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Anyone SSD their PC/Mac

Discussion in 'Technology' started by richard_wallace, Feb 25, 2011.

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  1. richard_wallace

    richard_wallace Formula 3

    Feb 6, 2004
    1,957
    Cincinnati, Ohio
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    Richard Wallace
    #1 richard_wallace, Feb 25, 2011
    Just upgrade to a 256 Crucial C300 SSD in one of my laptops (2010 Macbook Pro 13"). It also has 8GB ram that I stuck in it a while ago, which also helps performance.

    Took about 10 minutes to swap out the 320gb 5400rmp drive with the SSD 256gb drive and 30 minutes to clone it back with my Carbon Copy backup.

    I do have to say - there is no upgrade that will increase performance better than this SSD upgrade, it is a huge WOW factor. I hate to wait on things like iTunes to load, photo rendering, etc. This virtually elimantes any wait time at all. It is as awesome as I have heard, and maybe better than I actually expected.

    Here are some examples:

    Boot times went from 1 minute 10 seconds to 15 seconds, and I load a bunch of stuff and scripts at startup.

    Loading Iphoto library 12GB went from 10 seconds to instant.

    Moving from 1 high res photo in the viewer to the next from 2 seconds to instant.

    Opening up a large Powerpoint Presentation in Office 2008 (tested on a ~10mb file loaded with images, charts, pics, etc) went from 10 seconds to 1 second.

    Launching Adobe Creative Studio 7 seconds to 1 second.

    Loading GIMP with X11 from 15 seconds to 3 seconds

    Crossover MS Exchange 20 seconds on initial launch from reboot to 3 seconds.

    Loading Aperature (including the same photos in the iphoto library) 18 seconds to 3 second.

    Loading iTunes (20gb of music, videos, etc) from 15 seconds to 2 seconds.

    Backup to a 5400rpm drive (even though the target drive is still the standard HDD) it went from 1hour 10 minutes for a full system backup to 33 minutes (which is around 80GB). Due to it cutting the read time from the SSD.
     
  2. CRG125

    CRG125 F1 Rookie

    Feb 7, 2005
    2,638
    Los Angeles, Ca
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    Vivek
    #2 CRG125, Feb 25, 2011
    Dont have one, but we are building them for an OEM. 'There is no comparison to an SSD. After using an SSD you will never want to use another hard drive. The only problem right now is cost. Hard drives are below a dollar a gigabyte, flash would have to around that much before it starts to make sense for the consumer market. Otherwise, if you are willing to spend the money and can afford it than its worth changing.
     
  3. Jedi

    Jedi Moderator
    Moderator Lifetime Rossa Owner

    Mar 18, 2008
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    Seattle Area
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    Dave
    #3 Jedi, Feb 25, 2011
    Next build I will. But not until.

    I do know that F-Chatter Korr has been a SSD guy for quite some time.

    Jedi
     
  4. BlackonBlack

    BlackonBlack Formula Junior

    May 30, 2010
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    Northeast
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    Ed
    #4 BlackonBlack, Feb 25, 2011
    Wow, almost like when radios switched from tubes to solid state, lol.
    Gotta try it. Thanks for the tip.

    Ed
     
  5. Etcetera

    Etcetera Two Time F1 World Champ
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    Dec 7, 2003
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    C6H14O5
    #5 Etcetera, Feb 26, 2011
    They are the cat's pajamas.

    Intel parts are the most reliable, but slower than others, but this isn't a huge deal; they are plenty fast. Intel units are the best for reliability and compatibility.

    Crucial parts are pretty reliable also, and are very fast.

    I can't really recommend any other drives because I have a bias towards stuff that's reliable and just works.

    A few caveats:

    -Price, $2/Gb. Regular hard drives are $0.10/Gb.
    -Performance of smaller capacity SSD's may be less and sometimes much less than their larger counter parts. Check the specs before you buy.

    Also, pretty much every manufacturer are releasing their next gen drives in March. In most cases they'll be much faster than the previous units, but you'll need a PC with 6Gb/s SATA ports to take full advantage of the speed.
     
  6. REMIX

    REMIX Two Time F1 World Champ

    May 25, 2005
    21,133
    Jacksonville & Sarasota
    #6 REMIX, Feb 26, 2011
    I will be doing an i7 PC build in a month or so and will be using a Crucial SSD as my boot drive. 335 mb/sec throughput is pretty spiffy IMO.

    RMX
     
  7. Etcetera

    Etcetera Two Time F1 World Champ
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    Dec 7, 2003
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    C6H14O5
    #7 Etcetera, Feb 26, 2011
    Sandy Bridge chipset supports 6Gb/s, pair that with Crucial's upcoming C400 and it'll be a complete monster.
     

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