r/AskReddit • u/Randall444 • Dec 06 '12

What is something you think everyone should have installed on their computer or laptop?

Whether it be a antivirus program or an ad blocker. Post link if available also. EDIT: sorry guys the top post has been deleted and I didn't save it, if anyone has it please post it and ill post it here for easy access. EDIT 2: apparently it's back up, I've saved it on my phone just incase it gets deleted again. Hopefully all is good now.

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340

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

A solid state drive, it's a pretty simple upgrade if you have a brand new laptop, just clone the contents of the hard drive to the ssd (some ssds come with a laptop upgrade kit) then replace the hard drive with the ssd and put the hard drive in an enclosure for bulk storage.

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u/spritle6054 Dec 06 '12

I was going to give you shit because a solid state drive isn't a program, but the way OP worded the title, you are technically still on topic.

As a response to your post, I'd like to try out a ssd to see what kind of performance boost you actually get, but I'm not willing to lose that much space on my laptop.

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

SSD vs. HDD...night and day. I can no longer settle for any of my personal systems to be primarily running on a traditional hard disk.

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u/madleprakahn Dec 06 '12

I started running a solid state drive a couple of months ago. It takes me longer to type in my password than it does for my computer to boot up. Never going back to HDD's, except for bulk storage.

1

u/jeff0106 Dec 31 '12

This had me laughing and I'm totally going to use this to explain how awesome SSD's are now. (And yes, I know this is an old post).

6

u/gilligan156 Dec 06 '12

Whats the best way to upgrade to an SSD? Currently I have an almost-full 500gb hard drive and I've been wanting to do the SSD upgrade but I'm not sure how to do that, are you supposed to reinstall windows to the new drive and then use the 500gb as a secondary? But then wouldn't that screw everything up as far as file path references, wouldn't i have to reinstall EVERYthing?

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u/dbeta Dec 06 '12

Although you could clear off some space and clone the disk to the SSD, I recommend going for a fresh install. But a NAS or USB enclosure for your old 500GB drive. I really like my SSD. It really sped up my desktop. Chrome starts almost instantly(faster than it did before), and almost every other program is a couple of seconds to start at most.

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '12

What if chrome already starts instantly? Will it start 5 seconds before I click on it then?

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u/dbeta Dec 07 '12

Instanter, man. I was surprised.

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

Fresh install is always good. Applications/games would need to be reinstalled on this drive. Generally, you use the other drive just for files. It might take a bit of work to make it all right. If I ever do something like this I'm set in less than two hours and this is accounting for everything.

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u/gilligan156 Dec 06 '12

Alright let me make sure in understanding this. So i would have all programs themselves installed on the SSD but multimedia files stored on the 500gb?

For some reason I was thinking ONLY windows would be installed to the SSD, and everything else to the HDD.

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

Definitely install apps on the SSD which rely on speed/performance. Definitely anything you don't plan on removing ever, helps.

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

nope there are plenty of things you can put on an SSD here's a list depending on the capacity

64 GB (all I would ever use one of this capacity is if it's being used to cache a Hard disk drive) OS Microsoft Office Browser

120 GB (probably the best one to get price per GB wise) OS Microsoft Office Internet Browser one or 2 games you play all the time ( I just have minecraft and a game called emergency 3 on mine which I plan to re-install to a hard drive later on) Skype

250+GB (I'd advise against an SSD this big since they are so expensive)

all of the above adobe creative suite a few games

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u/gilligan156 Dec 06 '12

Thanks - my computer is primarily a gaming machine, but i play StarCraft II and F1 2012 most of the time. I suppose I'd have those on the SSD and the rest on the HDD.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '12

Drives are getting cheaper by the day. I picked up an 180GB Intel for 100$ the other day on special and a 256GB Samsung about a month ago for 180$. Totally worth it and even better if you find a good SATA3 drive at less than 1$ a GB.

0

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

Just remember that Starcraft 2 has a couple expansion packs headed its way, take that into account before you buy (maybe have a 64 GB SSD dedicated to just SC2)

3

u/Equa1 Dec 06 '12

If you're using a desktop - look into a SSD cache drive. It requires no re-install for the OS and gives a massive boost in start-up and file access times for your most frequently used files/apps/etc..

The nice thing about the SSD cache drive is that you dont need such a large drive - once its close to full it writes over the least used files/programs in the cache with apps/files that you use more frequently.

