Discussion
Does anybody have any idea about this world of drives? I'd like to think I'm fairly savvy with computing tech, but these have passed me by.
For reference I'm still running a WD Raptor as my main drive, it's a little long in the tooth, but it is still proper fast. I'm loathe to retire it as it has been so reliable over the years, but time moves on and I'm sure there is a better solution out there. I go on the computer shop websites and there is a lot to choose from, so I have no idea. Not like it was when it was a pretty easy "just get WD".
Any help and opinions would be well appreciated here, and thanks in advance to those who do contribute.
For reference I'm still running a WD Raptor as my main drive, it's a little long in the tooth, but it is still proper fast. I'm loathe to retire it as it has been so reliable over the years, but time moves on and I'm sure there is a better solution out there. I go on the computer shop websites and there is a lot to choose from, so I have no idea. Not like it was when it was a pretty easy "just get WD".
Any help and opinions would be well appreciated here, and thanks in advance to those who do contribute.
Evolved said:
Samsung Evo’s are superb. Been running a 1tb 850 evo for the past two years and it’s still as fast as the day it went in.
Thank you. Looking on overclockers there are two Samsung drives, one is EVO, one isn't - there is a great price disparity between them.https://www.overclockers.co.uk/pc-components/stora...
Just looking at the 2TB ones.
In their brief description the only difference is one is EVO and the other isn't. I'm sure there is a benefit, but how?
Crumbs that site is expensive: go to Amazon & save a fair bit:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-SSD-860-QVO-1TB/d...
Evos are are what I have used, Pros are overkill & I've no idea what the QVOs are.
You can save a fair bit if you buy a smaller drive & use it for the OS & programmes with an HDD for the data. Don't forget to have a good backup policy as SSDs are generally unrecoverable if they fail.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-SSD-860-QVO-1TB/d...
Evos are are what I have used, Pros are overkill & I've no idea what the QVOs are.
You can save a fair bit if you buy a smaller drive & use it for the OS & programmes with an HDD for the data. Don't forget to have a good backup policy as SSDs are generally unrecoverable if they fail.
As mentioned above, Samsung EVO's are very good
The problem is that there is no warning when an SSD is about to fail, I would never fit a 1TB or bigger SSD because I don't like losing lots of data or storage space due to a failure, size 250 Gb SSD is good enough
As Mr Pointy mentions, SSD for OS HDD for the rest is a very good set-up
The problem is that there is no warning when an SSD is about to fail, I would never fit a 1TB or bigger SSD because I don't like losing lots of data or storage space due to a failure, size 250 Gb SSD is good enough
As Mr Pointy mentions, SSD for OS HDD for the rest is a very good set-up
I found after switching my OS to ssd that any hdd hanging off the same of felt criminally slow when accessed! You can put just data files on your HDD but it doesn't take long for you to end up with frequently accessed files on it.
If you are a gamer , steam will fill a 250gb ssd before you can say far cry .
An SSD these days is more reliable than an HDD ( no moving parts), and let's be honest , when one fails, who pays the £100's it can cost for data recovery.
Regular scheduled backups are always a good idea and this doesn't change that.
Put your os on one ssd, and grab another for your main data store. Tell windows to use the second for my docs, and then backup the second drive weekly / monthly depending on your use, or as I do, store all your valuable data on an inexpensive raid NAS. My NAS auto backs up my data drive weekly.
Don't fear the SSD . Better than HDDs I'm almost every way.
If you are a gamer , steam will fill a 250gb ssd before you can say far cry .
An SSD these days is more reliable than an HDD ( no moving parts), and let's be honest , when one fails, who pays the £100's it can cost for data recovery.
Regular scheduled backups are always a good idea and this doesn't change that.
Put your os on one ssd, and grab another for your main data store. Tell windows to use the second for my docs, and then backup the second drive weekly / monthly depending on your use, or as I do, store all your valuable data on an inexpensive raid NAS. My NAS auto backs up my data drive weekly.
Don't fear the SSD . Better than HDDs I'm almost every way.
Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 3rd June 09:39
I'm wondering about an SSD for my older laptop. It's a second gen i7, 8gig of RAM, with a 5400rpm 500gig drive. It isonly used by my son playing on Fortnite.
Once in the game, it is reasonably playable, but I wonder if even a cheaper SSD (even those are claimed to be good for 500MB/s R/W) will make much of a difference?
Once in the game, it is reasonably playable, but I wonder if even a cheaper SSD (even those are claimed to be good for 500MB/s R/W) will make much of a difference?
clonmult said:
I'm wondering about an SSD for my older laptop. It's a second gen i7, 8gig of RAM, with a 5400rpm 500gig drive. It isonly used by my son playing on Fortnite.
Once in the game, it is reasonably playable, but I wonder if even a cheaper SSD (even those are claimed to be good for 500MB/s R/W) will make much of a difference?
Do it. I have just put a £17(!) Crucial SSD in my parent's 5th gen i5 with 8GB and it went from 3-4mins before being usable to 10 seconds after the password was typed in.Once in the game, it is reasonably playable, but I wonder if even a cheaper SSD (even those are claimed to be good for 500MB/s R/W) will make much of a difference?
Night and day doesn't come close to describing the transformation in performance in start up and opening programs.
RogerDodger said:
An SSD these days is more reliable than an HDD ( no moving parts), and let's be honest , when one fails, who pays the £100's it can cost for data recovery.
The only caveat to this is that when an SSD fails it tends to be sudden, and permanent. A HDD tends to start making horrible clacky noises, times out, causes issues and a few months of that later totally fails.SSD all the way. But as Roger also said. Backup. Because chances are you'll not get any warning before it dies.
