is an SSD worth it or is it better to use an cheaper HDD

[zebo]

just in general use and do you need it for booting windows (probably not but better safe then sorry)

[laxer]

Do you need it? - No

 

Is it worth every penny? - Yes

 

I would pick up a cheap 120/250 SSD you won't regret it.

 

Edit: Assuming you're using it for speed. If your using it for backups or a big data house traditional HDDs are still recommended.

[dizmo]

fwiw I'll never again have an HDD based system.

HDD for mass storage only.

[Peter Vaughan Truslow]

just in general use and do you need it for booting windows (probably not but better safe then sorry)

you don't NEED it, but I would say that I need it.

it makes life easier. it reduces the amount of time you spend waiting for your computer to get it's crap together, and on a laptop it can dramatically increase battery life.

on the battery life note, the difference is significant with most drives and a bit less significant with sandforce drives, which have on the fly compression to achieve their rated write and read speeds, but it consumes power nearly as much as a mechanical hard drive

my 840 evo improved my notebook from 6 hours to 9 hours battery life.

[zebo]

you don't NEED it, but I would say that I need it.

it makes life easier. it reduces the amount of time you spend waiting for your computer to get it's crap together, and on a laptop it can dramatically increase battery life.

on the battery life note, the difference is significant with most drives and a bit less significant with sandforce drives, which have on the fly compression to achieve their rated write and read speeds, but it consumes power nearly as much as a mechanical hard drive

my 840 evo improved my notebook from 6 hours to 9 hours battery life.

can it increase any performance in applications like video editing

[DeViLzzz]

I manage to game happily and do other stuff with my pc and I have never had an SSD.  Amazing eh?  As for the OP needing it just to have as a boot drive uh no that really isn't a great reason to get one.

[Lays]

can it increase any performance in applications like video editing

 

 

If you were using very large, high bitrate files it could help perhaps if you were constantly dragging and dropping video files from SSD to SSD, it could help yes.

But if you were going from HDD to SSD or from SSD to HDD, the HDD would slow down the performance of the transfering of files if they were very large.

 

But it won't make things render quicker AFAIK.

[SkilledRebuilds]

can it increase any performance in applications like video editing

Instant..and i mean INSTANT access opening applications.

Windows in general is MUCH better for it's operations on an SSD.

I'll never go back to Windows on a normal HDD again.

[Captain_WD]

just in general use and do you need it for booting windows (probably not but better safe then sorry)

 

Hey zebo,

 

The guys basically gave you all the input. SSDs generally make the system much more responsive, decrease all loading times and increase rapidly all transfer speeds. They run much cooler, practically make no sound and take up less space. It's worth getting one if you can afford it. 

The downsides of SSDs are that they are still pretty expensive per GB and that if it happens to fail, there is basically no way to retrieve data from them (even data recovery companies have little chance of doing that).

 

Captain_WD.