Intel 320 Series 40GB SSD

[maxson]

My pc specs;

Athlon II x4 640 3.0Ghz
4GB DDR3 1333Mhz
GS600 Power Supply
XFX Ati Radeon HD6770 1GB GDDR5
N68C-VS3 UCC ASRock motherboard
Samsung HD322GJ 320GB 7200RPM SpinPoint 4
19' Benq LCD Monitor
Casing (old casing)

If I add an SSD Intel 40GB 320 Series as my main hdd (windows and boot), is my pc getting better/fast? I found this is very cheap SSD.

Can you tell how much different (% or performance) from both drive (the SSD and my HDD). Take a look at the video below, that was my old spec (with GT 430, Gigabyte GA0G41M-ES3L mobo, dual core e5700 3.0Ghz, 2.5GB DDR2 ram). It booted very fast below 20sec. But when I upgraded my hardware like above (the quad core), it boot so slow, around 40sec.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o8bFEilCZ0

Is it worth getting the Intel 320 Series 40GB just for Windows/boot? I want my pc boot up as fast as my old specs.

 

[WyomingKnott]

A 40 GB SSD is awfully small for a Windows 7 installation. Look at your current OS partition - if you have it partitioned separately? How big is it? My SSD OS partition is 50 GB and I do not have _any_ games installed at the moment.

If you can actually pack your OS into 40 GB, then go for it. The change in response, even with a mid-line SSD, will be amazing. But with a 40 GB device, you might consider an Intel board that can use the SSD for caching.

Have you read this: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-review-benchmark,3139.html ? They tag drives that small as "boot drives," with the OS installed on the drive but your programs installed on another drive.

 

[Guest]

ok so you'd shave 20 seconds off your boot time; how many times a day do you boot your system?

if less than 100, save for a bigger drive.

 

[boiler1990]

If you're running W7 32bit - you'll be fine with a 40GB drive. The 32bit installation only takes up about ~10GB. Should leave you room for another program suite or two (Office, etc)

If you're running W7 64bit - it's going to be very cramped even after you shave off some space. I wouldn't recommend using a 40GB drive for this, and this would limit you to 4GB of RAM total, etc.

 

[beefybish]

40GB is fine for an operating system drive if it's just for the operating system.

A lot of people have the actual OS on the SSD and then direct all of their games and programs to a larger hard drive. Depends what you use your PC for really!

I'm under the impression that the 320 series is the budget series? Might wanna go for something a bit higher if speed is of the essence... Like previously mentioned.. this would shave a few seconds off boot time but not a dramatic increase in pc performance

Hope this helps

 

[boiler1990]

40GB is fine for an operating system drive if it's just for the operating system.

As I said before, 40GB will only work well for a 32 bit installation. If you *really* tried you might be able to squeeze a 64bit installation onto it, but the problem is that every program still creates a folder in the C:/Program Files directory (especially iTunes - it stores your library on the C: drive).

I'm under the impression that the 320 series is the budget series? Might wanna go for something a bit higher if speed is of the essence... Like previously mentioned.. this would shave a few seconds off boot time but not a dramatic increase in pc performance

There's nothing really wrong with the 320 series. It's quite fast and extremely reliable, and is pretty good on price as well.

 

[maxson]

Best answer selected by maxson.

 

[gary1]

For 10$ LESS. You can grab a 64gb.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148441