SSD back to regular HDD

[mmmmmdonuts21]

Around Christmas time I finished upgrading all my PC's to SSD's (HTPC, Gaming, and Laptop). So last night I had my first SSD failure last night in my laptop. I can't explain to you how difficult it has been going back to a regular 5400RPM laptop drive. It seems everything has moved into slow motion. Installing programs takes so much longer, response times are very slow. I know I should not be complaining but seriously once you go SSD you can't go back. My laptop was using a refurbished Crucial SSD that is no longer under warranty but it was by far the slowest of my SSDs and it still makes the WD Blue drive seem like its crawling. Anyone else have to do this backwards switch yet?

[JustAnEngineer]

Hard-drive performance has always been the one bottleneck on my Asus G50VT laptop. It came with a 0.32 TB Seagate 7200 rpm hard-drive. I recently ordered a Corsair F120 SSD and a 0.75 TB Scorpio Black to install in it.

Meanwhile, the switch between the new Sandy Bridge gaming system with the SSD and the laptop with the poky hard-drive is remarkable.

[Sunburn74]

The only people who may have made the backswitch are those guys who bought jmicron drives when SSDs were in their infancy. Once you've tasted true SSD performance, you can't go back. Things just fly along.

[grantmeaname]

JAE, does is have two 2.5" bays or are you using a slim-ODD conversion kit?

[JustAnEngineer]

My laptop's not particularly slim. It has two 2½" drive bays.

[grantmeaname]

I wasn't suggesting that it was; I understand that you use DTRs. There are kits that convert a slim optical drive bay into a 2.5 bay.

[JustAnEngineer]

While something like that sounds intriguing, I'm using the slim-line optical bay for a Blu-ray burner.

[Airmantharp]

To add to the topic:

I'm building a media workstation of sorts, chronicled here, and it is using a sole Samsung F3 1TB until my 180GB Vertex 2 comes in, when I'll switch my Corsair Nova128 over to it.

I am actually really pleased with the performance of this drive with a Windows 7 Ultimate x64 installation, Office 2010 Professional Plus, all drivers and peripheral associated software, and of course the requisite Adobe apps.

The system boots fairly quickly, comes out of sleep instantly (as any Windows 7 system should), and launches office and media apps without issue. I could use this as my everyday system without an SSD, and be perfectly fine, I think!

Now, I understand that laptop drives are considerably slower in all respects than the best desktop drives, and that this will drive up the perception disparity. If/when I get around to purchasing a laptop, it's getting at least a Sandforce based drive, if not a Sandforce 2/other next gen SSD, in addition to the mechanical.

[End User]

I know I should not be complaining but seriously once you go SSD you can't go back.

I have a mix of SSD/HDD in my systems. There is no question that SSDs are faster than stand alone HDDs but real world SSD performance benefits can be mitigated with some planning. I sleep most of my desktops/laptops so boot/app load times is not an issue. HDDs in a RAID 0 setup can speed things up and provide large amounts of storage space. I boot my server (once a month) off of a Vertex 2. After the initial app load the SSD is barely used. I run my VM's off of a dual Momentus XT RAID 0 array and the boot times are close enough to the VMs on my 256GB SDD (work system) that I don't notice a difference. File storage is handled by a 8TB RAID 0 setup.

My HTPC has what one could say is an extremely slow HDD (Toshiba MK3255GSXF) yet I have no interest in upgrading it to a SSD. The HTPC is always on (automatic sleep/wake schedule during the night). Video content is stored on the server. There is very little local drive access to deal with. Overall system performance is excellent.

If you travel with your laptop then an SSD is the only way to go. I'm waiting for the MacBook Air to get Thunderbolt and then I will pick one up.

I'd love to pop an SSD into my gaming rig but I need a 500GB drive before I can do that. The cost is too high at the moment.

[Mentawl]

I've found much the same kinda thing. With a decent machine running Win7 with plenty of RAM, SuperFetch does such a good job of caching stuff that I don't notice too badly when most apps are running from an HDD rather than an SSD. I'm running Win7 from an SSD, but all my games load from a 640GB WD Blue, and I see no real need to get anything faster for the games .

