3TB 7200 RPM SATA 3Gb/s or 500 GB SS Hybrid Main + 1 TB 7200 RPM

adryn

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Jun 18, 2012
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I've never personally had a SSD before, but I've had a friend or two tell me they're pretty good/useful. So I'm wondering in this case which of these two would be better? 3TB seems a bit of an overkill, but not knowing much about SSD, I don't know if the other option will take some additional set-up after receiving the computer (it is coming pre-built).

Files on the SSD just load much faster or something? The friend I know that had one had his OS and I believe a few very often played games on it, which caused them to load much faster.

Thanks.
 
Systems that run off an SSD tend to load faster and run snappier. If you install games on the SSD, the game will start faster and levels will load faster, but your frame rate will not increase.

I have never heard of a case where someone installed an OS on an SSD and was _not_ delighted with the difference in system performance. A 500 GB SSD would be awfully expensive. Or are you thinking of a hybrid, as mentioned in the thread title? My personal opinion is that you do not gain that much from them.
 

adryn

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I'm speaking of a hybrid, comes with 500 GB SSD and 1TB 7200 RPM HD
Yeah my friend has League downloaded onto the SSD and he pretty much instant loads in.

That last sentence confused me slightly, "you do not gain that much from them", so are you recommending against a SSD?

Price isn't a huge issue if that's the reason, in pretty good standings right now, and I'd be making payments, and don't have anything else I'm really paying for currently.
 
Generally, I don't think that people benefit much from a hybrid. I've never heard of a hybrid with 10% SSD space. Can you put in a link to the product? Are you referring to a hybrid disk, HDD with SSD cache, or a hybrid system with an SSD and a separate HDD?

If price isn't a huge issue, always go for a big enough pure SSD for your system drive and favorite games or apps, a big HDD for your data, and a big external HDD for backups. Never have a system that isn't backed up.
 

adryn

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Jun 18, 2012
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I already have a pretty large External HD, learned that lesson a while back.
I believe it's a hybrid system. I'm setting it up through Alienware customization options. Would getting a HDD, and a sepereate SSD be a better idea?

As long as the SSD doesn't require much internal messing around, I could do that as well. I'm aware Alienware is overpriced at times, but it's support I can rely on decently. I am very uncomfortable trying to build my own quite yet.
 
An HDD and a separate SSD is what I meant by a "hybrid system." There are actually HDDs with built-in SSDs and caching software, supposedly faster than just the HDD, but I don't have much faith in those.

Here's a random example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148940 . It's a 750 MB HDD with a built-in 8 GB SSD. 8 GB is too small to install the OS, but the drive has software that tries to cache the most-used files, usually OS files, in the 8 GB. It's just a large cache. That's what I think you don't gain much from.

A more functional setup is a computer with two drives. An SSD for the OS installation and a large platter drive for data. Systems boot fast and respond more snappily when they are running off an SSD. If you are a heavy gamer, you would install game to the SSD so that they start faster and load levels faster. I'm sure that Alienware is very experienced with this sort of thing (and that you will pay through the nose).

A 500 GB SSD is still pretty darn big. Remember, your OS and programs will go there; all your music, pictures, video, resumes and so forth will go on the HDD because there is no advantage to being able to access them that fast. I'm living happily on a 128 GB SSD. Not that I'm trying to talk you out of it, I'm sure that Windows 9 with Microsoft Office 2015 will take up that much space!
 

adryn

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Jun 18, 2012
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Yeah 500 GB is quite a bit, but I can toss a few larger games on there, and have room to spare for later larger OS or such. So.. would you think the hybrid ystem would function well enough? It doesn't sound like it's built in itself.

And yeah I know I'll be paying through the nose lol, next computer (hopefully very far down the line) I'll try building my own.
 
Yes, the "hybrid system" approach, an SSD for OS and programs and a HDD for data, is pretty standard these days. Almost everyone here will agree that it would function well enough. Go for it.

You can get cheaper good custom builds then Alienware. Don't ask me, I roll my own for fun. You could ask here: www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum-31-369.html . Or, believe me, about 50 people here would love to walk you through a first build; there's a tutorial with pictures, or maybe two, around here somewhere.