Is it really worth it?

[AlExAlExAlEx]

Seeing that they have that many problems(die in 1 year or less), cost that much money, only offer so much more speed.

Is it really worth it to upgrade to SSD even only for cache(windows and base apps)?

 

[somdow]

i think so.

the speed is insanely for sure and ofcourse it depends on the type of SSD you get, like anything else some are better than others but overall, drastic load times for OS and programs that are installed in the SSD drive are achieved once you put one of these babies in your machine.

other components ofcourse help too like ram and cpu but....having an SSD is like putting glasses on a person with bad vision lol.

they ARE a tad on the expensive side so you can do like i do and buy a cheaper than the rest 90gig one, use as a boot/main programs drive, and store ALL else on another drive.

dont waste your time with anything less than a 90.

 

[hunuok]

Who says they die within a year? If they did, why would Intel, OCZ, Crucial etc spend so much in R&D and manufacturing?

If you're unlucky, you might get a DOA, but then again I've had mechanical drives DOA.

An OS and programs installed on an SSD is unmatched. You will NEVER go back to mechanical drives.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

It depends on intended use.

 

[sminlal]

It's like driving a sports car instead of a minivan. It's not going to make a huge difference to a drive across town - but it sure feels a lot faster, and you'll beat everyone else away from the traffic light!

 

[AlExAlExAlEx]

^ That convinced me lol.

 

[Erathsmedor]

From my own, my works, my friends, and my local computer stores experience, all SSDs die in a year.

For work, they are totally worth it, the speed alone saves many cumulative hours a month. About 6 computers atm are using SSDs. All have died in less than 6 months, of various brands and models.

At home, I'm still pondering weather it's worth it. Mine is in the process of dying right now, it's a year old, randomly corrupting files.

I'd say an SSD is more like a sports car heading for a tree. You know it's gonna crash into that tree, but you're gonna get to the tree faster than a minivan.

Oh wait.

 

[asus x48]

Seeing that they have that many problems(die in 1 year or less), cost that much money, only offer so much more speed.

Is it really worth it to upgrade to SSD even only for cache(windows and base apps)?

I will wait untill the 8th gen. ssd before i will buy one thank you very much.

 

[RetiredChief]

"die in 1 year or less" Sheeee, please don't tell my SSds, they may all up and die as some are close to a year old, a couple older.
Intel G1 and WB blue in laptop used ar work (swap depending on task)
Patriot Torqx in laptop
Intel G2, started out in I5-750 as Boot drive -> data drive -> boot drive in new SB laptop
Pheonix Pro, now boot drive in I5-750 Maybe only 6 months old.

Maybe I out to sell my Intel stock as they have a 5 year warrantee- They are going to take a big hit in profits. Also go for the other companies with 3 yr warrantees.

At work I installed a 8 Gig PATA SSD early 2009 in a computer that is part of Flight harware for a satellite instrument - OK this doesn't count because it was a cheap $100 SLC, Not MLC drive.

 

[sminlal]

From my own, my works, my friends, and my local computer stores experience, all SSDs die in a year.

I've been running my Intel SSD for 18 months now without any issues at all.

 

[asus x48]

I've been running my Intel SSD for 18 months now without any issues at all.

U have bn' lucky. I too w/buy intel but still too many bug's.With all ssd's As i said before i will wait for the 8th gen's ssd's and i will stick with my wd's blacks 7200rpm's for l/t's and wd 10.000rpm v/c
's.d/t's. And no i am not a fan boy of wd. per/exp/hardfacts/numbers. Have used 3 sam's,8 max's,one sea,hia.IMHO.

 

[JordoR]

My OCZ Vertex 2 60GB is fantastic and I would definitely say it's worth it. For me, the biggest difference was in my CAD use.

When dealing with large CAD files involving 100's or 1000's of models... on a normal HD it would take about 5 mins to load up, as well as to save. With my SSD it takes maybe 5-10 seconds... and this is a big deal for my line of work.

The drive is also significantly faster for booting, using my os, and all main programs. I only wish I would have purchased a larger SSD at the time.

As for the reliability aspect of your question... sure some SSD's are failing, from what I can see it's mainly the new Vertex 3's. HD's fail as well, and sometimes there is no rhyme or reason to it.

 

[Meganano]

I will wait untill the 8th gen. ssd before i will buy one thank you very much.

How long a wait do you expect? (What's the current generation of SSD?). I have some SATA III ports that are burning a hole in my pocket and I don't know what else they're good for.

 

[chillin15]

The notion that your ssd is going to die in a year is absurd....Many people still have their 1st generation ssds

As for is it really worth it? Well, right now there are a bunch of drives that would not be worth it if it even if it was given to you for free...OCZ drives come to mind.

The failure rates for many ocz drives are as high as 20% (look at the newegg verified customer responses). OCZ is the plug and pray manufacturer so they are definitely not worth it.

Corsair had a recall of some of their drives and personally, I wouldn't buy from them either until they get their problems fixed.

