Experiment: Can Adding RAM Improve Your SSD's Endurance?

[fkr]

i do not have aspergers i have dyslexia and my first child is severely autistic. which just makes you the fucking retard who does not understand that you can get 2 gigs of ram for $15-20.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

OK, I'm going to have to add my voice to the 4GB people.

Difference in price from 2GB is very small, but it's a lot further to 8GB. Cheapest $/GB is around the 4GB per stick mark, and businesses are unlikely to care about dual channel.

 

[shark974]

8GB is plenty.
It is NOT true that you can "never have enough RAM". I have 16GB and my PC rarely goes above 3GB. I've never, ever used all 8GB except when video editing (most of 16GB).

People buying 16GB or more are just wasting their money if they don't need it.

I hate people with this mentality. Take me, back in 2009 I put together a rig, for one, at the time I asked forums about 512MB HD4890 vs 1GB. Most people would confidently say "512 MB is more than plenty dont waste your money".

well you can bet today, or even in 2011, i sure was glad I chose the 1GB version.

Same thing with RAM, I have 4GB DDR2 with a Q6600. I wish I had got 8GB back then when it was cheap. Now DDR2 is quite expensive because it's not produced anymore. Also since I did 4X1GB sticks, It's even harder to upgrade. 2x2GB sticks is 50-60 dollars, and that would only upgrade me to 6GB (2X2+2x1). So to do 8GB for me would cost over $100, definitely not worth it.

So if you're building a long lasting rig, buy plenty of RAM in every component. If you upgrade every 1-2 years, then you dont need to. If I was building a rig today I'd DEF do 16GB rather than 8GB.

Too be honest my rig shows you can build long lasting. I can still handle Metro Last Light at good setting with a 2009 rig. I find that impressive. Oh, you know the other dumb thing everybody told me in 2009? "Get a C2D you dont need 4 cores no games use them". Harumph, sure glad I dont listen to the masses who always want you to buy whatever they did (eg, everybody owned a C2D and a 512MB card back then, not my fault they were dumb).

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Yeah, but the other mentality is that it's pointless to spend money future proofing computers, because it'll still be obsolete shortly.

You can get a PC with 4GB now, then one with 16GB in a few years, and it'll cost you less than just buying the 16GB.

 

[smeezekitty]

Yeah, but the other mentality is that it's pointless to spend money future proofing computers, because it'll still be obsolete shortly.

You can get a PC with 4GB now, then one with 16GB in a few years, and it'll cost you less than just buying the 16GB.

How is spending hundreds to thousands of dollars cheaper then spending an additional $50 for more RAM

 

[Someone Somewhere]

No, what I meant was that a mid-low end PC (that probably has 4GB RAM), then another mid-low end PC in a few years (which would probably have around 16GB at that point), is still cheaper than buying something similar in performance to that second PC now.

Moore's law screws you over if you intend to get a high-end PC so it's future proof.

 

[InvalidError]

Moore's law screws you over if you intend to get a high-end PC so it's future proof.

The incorrect interpretation of Moore's law you are referring to here (performance doubles every 18 months) has been dead for years on the desktop and server fronts. It takes 4-5 years for performance to double now and most of it is due to extra cores.

The REAL Moore's law is that TRANSISTOR COUNT doubles every 18 months and that one is still more-or-less on-track. The performance-doubling of old was due to a combination of increasing clock rates from die shrinks and quickly improving execution efficiency due to transistor budget becoming available for all sorts of new performance-enhancing structures.

As far as "future-proofing" goes, it depends on how and why. For my needs, I could probably have made-do with an i3-3220 and 16GB RAM for ~2 years at a cost of around $300 but for ~$450, I got an i5-3470 with 32GB RAM that will likely last me 5+ years so I expect to save ~$300 by taking the "future-proof" option instead of your buy-cheap-buy-often strategy.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

I'm mainly talking about the really high end though - those who go multi-GPU.

CPUs are growing much more slowly than GPUs or RAM.

 

[Adrianime]

What about 8 GB compared to 16? Right now I'm using 8GB Ram with my SSD on my new (first) build.

 

[fkr]

with Micron soon finishing its acquisition of Elpida there are only three major memory players, Micro, Hynix and Samsung (who are looking to scale down production). That said they are likely to continue to control supply in order to drive prices up so expect 2014 to be another year of rising DRAM prices across all segments of the market.

price fixing court case coming up.

 

[InvalidError]

price fixing court case coming up.

Not likely.

The very low prices from last year were due to DRAM suppliers selling chips at a loss to avoid the costs of shutting down fabs while they wait for excess inventory to clear up and the costs of firing them back up once they are ready to resume production.

At current prices, they are likely still operating at a loss once you factor in capital cost from their losses on DRAM last year so prices need to go higher still just to break even.

