Would an SSD be useful ?

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Oreo

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I have realised i have enough dollar to get me a OCZ Vertex 2E 60gb SSD. But just wanted to check here whether it's actually worth getting. The problem i have at the moment is that my desktop performance, particularly on a fresh reboot is crap. (i have to wait over a minute for a smooth experience once logged in). There is nothing to blame except me and my perhaps excessive amount of applications i have starting up at launch. But i don't want to change this, as i use them all straight away (Email, Steam, FireFox, ESET Smart Security, Air Video Server, Squeezebox Server, Daemon Tools, Logitech Key Profiler etc).

I don't particularly want to reinstall Windows 7 right now either, so my plan was to get this SSD and bung all them apps on there and maybe 1 or 2 of my most played games and hope that it alleviates the problem.

What ya'll think ? I also read on bit-tech they recommend a PCI-E SATA3 card, why so ?

edit:

I am aware i could improve the situation somewhat by upgrading to i7, i get the feeling my Q9550 is past it's prime and getting old. But the SSD is a cheap(er) option.
Oh and i know this is really not great, but can i just leave the SSD lieing around on the bottom of my case :p ? I've ran out of HDD slots and lost my extra hard drive bay that i could of installed.
 
My computer boots up very fast with my sata3 128ssd.

Loading games take about 1-3secs.

Virus scan takes about 15 secs.



I think it is a very good investment.


I have realised i have enough dollar to get me a OCZ Vertex 2E 60gb SSD. But just wanted to check here whether it's actually worth getting. The problem i have at the moment is that my desktop performance, particularly on a fresh reboot is crap. (i have to wait over a minute for a smooth experience once logged in). There is nothing to blame except me and my perhaps excessive amount of applications i have starting up at launch. But i don't want to change this, as i use them all straight away (Email, Steam, FireFox, ESET Smart Security, Air Video Server, Squeezebox Server, Daemon Tools, Logitech Key Profiler etc).

I don't particularly want to reinstall Windows 7 right now either, so my plan was to get this SSD and bung all them apps on there and maybe 1 or 2 of my most played games and hope that it alleviates the problem.

What ya'll think ? I also read on bit-tech they recommend a PCI-E SATA3 card, why so ?

edit:

I am aware i could improve the situation somewhat by upgrading to i7, i get the feeling my Q9550 is past it's prime and getting old. But the SSD is a cheap(er) option.
Oh and i know this is really not great, but can i just leave the SSD lieing around on the bottom of my case :p ? I've ran out of HDD slots and lost my extra hard drive bay that i could of installed.
 
Cool. Certainly thinking about going for it.

Would like some more opinions from as many people as possible though ! I would definitely like to know how much extra benefit i would get out of getting a SATA3 PCI-E card.
 
Okay thread has a new direction. I ordered one anyway :p

The new direction is, what do/should i do in order to get the best out this thing ?
 
My computer boots up very fast with my sata3 128ssd.

Loading games take about 1-3secs.

Virus scan takes about 15 secs.



I think it is a very good investment.

Fif... fifteen... fifteen second... virus scan...

*twitch*
That... is... ridiculously... fast...

Well, with what he said, it sounds like it's a good investment.
Let me ask you something, have you defragged your hard drive recently? If you don't already have the SSD installed, try defragging the HDD you have and then see how well your computer runs.
 
So true... @ Eric1.

My 128gb only has 120gb, and I am @ 70.1gb free space.

so a 60gb would have 55gb?

All I have is Fallout 3, startcraft II, (I had crysis on it, but I beat it/did not enjoy the online play)

@ yerfdog, that is the Norton "quick scan", full scan take about a min. (my comp does not have much on it, as it is only a few days old.) added, I just timed it, it take 5 secs on "quick scan"....

@OP, I would get a huge HDD, and use it for music/pics/all that stuff....


Thanks Sean, you know how to build one mean comp!
 
I have my OS installed on a 80gb intel SSD and all of my applications and data on a 500gb 7200 rpm hard drive, it takes almost as long for the computer to post as it does for it to load everything
 
The SSD should go a long ways towards resolving your performance problems but that's assuming you install Windows on it. There is a reason nearly all SSD owners use them for OS drives. Besides Sandforce drives like the vertex 2 are fast enough that reinstalling shouldn't take much time at all.

The first thing I would do is make sure the drive is running the latest firmware from OCZ. That way if the firmware does need to be updated you don't have to worry about any data on the drive.

These days you really don't have to do all that much to get the best performance out of a SSD. Just be sure to install Windows 7 with ACHI enabled in BIOS and you should be good to go. It's also best to let Windows 7 set up the partition on the drive during installation because most third party programs won't align it correctly. You may also want to check that Windows 7 automatically disabled defrag on the SSD.

Edit: Most third party SATA 3 controllers are crap and barely beat ICH10. I have no idea why anyone would recommend getting one.
 
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