[Airmantharp]

I've found much the same kinda thing. With a decent machine running Win7 with plenty of RAM, SuperFetch does such a good job of caching stuff that I don't notice too badly when most apps are running from an HDD rather than an SSD. I'm running Win7 from an SSD, but all my games load from a 640GB WD Blue, and I see no real need to get anything faster for the games .

I actually copy my games to a folder on my SSD and use a Symlink to reference them back. Works like a charm, and speeds up larger games noticeably (Bad Company 2, for instance). It's something that I have to manage in order for it to be of use, but it's just too simple for the speedup involved.

[michael_d]

How long this SSD last? RevoDrive x2 is even faster than SSD but far more expensive.

[gbcrush]

I actually copy my games to a folder on my SSD and use a Symlink to reference them back. Works like a charm, and speeds up larger games noticeably (Bad Company 2, for instance). It's something that I have to manage in order for it to be of use, but it's just too simple for the speedup involved.

OK, what's this do? I'm guessing you have your games installed to your large mechanical drive, you copy them to your SSD, and you run them off the SSD for performance. Than Symlink updates the changes back to the mechanical?

And why?


Curious, because you know I'm thinking of a new build. And I got to thinking, if I make the right choices, save some money, I can get 2 SSDs, one for boot, and one for games.

[grantmeaname]

The symbolic link just lets the OS follow the change, so it thinks it's still in the same place. The files themselves are only on the SSD.

[Airmantharp]

The symbolic link just lets the OS follow the change, so it thinks it's still in the same place. The files themselves are only on the SSD.

This, thanks GMAN. I do this because my games are largely through Steam, which like any good virus, re-installs itself whenever it's run for the first time on an operating system. My Steam folder is too large for an SSD to handle, so I just move and symlink the folders of the games I happen to be playing the most, that benefit from a faster drive. Right now that would be Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the new Medal of Honor, Fallout: New Vegas, and Dragon Age 2.

[mikeymike]

What were the symptoms of the SSD failure, out of curiosity?

[joselillo_25]

What were the symptoms of the SSD failure, out of curiosity?

A Black screen

No seriously, this is the bad thing with SSD, they simply go useless in a "flash".

[mikeymike]

What were the symptoms of the SSD failure, out of curiosity?

A Black screen

No seriously, this is the bad thing with SSD, they simply go useless in a "flash".

I'm wondering whether an SDD can steadily die in a seemingly-similar way to a HDD, even though HDDs and steady failures are usually mechanical in nature AFAIK. Perhaps flaky electronics could produce similar symptoms.

How old was your SSD btw?

[mmmmmdonuts21]

I had a black screen as well before it turned off. When I went to reboot the computer it didn't recognize an SSD even being there. Not fun. Thank god for backups

[grantmeaname]

Not fun. Thank god for backups

For so many people outside of the tech enthusiast demographic, it's "time to start making backups, I'm convinced data loss can happen" after things like this.

[mikeymike]

For so many people outside of the tech enthusiast demographic, it's "time to start making backups, I'm convinced data loss can happen" after things like this.

I sold a memory stick and set up a simple backup system for a customer. She just had to put in the memory stick from time to time and double-click on "Backup system" on the desktop, and it would do the rest and tell her when it has finished. I ran it before I left. A year later, she rang me saying that her machine has died. Apparently it had got into the habit of sometimes not booting, and she would just switch it off and on again, then usually it would start, but slowly got worse (over a month). She didn't think to run the backup system, or call me, until the disk finally died.

I would put a hefty bet on that the only time the backup system was run was when I ran it, as she took some time to track down where she had put the memory stick.

[Buzzard44]

File storage is handled by a 8TB RAID 0 setup. .

Eek! This made me cringe.

[mmmmmdonuts21]

I didn't even see that 8TB RAID 0 setup posted before. Yikes. Quadrupling the chances of a HDD failure (assuming using 4x2TB drives).

It didn't take long in college after seeing my friends lose countless papers/projects, and even one half of their thesis, to realize you MUST do backup of at least your important files.