Intel 320s currently have a bug on them which makes the hard drive think it only has 8mb of storage...

I would only get these 3 sata drives and in this order

patriot wildfire sata 3 drives
crucial m4 drives
intel 510 drives

 

[cbrunnem]

The notion that your ssd is going to die in a year is absurd....Many people still have their 1st generation ssds

As for is it really worth it? Well, right now there are a bunch of drives that would not be worth it if it even if it was given to you for free...OCZ drives come to mind.

The failure rates for many ocz drives are as high as 20% (look at the newegg verified customer responses). OCZ is the plug and pray manufacturer so they are definitely not worth it.

Corsair had a recall of some of their drives and personally, I wouldn't buy from them either until they get their problems fixed.

Intel 320s currently have a bug on them which makes the hard drive think it only has 8mb of storage...

I would only get these 3 sata drives and in this order

patriot wildfire sata 3 drives
crucial m4 drives
intel 510 drives

i thought intel just came out with a fix for that problem

 

[Erathsmedor]

i thought intel just came out with a fix for that problem

Really? Where have you read that? I check everyday if Intel has fixed this drive as I want to buy one of these if it is fixed soon.

Thinking of buying 2 or 3 and throwing them in the cupboard until a firmware update comes out, their price is plummeting every day. But Meh, might not bother.

 

[chillin15]

i thought intel just came out with a fix for that problem

I have not heard that but I could be wrong. I know for sure OCZ has not completely fixed issue(s) with their drives.

 

[hangfirew8]

If you toss in an SSD with default 512 aligned partitioning, file indexing, swap area, log files, etc., etc., yeah I can believe they will all die in a year. The combination of write magnification and constant logging will use up its write lifetime rather quickly.

Set it up as a nearly read-only boot disk, with properly aligned partitions, and save all your user data to a HDD, and it may outlast every other component in your computer.

So to answer your question, if you do it the first way, no it's not worth it (unless you have money to burn), if you do it the second way, yes it is way worth it.

 

[Erathsmedor]

I've done everything recommended for setting up SSDs, proper alignment, no indexing, no write caching, no super fetching, no defrag, no paging, no hibernate, registry hacks, blah, blah, etc, blah.

Whether all this prolongs the life of the flash memory or not, the drives still die or bug out in 12 months.

Despite all SSD manufactures stating, "they are drives, use them just as you would a hard drive".

 

[sminlal]

If you toss in an SSD with default 512 aligned partitioning, file indexing, swap area, log files, etc., etc., yeah I can believe they will all die in a year. The combination of write magnification and constant logging will use up its write lifetime rather quickly.

Set it up as a nearly read-only boot disk, with properly aligned partitions, and save all your user data to a HDD, and it may outlast every other component in your computer.

I installed Windows 7 on my SSD 18 months ago and I've never done anything special to it other than to disable search indexing and my pagefile (I have 12GB of RAM). Windows 7 creates properly aligned partitions so there's nothing special you need to do when partitioning the drive.

Over the past 18 months the drive's SMART data informs me that Windows has been writing 5GB/day to the drive. Based on the quoted "at least 5 year life expectancy at 20GB/day of writes", that means my SSD should last for 20 years, well beyond the point at which it will be obsolete.

I have no worries about "wearing out" my drive.

 

[sminlal]

I've done everything recommended for setting up SSDs, proper alignment, no indexing, no write caching, no super fetching, no defrag, no paging, no hibernate, registry hacks, blah, blah, etc, blah.

Whether all this prolongs the life of the flash memory or not, the drives still die or bug out in 12 months.

Of all the many people who've posted in this forum about their experiences with SSDs you're the first one who's reported these kinds of consistent problems. What drives have you been using and how full do you run them?

 

[blackhawk1928]

I've done everything recommended for setting up SSDs, proper alignment, no indexing, no write caching, no super fetching, no defrag, no paging, no hibernate, registry hacks, blah, blah, etc, blah.

Whether all this prolongs the life of the flash memory or not, the drives still die or bug out in 12 months.

Despite all SSD manufactures stating, "they are drives, use them just as you would a hard drive".

Thats probably, because you buy a 10 dollar SSD...I can assure you if you buy a crap HDD, it will also die quick. Good quality SSD's (AS well as HDD's) from good brands will last a long time. I've had an Intel X25-M 80GB G2 drive since thanksgiving of 2009 and it working like a charm without any issues...

 

[rickzor]

You guys are scaring me with that "it will die within a year" stuf..
I just bought an intel 320 series 120gb. I can't even bare the possibility of it lasting only a year...

 

[blackhawk1928]

You guys are scaring me with that "it will die within a year" stuf..
I just bought an intel 320 series 120gb. I can't even bare the possibility of it lasting only a year...

Don't worry. If trim is working, your SSD will most likely last longer than any other part of your computer anyway. Except 5years+

 

[sminlal]

You guys are scaring me with that "it will die within a year" stuf..

Actually, it's only one guy saying that, the rest of us are saying we've been using SSDs for quite a while and they've been working just fine.