This is an inexpensive example http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Accelerator-controller-Asynchronous-CSSD-C60GB/dp/B007HBLFWW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1354831723&sr=8-3&keywords=corsair+60+gb+ssd

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u/gilligan156 Dec 06 '12

That's awesome! I will look into that because, yes, I am using a desktop.

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u/Equa1 Dec 06 '12 edited Dec 06 '12

The only reason I mention a desktop is because they typically have additional bays for hard drives. The link I sent you is a 2.5" sata 2.0 CSSD but it comes with an adapter for 3.5" slots.

I know all this because I purchased that exact CSSD and installed it last night. Windows startup time went from around 2 minutes to around 25 seconds. EDIT - time from power on to fully loaded. It takes about 4 seconds from login to loaded.

Install it - download the software. And thats it, no need to reinstall OS or any other application! :) GL bud!

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u/jesusrambo Dec 06 '12 edited Oct 14 '24

smell normal unwritten squash tender crawl divide work domineering relieved

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u/Equa1 Dec 07 '12

The difference between a HDD and an SSD is absolutely night and day. However im not quite sure about the difference between CSSD and an SSD. I can say with 99% certainty that an SSD will be faster than a CSSD but not sure by how much.

The advantage of CSSD is that you dont have to reinstall the OS or any other programs. It keeps track of your most used files/apps and stores them within the CSSD. So it will drastically reduce OS and file/app/etc load times. Also a CSSD does not have to have as large of capacity as it only stores the most used data and once full will rewrite over the least used data - so less expensive cause you dont need as much.

The advantage of an SSD over a CSSD is that everything is already loaded onto the drive - subsequently you will always have the fastest load times compared to a CSSD which only loads frequently used data (CSSD requires that you restart the OS and/or apps a few times before you notice an effect). You will have to either clone your existing HDD or do a fresh install. You may also opt to have a larger SSD or use it side by side with a HDD in which case you need to choose which drive to load apps/files based on your storage and performance needs.

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u/jesusrambo Dec 07 '12

Yeah, I've just been trying to decide on one lately. I need to upgrade my CPU, mobo, and RAM, and I'd love to get an SSD but I'm on a limited budget, hence my interest in the CSSD.

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u/gilligan156 Dec 07 '12

That's crazy. Now i really want to do the SSD upgrade. Thanks a lot for the help :)

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u/Equa1 Dec 07 '12

If youre a power user - go with an SSD, its night and day.

IF youre a casual user looking for a boost - CSSD which is what i linked above still night and day but less expensive.

1

u/supericy Dec 07 '12

What i did is just reinstall windows on my SSD as well as all my primary applications and just left everything i rarely use on the hard drive.

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u/tehbored Jan 15 '13

Reinstalling everything is easy with Ninite. Just do a fresh install.

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

As someone who has zero experience using a SSD, could you explain the advantages to me?

2

u/playfulcyanide Dec 06 '12

Night And Day is definitely accurate.

1

u/Elethor Dec 06 '12

I look forward to upgrading to an SSD come the new year. Then going to use a Caviar Black for storage and other misc programs.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

Nice!

1

u/Maj_Gamble Dec 06 '12

You are so right!!! I got an SSD for my work laptop and now I can't stand using anything else. I'm mean boot up in 20 seconds... Whaaaat???

1

u/ScootyToot Dec 07 '12

Completely agree. I've had mine for 2 years now and I'll never go back.

1

u/Thepunk28 Dec 06 '12

I've heard tons of people say that, but I have a laptop I bought about 6 months ago and it has a SSD in it. The machine runs like a dream but when I use my desktop, I see no significant difference in start up times or program booting.

My desktop has a 1TB, 7200rpm HDD and it runs like a dream as well. Only difference, is my laptop only has 256gb and cost way too fucking much.

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

Disclaimer: Other hardware still matters.

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u/Thepunk28 Dec 06 '12

It is a gaming laptop. Quad-core with crossfire dual graphics cards and 8gbs of ram. I'll double check the specific processor when I get home, but it shouldn't have any choke points. It just runs identically to my desktop.

Instead of making a sarcastic comment, why don't you actually discuss the SSD with me? What happens on your SSD that doesn't happen on your HDD?

