HDD or SSD upgrade help

wasabi91

Distinguished
Jul 23, 2010
86
0
18,630
Hi i wanted to upgrade my HDD to either a SSD drive or a perfomance HDD. I currently use a green WD caviar green 1.5tb. I wanted to setup my other drive as the OS and games. however i found out my Mobo doesnt have Sata III and can only support 3 Gb/s would it be better to buy a WD caviar black or still go with a SSD even tho i cant support 6gb's. Or something different all together?


Specs:
CPU: AMD phenom x4 965
GPU: MSI Twin 560 Ti
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB
PSU: Corsair CMPSU-650TX
HDD: WD Caviar Green 1.5 TB
OS:Windows 7 Home 64bit
Mobo:M4A79XTD EVO

I play at 1920x1080 resolution.
 

dingo07

Distinguished
Adding an SSD as a boot drive will increase your boot time as well as load times for whatever programs/games are installed on the drive. You will definitely see the difference, even though it's not 6GB/s

What is your budget for the new drive, SSD or HDD?
 

wasabi91

Distinguished
Jul 23, 2010
86
0
18,630
My budget is about 150$ max but id prefer to go under that if i can. So long as perfomance wont suffer a great deal.
So even without 6GBS its still better to get a SSD over a Caviar Black?
 
While I love SSDs, all My systems have a OS + Program SSD - No going back to a HDD.

However there is a 2nd option, The Seagate Hybred 750 gig HDD ($150). It has an internal 8 gig SLC SSD as a chache. The drive provides Near SSD performance for Boot times and depending on usage some programs may also load similar to SSD.
Primary diff is that all Filles on the SSD can be accessed at SSD speeds wheter as the Seagate HDD, only thoes files stored in the internal SSD wil load fast.
Ref: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148837


As to SSDs, my preference is the M4 and the Samsung 830. New egg quite offten has the 256 gig M4 on sale for $180. (both both the 256 gig Cucial m4 and the 256 gig Samsung 830, both at newegg for $180 each).
 
Like I said the 750 Seagate Hybrid is Only around $150

Quote:


Really, the only time Seagate's Momentus XT slowed down drastically compared to an SSD was when we installed the operating system and applications. Once everything was fully loaded, however, performance rapidly improved as the drive's software algorithms pulled the most frequently-access data into flash, bestowing very SSD-like qualities to it. At that point, it was frankly hard to tell the difference during most common tasks.


Of course, the Momentus XT's greatest advantage is its large capacity and low cost per bit compared to the SSDs it so actively strives to behave like, which makes it a very tempting proposition for those who're able to tolerate occasional periods where the drive's performance necessarily dips back to what you'd see from a hard drive.
End quote

ref: Tom's review: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/momentus-xt-750gb-review,3223-8.html

Bottom Line: Good Cost vs size verses performance.
 

wasabi91

Distinguished
Jul 23, 2010
86
0
18,630
Yea i looked that up and from the reviews id read it's not terrible but the speed isnt of an actual SSD. What ive been looking at was the plextor mp3, crucial m4 and the vertex 4. All of which are 128gb versions.
 
Plextor and m4 are very simular and performance is very close along with the Samsung 830. The plextor normally cost more (They use to make the BEST DVD writer, and they Charged for it). The M4 is a very good drive. I use two of them in my laptop. The Vertex 4 is probably a good drive, but has not been out long enough for a real good feel on users experience. Personnaly I do NOT like OCZ as a company.

Keep in mind, an SSD only speeds up file loads, it will NOT: increase web/email performance, nor how fast a program runs, nor increase FPS in game play.

Added: a good review of the Plextor drive.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5851/plextor-m3-pro-256gb-review
 

wasabi91

Distinguished
Jul 23, 2010
86
0
18,630
Yea im starting to think that instead of buying a SSD i should just buy a HDD to use as my main drive and games rather than my green drive which im using now. Im not too concerned on how fast they load.
 

raytseng

Honorable
May 15, 2012
666
0
11,060
it will speed up web performance in so far as "dumb" browsers access the disk for caching and expiring old cache and other random stuff like that.

there are videos on youtube of people launching and working with Chrome or IE, with identical systems except for the harddrive, and launching the browser will have the homepage display faster and snappier on the SSD system over HDD.

If you are going to change drives and make the effort to redo Windows, you should just get the SDD. Since you already have a 1.5tb data drive, there's no point in you getting an hybrid drive since you're already invested and have enough data storage.

If money is the issue why you are considering getting another HDD for OS, 128gb should be enough for OS and Apps. You really shouldn't be needing all that much if you properly store DATA on your data drives.


This video is 2years old, but point is the same. IE test at 4:15 mark.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhYYx9ckR4Y