60gb SSD or 1TB HDD?

• Ark wrote on 2012-04-18 01:52
  Hey guys, im thinking about expanding my HD space. Considering ive been using an 500gb IDE drive this whole time. Now being a gamer i was thinking an SSD would be a nice way to speed up windows loading. Buut im also thinking about just getting more space overall.
  
  
  SSD
  
  HDD
• TA wrote on 2012-04-18 02:42
  It's a personal choice. No one else can really make that call for you. You have to decide whether you think you want & need the extra space, or whether you want a fast OS (and not all that much else; e.g. Windows alone will probably eat up like 20gigs and the hdd space probably will be actually less than 60 after formatting, so you can put very little on it).
  
  I wouldn't go with that obscure brand of SSD though, if you do go with that, and you honestly may want a 120 or so. Something like this might be a better choice, just $119 after the rebate. I'd go for this Intel one personally, for the rock solid stability, but it's double the price for the same storage capacity.
• EndlessDreams wrote on 2012-04-18 03:12
  I have one of those 64 gb SSDs. All I can say is that I regret buying it. While SSD are really fast, 64 gb is not very much space at all. If you going to get a SSD, get something a lot higher.
• TA wrote on 2012-04-18 03:21
  Yeah. I'd shoot for 120-250 GB with an SSD.
• Osayidan wrote on 2012-04-18 03:44
  Wouldn't trust that brand anyways...
  Kingston, Intel or OCZ. Maybe crucial.
  For performance OCZ is on top of the game right now, even beating intel.
• Andy-Buddy wrote on 2012-04-18 04:01
  For an SSD, would you have to change from IDE SATA settings in the motherboard and change it to something else? Or is that the correct setting?
• Ark wrote on 2012-04-18 07:04
  Thanks for the advice sofar guys.
  
  

  Quote from TA;841307:

  It's a personal choice. No one else can really make that call for you. You have to decide whether you think you want & need the extra space, or whether you want a fast OS (and not all that much else; e.g. Windows alone will probably eat up like 20gigs and the hdd space probably will be actually less than 60 after formatting, so you can put very little on it).
  
  I wouldn't go with that obscure brand of SSD though, if you do go with that, and you honestly may want a 120 or so. Something like this might be a better choice, just $119 after the rebate. I'd go for this Intel one personally, for the rock solid stability, but it's double the price for the same storage capacity.

  
  
  That ocz one you selected isnt half bad. If the rebate goes okay it would still be in my price range. The intel one is far above what i want to play for a ssd right now. I still have a bit of time before i can make my purchase tho.
• rzetlin wrote on 2012-04-18 14:19
  In my opinion, SSD hard drives are still a developing technology.
  
  Until the SSD hard drives reaches the same gigabyte per dollar as standard spindle hard drives, it is more cost and space effective to go with standard hard drives.
  
  If it you want to in decrease the load time on Windows it is better to get a faster CPU or more RAM.
• TA wrote on 2012-04-18 14:39
  The bad thing about SSD is, that you don't hear, is that they have a very high failure rate. OCZ has a pretty bad failure rate, I don't know if newer generations have improved... but they got quite a bad wrap awhile back for it.
  
  The Intel one, the price is much higher because the failure rate is extremely low. The Intel failure rate is something like 0.3% I think, whereas OCZ something like 6.7%, the highest of the major brands (e.g. Intel, Kingston, Crucial, OCZ).
  
  I'd go with the 1TB HDD personally. If you're still using an IDE interface (very old tech), chances are that the rest of your computer will be the bottleneck, and it's unclear if you even have SATA 6GB/s ports (which are relatively new).
• whocares8128 wrote on 2012-04-18 16:02
  Why stop at 1TB? I have an external that alone carries 3TB. :awesome:
  
  [SIZE="1"]Now if only I could remember where I put everything...[/SIZE]
  :fail2:
  
  Also, you should get 2 SSDs and then set them up in a RAID 0 configuration so that you can really appreciate how much your system bus is holding you back.
  
