k1ngkev1n1

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Jun 27, 2010
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Wondering if its worth it to upgrade to a SSD drive. Basically want to know the start up difference and is there a difference in loading up programs as well. and what else gets faster. thank you! Also what is the setup like is it the same as a reg harddrive just reinstall windows with a clean install? thanks in advance!

 

LordConrad

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The difference is like night and day, everything gets faster because your processor is not spending precious cycles waiting on the hard drive. Windows 7 will recognize your SSD automatically, so a regular clean install will be fine. Other Operating Systems, such as Windows XP, may require some tweaking during or after install.
 

LordConrad

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Everyone has their favorite brands and/or controller types. I have two OCZ Vertex 2 drives (SandForce controller) that work perfectly, but some people have issues with these drives. The M4 and C300 are very good drives which use Marvell controllers.

Honestly, any SSD will be noticeably faster than a hard drive. The question is price versus capacity. A 30 GB SSD will be useful as little more than a boot drive, all other programs will still be on your hard drive. A 60 GB SSD gives you some room to put a few of your most used programs on your SSD as well.

My preference is a 120 GB SSD as a boot drive. 120 GB drives are faster than lower capacity drives, and give you plenty of extra room for installing your programs to SSD, while still keeping your data (music, photos, movies, etc.) on a large hard drive. Also, 120 GB drives usually have the best "price per gigabyte" ratio.
 

tecmo34

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Here is an additional article written by Tom's Hardware to address this very question...
Should You Upgrade? From A Hard Drive To An SSD .

As for the drive, based on the list your provided, I would go with the Vertex 2 drive. I'm with LordConrad on the recommended capacities, with 120 GB being ideal and 60 GB being the best next lower option. I'm running a Vertex 2 240 GB SSD and have been very pleased (upgrade to my Intel X25-M G2 80GB).
 

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