HD noob

[[JiF]BloodGod]

Ok, I really dont know squat about HD's I'm looking at buying a SSD. this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820211595" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; But I really dont know what the difference is and what I would use it for. Can anyone help me with this ? Thanks, BG

[[JiF]Brick]

An SSD is a HD with no moving parts
It will be a tremendous performance improvement in boot time and disk access
The one you are looking at is only 64GB. make sure you are not using more space than that on your current C: Drive.
If your are, then you need a bigger SSD, or you will have to split your drives into a C: (Boot) and D: (data, using your existing drive)

I would get a bigger SSD that you can transfer your entire C: drive to (most come with such a utility), then you can format your existing drive and use it for backups or "bulk storage"
Doing a split is a pain, because you will probably have to do a reload of your O/S and you will eventually fill up the 64GB SSD anyway

Hope that helps,
Brick

[[JiF]Uncle Stinky]

When I had Micro Center build my computer just over a year ago, I had them install an SSD as my main C drive, and second 2 TB HD as my E drive. They transferred Windows to the C drive, and I put my games, documents, photos, etc on the E drive. It's been fantasitc, with my computer taking only about 10 seconds to fully boot up.

You do need to be careful when installing programs, so you change the default installation from C to E, or whatever your second drive is. Despite my best efforts, my C drive has been slowly filling up and I need to go in soon and do some surgery to get it back down to something more manageable.

I see Micro Center has a 120 GB SSD for $89 now: http://www.microcenter.com/product/3826 ... tate_Drive" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[[JiF] General WarHawk]

This drive is a SATA 3, meaning it will transfer at speeds (assuming your mother board supports SATA 3) at 6GB's per sec. Which is twice what a SATA2 drive dishes out.

The other part is, rather than having a spinning platter of 2-3 discs inside, there are banks of memory similar to those little thumb drives within the block of the drive. The main purpose here is, 1) Start-up is faster, 2) with less moving parts, less chance of a break down. What isn't purposeful here is the fact that your going to get far less data storage. A similar drive now at 64GB would cost you about $10 if you could find one. Most newer SATA 2 7200 RPM (speed the discs spin) would cost you about $130 for 3 Terabytes for basically 46 times the storage space.

This drive is also going to be small. At 2.5" it's going to fit the same size as an "A" or floppy disc would fit in your case. If you don't have an A or floppy drive slot, you'll need an adapter so that the drive can fit into the case, without just sitting there naked. Now granted they don't have moving parts, but should you move the case, or create a static discharge you want to be sure the thing is mounted to something to dissipate any heat or static electricity that might accumulate on the drive.

The advantage to SSD drives is the ability to have shorter seek times and therefore it's great for the C drive of your computer as start-up times are far faster, and theoretically gaming is speeded up in that it takes less time to load the game. They're useless for storage, as they fill up too fast, and generally are paired with a fatter SATA Terabyte D: drive to off load the pics, videos and other archive items.

The best SSD drives come from Samsung, Kingston, OCZ, Corsair....basically the same companies that produce the flash memory that goes into them. The best application for these drives is in Laptops, where speed is essential to saving on battery life, but also great for the weight and for the lack of the moving parts, thus when you drop your laptop, your less likely to lose all your data due to a busted hard drive. Then of course you can easily hibernate and restore the computer, in a few seconds rather than minutes, saving battery space.

As far as failure rates go, they are mostly in the 3-5 year range. Not long when you consider the cost of some of these puppies, and how short 3 years are, unless your serving time in the joint. Warhawk

[[JiF]BloodGod]

Cool, Thank you Guys Very Much

[[JiF] General WarHawk]

Always a pleasure to help those in need of some knowledge.

Now, if i can just figure out why I love to eat yogurt so much, when I couldn't stand it as a kid.

[[JiF]Uncle Stinky]

Is it the Greek stuff?

By the way, I see Tiger Direct is selling a WD 3 TB external hard drive for $99. Man, I had the bad luck to buy my HDs after the flooding in Thailand caused prices to spike. I guess the flood's effects are gone.

[[JiF]Lt Gav]

I had the joy of charging mt SSD to my old company before I left. I wouldn't do without it now though due to the speed of boot that I get on W7!

[[JiF] General WarHawk]

If I get another HDD, I'll get an SSD for the main OS. That's about the only upgrade I can forsee now.

What I wonder is, would Win95 notice if the drive was an SSD or not??? Cause you can only address a small amount of space in Win95, so you might as well have one of these to overcome the lack of addressable memory. Have to laugh though, it took about 10 minutes to load Win95, where it took me 2 hours to load Win7 the other day.

[[JiF]MiniBadger]

.

[[JiF] General WarHawk]

What'd you say Mini B?

[[JiF]MiniBadger]

I meant to say "." (i just wanted to say ".")