Pretty hard to make a case for price-fixing when the companies you are accusing are selling products barely above cost.

 

[eddieroolz]

I'm happy that I have 16GB of RAM, but I do wish sometimes I got 8x2GB sticks so I can pop in additional for 32GB total.

 

[fkr]

price fixing court case coming up.

Not likely.

The very low prices from last year were due to DRAM suppliers selling chips at a loss to avoid the costs of shutting down fabs while they wait for excess inventory to clear up and the costs of firing them back up once they are ready to resume production.

At current prices, they are likely still operating at a loss once you factor in capital cost from their losses on DRAM last year so prices need to go higher still just to break even.

Pretty hard to make a case for price-fixing when the companies you are accusing are selling products barely above cost.

i doubt it also but there are so few players and samsung and hynix are in bed with each other so maybe.

hynix did hit an all time high stock price last month. they have some cash flow problems but revenue has been steady for them for the last four years and they paid of allot debt this year. also inventory for the last year was only at 57 days so that is inline with the whole semiconductor industry.

micron is at an all time high also.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and SK hynix announced that they have reached an agreement to share patents for chipmaking technologies, wrapping up three-year long negotiations.

and there is allot of extra volume trading going lately with these two companies. take this all with a large grain of salt since I only spent a couple minutes looking over there financials for shites and giggles

 

[letsreboot]

A minor hardware upgrade can have a major impact. Adding RAM to your PC may help cut back on writes to your SSD, potentially increasing its lifespan. In fact, our benchmarks reveal up to a 63% reduction with 16 GB of DDR3 memory compared to 4 GB.

Experiment: Can Adding RAM Improve Your SSD's Endurance? : Read more

16GB of RAM may actually stress the SSD more given the larger hibernation file (now 16GB in size).

disabling the paging file alltogether can also help lower SSD writes.

 

[smeezekitty]

You can disable hibernation or put it in a hdd and make the page file very small.

 

[Totalslaughter]

I would like to have seen if going from 8GB to 16GB would have any benefit as most of my machines have 8GB, probably a lot of others as well.

 

[robertpmc]

I'm sick of I.T. "professionals". They all say differing things. My animation/modelling program [Blender] started slowing to a crawl after suitable workloads. All the "professionals" I spoke to advised me to upgrade the ram from 8 to 16 gb. I've just had that done in the shop along with Graphics card and power supply upgrade. Now my program is slower! All the "professionals", "don't understand it". So now I have a higher spec pc that isn't as good as the lower specs as it used to be and I'm several hundred dollars down on the deal. Bah! I can't express my true feelings in print.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

I'm sick of I.T. "professionals". They all say differing things. My animation/modelling program [Blender] started slowing to a crawl after suitable workloads. All the "professionals" I spoke to advised me to upgrade the ram from 8 to 16 gb. I've just had that done in the shop along with Graphics card and power supply upgrade. Now my program is slower! All the "professionals", "don't understand it". So now I have a higher spec pc that isn't as good as the lower specs as it used to be and I'm several hundred dollars down on the deal. Bah! I can't express my true feelings in print.

IT professionals in a shop aren't usually professionals...

It's rather easy to 'upgrade' to a slower GPU.

 

[robertpmc]

Exactly. The very place you'd expect them...they're not. However, the "professionals" I refer to are independents who have previously recommended the upgrade - The guy in the shop merely did what I'd been generally advised to get done and that he also believed would create at least 40% more efficiency. It's also rather easy to smugly make statements that don't follow logical reasoning as well. Even in the motor trade, and despite hundreds of different models, the motor trader knows his onions. So even shady rip-off merchants can be professional by comparison in simply knowing how their product works. I speak as the end product in a long line of uncertainty and speculation in a technology full of pitfalls to the uninitiated. I resent having to engross myself at the kerbside in the workings and principles of an engine when I have simply paid for a taxi through town. I am also angry and rantish about being held up in my work by self styled "professionals" who are wasting my time with things they don't know enough about, let alone give advices on. I have never encountered so little "press button and go" than in the I.T. world. It has been mainly, "press button and....................where the heck do you think you're going?". It's as you point out, "if you want professional advice, try sticking your head up your ............."

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Well have to take into account the fact that the person who is in a position to sell you stuff may have his or her own interests (and profit) above your own.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

at least 40% more efficiency

More performance maybe. More efficient, not a chance (except for a newer GPU).

If you want it to be looked after for you (i.e. a taxi), go use Amazon's cloud computing etc.

