'updated' because the very architecture is at fault, not bugs in the code - but those drives are ones which will be fast until they fill up - at which point the drive will introduce 1-2 second blocking pauses whilst wiping blocks… and make your machine feel broken, not just slow… Even the Indilinx controller in cheaper OCZ drives is good enough i.e. nearly as good as Intel. Anything faster than Intel is gravy IMO.
Famous Graham said:
And to add to cyberface...don't buy off ebay.
It depends what you want. I bought a cheap and nasty 32GB SSD from eBay to put in my netbook, cost me £35 and its made by a brand I've never heard of. Don't think it makes a massive difference in performance, but I wanted an SSD for that machine as it improves the battery life, makes it silent, generates less heat and makes it more durable. I'm now after another to stick in the HTPC, again not for the performance but more for the other benefits. On the other hand the MBA SSD and X25-M SSD in my main machine (the two I actually use for work) are super fast.va1o said:
Famous Graham said:
And to add to cyberface...don't buy off ebay.
It depends what you want. I bought a cheap and nasty 32GB SSD from eBay to put in my netbook, cost me £35 and its made by a brand I've never heard of. Don't think it makes a massive difference in performance, but I wanted an SSD for that machine as it improves the battery life, makes it silent, generates less heat and makes it more durable. I'm now after another to stick in the HTPC, again not for the performance but more for the other benefits. On the other hand the MBA SSD and X25-M SSD in my main machine (the two I actually use for work) are super fast.With ebay, sometimes you get a legit seller, sometimes you don't.
Edited by Famous Graham on Thursday 4th November 00:56
I've just bought the next one down for a bargain £230. I got the XPS M1210 with 2ghz Core 2 Duo, 2gb ram and 100gb hard drive. What was once a high end unit retailing at over £1000 has been picked up for a bargain price.
I'm thinking of upgrading the ram to 4gb, upgrade the graphics card and also get a bigger hard drive. Possibly a 500gb 7200rpm. Not sure my needs would stretch to a SSD drive but I'm happy enough with the spec of laptop I've got for the money. Plus it runs fine on Windows 7. Tell me how you get on Magistrate and if you want to sell your old hard drive, drop me a line.
I'm thinking of upgrading the ram to 4gb, upgrade the graphics card and also get a bigger hard drive. Possibly a 500gb 7200rpm. Not sure my needs would stretch to a SSD drive but I'm happy enough with the spec of laptop I've got for the money. Plus it runs fine on Windows 7. Tell me how you get on Magistrate and if you want to sell your old hard drive, drop me a line.
Kung Foo Panda - believe me, you will notice a greater improvement in all-round performance by installing a good SSD over ANY alternative upgrade path assuming the following:
a) You're not constantly out of RAM and swapping ALL the time - the SSD will speed swapping up, but more RAM would do a better job;
b) You're not using the machine for optimised computation that runs in cache and memory, in which case a faster CPU would be better;
c) You're using the machine only for games where disc I/O is deliberately minimised by the developers due to how slow it is.
For general purpose computing, assuming you've got enough RAM, switching to an SSD is the single most 's
t I've got a new computer' upgrade you can possibly make. It *really* makes that much of a difference, seriously. And if you're talking 5400 rpm mechanical discs, bwuahahahaa but please DON'T try out a similar machine with an SSD, it'll make your machine feel like a 286 with the turbo button off.
There are literally orders of magnitude performance improvements (check out random I/O seek times, it's nanoseconds versus milliseconds) from SSDs. That's why my Macbook Air feels so damn fast - at first blush, it's built for low power consumption, it has an anaemic 1.4 GHz CPU, it's only got 4 GB of RAM and that's the most I could order Apple to cram in (I'm going to buy some security screwdriver bits to open the bd up today to see if it's upgradeable), yet it feels as responsive as my Max-Power Macbook Pro (which has the fastest *retail* SSD last upgrade round, there may be faster SSDs than Crucial's 256 GB C300 now, I'm not sure).
So much depends on I/O so if you can make it 10 times faster (literally) then it's a BIG difference. Paying a few hundred for a gamer-boy graphics card that runs at 130 ˚C really won't give you any improvement in anything other than certain 3D games where the GPU is the bottleneck and not the memory bandwidth / CPU…
I make a noise about them because they're awesome. SSDs make old machines feel new, they are expensive but not as expensive as a new computer. They also make laptops nice and quiet (until the lack of I/O blocking allows the CPU to run at max for longer, getting very hot and igniting the fans!!!). But not all SSDs are the same and having the same brand of flash chips and the same capacity means jack. It's all in the controller firmware, baby...
a) You're not constantly out of RAM and swapping ALL the time - the SSD will speed swapping up, but more RAM would do a better job;
b) You're not using the machine for optimised computation that runs in cache and memory, in which case a faster CPU would be better;
c) You're using the machine only for games where disc I/O is deliberately minimised by the developers due to how slow it is.
For general purpose computing, assuming you've got enough RAM, switching to an SSD is the single most 's
t I've got a new computer' upgrade you can possibly make. It *really* makes that much of a difference, seriously. And if you're talking 5400 rpm mechanical discs, bwuahahahaa but please DON'T try out a similar machine with an SSD, it'll make your machine feel like a 286 with the turbo button off.There are literally orders of magnitude performance improvements (check out random I/O seek times, it's nanoseconds versus milliseconds) from SSDs. That's why my Macbook Air feels so damn fast - at first blush, it's built for low power consumption, it has an anaemic 1.4 GHz CPU, it's only got 4 GB of RAM and that's the most I could order Apple to cram in (I'm going to buy some security screwdriver bits to open the b
d up today to see if it's upgradeable), yet it feels as responsive as my Max-Power Macbook Pro (which has the fastest *retail* SSD last upgrade round, there may be faster SSDs than Crucial's 256 GB C300 now, I'm not sure).So much depends on I/O so if you can make it 10 times faster (literally) then it's a BIG difference. Paying a few hundred for a gamer-boy graphics card that runs at 130 ˚C really won't give you any improvement in anything other than certain 3D games where the GPU is the bottleneck and not the memory bandwidth / CPU…
I make a noise about them because they're awesome. SSDs make old machines feel new, they are expensive but not as expensive as a new computer. They also make laptops nice and quiet (until the lack of I/O blocking allows the CPU to run at max for longer, getting very hot and igniting the fans!!!). But not all SSDs are the same and having the same brand of flash chips and the same capacity means jack. It's all in the controller firmware, baby...
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