GlenMH said:
clonmult said:
I'm wondering about an SSD for my older laptop. It's a second gen i7, 8gig of RAM, with a 5400rpm 500gig drive. It isonly used by my son playing on Fortnite.
Once in the game, it is reasonably playable, but I wonder if even a cheaper SSD (even those are claimed to be good for 500MB/s R/W) will make much of a difference?
Do it. I have just put a £17(!) Crucial SSD in my parent's 5th gen i5 with 8GB and it went from 3-4mins before being usable to 10 seconds after the password was typed in.Once in the game, it is reasonably playable, but I wonder if even a cheaper SSD (even those are claimed to be good for 500MB/s R/W) will make much of a difference?
Night and day doesn't come close to describing the transformation in performance in start up and opening programs.
To be honest, I'm still surprised that a second gen i7 laptop can still be playable on Fortnite.
Any suggestions on drive mirroring software?
clonmult said:
I was sceptical, as a recent company laptop change to one with an SSD didn't seem to make much difference. But I'm pretty sure that this old home laptop is being held back by an old HDD, and £20-£30 for a 240gig drive really isn't a lot.
To be honest, I'm still surprised that a second gen i7 laptop can still be playable on Fortnite.
Any suggestions on drive mirroring software?
Maybe there was something else wrong with it. To be honest, I'm still surprised that a second gen i7 laptop can still be playable on Fortnite.
Any suggestions on drive mirroring software?
My suggestion is to use IDrive which is a cloud backup service (nothing to do with apple despite the name). They're currently doing an offer for 5TB @ $7 a year. Normal price is around $99 (or 2TB for $70)
You just tell it what to back up and it'll just sit there in the background doing its thing. No need for USB drives or a NAS etc.
The benefit is that even if you get burgled or your house burns down, your data is still safe.
devnull said:
I've just stuck an SSD in a 2008 laptop - it makes a colossal amount of difference to basically any device.
There was some horses
t spouted in a previous thread where misinformed nerd said there was little difference between a HDD and an SSD, but they make a world of difference.
You mean this..........There was some horses
t spouted in a previous thread where misinformed nerd said there was little difference between a HDD and an SSD, but they make a world of difference.anonymous said:
[redacted]
It was a thread of people who learnt their PC skills in the late 90’s and had not changed their opinions based on technology changes. I suggested “booting up” would be one time when you “may” notice a reduction from over a minute to sub 10 seconds. But, apparently, no one shuts their PC down. Why? Because it takes too long to boot!
SSDs are the cheapest bang for buck upgrade for a PC. Especially lap tops. I was on first name terms with Dell tech support because I had so many HDDs die. Granted, our PCs had a rough life but the SSD that replaced it still hasn’t died even though it was repurposed into a desktop several years ago.
For desk tops, we used to recommend an OS disk and a data disk. The Os being the SSD. The prices have come down so much that you can switch to SSD primary and HDD backup.
I have a 1TB m.2 SSD and a 2TB HDD. I haven’t used the HDD yet because my SSD back ups go to a server I have on my home network.
Penelope Stopit said:
As mentioned above, Samsung EVO's are very good
The problem is that there is no warning when an SSD is about to fail, I would never fit a 1TB or bigger SSD because I don't like losing lots of data or storage space due to a failure, size 250 Gb SSD is good enough
As Mr Pointy mentions, SSD for OS HDD for the rest is a very good set-up
I have a very robust backup in place. My SSD is backed up hourly to an old school spiny 2TB drive, incrementally.The problem is that there is no warning when an SSD is about to fail, I would never fit a 1TB or bigger SSD because I don't like losing lots of data or storage space due to a failure, size 250 Gb SSD is good enough
As Mr Pointy mentions, SSD for OS HDD for the rest is a very good set-up
I couldn’t even use a 256gb drive, my drive is 75% full.
SSD's all the way, even cheap ones! I have a motly collection of old thinkpads and £10 32gb ancient SSD's to brand new £40 256gb Drevo ones make such a difference! My current main PC has a 256gb Sandisk in that cost me £45 new, complete no brainer! To the point where I can notice a machine with a mexhanical drive now even if the drive is in good order!
My next PC will have one of these new fangled NVME M.2 drives in it I think, which is exciting!
Their bloody cheap too! And coming down in price fast
My next PC will have one of these new fangled NVME M.2 drives in it I think, which is exciting!
Their bloody cheap too! And coming down in price fast
For comparison of my own drive (on a Mac though)...
- SATA 2-8tb 5900rpm HDD = 100-150mbps
- SATA 2tb 7200rpm HDD = 150mbps
- SATA Samsung 850 Evo = 450mbps
- External Sandisk Extreme (via USB3) = 400mbps
- Internal Apple SSD (in 2015 iMac - 2-lane PCIe) = 750mbps
- Internal Apple SSD (in 2019 iMac - 4-lane PCIe) = 2000/2800mbps (read/write)
mmm-five said:
For comparison of my own drive (on a Mac though)...
The real benefit from an SSD in day to day use is the improvement in random I/O. A good mechanical HD will do 100-300 IOPS on a random workload, a very average SSD will do 90-100,000. - SATA 2-8tb 5900rpm HDD = 100-150mbps
- SATA 2tb 7200rpm HDD = 150mbps
- SATA Samsung 850 Evo = 450mbps
- External Sandisk Extreme (via USB3) = 400mbps
- Internal Apple SSD (in 2015 iMac - 2-lane PCIe) = 750mbps
- Internal Apple SSD (in 2019 iMac - 4-lane PCIe) = 2000/2800mbps (read/write)
Edited by budgie smuggler on Monday 3rd June 14:38
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