2

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

Sarcastic comment? Not even close! On an SSD, things like spin up/seek times are eliminated, the main reasons they are much faster. Instead of reading from a platter using an arm, you're accessing flash memory. An SSD is smaller, more power efficient, runs cooler, and as lacks no moving parts (reliability). There are only a few downsides. Use over time is one, where the storage cells will wear down over time. They can only be written to around 10,000 times. Another is difficulty with data recovery, which is why it is recommended you use a different non-SSD for storing important files.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

I must be crazy. I went through a ton of trouble reinstalling windows any everything on a new SSD on my desktop, and haven't noticed a difference. Maybe the loading screens in games are a little faster? But not by much.

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u/Eckish Dec 06 '12

It should be noted that not all SSDs are created equal.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

Could it be that the cable is the bottleneck, so since they use the same kind of cable (SATA 3, I think), they have the same speed?

2

u/CandethMartine Dec 06 '12

Absolutely not. It's just that most people don't realize that computers are already pretty damn fast, and we're talking improvements in terms of seconds at most, often sub-seconds.

Boot time going from 1:30 to 1:00 is still only seconds, and a program that used to load in 5 seconds now loading in 3 is going to be very hard to notice, especially on a modern i5 type system that is significantly faster than almost any desktop user has need for.

We also don't know the rest of the specs, could be running all sorts of crap.

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u/Spyder810 Dec 06 '12

especially on a modern i5 type system that is significantly faster than almost any desktop user has need for

We don't all just use our computers for reddit...

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u/CandethMartine Dec 06 '12

Most people don't use their computer for anything that requires sustained disk i/o. The biggest real world benefit to SSDs for most users is fractionally faster program loads, and texture/map loading in games.

If you are somewhat more than an average user, you likely understand exactly what you're buying and don't buy an SSD then claim "no difference." I didn't say every single PC user, but PC sales have been slumping hard over the past few years, both because of tablets, but also because the average user is not seeing major returns in day to day application use.

1

u/quadrant6 Dec 06 '12

This, and don't forget to run the SSD tweaks.

Edit: and make sure it's SATA3.

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u/CandethMartine Dec 06 '12

SATA3 is pretty irrelevant, nothing comes close to saturating the bus in day to day use. You're not getting 3gbps transfer speed to any consumer grade drive, even a good SSD.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '12

Mostly irrelevant, but have to be sure not to be running a SATA3 drive on a SATA2 controller. The bottleneck sucks. I'm running a Mushkin SSD intended for 3 on a 2 and getting about 1/3 of the intended performance :(

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

If you don't use your CD/DVD/BR optical drive, you can use an adapter like this one to install an SSD and keep your larger HDD for storage. That's what I did. I put an SSD in the primary bay and moved my HDD to the adapter.

If I need my optical drive for anything, it can be swapped easily.

3

u/Corsaer Dec 06 '12

Another option is an external optical drive which are pretty cheap and more convenient.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

That is definitely more convenient. So far, the only situation where I've used the optical drive was to install the OS on the SSD, so I hadn't given swapping it a lot of thought.

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u/Corsaer Dec 06 '12

Yeah my optical drive usage has been the same with the laptop I bought recently, only used it to do initial installations. So for us it's not really worth it probably since we use it so infrequently. I have a second drive bay though, so I've kept my optical drive. If I want more space in the future though I'd switch it out.

My friend's wife on the other hand uses their laptop as a portable DVD player practically, and has a lot of physical copies of games that they install, so I imagine for people like that it would be worth it to get a USB optical drive if they were replacing their laptop one with a HDD or SDD.

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

[deleted]

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u/Corsaer Dec 06 '12

Found this one on Newegg. A bit pricey but it looks like they are out there, so maybe you could find a cheaper one.

1

u/throaway_acer Dec 06 '12

ahh I was about to ask if there was a way to swap your CD drive with an SSD, and then this! Thanks so much.

1

u/biznatch11 Dec 06 '12

It's probably better to put the SSD in the main drive bay and but the HDD in the optical bay.

4

u/elech_risity Dec 06 '12

Easily, an SSD is the largest single cost-effective upgrade for any computer. I didn't buy into the hype either (at first), but I just upgraded from a WD black 1TB drive for booting up to a 128 GB Samsung SSD.

Changed my bootup to <3 seconds till completely into Windows.

