[Pilege21]

Which would be better to get a 128GB SSD or a WD Velociraptor that's 10,000 RPM for OS and applications?

Would it be beneficial to have a secondary drive that is just for documents and other data, that is a SSD or Raptor?

I am going to be building a friend a gaming computer and another computer for myself. I was going to do the SSD and HDD set up, but wasn't sure if I could go with the Raptor instead and have a simple 7200 RPM as a secondary. Or having a 250GB Raptor with a 1TB 7200 RPM secondary. Newegg sells 1TB Raptors for $300. Would this 1TB be good enough?

This is a lot of questions, but I have seen the SSDs in progress. I haven't seen a Raptor and wasn't sure if they were as fast or faster or slower.

Thanks in advance for everyone's advice.

Looking at these drives:

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822236243 1TB WD Raptor also the 250GB, 300GB and 600GB.

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820148442 128GB SSD

[waldojim]

I have owned several 10K drives over the years. NONE have delivered the kind of performance that this SSD offers up. Not even close. Truth is, for the extra money they want for the Raptors, a 256GB SSD is a much better choice. Not as large, but quiet and fast.

[compnovo]

This is becoming a popular topic. I think the best way to respond to your questions is to say that many of the regulars on this forum have made the move to SSDs as primary drives with big platter drives for storage (I would be one of those ). I have a 128GB Plextor with 40GB free space, easy to do if you manage your space (I keep most of my Steam games on the storage drive, and copy and paste when I'm in the mood to play one), but like waldojim says, if you can afford it go big. That Crucial you're looking at is very well reviewed, a good sign.

[Pilege21]

Would having a SSD as a primary and a Raptor for storage be a good setup. I know with The Sims 3 series you can have a lot of custom content and has to be loaded. I have a friend that loves The Sims and would having a faster storage drive like the Raptor be beneficial for them. They wouldn't need a 1TB Raptor. Probably be good with the 250GB or the 300GB. Down the road if they need more storage I can't see HDs being expensive. They have a laptop that they have been using for a few years and only filled around 200GB.

I found this SSD on Newegg. http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820227753 It seems cheap for a 1TB SSD. Reviews aren't over the top. What do you think?

[smax013]

Pilege21, on 14 July 2012 - 11:11 AM, said:

I found this SSD on Newegg. http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820227753 It seems cheap for a 1TB SSD. Reviews aren't over the top. What do you think?

That is not "pure" SSD...it is combination SSD and traditional, mechanical hard drive. You will get most of the benefit of the SSD for some things (such as boot times and maybe loading most programs), but you will likely still be bottlenecked by the traditional hard drive for large file transfers

[smax013]

Pilege21, on 13 July 2012 - 09:58 PM, said:

Which would be better to get a 128GB SSD or a WD Velociraptor that's 10,000 RPM for OS and applications?

Would it be beneficial to have a secondary drive that is just for documents and other data, that is a SSD or Raptor?

I am going to be building a friend a gaming computer and another computer for myself. I was going to do the SSD and HDD set up, but wasn't sure if I could go with the Raptor instead and have a simple 7200 RPM as a secondary. Or having a 250GB Raptor with a 1TB 7200 RPM secondary. Newegg sells 1TB Raptors for $300. Would this 1TB be good enough?

This is a lot of questions, but I have seen the SSDs in progress. I haven't seen a Raptor and wasn't sure if they were as fast or faster or slower.

Thanks in advance for everyone's advice.

Looking at these drives:

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822236243 1TB WD Raptor also the 250GB, 300GB and 600GB.

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820148442 128GB SSD

If you are looking to go to the route of a separate boot drive for the OS and programs and a second drive for storage, then I would say that an SSD is likely the better choice over the Raptor in my experience. The speed benefit is definitely worth the extra cost. The biggest downside of SSDs is still the cost (obviously), so anything more than about 240 GB starts to become cost prohibitive. So, unless you really don't have a lot of files to store, you likely will have to go with the dual drive approach with an SSD.

Now, if you have a lot of storage need and still want speed for the storage as well, then it might be worth just going with a single larger Raptor.

[LincolnSpector]

See TheBest of Both Worlds: An SSD and a HDD.


Lincoln

[Pilege21]

Thanks for everyone's input!

I have been doing more research to find the best SSD. I have come across a few that I think would be great, but don't know which one to get.

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820147134 This is a Samsung SSD with 520MB/s read and 320MB/s write. Also, 80,000 and 30,000 IOPS (could someone explain a little bit on IOPS, Thanks).

vs.

http://www.newegg.co...Item=20-148-448 This Crucial SSD.500MB/s read and 175MB/s write. This is one of the best rated SSD, but has slower speeds.