 

[robertpmc]

My irritation was not about shopkeepers - I have to deal with Monsanto! I was expressing my irritation with the kind of of "professionals" where the best advice you can hope for may (or may not) come from general forums or general faq's or some such roundabout. Or corporate "professionals" who, because they work for a large company - say Microsoft, talk down to you, treat you like an idiot and then later, "don't understand" why their "instructions" didn't work!. My experience with the computer over 25 years shows that the journey around the houses to get a definitive answer may take months. Many attempt to belittle those who admit ignorance of the field, and they often air a lot of suspect knowledge (confirmed by hindsight) that helps no-one except the overblown ego one has to deal with. Others may try to demean me by insinuating that my IQ must be pretty low to have ended up with an inefficient system that performs less well than the pre-upgrade. Always AFTER the event. No, I don't know about I.T. yet I'm finding to my chagrin that this computer world is making me learn far more than I ever desired or intended about the workings of "an engine" when my goal was to map the terrain en route. or merely get from A to B in the most efficient way possible. I end up abandoning the purpose of my trip. This IT is supposed to be a tool for workers to use on their projects - not a diversion into another vocation. I happened to comment on this forum randomly, having begun the tedious task of trying to find out where a simple, logical procedure may be rectified so that I may resume the work that IS important to me. I'm sick of I.T. "professionals" because I may have to become the equivalent in order to get my "tools" to work - even just the pen! [analogously]. 25 years later I'm still having to do this.

 

[dgingeri]

My irritation was not about shopkeepers - I have to deal with Monsanto! I was expressing my irritation with the kind of of "professionals" where the best advice you can hope for may (or may not) come from general forums or general faq's or some such roundabout. Or corporate "professionals" who, because they work for a large company - say Microsoft, talk down to you, treat you like an idiot and then later, "don't understand" why their "instructions" didn't work!. My experience with the computer over 25 years shows that the journey around the houses to get a definitive answer may take months. Many attempt to belittle those who admit ignorance of the field, and they often air a lot of suspect knowledge (confirmed by hindsight) that helps no-one except the overblown ego one has to deal with. Others may try to demean me by insinuating that my IQ must be pretty low to have ended up with an inefficient system that performs less well than the pre-upgrade. Always AFTER the event. No, I don't know about I.T. yet I'm finding to my chagrin that this computer world is making me learn far more than I ever desired or intended about the workings of "an engine" when my goal was to map the terrain en route. or merely get from A to B in the most efficient way possible. I end up abandoning the purpose of my trip. This IT is supposed to be a tool for workers to use on their projects - not a diversion into another vocation. I happened to comment on this forum randomly, having begun the tedious task of trying to find out where a simple, logical procedure may be rectified so that I may resume the work that IS important to me. I'm sick of I.T. "professionals" because I may have to become the equivalent in order to get my "tools" to work - even just the pen! [analogously]. 25 years later I'm still having to do this.

I am an IT professional. I had been doing desktop support for 13 years, and finally got promoted to a systems admin 3 years ago. Those "professionals" in the shop aren't. Failed professionals work in shops like that, and they make the salary they earn. I probably make more than twice what they do because I'm good enough to be worthy of it. There are a lot of IT professionals who do darn good work. I take umbrage at your word and tone because it is an affront to me and many good people I have worked with over the years.

Are there bad IT professionals who don't deserve their jobs? Plenty, as with any field. However, there are plenty of people who can help you know how to upgrade your system, and none of them work in any retail shop. I would appreciate you discontinue your insults to those of us in the field.

Now, that out of the way, after your complaints about performance and commenting on what you have upgraded, I'd say your performance problems are likely due to a storage bottleneck, but you'll have to analyze when the performance problems happen. Determining exactly when the problems come up and what you and the program were doing at the time these come up is vital to determining what is wrong. It's going to take careful, logical, analysis, not emotional outbursts. Your emotional state is obviously getting in the way.

 

[robertpmc]

I am expressing my reaction, and yes very irritatedly, to a world in which the majority option is to throw money at something as if in a "lucky dip". I cannot deny my own long suffering experience. I am sorry that you take umbrage at that experience but I am not a liar. Irritated, yes. But not a liar.
I could write a litany of problems inherited from a quarter century of the individuals described whom I have paid for or been given advices from as "professionals". People of your described calibre have been as rare as rocking horse droppings in that experience so I'm hardly going to sing their praises am I? The quotation marks in which the word I use appears, "professionals", was meant to demarcate that group for what they are. Even if I've never met the true professional, I know he or she exists so the quotes were emplaced to protect he or she from my tirade. It seems to me that real professionals would not be troubled by what I've said, since I believe they would know I'm speaking truly.

 

[robertpmc]

p.s. My emotional state ("tired and emotional" usually means drunk. I expect you meant my irritation threshold) is a result of repeatedly recounting the nature of the efficiency limits of my machine. My questions then concerned the move to solution, the concerted "professional" opinion was "more RAM required". This has been done now and if there's any difference, it is slower. I do not ask for solutions here, there are plenty of other places to find condescending people of higher "authority" to patronise me, I merely expressed myself and may have flushed a few "professionals" out in doing so...Who knows?