why do people use ssd's

[MRSMIFFY]

Guys and girls im curious as to what people put on there ssd's and for what reason, because in my head games are the only thing i can think of people would put on their ssd's , (other than OS which i understand) my point is what's the point does it really matter if it takes 30 seconds longer to load ?

 

Price per GB is still huge compared to traditional hdd's , now im not a cheap skate at all i will happy throw money at my pc all day long but ssd's to me do seem kinda silly, personally i dont have one i did but gave it to my sister to put in her playstation , im planning a fresh build soon and it just got me thinking' for the ''average pc enthusiast'' which if you build your own and like doing it you are really, ssd's are defiantly not a necessity at all so do people just buy them because everyone has one kind of like fashion.                                                                                        ^^^ (very general term)

Unless you do other things with you pc ?

 

I was thinking about getting a 60gb or smaller ssd for a boot drive and web browser maybe but even then there's still plenty of space left , but then again even now without one my pc boots up pretty quick and im debating if i want one at all , for the average consumer though i see people with 120gb upwards ssd's and cant understand why?

 

This isn't a stab at anyone who bought a big ssd of'course im just curious as to what people who do have big ssd's use them for?

 

[MeltingPoint]

One word: FAST. And we like fast

 

SSDs really only benefit load times, nothing more. More and more gamers and professionals switch to SSDs because it blasts hard drives when loading heavy games and applications. Hard drives crawl when it comes to random read/write speeds where as SSDs can do it waaaay faster.

[Godlygamer23]

I store programs and Windows on my SSD. It's not just about boot times. It's about general productivity. For example, with my SSD(Intel 520 240GB) I can open programs and run Windows Backup in the background and still have great performance. My system still feels very snappy. With my old hard drive, my rig came to a huge crawl and it was horrible to open applications while running backups.

[Fate]

Because when I want to use on my computer, I want to use on my computer.

I don't want to wait 5 minutes after I push that on button before I can even do anything. With an SSD, I push that power button and within 20 seconds I can be watching a Youtube video/browsing the forums. 

Also, everything just loads in general so much quicker. It took about 35 seconds for Photoshop to load on my hard drive, now it takes ~3 seconds. 

When I pull up Lightroom, I don't want to wait 2-3 minutes for my catalog to load off of my hard drive. I want it to load in a few seconds. 

They're much more reliable too. 

 

For me, a computer is unusable as a daily driver without a solid state drive.

[kuzimins]

DayZ and Arma 3 was unplayable on hdd

[SkilledRebuilds]

No matter if you have an SSD or a HDD. Windows WILL bog down over time with installs/uninstalls for programs leaving trace files, as do installed programs create entries all over, bits n bobs everywhere making some/most mechanical drives used for OS enrage a lot of power users after some time, because HDD response to actions you do, take longer to initiate/complete <- this is why an SSD matters to me.

 

Regardless of some systems being absolute beasts,

When WIndows DOES bog down over time.......not having an SSD and taking minutes to Boot, plus also taking their sweet time loading programs as fast as you'd like.

SSD response times and random reads and writes.. night and day.

 

Extended dealings of that 'loading' mouse cursor, the spinning circle... No thanks, I like it relatively instant, and an SSD does that.

 

Mechanical HDD's have been a huge bottleneck for years, your only as fast as your slowest part, when high frequency (2.8Ghz+) Dualcores Quadcores and Fast Memory became standardized, HDD's were a huge bottleneck to getting the MOST out of your system, having to use 3xMech's in Raid 0 gave some people hope, but nowhere near as much joy as their first SSD.

 

Tidbits - I have two 256GB Samsung 840Pro's, my first SSD was the OCZ Agility3 (still used today in my mums PC) I have also tried the 840's in Raid0 (Joining the space was the reasons, not the speed)

Games had little to no benefit, neither did Windows (actually longer to boot by loading raid functions at bios startup) and programs don't load much if at all faster.

[ManWithBeard1990]

Well, the bigger ones tend to be a little faster and you have the peace of mind of 'having enough', you see. An SSD will not help you get better framerate in games and neither will it help you convert a video to another format more quickly. Thing is though, not everyone does these things on a regular basis and for general productivity, many tasks require reading and writing to disk. Sometimes even simple things like pressing okay buttons on dialog boxes triggers something to be loaded before what you want to hapen, happens. An SSD makes all this happen more immediately, so your pc feels faster, even if the CPU and GPU actually aren't. Coming from hybrid drives myself I only felt a modest performance improvement, but if you come from regular harddrives it's the single most effective upgrade you can do to make a pc feel 'like new'.

 

Anyway, most people who have SSD's on this forum don't go for the really big ones either, but 60GB is a little small, I think. I went with 128GB as I believe that's the sweet spot.

[farhanorakzai]

they are sent by GabeN himself to give us fast boot times and super quick loading screens. seriously though, they're awesome.

[bomerr]

I thought that as well when I built my PC but within a week I purchased an SSD.

 

Big reason is certain games are unplayable or just have too much loading time without an SSD.

Secondary reason is having your OS, apps, and cache on a SSD drastically improves the responsiveness of the OS. 

 

 

With 120GB you have only enough room for the OS, 1 AAA title (50GB) and another old title or smaller game. 

So IMO 240-256GB is really the sweet spot for a SSD right now.