I would assume read is a factor to go with over the write speed. Also, how is Force SSDs? Are they just as good or would the Crucial be the best to go with?

[waldojim]

Pilege21, on 31 July 2012 - 05:58 PM, said:

Thanks for everyone's input!

I have been doing more research to find the best SSD. I have come across a few that I think would be great, but don't know which one to get.

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820147134 This is a Samsung SSD with 520MB/s read and 320MB/s write. Also, 80,000 and 30,000 IOPS (could someone explain a little bit on IOPS, Thanks).

vs.

http://www.newegg.co...Item=20-148-448 This Crucial SSD.500MB/s read and 175MB/s write. This is one of the best rated SSD, but has slower speeds.

I would assume read is a factor to go with over the write speed. Also, how is Force SSDs? Are they just as good or would the Crucial be the best to go with?

IO OPS are the number of operations the drive can fulfill every second. You will never see this number. Sorry, but it is true. Only in heavily hammered massive databases will you actually see the IO OPs limitations.

Both drives are decent drives. If you can find it locally, the Plextor M3s is also one I would recommend. It uses the same controller as the Crucial drive, but a much nicer firmware. From everything I have seen, there are minimal incompatibilities, and terrific performance.

That said... I highly doubt you can realistically see the difference in the drives. The read speeds are pretty darned similar, and it is VERY hard to find a source feeding data at speeds greater than 120MB/sec. See who has the best price, support, and warranty. Then weigh in your personal experiences - they mean a lot.

[LiveBrianD]

Both of those SSDs are known to be nice, reliable drives. I've been thinking about getting an 830 myself. Another brand to consider is Plextor - I know waldojim got one recently and has been happy with it.

Edit: I didn't see his response when I posted. What I figure is that, for the most part, all decent SSDs are fast enough, to the point where the benchmarks don't matter in actual usage. I'm mainly concerned about reliability with them.

This post has been edited by LiveBrianD: 31 July 2012 - 07:14 PM

[Pilege21]

I did see a Plextor SSD.

Are Corsair Force SSDs reliable and good? Wouldn't mind having the Force with me.

This post has been edited by Pilege21: 01 August 2012 - 03:22 AM

[waldojim]

Pilege21, on 01 August 2012 - 03:16 AM, said:

I did see a Plextor SSD.

Are Corsair Force SSDs reliable and good? Wouldn't mind having the Force with me.

I doubt they are as bad as they seem, but the SandForce controllers don't appear to be consistently reliable for any brand.

[LiveBrianD]

Pilege21, on 01 August 2012 - 03:16 AM, said:

I did see a Plextor SSD.

Are Corsair Force SSDs reliable and good? Wouldn't mind having the Force with me.

"May the schwartz be with you." (quote from Spaceballs) I think compnovo has a sandforce based SSD, if I remember correctly, and I don't think he's had any problems with it.

This post has been edited by LiveBrianD: 01 August 2012 - 09:07 AM

[compnovo]

LiveBrianD, on 01 August 2012 - 09:06 AM, said:

Pilege21, on 01 August 2012 - 03:16 AM, said:

I did see a Plextor SSD.

Are Corsair Force SSDs reliable and good? Wouldn't mind having the Force with me.

"May the schwartz be with you." (quote from Spaceballs) I think compnovo has a sandforce based SSD, if I remember correctly, and I don't think he's had any problems with it.

I have a Kingston with the sandforce controller that hasn't caused any problems, but it's too new to rule out issues down the road. Rommel also had an SSD with a sandforce controller, and I haven't heard any complaints from him.

[LiveBrianD]

How long have you had it?

[compnovo]

LiveBrianD, on 01 August 2012 - 12:34 PM, said:

How long have you had it?

I ordered it on 6/1, so almost two months. Long enough to get the rebate.
This is it:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820239049

[LiveBrianD]

Lol...

Just out of curiosity, what's the oldest SSD you have, how long have you had it, and have you had any problems? (Though in general, I suppose trying to predict reliability that way is like buying an EV and expecting it to still be up to date 3 years later - they'll be totally different.)

[compnovo]

LiveBrianD, on 01 August 2012 - 02:26 PM, said:

Lol...

Just out of curiosity, what's the oldest SSD you have, how long have you had it, and have you had any problems? (Though in general, I suppose trying to predict reliability that way is like buying an EV and expecting it to still be up to date 3 years later - they'll be totally different.)

I bought this one:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820167035
on 3/7/11, and it is currently going strong in my trusty netbook.

[waldojim]

Intel drives are rated extremely well in regards to long term reliability.

[LiveBrianD]

Unfortunately, it seems that the price of those hasn't dropped, unlike all the others.