Why is an SSD considered somehow a must in upcoming builds?

[steffen_anywhere]

So why does my computer boot off a hdd in less than that on Windows 8.1? I literally just thought 8 had faster boot times and that's why my computer boots so fast.

 

Yes they've addressed the boot time issue with Rapid Boot... Kinda neat for people running hdds. OS X Mavericks literally takes three minutes to boot on a 5400RPM drive. On my retina MacBook Pro (OK, that SSD is overkill fast but whatever), it takes around 5-10 seconds. But as people have mentioned, an SSD is so much more. Snappiness (if this is even a word) on a whole new level. Apps open instantly, no more lag because something is not cached in RAM.

 

Now, for people working with any kinds of large files, an SSD will make everything so much better. It will literally save you hours of copying time. This is obviously very specific in terms of the use case, but very much true.

 

It depends on you, ultimately, do you want/need these things? In Desktops, hard drives are fine still, I think, as 3.5" drives are fast enough and all, but laptop drives as boot disks are just a pain in the arse for me now. I kind of am an SSD snob now, I know, but I would still recommend an SSD as an OS/Application/Cache drive as it is just such a game changer. I am not saying that a WD Black is not good enough any more. Just depends on what you want.

[Cheese4395]

First off, I'm adopted so GG.

 

Second, nothing offensive was even said towards /you/, if anything I was on /your/ side in regards to your comment of Win 8.1 booting fast regardless and that people are terribly misguided if they want an SSD for that reason alone of boot times.

 

Third, no one said anything about who can and can not afford them. In fact, SSDs are dirt cheap now compared to what I had to drop for mine a few years ago.

Apologies then. I made a misunderstanding.

[thekeemo]

They only cost a hand now!

You just have a good economy its going to cost me an arm a leg and a kidney

[Mooshi]

Apologies then. I made a misunderstanding.

 

Same here, no hard feelings.

 

But yeah, Win 8.1 has faster boot times by default so an SSD for faster boot isn't a wise investment. For productivity, that's another story. 120GB drives are sub 100 dollars these days.

[Gravt]

It speeds up load times and boot times but other than that they do nothing. I don't think you should add an SSD as long as you can get a tangible amount of performance for the price of an SSD.

 

Pretty much the only person on this thread that doesn't have a wet dream over SSDs has the tone set right.

 

An SSD is a pretty cool investment (Hell, I put a 1TB one into a friend's build just for the hell of it since he had the budget for it). But in all fairness, it really depends on how you use your SSD. But I feel they aren't worth all of this "ZOMG SO NECESSARY" hype.

 

Sure, booting to an OS will be faster as the load times for all the files it needs to fetch are reduced. But if you NEVER shut your computer down unless it's just to do updates, then this point is absolutely moot. Or perhaps you have some expansion card that requires a minute to load (Like my RAID card). Since the computer has to load this card before it even goes to an OS, an SSD really doesn't do anything at all for power-switch to OS times.

 

What about programs? Unless Chrome is set to open with 25,000 tabs, then the speed difference in browsers will be nearly unnoticeable. Photoshop and other hefty programs like that will load significantly faster, but even on my HDD it still only takes about 10 seconds for Photoshop to load.

 

Games that make you sit at a load screen like Battlefield while other people are going around capturing everything? Maybe that might be a solid point. But again, running off a HDD (On SATA 3Gbps, no less) I'm still one of the first ones to load into the map.

 

Is the extra hundred or so dollars worth the slight decrease in times to open up your OS, browsers and other programs? If you have a lot to spend? Go for it. If you're running a pretty low end GPU (Assuming you're a gamer) or shit-tacular CPU, then skip the SSD and actually put your money into things that will greatly affect in game performance rather than loading screen performance.

 

tl;dr

Gaming performance > Loading screen performance

Unless you're a content creator.

[Mooshi]

You just have a good economy its going to cost me an arm a leg and a kidney

 

I'm American, are you sure 'good economy' applies?

[Cheese4395]

Pretty much the only person on this thread that doesn't have a wet dream over SSDs has the tone set right.

 

An SSD is a pretty cool investment (Hell, I put a 1TB one into a friend's build just for the hell of it since he had the budget for it). But in all fairness, it really depends on how you use your SSD. But I feel they aren't worth all of this "ZOMG SO NECESSARY" hype.

 

Sure, booting to an OS will be faster as the load times for all the files it needs to fetch are reduced. But if you NEVER shut your computer down unless it's just to do updates, then this point is absolutely moot. Or perhaps you have some expansion card that requires a minute to load (Like my RAID card). Since the computer has to load this card before it even goes to an OS, an SSD really doesn't do anything at all for power-switch to OS times.

 

What about programs? Unless Chrome is set to open with 25,000 tabs, then the speed difference in browsers will be nearly unnoticeable. Photoshop and other hefty programs like that will load significantly faster, but even on my HDD it still only takes about 10 seconds for Photoshop to load.