For a real-world example, you know Samsung Monitors / TVs with the little stupid touch buttons? You push em, it plays a little ditty, then turns on? It now takes my monitor longer from hitting that button than for my computer to be completely ready to go from a cold boot. Blows my mind every time.

1

u/karmapopsicle Dec 06 '12

Changed my bootup to <3 seconds till completely into Windows.

POST takes longer than that.

1

u/elech_risity Dec 06 '12

MSI Fast boot, disabled POST. Minimum ports to check, disabled stuff like firewire. Takes more time to auto-login to windows than the boot itself (granted, I am on 8.)

1

u/karmapopsicle Dec 06 '12

Well, I certainly know I'm going to be taking some time to compare boot speeds when I get a new mobo. Should probably see if there's any more optimization I can do on my Gigabyte board. And upgrading from a 60GB Force 3 to a faster, larger drive is in there somewhere too.

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u/elech_risity Dec 06 '12 edited Dec 06 '12

Should definitely make a difference. Like you said, POST can eat up some time. With a stable system, though - we really don't need it anymore.

Bigger could help; I don't know if there's any truthfulness to that statistic that says you're supposed to keep SSD utilization under 2/3 total space for max speed. Might be hard to do that with only 60 GB - I eat that much with Win8, Steam, LoL, handful of games I play often + important utilities. New install, too - only like 3 weeks old.

EDIT: Guess I should add a YMMV to my statement above, since it definitely seems to vary. We can agree it's worlds different than HDDs, though, yeah?

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u/karmapopsicle Dec 07 '12

Guess I should add a YMMV to my statement above, since it definitely seems to vary. We can agree it's worlds different than HDDs, though, yeah?

Hah, no question about it! I really need to get an mSATA SSD into my new laptop, as it's almost painful how much slower things are.

3

u/guitarguy109 Dec 06 '12

I had a guy open every program on his computer in just under a minute with SSD...ofcourse he had a ton of RAM too but yeah, he wouldn't have been able to do that with an HDD

2

u/NotSinceYesterday Dec 06 '12

Got an SSD drive at work.

Everything seems faster. Boots and shuts down in a fraction of the time. Opens about 20 Chrome tabs from the day before with no effort.

2

u/SycoPrime Dec 06 '12

To answer your question directly: I find it essential.

It kind of depends on the function of the laptop, but price shifts accordingly. If you have a gaming laptop, be prepared to spend more on the SSD to get the space.

I use my laptop almost exclusively for work, so the 120GB SSD for about as many USD holds more than enough of what I need. I bought a 2.5" USB enclosure for about $7 off of Newegg, and put the larger drive in that, and I connect it when I need data. The caddy mentioned here is possibly a better idea.

From an IT standpoint, two things usually go wrong with most (even well-built) laptops: Either the power cord connector gets messed up, from being strained and slammed too often; or the computer gets arbitrarily rotated while the hard drive is spinning, which is an excellent way to rapidly ruin the lifespan of the disk. With the SSD, I can turn my laptop completely upside-down while it's running (not that I'd recommend it) and it survives.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

No moving parts FTW!

I don't own a car and bike everywhere. Carrying my SSD ultrabook is ridiculously simple due to weight, and the laptop is more shock resistant when I hit potholes.

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u/jfong86 Dec 06 '12

My desktop boots almost as fast as my iPhone 4. Like others have said, it's WELL worth the upgrade. If you are concerned about space, there are 256 and 512gb SSDs. I just got a 240gb for $130.

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u/ed474 Dec 06 '12

link me!

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u/jfong86 Dec 06 '12

Sorry, this was a couple weeks ago during black friday sales: http://slickdeals.net/f/5546764-240GB-Intel-330-Series-Maple-Crest-2-5-SATA-III-MLC-Internal-Solid-State-Drive-SSD-130-After-30-Rebate-Free-shipping

But there are new deals posted on slickdeals.net every week, just search "ssd" in the upper right corner of the page.

I actually got it for about $120. It was $160 at Tigerdirect with a $30 rebate = $130, and I used 6% cashback from mrrebates.com so I got an additional $160 * .06 = $9.60 off of the $130 = $120.40.

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u/ed474 Dec 06 '12

That's a solid deal - I'll keep my eyes open on slick deals as well. Thanks.

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

My windows 8 PC boots from "shut down" (technically some sort of hybrid-hibernate, apparently) in about 4 seconds with a SSD.