[juretrn]

You have to try to believe. Copying a large set of small files is really fast, Access times are insane. The responsiveness of the entire system goes up tremendously with an SSD. Using programs like Photoshop becomes much less painful with it. What you're asking is like asking: "Why would I want an Audi/BMW/Mercedes, a KIA/Hyundai/whatever can drive me around just as well." You have to try to really understand. 

[LarsReviews]

Because you can place them everywhere and they make everything faster with no noise.

[DuckDodgers]

One thing that SSD enables is a true smooth multitasking with as much applications, as the RAM size can take in. This and the light speed 4KB read/write access are the real benefits from the technology, along side the silent operation and the significantly reduced power consumption (for mobile PCs).

[-TesseracT-]

They're faster, which might matter for some online games.

[Dimwitted]

Only people that don't have an ssd pooh, pooh the fact of having an ssd. What does that tell you? It's far more than "load times" but that certainly doesn't hurt either. Also, bigger is better. 240/256gb is where you need to be. The difference in pricing is negligible and actually finding a recent build 60gb is almost impossible. Why buy old stock?

[hojnikb]

Once you go [sSD], you don't go back. You just have to try it. Looking at the specs wont tell you much, until you actually try to use it.

 

So yeah, get one. Since 256GB seems to be the sweetspot nowdays in terms of speed/price per GB/overall cost, this is the way to go.

[chilicheeseburger]

It's a lot faster. I have my OS on it and some applications I regularly use. It sure does make a difference when loading up Photoshop for example. I don't have a lot if games on it tough, because of the size of them.

I'd definitely go with an SSD when building a new system.

[Sousuke]

OSX + SSD = OMGWTFSOFAST.

 

Seriously I was thinking of replacing my Mac Pro about a year ago as it was running slow with the updated OS's then I threw in a Samsung 840 Evo 256GB and I don't think I need a new mac for a while now, well until Apple drops OSX support for it

[mrmonmon2]

try to run your os, uplay, steam, origin, Skype, aa few tabs of your chosen browser and play battlefield 3 without it freezing randomly, on a hhd that's only 60% full

[Fragsa1]

My current system has NO mechanical drives. All large files are stored on my server (old laptop with 15tb array). I hate dealing with mechanical drives in this day and age.

 

In my opinion there is no better way to speed up a PC. Even some games which load files dynamically will benefit. BF4 load times are already enormous! I'd hate to seem them on an mechanical drive.

 

My work laptop (programmer) was almost unusable before I put an SSD in it (maybe I'm just spoilt now). Even people who are basic users (Browsers, word, excel, etc) would see much faster speeds with an SDD over anther comparable upgrade like a ~2 year CPU upgrade (say i5 2500 vs i5 4960).

[GeTecknics]

i will be honest i just like the speed

 

skyrim/ all game instaload screens arent bad either

[Pomfinator]

SSD's are like the different between going to the Moon and back, and going to Pluto and back.  Both are slow, but one is way, way, way faster than the other.  Booting, and putting on your most used programs and games really make a difference.  Chrome insta-loads for me, and I put Dota on it b/c I can get into games really fast without doing a pre-load.

[gundershot]

Boot times are pretty useful for me (I no longer avoid reboots like the plague  :lol:)

 

Aside from that, everything feels FAR more responsive, it's a world of difference!

[skipperkins]

I recently lost a 2T Seagate Barricuda (only 2-year old) with a 30gb ssd cache. i traded the cache for an old 5400rpm laptop hd. 

 

It happened at the worst time when I was out of work. I finally stabilized and bought an Intel 120gb ssd (530) and a 2T hdd (hitachi ultrastar). 

 

I only have one game on the SSD (Starcraft II), but there is room for another if it is good. My SSD only have the windows, chrome, MS Office, SQL Server, R, and some random crap. It totals 72gb, so I am good.

 

I would say ssd for important stuff (favorite game, work stuff), and put everything else on a bulk 7200 rpm drive. That said, having lost two Seagate's I bought a hitachi because they are supposedly reliable, but no one said how LOUD hitachi drives are. 

 

As for an Intel SSDs, there is nothing better. They even feel better. I mean they literally have better feeling plastic. I am hooked.

[Godlygamer23]

I recently lost a 2T Seagate Barricuda (only 2-year old) with a 30gb ssd cache. i traded the cache for an old 5400rpm laptop hd.

It happened at the worst time when I was out of work. I finally stabilized and bought an Intel 120gb ssd (530) and a 2T hdd (hitachi ultrastar).

I only have one game on the SSD (Starcraft II), but there is room for another if it is good. My SSD only have the windows, chrome, MS Office, SQL Server, R, and some random crap. It totals 72gb, so I am good.

I would say ssd for important stuff (favorite game, work stuff), and put everything else on a bulk 7200 rpm drive. That said, having lost two Seagate's I bought a hitachi because they are supposedly reliable, but no one said how LOUD hitachi drives are.

As for an Intel SSDs, there is nothing better. They even feel better. I mean they literally have better feeling plastic. I am hooked.

As far as I know, Intel SSDs use metal, not plastic for the casing.

[Rekx]

Boot times are pretty useful for me (I no longer avoid reboots like the plague :lol:)

Aside from that, everything feels FAR more responsive, it's a world of difference!

I still try to avoid restarts. I'm official a ssd snob damn you 15sec!