 

Games that make you sit at a load screen like Battlefield while other people are going around capturing everything? Maybe that might be a solid point. But again, running off a HDD (On SATA 3Gbps, no less) I'm still one of the first ones to load into the map.

 

Is the extra hundred or so dollars worth the slight decrease in times to open up your OS, browsers and other programs? If you have a lot to spend? Go for it. If you're running a pretty low end GPU (Assuming you're a gamer) or shit-tastcular CPU, then skip the SSD and actually put your money into things that will greatly affect in game performance rather than loading screen performance.

 

tl;dr

Gaming performance > Loading screen performance

Unless you're a content creator.

This a thousand times over. Reason why I still don't have an ssd. Haven't found a significant use for one to drop the money for it even though they are significantly cheaper

[Cheese4395]

I'm American, are you sure 'good economy' applies?

Us Americans are really good with the economy. We just borrow, borrow, and borrow. Oh and when we do China just buys it all up so we owe them even more. Hahahahaha

[Mooshi]

Us Americans are really good with the economy. We just borrow, borrow, and borrow. Oh and when we do China just buys it all up so we owe them even more. Hahahahaha

 

But without us giving borrowed money back to China for their products, they'd lose their biggest customer and will collapse their own economy on top of owning our debt...we'll never pay them back, ever!

[Cheese4395]

But without us giving borrowed money back to China for their products, they'd lose their biggest customer and will collapse their own economy on top of owning our debt...we'll never pay them back, ever!

Oh hell no. I find it funny when people think we are working on that.

[GoodBytes]

When I upgraded my computer form an 2005 AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ with 4GB of RAM, GeForce GTX 260 250GB HDD W.D 7200RPM SATA running at the time Windows 7 64-bit, to my Core i7 930 6GB of RAM, GeForce GTX 260 running Windows 7 64-bit, with a 1TB HDD, 7200RPM, SATA-2.

 

I saw 0 performance increase. Sure, I had the processing power, but Windows took just as long to start, my games took the same forever time to starts and load, programs still took for ever to load.

I felt like I wasted my money.

 

I added a 256GB SSD, and NOW and only NOW, I went and said! My system is much faster than before. For testing purposes, I put my SSD on my old computer, and it did provide performance boost, and no where near my new computer. The HDD was clearly the bottleneck of my "new" (at the time) computer, and the SSD on my old computer, you can see the CPU being the potential bottleneck.

[Dimwitted]

The only people not impressed with an ssd are the ones that don't have one.

[Gravt]

The only people not impressed with an ssd are the ones that don't have one.

 

Wrong.

I have one and I really could do without it.

[GoodBytes]

Wrong.

I have one and I really could do without it.

Depends on what you get. It's sad to say but they are SSDs that are marginally faster than traditional HDD's. Many OEMs loves using them in their system, as they are cheap, and they can say "Has an SSD!"

[eLucid]

Because it's an extremely cost effective performance upgrade. SSD's are fucking dirt cheap nowadays.

[eLucid]

Wrong.

I have one and I really could do without it.

Try playing a game like WoW or bf4 without one, I dare you....

[Gravt]

Depends on what you get. It's sad to say but they are SSDs that are marginally faster than traditional HDD's. Many OEMs loves using them in their system, as they are cheap, and they can say "Has an SSD!"

 

I understand what you're saying, but the arrogance from such a comment (Not from you, the guy I was responding to), "YOU DON'T KNOW CUZ U CAN'T AFFURD 1" is just annoying as hell. Which is why I felt like postin' again.

 

And to address my argument: I have a 1TB EVO drive in my buddy's computer, and browsing the internets, opening programs, playing games, and doing all the casual stuff that I usually do feels no different running from my SATA II HDD or my SATA II SSD in comparison with his SATA III SSD to me. It really doesn't. The only time I feel it is in boots on other people's PCs. My expansion cards prevent fast boot times on my own PC anyway.

 

In content creation software that has to read larger project files and then reference things in the software? Sure, loading that would be substantial, but I don't do that.

 

Therefore; I feel no difference and could sure as hell live without one.

[Gravt]

Try playing a game like WoW or bf4 without one, I dare you....

You might want to also read my previous post if you scroll back a little.

 

Plus I'm playing WoW off of a HDD right now, Illidan-Horde in Orgrimmar is a blast.

 

e; Oh, and I also played WoW off my buddy's 1TB EVO, pretty much a virgin drive. Feels exactly the same. Loads into zones? Strangely the same or actually worse. Both of us loading into a dungeon from Org, I'm actually in the dungeon first (Which does seem odd: probably internet at that point. Still shouldn't affect loads of gear models from characters in main cities, though!).

[IdeaStormer]

For the same reason you no longer use a megahertz CPU (< 1000Mhz), speed.

 

You could use a slow drive but who wants to wait? Same for a megahertz CPU, you can still use it but the wait and wait...

[Dimwitted]

Gravt, your two systems seem to be anomalies. Are they working right? A 1tb Evo should be obviously faster than anything else out there. Is it set up right? Is it Sata II?