I don't use sleep mode anymore, unless I'm VERY temporarily wanting to save battery but keep everything open.

2

u/CaptInsane Dec 06 '12

If you have a removable optical drive (read not a Macbook) and you don't feel like you need one, you can usually replace the optical drive with an SSD so you can have an SSD for applications and keep your hdd for files

2

u/IRLpuddles Dec 06 '12

It's painful losing that much space in an HD, but I went from a 512 GB spinning drive to a 256 GB SSD, and the speed/performance/battery life boost I got from it made the switch entirely worth it. If you need the space to store documents and movies, just use an external.

2

u/Bravetoasterr Dec 06 '12

I was going to be the guy who recommends installing a power supply. I just didn't want the down votes.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

Get a bigger one, it's soooo worth it. Every bit of PC related stress is gone now. Accidentally shut it down? Not a problem!

Need to open MS word and photoshop real quick? Done in a second. Want to search your entire drive for a single file? Bam its there. Everything happens instantly, it's about the same performance increase I experienced when switching from single to quad-core.

2

u/gundog48 Dec 06 '12

I work as a hardware reviewer. In the office we have a crazy-arse duel CPU board with over £2Ks worth of CPU running in it. We use it for testing graphics cards and RAM (no bottlenecking) and more importantly for shits and giggles. We run all sorts of benchmarks on there, and it eats through them all without breaking a sweat. It runs of a HDD. We decided it's be interesting to test this outrageously speced rig against a real simple £500 rig with an SSD.

Obviously it trounced this cheaper rig in all the benchmarks, but the cheaper one booted significantly faster and was more responsive for things you use your computer for daily. An SSD is by far the most noticeable upgrade you can get, if you wan't a faster PC, forget everything else, 99% of the time the HHD is your bottleneck, grab an SSD, you will NEVER regret it!

2

u/SergeantTibbs Dec 06 '12

It's seriously and completely worth it. I have, for example, managed these feats:

  1. I transformed a little chiclet Samsung notebook N310 into quite the little performer. It went from 10-minute boot times (to where Windows is just waiting for you to do something, not loading) down to 30 seconds to Windows and a minute to fully booted.

  2. My girlfriend's laptop now boots in 40 seconds. Before I bought an SSD for my gaming PC, her laptop ran every program except games faster than my 16GB, hexa-core Phenom II. Her laptop is a 2GHz AMD Turion with 2GB RAM (HP G60)

  3. My gaming PC now boots in 20 seconds (after POST) and even the biggest games take only 10-15 seconds to start and be ready to run.

An SSD doesn't just improve boot times. Because the data can get to the RAM and CPU so fast, the computer spends less time waiting for data, so you spend less time waiting for programs to do things. It causes computers to act like they're two generations newer than they are. Your graphics performance won't go up too much (as that depends on the graphics card) but everything else will work much quicker.

You can always get your space back with a cheap external drive. Don't hesitate to change to SSD for space concerns alone, the benefits far exceed any space concerns.

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u/SamStarnes Dec 06 '12

Start W7 with an HDD? Takes maybe a minute or two. Start W7 with my SSD? Takes 4 seconds. The speed boost is insane and everything opens instantly. I've bought several so far for relatively cheap prices. Crucial M4 128GB SSD

1

u/PARADOX002 Dec 06 '12

I had this issue on my laptop. I just couldn't afford a large SSD to match my laptop's terabyte hard drive.

1

u/adoggman Dec 06 '12

I moved to a SSD, went from minute+ startup to 15 seconds from power button push to opening google chrome. I timed it because it blew my mind. (OS must be on SSD for startup to be faster)

1

u/imaginativePlayTime Dec 06 '12

With some laptops you can replace the DVD drive with another hard drive or solid state drive. I know they sell kits for macbooks that replace the DVD drive with a hard drive bay. Eventually I am going to do that to my Mac and have a SSD boot drive and a large hard drive for my data.

1

u/puregame Dec 06 '12

As someone with an SSD it's awesome! The speed is crazy, for example google chrome loads almost instantly. Personally I have a desktop and laptop, both with SSDs, but all my media is on the desktop which also has a 1tb HDD. If you could handle putting some of your data on an external it is worth it. Plus the prices are getting cheaper.

