My CPU & SSD theory

[Wookiee]

It's funny you should mention it. I replaced the hard drive on my netbook, which is what I'm on at the moment, with a solid-state, and I did actually notice a good difference in the speed.

I was talking about low-end SSD vs high-end SSD. Especially in a netbook, it's unlikely you'll notice the difference between a $50 budget SSD and the fastest SSD you can get from Samsung or Intel. But an SSD will make all the difference when you're talking about 2.5" HDDs.

On the other hand, when I did the same thing to my desktop with the same brand of SSD, I didn't get a noticeable difference, except at the moment when the disk is starting to get up to speed, which is only maybe two seconds of difference.

Interesting. What sort of HDD did you have in there already?

 

[elytron]

Note: This post has been deleted - elytron

 

[Waterwerx]

With the way things are going with programs in general, as a primary drive I wouldn't get anything less than a Samsung EVO 1 Tb M.2 drive and use a 2 Tb 7200 rpm mechanical drive for backups.

Another option for those who still prefer mechanical drives, you can set up 2 of them in a RAID 0 configuration and have the extra speed or 4 of them in a RAID 0+1 for both speed & redundancy in case one of the drives fail. Nevertheless, you're still better off just going with a single SSD if its just the improved read/write speed you're looking for because with the former solution, you'll need a RAID card(a decent reliable one will set you back a few hundred dollars). Plus its a hassle if & when you have to rebuild/troubleshoot the RAID when something goes wrong. A backup uninterruptible power supply is practically a must-have for systems that are running RAID arrays. Also, I wouldn't recommend using non-enterprise HDDs in RAID arrays.

 

[Vyrzaharak]

I use an SSD strictly for my operating system, and everything else I put on my hard drives. SSDs are good for everything but storage itself.

Question - do you have to defragment SSDs from time to time?

Defrag causes harm to a Solid-State Drive, as others stated there is the issue of heat, but then there is the fact that defrag will reduce the read/write count on an SSD (though that may be insignificant these days, it's still a worthwhile check).