Just bought an SSD

[kazaran]

ARR engine is different, even if playing of a slower laptop drive, the caching, ect is utilized better. SO you won't see the stutter mess of 2.0

Unless you are made of money a sufficient SSD for gaming isn't going to be easy. It's actually better all around, to have a ssd act as the direct load cache to windows. It will speed all around performance up for common used applications. Havign sufficient main memory is also a main step.

[Alhanelem]

ARR engine is different, even if playing of a slower laptop drive, the caching, ect is utilized better. SO you won't see the stutter mess of 2.0

Unless you are made of money a sufficient SSD for gaming isn't going to be easy. It's actually better all around, to have a ssd act as the direct load cache to windows. It will speed all around performance up for common used applications. Havign sufficient main memory is also a main step.

A quality SSD doesn't have to cost all that much as long as you don't demand a large capacity. 64GB is enough for your OS + related data + core software and maybe a game or two. Move your documents/pictures/etc folders to your old hard drive.

I recently got a 128GB Samsung 840 Pro series, only $120 and it came with a free copy of Asassin's Creed 3 . Drive has great reviews and seems to have a solid lifespan. Did I mention it's fast? Windows boots up in seconds and my PC is useable instantly, unlike before where I had to sit and wait for a minute or two after logging in before I could actually use my PC (yes, even defragged/optimized)

Go with Intel (most expensive) or Samsung (not as expensive but still very good quality). Avoid OCZ like the plague. Other brands, check customer reviews before buying to gauge reliability.

A few small tips: Your SSD may come with software that can reconfigure key Windows settings for you, but if not-

Disable your disk defragmenting utility if you have one that does it automatically or on a schedule. SSDs don't really need to be defragged as they can randomly read any block of data at the same speed, and defragmenting causes a LOT of reading and writing and can thus shorten disk lifespan a little.

Set your swap file (aka virtual memory) to a fixed size so that it isn't constantly being resized by Windows, again increasing strain on the drive.

Disable the indexing service (which speeds up file searches). With the speed of an SSD it's not really necessary and again increases strain on the drive.

[Dhalmel]

A quality SSD doesn't have to cost all that much as long as you don't demand a large capacity. 64GB is enough for your OS + related data + core software and maybe a game or two. Move your documents/pictures/etc folders to your old hard drive.

I recently got a 128GB Samsung 840 Pro series, only $120 and it came with a free copy of Asassin's Creed 3 . Drive has great reviews and seems to have a solid lifespan. Did I mention it's fast? Windows boots up in seconds and my PC is useable instantly, unlike before where I had to sit and wait for a minute or two after logging in before I could actually use my PC (yes, even defragged/optimized)

Go with Intel (most expensive) or Samsung (not as expensive but still very good quality). Avoid OCZ like the plague. Other brands, check customer reviews before buying to gauge reliability.

It's not really the brand that matters but the controller that the brand name used. If intel had the displeasure of releasing a SSD using the SandForce SF-2200 controller, would you buy it? H E L L NO

Most brand besides use nearly identical make ups of SSDs off of a reference design.

[Soukyuu]

They seem to be doing alot better with their Octane and Vertex 4 model drives, but I would be VERY weary of their budget SSDs.

I had a budget SSD from them... the Onyx. Sent it back after a day because it was SLOWER than my HDD.

I'm not really complaining about the shorter life span, I was merely pointing it out as a con. I personally don't like the the SSD lifespan being based on writes, but Looking at HDDs, they both have a similar life cycle. I think for HDD after so many years, each following year has Double the chance of the drive failing. Overall if you're not constantly writing data to a SSD, it should last just as long as a HDD. Remember all technology has an expiry, even if it's not mentioned.

I actually like SSDs for having a relatively set expiration date. I'd rather know I'm getting closer to the edge and will have to replace it soon than having to fear that it can fail at any time (I'm looking at you, HDDs).

And from what I remember, you'd have to constantly write to the SSD for 5 years to wear it out. Nobody writes that much to an SSD. And with recent controllers, the amount of writes per sector is minimized, so even if you use your SSD for everything, it will last much longer than those 5 years. And looking at space requirements rising all the time, you will have to replace it sooner or later anyway.

A few small tips: Your SSD may come with software that can reconfigure key Windows settings for you, but if not-

Win7 and newer will automatically detect an SSD on install and disable defrag and prefetch. Cloning a HDD partition to SSD is not advisable, as special alignment of sectors are needed when partitioning to different types of drives.

Set your swap file (aka virtual memory) to a fixed size so that it isn't constantly being resized by Windows, again increasing strain on the drive.

That doesn't change anything actually. The only direction windows will resize the pagefile is up (not down), setting it to a fixed size will just waste space. With 4+GB of RAM, you will only need the pagefile for some weird programs who need the pagefile to work anyway.

Disable the indexing service (which speeds up file searches). With the speed of an SSD it's not really necessary and again increases strain on the drive.

Indexing doesn't increase the strain on the drive as it is read only (not counting the database creation). And if you have a HDD in addition to the SSD, you will need the indexing service. If you're really paranoid about drive wear, then you can move the indexing database to your HDD in Indexing options -> advanced.

Another thing you can do is move the tmp folders in advanced system properties -> advanced -> einvironment variables.

[Dhalmel]

shortened

someone knowing what they're talking about

[Molly_Millions]

...Avoid OCZ like the plague...

Why? They have decent reviews on Newegg.com. I have an OCZ SSD and it's been working great.