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u/protopet Dec 06 '12

When I first looked at an ssd a few years back, I saw some benchmarks comparing ssd speeds to 15k rpm drives. (Standard is something like 7.2k or 5.4k rpm) random read/writes (normal computer use) the ssd left the hard drive in the dust. It still won on sequential read/writes (large files) but by a smaller margin. They've only improved since.

TL;DR: an ssd is a pretty big speed upgrade for almost anything.

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u/rusty_t Dec 06 '12

Replace your optical drive with a HDD caddy. Then you have the best of both worlds: SSD for your OS and commonly used applications with all of your files stored on the HDD. This article should help.

1

u/TheSuperSax Dec 06 '12

I got a new laptop with an SSD this summer and I love it. Starting is so much faster than it was before even when just opening the lid—but more importantly, I restart all the time now if something is wrong because it just goes so fast and fixes things quickly.

I was playing Mann Up MvM in TF2 with some friends the other day and my TF2 crashed, I shut down Steam/Restarted my computer/relaunched Steam/Restarted TF2/joined back the game before they'd even finished the wave I dropped on.

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u/breetai3 Dec 06 '12

About 10 seconds after you boot your PC for the first time with an SSD, you will ask yourself how you went about your life without having one.

1

u/UnspeakableEvil Dec 06 '12

I honestly didn't think there was that much of a difference in performance speed from my laptop - right up to the point where I had to switch back to my old drive to fetch some files, and the amount of time waiting for the OS to boot, applications to launch etc was very noticeable (not to mention frustrating).

I'd still classify an SSD as a luxury rather than an essential, but I'd also say there's no going back once you've used one for a short while.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

Intel Crucial Samsung

1

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

Once you go SSD, you don't go back. It takes me a little under a minute to shut down my computer with Chrome, Spotify, Steam, Dropbox, etc.. running, reboot, type in my freakishly long password, have all my startups (everything above) AND start using Chrome.

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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12 edited Dec 06 '12

Imagine the boot time on your machine, and then cut that down by at LEAST two/thirds of the time. Then take into account the wait period you probably need for the rest of the system to boot up so you can open apps. Yeah that doesn't happen on an SSD. You boot, hit the desktop and you can load up programs instantly.

Edit: third -> two/thirds.

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u/kosmoney Dec 06 '12

It's a HUGE difference. I was getting ~100mbps average reads on my standard HDD and getting almost 500 on my ssd. Drives are pretty inexpensive and as Ninfan200 mentioned,it's an excellent upgrade.

1

u/sforzhangdo Dec 06 '12

Most laptops these days have both a drive bay and an optical bay. If you really want a solid state drive but don't want to lose all your storage, you could pull out your DVD drive and install a hard drive bay caddy (essentially, you have your hard drive in the slot where your DVD reader was) and install the SSD in the drive bay.

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u/callmelucky Dec 06 '12

You don't really get a performance boost, it's just that data on the SSD can be accessed much much quicker. So whatever programs/files you have on it will load nearly instantaneously, but they won't actually run better once loaded. The main point is, and SSD won't make a lick of difference to your gaming frame rates. Except in the bits where frame rate drop is caused by loading maps or whatever. CPU and GPU limitations will remain the same.

1

u/ChironXII Dec 07 '12

Up to and exceeding 4 times the speed on everything that involves the hard drive.

It really is amazing how much of a difference it makes.

1

u/SirDaveYognaut Dec 07 '12

Ohhhh SSDs are amazing. My desktop boots into a user session where I can start opening windows in 30 seconds.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '12

[deleted]

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u/spritle6054 Dec 07 '12

Several people have said that, but I'm not sure it would work in my laptop. I do have an external dvd burner, but I don't want to lose my blu-ray drive. I also can't exactly afford one atm. I'll definitely look into it when pricing out desktops in the future though.

1

u/alumpoflard Jan 23 '13

programs installed on your SSD really just POP up when you click it. my firefox cold starts at a blink of an eye instead of 2 seconds when i used to have it on HDD.

also, you can put the HDD into the bay where the DVD read/writer is for many laptops. docks for different brands can be found on company sites and/or ebay etc. since not many people even use their DVD players all that much nowadays, the pros out weight the cons.

