Looking for a good high-quality SSD

[canadianvice]

The primary thing I would be looking to use this for is to speed up boot time. However, I would also like to put it on my gaming partition as in my understanding it should greatly improve load times for the game, which I find frustrating with a lot of my stuff.

Additionally, I would like to stick some long-startup programs on the drive, like Office and Photoshop.
According to my rough space calculations, I would probably be looking at a drive somewhere in the order of 150-180GB. An inexpensive 256GB would work fine too. My main concern is quality - I want something that works and is likely to show an improvement in boot and program launch time.

Any recommendations? Am I barking up the wrong tree?
Currently I have a 7200RPM Barracuda 1TB Drive.

Also, is it a bad idea to have all my eggs in one nest? Conceivably, with a 256GB, I could store everything I will need to on this system, kind of rendering the 1TB drive redundant. (backup, maybe?)

Also, how is SSD life? Is it still something to be worried about? I tend to reload Windows a lot due to viruses and whatever else, so I don't want it failing on me prematurely.

 

[dingo07]

have you read this...
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/240gb-256gb-ssd-review,3313.html

 

[inzone]

A SSD will speed up boot times and will load game maps much faster. A 256 gb SSD for the boot drive is actualy what I consider the sweet spot for OS drives , it gives you enough space for the OS a few games and programs and there is still a lot of free space. You do want to keep some space free on a SSD since going past 80% capacity will tend to slow it down. The life span is good and you will most defietly be upgrading to a new SSD before your current one will get old.
Depending on your budget the Samsung 840 256 gb would e my recomendation and after that The Intel 330 240gb would be a good choice. The new OCZ Vector 256 gb is also a good choice after the other two.

 

[canadianvice]

Am I able to partition an SSD to say, 80% and 20%? Or does that affect how the controller distributes wear?

Reason I ask is because then I'm not going to inadvertently go past that threshold, which sounds like a good one to me.

 

[dingo07]

NO, u do not want to partition an SSD... use it as is and you'll get the best performance (unless, of course it's 500+GB)

 

[canadianvice]

One other question: Browser cache... should I keep it on the SSD or HDD, or is it kind of trivial?

 

[dingo07]

im sure it makes absolutely no difference, if someone were to actually test the theory

 

[RedRock]

Am I able to partition an SSD to say, 80% and 20%? Or does that affect how the controller distributes wear?

Reason I ask is because then I'm not going to inadvertently go past that threshold, which sounds like a good one to me.

I just installed a Samsung 840 250 gig SSD it has something called overprovisioning it is susposed to improve the life of the drive and improve some perfromance issues. I paid $149 now I see one on eBay for $139. IDK no expert here. My boot time is improved for sure the most noticable thing is game load times are much faster.
I fully overprovisioned mine to extend the life which took up 23 gig. When I first received it I tried to get Norton Ghost working but the key they sent didn't work. It was frustrating the first evening trying to get it working. The next morning I registered it on Samsung then checking my acct I saw my drive with a link to downloadable software and found the data migration software. After that it was easy peazy. Did the dowload the first option was to clone my HDD which is what I was looking to do. A couple clicks and a cup of coffee and my drive was cloned. I unhooked the HDD ( will make it a slave soon) and it booted right up.

From my experience so far the 840 is a good decently priced SSD. Forget the Norton Ghost unless you own a copy. Register the drive use the Samsung data migration software and you will be up and running in minutes. Hope this helps someone.

 

[canadianvice]

So that's what overprovisioning is. That's basically what I was talking about with the whole partitioning thing.

 

[dingo07]

there's no reason to provision the SSD for longer life, because you'll end up getting a newer technology before the life starts fading out of it! you're just wasting space!

 

[canadianvice]

I guess if I set u p a regular backup.... any opinions on the crucial m4?

 

[RedRock]

there's no reason to provision the SSD for longer life, because you'll end up getting a newer technology before the life starts fading out of it! you're just wasting space!

I have been tossing that idea around also. The warranty is 3 years I believe if it went bad before that I would probably end up with a new drive to replace it. Me being new to the technology it is good to get opinions. Thank You.

 

[canadianvice]

Best answer selected by canadianvice.

 

[kovzone]

yes, and from what I read here, ... sorry wrong thread :lol:

 

[canadianvice]

Just for the record, I opted to go for a 240GB Force GT from Corsair and a 120GB M4 from Crucial.