SSD Question, and best 480GB for the money?

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Batman55

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Jul 24, 2013
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I've had a DELL XPs 8500 (quad core, 3.40ghz, 8 GB RAM) for about half a year now. I'm very satisfied with the performance thus far, but I'm wondering how much better things could get with a SSD. The hard drive that came with it is a 1 TB HDD. I have been noticing some load times with games from 2007 onward--apparently SDD cures that problem right away (but does nothing to improve FPS, right?) I suppose a faster boot, faster OS (I use Windows 8) is a benefit all can appreciate.

I don't use much hard drive space in general--maybe 256GB is enough. Yet I'd prefer to have everything I'm going to use on one hard drive, which means that 256 GB might be slightly too small. And what about this: I've read that as long as your operating system is installed on the SSD, you can have games installed on your second drive and still have the improved load times. True?

The most I'm willing to spend is about $350, I'd prefer to cap it at $300 if possible. I'm not a "Power User" and I'm very thrifty about using hard drive space. I'm looking for quality, but not anything cutting-edge. For those who know their way around SSDs, what's a good 256GB drive--what about 480GB?

Thanks
 
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Chen Long

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I really would suggest that you buy a Crucial M500 960G, the price on Amazon now is only $450, if you use a laptop, you can really get rid of HDD. Maybe you think the performance of M500 is low, but actually 480GB and 960GB are enough strong to satisfy you, even though 840PRO is stronger, but are you sure that you need that performance? I'm using it now, it's pretty fast.
 
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YTTurbulences

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I recommend you the Corsair GS 480GB. It's decently priced and it's pretty fast. Not the best that money can buy, but the best you can buy for the money. Btw, i use the GS 480 and windows 8.1 boots in around 10-20 seconds.
 
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Batman55

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First, thanks to all who responded. Now...



You can get a high quality 500GB SSD for $310.... well, I think I'm interested! I've always heard that Samsung makes a pretty fast SSD. This seems to be a better drive than the others mentioned here, too.

But I don't think I need all that space, so I'm considering getting a 256 GB ssd...

Now, does anyone have an answer for this question: if you have Windows 8 (or whatever OS you use) on the SSD but, say, a 50GB game installed on your second drive (traditional HDD).. do you still get the increased load times and the other benefits?
 
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cst1992

cst1992

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There is increased benefit only if you have the Windows page file on the SSD.
The game is going to load its own files when it starts, so there you will find no benefit.
In my experience of Half life 2, the game loaded pretty slowly, but when I transferred it to the SSD, then it speeded up significantly. Reinstalled it to the HDD, old speeds were back.

However if you have a fast HDD already, like the Velociraptor, then don't put the pagefile on the SSD. The less writes on a SSD, the better.
 
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Batman55

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I thought SSDs were just as durable as HDDs.. same longevity, etc.

The speed of a SSD will not degrade with time, will it?
 
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Casper Larsen

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SSDs is best suited for having many of the same files all the time. Will get slower if you keep deleting and replacing with other files. e
 
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Batman55

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SSDs is best suited for having many of the same files all the time. Will get slower if you keep deleting and replacing with other files. e


Thanks. I'm just curious if SSD manufacturers are looking for ways to diminish this problem, or get rid of it entirely? Is there any research in this area?
 
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cst1992

cst1992

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It's because of the NAND inside the SSD's.
Everything has an up and down side, right?
Your USB flash drive also has a limit to which it can do read/write cycles(although it's quite high -- about 100,000) because it uses the same NAND technology as your SSD.
Do you require that much performance from your SSD? In normal cases you'll be perfectly fine.
 
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Batman55

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Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting some kind of "perfect" device, or anything. And I'm certainly no Power User.. I don't need much, really. I will still be getting my 256GB SSD some day soon. About the most intensive thing I'll be doing on that is installing and uninstalling games.

That last question was just out of curiosity. I'm sure a lot of things have been done with traditional HDDs over the years to improve efficiency and longevity. Merely I was wondering if the same will happen with SSDs.
 
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