  I'm with rzetlin on this. SSDs are nice but the rest of your computer probably isn't really ready to give the full benefit of SSDs (especially for the cost and chance of failure).
• Ark wrote on 2012-04-18 18:24

  Quote from rzetlin;841590:

  In my opinion, SSD hard drives are still a developing technology.
  
  Until the SSD hard drives reaches the same gigabyte per dollar as standard spindle hard drives, it is more cost and space effective to go with standard hard drives.
  
  If it you want to in decrease the load time on Windows it is better to get a faster CPU or more RAM.

  
  
  Im already on a 6 core phenom with 8 gigs of ram btw.
  
  

  Quote from TA;841597:

  The bad thing about SSD is, that you don't hear, is that they have a very high failure rate. OCZ has a pretty bad failure rate, I don't know if newer generations have improved... but they got quite a bad wrap awhile back for it.
  
  The Intel one, the price is much higher because the failure rate is extremely low. The Intel failure rate is something like 0.3% I think, whereas OCZ something like 6.7%, the highest of the major brands (e.g. Intel, Kingston, Crucial, OCZ).
  
  I'd go with the 1TB HDD personally. If you're still using an IDE interface (very old tech), chances are that the rest of your computer will be the bottleneck, and it's unclear if you even have SATA 6GB/s ports (which are relatively new).

  
  
  At first i was looking at some of the reviews on an ocz ssd,i saw lots of negative ones so i was skeptical from buying from them at first. I soppose if im not willing to spend alot of cash on a good ssd, they should be something im going to hold back on for right now. And lastly, i have sata 3Gb/s.
• TA wrote on 2012-04-18 20:13

  Quote from Ark;841735:

  And lastly, i have sata 3Gb/s.

  
  
  That means whatever SSD you would get, you'd only be getting about half the speed you could be getting. Not worth it with your current rig right now, imo. Go with the TB HDD. 1 TB WD Caviar Black is a good choice, I have 4 of 'em myself.
• Ark wrote on 2012-04-18 21:27

  Quote from TA;841843:

  That means whatever SSD you would get, you'd only be getting about half the speed you could be getting. Not worth it with your current rig right now, imo. Go with the TB HDD. 1 TB WD Caviar Black is a good choice, I have 4 of 'em myself.

  
  
  Very well then. Thanks everyone for the advice.
• Osayidan wrote on 2012-04-19 01:48

  Quote from rzetlin;841590:

  In my opinion, SSD hard drives are still a developing technology.
  
  Until the SSD hard drives reaches the same gigabyte per dollar as standard spindle hard drives, it is more cost and space effective to go with standard hard drives.
  
  If it you want to in decrease the load time on Windows it is better to get a faster CPU or more RAM.

  
  
  The hard drive is still the system bottleneck even on old PCs. For example, stick a cheap SSD into an old laptop and it gives it a new life. Even with the best CPU/RAM on the planet if you have a standard HDD your windows won't load much faster than someone with a cheap off the shelf PC.
  
  

  Quote from TA;841843:

  That means whatever SSD you would get, you'd only be getting about half the speed you could be getting.

  
  
  The 3 Gb/s or 6 Gb/s difference won't do much unless you get a very high-end SSD. Ignoring that those are only the theoretical speeds of SATA II and III, most standard SSDs won't even reach the SATAII speed of 375 MB/s.
  
  The sad truth is a single consumer grade SSD is not much better in terms of standard-use speed than a good quality hard drive. Where an SSD becomes useful is the elimination of seek time, so when you're loading apps/OS that require lots of small files the delay is reduced. If you're just reading a huge file like a movie, there's no practical difference.
  
  So it always comes down to if you want capacity, or if you want quick loading of applications.
  You can always mix both and use an old HDD you already have for storage and a new SSD for OS and apps.
• Taycat wrote on 2012-04-19 02:02
  I'd say in this case, bigger is better, yeah?
  
  Also, depends on the company ya know.