QOTD: Have You Bought An SSD Yet?

By Tuan An Nguyen
published

There's no doubt about it: one of the best ways to boost your computer's performance, is to upgrade your hard drive to a cutting edge solid state drive (SSD).

With no mechanical moving parts, no spinning platters, and just really fast flash memory, SSDs can instantly transform a sluggish computer into one with a whole new lease on life. Of course, this is due to the storage subsystem being the slowest part of a computer system. Your PC's CPU cache and main system memory are significantly faster than hard drives, so the CPU will always attempt to look up data in those two areas before resorting to hitting the hard drive.

With SSDs, having access times far superior to hard drives across their entire capacity range, they are must have for those craving the ultimate in performance. Unfortunately, they're still quite pricey. The good thing is that prices are falling swiftly.

The question of the day is: Have you upgraded to a SSD yet?

If so, which one?

Tuan An Nguyen
138 Comments Comment from the forums
  • unlicensedhitman
    They are overpriced! For $300 for a 64 gig SSD, I can buy close to 3X 1 Terabye hardddrives!
    Reply
  • RiotSniperX
    Yea, when the 128gb gets around the $100 range ill buy it, but i dont see a need for one now as a 7200 rpm does fine for now.
    Reply
  • theguy82
    I have not and probably won't for at least another year or 2. Or whenever the price drops significantly.
    Reply
  • matt87_50
    not yet, cant decide weather to get a 128gig SSD or a 2TB normal HDD
    Reply
  • christop
    Not until the price comes down and the storage goes up...
    Reply
  • airborne11b
    I agree with last 2 posters. I use 7200 rpm hard drive, and I don't feel as if my load times on any games or programs are so slow to the point where it's an issue.

    I'd gladly pay $2 to $3 per GB on a SSD, but at 300 for 64GB, thats just crazy for something that doesn't improve FPS in games.

    And when it comes to load times for people who don't care about gaming, I can't think of any program that loads so slow that I would want to fork over a ton of cash for such a small drive size for the sake of performance.
    Reply
  • Overpriced, in Brazil i don't think i'll afford one soon.
    Reply
  • mamw93
    Yes. I only bought a small one to load Vista onto and my games... but O delete them once I have beat them so space isn't a big deal. I LOVE the read speeds but write speeds could use some improving. Though they are better than a 7200rpm drive I would like to see better.
    Reply
  • Nope too overpriced.

    I will buy a SSD once...

    1) They get the same price/gigabyte as hard drives

    2) They address the short write life. IE once they can remove the wear leveling crap.

    Until then ill keep my 10k drive, which is already plenty fast. I dont wait for files at all. Who cares if a SSD is 10 times faster when a 10k drive is already only takes a tiny fraction of a second to do what i ask of it.

    When SSDs have a 100k write cycle life, and are ~$150 for 512+ gigabytes ill buy one.
    Reply
  • curnel_D
    I've used them a few times, but only installations for buisness equiptment. They're quick, but the fastest ones arent worth it unless you've got shareholders backing your financials up.
    Reply