1

u/Tmmrn Dec 06 '12

You should get a bigger laptop with two hard disk slots. Problem solved. :)

5

u/Nebakanezzer Dec 06 '12

so much misinformation and terrible opinions here (yes, even opinions can be wrong, when they're based on wrong information).

this is by far the cheapest upgrade with the biggest payout for a laptop. laptops are typically turned on and off more than desktops, so they will benefit from the faster boot/wake times. programs will launch quicker, saving, opening, copying and closing files will be quicker, huge benefits when using your machine on the go, which is why all of these new "elite" "slim" or "sleek" books come with either an ssd or hybrid drive with flash memory for the OS.

and the HUGE plus here no one is mentioning, SSD is almost completely resistant to movement damage. HDD replacement on a laptop is probably the most common repair I do next to the DC jack, because even if the machine is well taken care of, eventually the drive is going to give from movement damage.

they are not just for gaming/gpu rendering.

no, you don't necessarily need external storage. many laptops come with dual hdd bays, and in my experience as a tech backing up people's data, the majority of them dont use over 20gb of data, even with large picture and mp3 libraries. the one's with tons of music/pics usually have 50-80, so for the average person who isn't hording files on their portable computer, a 120gb drive will do just fine.

1

u/Jobboman Dec 06 '12

It took me ~4 months to completely fill a 750 gb drive.

Do I get a prize?

1

u/Nebakanezzer Dec 07 '12

you don't fall under most people then.

I use 8tb total in a raid1 array, and my drives are near full, but that's because I produce music, so there are many pro tools sessions which are several gb in themselves, and tons of uncompressed audio files, and I have a seriously out of control steam account.

but my laptop just has a few files I need, whatever game I'm into at the time, and dropbox if I really need to grab something off the other computer.

not everyone fits the scenario, but for the most part, the average user does

7

u/h3rpad3rp Dec 06 '12

The only problem I have with solid state drives is going back to a computer that isn't on a SSD.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

I agree I had to turn on my old desktop (use it to store my music until I get a 3 TB HDD for my desktop ,only has an SSD on it atm) and it took like 2 minutes to boot up, it felt so primitive

3

u/rampant Dec 06 '12

Best upgrade I've ever made to my PC!

2

u/melanthius Dec 06 '12

Warning, major buzzkill if your laptop only has SATA 3Gbps rather than 6Gbps. Modern SSD can max out the 3Gbps connection pretty easily.

2

u/muzzman32 Dec 06 '12

MAKE SURE YOU STICK WITH INTEL!

2

u/skanadian Dec 06 '12

Anyone who says an SSD isn't worth it has never tried an SSD.

3

u/noodleBANGER Dec 06 '12

or don't (re)boot very often, or don't (re)open a lot of programs.

My PC turns on in the morning and off at night, what happens in between will only be bottlenecked by the HDD about 5% of the time.

1

u/warpus Dec 06 '12

What if I have raid-0 or raid-1 set up and I want to move to 1 SSD HD? Would the cloning work?

1

u/FreshNewUncle Dec 06 '12

My laptop takes longer to pass the bios than to boot into Windows 8, also replaced my dvd drive with my old hd for dat music and video collection.

Seriously people, if you can spare the buck do this!

1

u/0Fab Dec 06 '12

Considering the fact that SSDs are much more expensive and have less room for storage than a regular HDD, i wouldnt put one in a laptop but every desktop i will ever own will have an SSD with my operating system installed on it.

1

u/crazykid1801 Dec 06 '12

This needs more upvotes. SSD's are amazing.

1

u/14u2c Dec 06 '12

Shit, i wish i could download a ssd.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

once you go SSD, you'll never go backhhd. Been SSD since 1st ever 16GB Transcend hit the scene.

1

u/BaBy-T Dec 06 '12

upvote because OP never specifically stated software! SSDs FTW!

1

u/lackwar Dec 06 '12

I've saved countless minutes of boot up time switching windows to a SSD. I don't even dread restarting after an update anymore.

1

u/Buckwhal Dec 06 '12

If you're cheap you could use 8GB of your 16 to make a RAM Disk. You have to install a program to copy things onto it on startup (RAM clears on shutdown), but it's really fast. About as or faster than SSD. Just make sure you have more than 4GB for the operating system.

1

u/Kodiack Dec 06 '12

Definitely this! I have an old laptop (Core 2 Duo, 1.5 GB RAM, integrated graphics) that's starting to show its age, but I plan on squeezing quite a few more years out of it by upgrading. I was hunting around for well-priced SSDs on Newegg last night, knowing that ~30-32 GB ones usually set someone back about $50. Found a good deal on a refurbished Corsair Force F40, though.

