Questions about an SSD upgrade

[elison]

So, I've recently sparked some interest in upgrading my 500gb HDD to a SSD. I'm totally convinced about purchasing one, but my God at the price to space offered ratio. I really only have two main concerns:

1. Obviously, 64gb isn't going to cut it for my needs. Realistically, I can make due with anything above 120gb so that's what I'm aiming for. What do you guys recommend, performance wise?

2. Other then putting computers together physically, I'm not very savvy with them at all. Would I be able to transfer the things I care most about from my 500gb HDD to my new SSD? OS, games, etc?

Thanks in advance.

[Gredival]

afaik the Intels still lead the market.

Recommend strongly against transferring OS and installs; its usually best to clean install and only transfer files

[Rellikard]

For Windows, I'd recommend at least a 60 or 80GB SSD and for OSX/Linux, 40GB should be enough. I tried it and honestly it's really not worth it to image the OS over from a HDD to an SSD. Keep your OS and main programs on SSD and junction the remainder programs (search for a thread w/ my name and junction).

As far as which to buy, Intel is still the best IMO as stated and other than that I heard OCZ was good but I don't have any experience w/ it.

[Aevis]

why not buy a 64gb ssd and install your OS + software on it, while keeping the 500gb for all your data? ssds are pretty much useless for home users outside of this concept, except you like to move gigabytes of data all day long and get a boner from the I/0. like gredival mentioned, better do a new install for everything that needs an installation.

as for the ssd itself, get one with a sandforce controller. size wise, i'm personally good with my 1 year old 60gb mushkin callisto. win 7 / ubuntu 10.10 dual boot and around 7gb left, all software installed on the ssd too.

[Hellfury]

In essence what Aevis (and the rest) say, I use Intels 80 GB Gen.2 as a OS/program files (and whatever maingame I am playing) drive, with "everything else" on a RAID1 with 2x 500GB WD Enterprise drives. Works like a charm.
(I am a tad skeptical about going below 80GB size though)

[vivid2012]

In essence what Aevis (and the rest) say, I use Intels 80 GB Gen.2 as a OS/program files (and whatever maingame I am playing) drive, with "everything else" on a RAID1 with 2x 500GB WD Enterprise drives. Works like a charm.
(I am a tad skeptical about going below 80GB size though)

Yup, 80GB size is necessary.

[Gryffes]

Wat.
ze.
fook.

OCZ vertex 3's are the best small capacity unit right now by a long way.

[sruon]

OCZ all the way.

[Amastacia]

Vertex 3 is definitely the highest-performing drive on the market, and fairly priced. Finding the 120GB in stock anywhere could prove entertaining.

The new Crucial m4 looks like it will be a credible competitor, if for some reason you didn't want to buy OCZ.

Edit: Check out AnandTech's article posted today on the 120GB Vertex 3. Real-world impact is smaller than some synthetic benchmarks indicate, but don't ever look at the numbers on the box or review numbers if you want an accurate picture of the performance of smaller SSDs.

[Isiolia]

OCZ has the top performance, but if I recall, Intel's quality control is better (not trashing OCZ, both of the SSDs I own are made by 'em).

[Amastacia]

Intel's quality control is better than everyone's, and by a large margin.

They are absurdly anal about it.

Up to the user to decide whether peak performance or least likelihood of failure is most important.

[rezn0r]

i vote OCZ Vertex 3 as well. it'll change your nerd life. it changed mine. (although my main system is a Vertex 2, not 3)

[Amastacia]

OCZ has the top performance, but if I recall, Intel's quality control is better (not trashing OCZ, both of the SSDs I own are made by 'em).

One more quick note here.

The performance is from the Sandforce controller being used. OCZ is the largest distributor of SF-based drives, but you will see alternatives come out. There's a GSkill and a Corsair drive that are based off SF-1200, exactly like the Vertex 2, and they offer the same exact performance. Right now the SF-2200 controller in the Vertex 3 is the best on the market, but that is never guaranteed to last. OCZ wins the speed war right now because they're the only ones currently shipping a drive with the SF-2200 controller.

The one that really confuses me is Intel. With the X-25M they had their own controller, and when it launched it was incredible. Since then, there have been few to no changes to the actual controller architecture/design, and even the new mainstream drive is just lipstick on a pig. The new firmware is very good, but it's being held back by its outdated controller. The SSD 510, the new performance drive from Intel, is their own firmware on top of a 3rd party Marvell controller, and is very fast (but not quite SF-2200 fast). If Intel updated their controller architecture and applied the same high-quality firmware and anal-retentive QA testing, they'd have a world-beater on their hands most likely.

[Boyiee]

Probably shouldn't buy a SSD at all. You will probably end up constantly writing to it all the time and thats not what it is for.

vertex3 ftw though.

I raid0 two 40's, have OS+several apps+wow+one FPS game.

[Cephius]

Probably shouldn't buy a SSD at all. You will probably end up constantly writing to it all the time and thats not what it is for.

While SSDs did suffer from performance degradation quickly when they first came out due to constant read/writes/overwrites, it's less of a problem these days with the combination of better controllers and Windows 7 built in TRIM support.

[rezn0r]

since we're on topic (and this may be useful to the OP anyone have a definitive list of useful tweaks for win7 & SSDs? i've only had one SSD since September, and i did turn off a lot of things, but i have read tons of conflicting "guides" on exactly what is best.

[Cephius]

since we're on topic (and this may be useful to the OP anyone have a definitive list of useful tweaks for win7 & SSDs? i've only had one SSD since September, and i did turn off a lot of things, but i have read tons of conflicting "guides" on exactly what is best.

Turn defrag off, but Windows usually will recognize that your drive is an SSD and turn it off for you. A lot of guides tell you to turn off write caching, but that reduces your write speeds to shit, so I'd leave it on. Turn off system restore too to save on space. Other than that, TRIM and the windows default options should take care of the rest.