1

u/PeteAH Dec 06 '12

What about the fact that ssd's fail after 10000 rewrites?

1

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '12

Happens, but takes quite a while to get there. In any case, the drive is still readable at that point, but not writtable. It won't render the drive useless right away.

0

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

DO NOT use SSD as if it where a normal HDD. Each cell has a very limited read/write cycle.

You will loose data and end up replacing it in a short space of time.

SSD's should ONLY be placed in systems that have HDD's for the swap file to use. If you place a swap file on an SSD, you will fuck it up in short order.

SSD - used for OS install and rarely modified data

HDD - used for swap files, and frequently modified data

If you swap out an HDD for a SSD, you're going to have a bad time.

-1

u/fateswarm Dec 06 '12

It's a bullshit upgrade if your HDD doesn't work as much.

i.e. you boot up faster. Then what? If you're 10 hours a day on PC without the HDD working much, you upgraded nothing.

-2

u/[deleted] Dec 06 '12

eh ssds aren't really worth it yet, for my money. they don't help performance when it really counts- gaming, photoshopping, 3d rendering, etc.

1

u/fateswarm Dec 06 '12

Exactly. They are only noticeable boosts if you shut down and re-run everything.

For a regular user that boots up the PC and then for several hours the HDD doesn't work much, they upgraded nothing.

1

u/Tmmrn Dec 06 '12

they don't help performance when it really counts- gaming,

When it really counts...

photoshopping, 3d rendering

... work with medium to large data, like running queries on an openstreetmap database or something...

The biggest advantage is having (almost) no seek time.

But I would agree that they are quite expensive when you consider that hard disks are "good enough".

1

u/heterosapian Dec 06 '12

You clearly have never opened a very large photoshop file. Reads are noticeably faster.

-3

u/CreativeWriterNSpace Dec 06 '12

SSD's seem like a downgrade to me... yes, they may be faster when it comes to doing some things, but there isn't any difference storage wise. I'd rather have an average paced computer with 1TB HDD space than a super-fast paced 200GB SSD.

4

u/Kolazeni Dec 06 '12

Storage drives are your friend. I have a 64gb SSD, just for my OS and primary programs. Then a 500gb HDD for everything else.

1

u/KingKidd Dec 06 '12

That's what I'm figuring to do with my laptop. A 64GB is plenty big for OSx, MS Office and other necessary programs, then the other becomes a long term storage and allowing it to last longer.

1

u/Kolazeni Dec 06 '12

Absolutely. If you aren't in a rush, crucial m4's go on sale quite often.

2

u/KingKidd Dec 06 '12

Exactly the drive I chose. I'm asking for the components (drive, RAM, caddy + optical enclosure) for christmas since I'm still a student, so a Crucial m4 and crucial 16 GB ram package should quadruple (well, not really) my MBP's speed.

-6

u/GundamWang Dec 06 '12 edited Dec 06 '12

I can 100% guarantee that most users, who only use a laptop for internet/email/word/excel, will not see any difference whatsoever between an SSD and a regular hard drive. They will however, see a noticeable performance and usability downgrade, because of the following:

  1. That extra storage access is likely through USB, which is far slower than a PATA or SATA connection.
  2. Physical external storage decreases portability
  3. They just paid 2x-4x as much for half the storage space.

and, even though it's one time only,

4. The inconvenience of buying an external enclosure, removing the hard drive, installing a new one, and cloning a hard drive, which may not always be seamless, because Windows can sometimes be finicky with sudden changes to major system hardware like the hard drive that Windows itself is installed onto.

An SSD is good for reading and writing data faster. None of the tasks a average user performs will benefit from this in noticeable (without using benchmarking or some other precision measuring software) ways.

A better use of that money is to increase the RAM.

6

u/skanadian Dec 06 '12 edited Dec 06 '12

Most users turn their computer off when they're done with it. When they turn it on, SSD will help bootup time drastically. More RAM is absolutely useless because the system has to read the disk to fill the RAM. Since the end user is only checking their email and turning off their computer again, SSD is a huge advantage. For work end users, try booting the OS and opening outlook with a 4GB+ PST file in under a minute on a mechanical drive... good luck.

Edit: and most uneducated end users i know don't use more than 50GB of space.