Going to upgrade to solid state drive have a couple questions.

malcolm

1. How big of a drive do I need, my local shop doesn't offer the top rated ones in 250gb only smaller. I plan to use my regular old 1tb hard drive for storage and install win7 and my programs to the SSD.

2. What is raid zero, and do I need to set this up with my configuration described above?

3. Is the SSD plug in play, I am hoping I will just plug it in then go to the bios and assign it a drive letter and install windows as normal.

4. After the installation if everything goes well I was hoping to boot back into the old drive to uninstall all the programs since they would then be wasting space, will this work or will it screw everything up?

Futzy

128gb/256gb Crucial M4/Samsung 830/Corsair Force GT; any of those have proven reliability. Let your budget decide the size; 128 is plenty workable but 256 will of course give you more leeway.

Read this.

Raid is not something you'll need to worry about.

You'll want to format the old windows install, so you'll have to back up all your data to another partition or external HDD, and then format it entirely.

m4dcow

The suggestions Futzy made for drives is solid, although the Corsair is a Sandforce drive which have a bad rep, but I have vertex 3 which uses the same controller and I couldn't be happier with it.

1. You don't need a massive drive, I have a 256gb right now and I am only a few GB over the capacity of what a 128gb drive could hold. That is with a few large games installed and about 20gb of project files that don't need to be on the SSD. So with a little bit of juggling you shouldn't really run into much of a problem.
2. Raid 0 is when you have 2 drives and you combine them together to be one larger drives. IE: you could make 2 128gb drives into a 256gb drive, and there is usually a boost in performance. However if one drive goes, all the data is lost on both, and sometimes just setting that stuff up can be a PITA. Basically for your setup you need not worry about it.
3. Modern SSDs are pretty much plug and play and as far as windows goes, operates like any other hard drive. Just never do a full format on an SSD though, it reduces their lifespan.
4. You should just be able to delete the folders with the operating system and program files on your old hard drive, no need to boot back in and uninstall them manually, just make sure you copy or backup any of the personal files you need on there.

malcolm

What do you mean by full format, is quick format okay?

The Crucial M4 is available at futureshop web, but I read the cnet review and it says it doesn't come with a drive bay converter, I need a drive bay converter to use it in a desktop right?
http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/crucial-crucial-m4-256gb-sata-solid-state-drive-ct256m4ssd2-ct256m4ssd2/10188568.aspx?path=aba40c340502796533c1a97f3a87c471en02

m4dcow

Yeh quick format is fine.

Depending on your case you may or may not need a drive bay converter.
I found one on that futureshop site (ridiculously overpriced)
http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/startech-startech-2-5-hard-drive-bay-mounting-kit-bracket25sat-bracket25sat/10192296.aspx?path=5da9f71b8190f66b4ef843839a76f213en02

If I assume you are in Canada, here is a cheap bracket from NCIX
http://ncix.ca/products/?sku=65321&vpn=SNA-BR/35&manufacture=Kingston

Scruples

Most desktops use 3.5" bays, but some actually have the smaller 2.5", these are uncommon and it is unlikely that you have one, so unless you want to tape it to the inside of your case you need a converter, brand name doesn't matter they are all the same just a chunk of metal. Quick format will work fine.

tristamus

Samsung 830, ALL THE WAY. I have one myself, it's blazing fast and supposedly one of the most stable SSD's out there. My size is 256GB, and I find that that is quite sufficient!

Shugs81

I've got a corsair force 3 and managed to get the one with the duff firmware so everynow and then it just shuts off for no reason... i need to reformat to sort it out but thankfully it only happens every couple of months and very rarely when I'm working on it.... seems to be a spin down issue...

malcolm

Okay I just ordered the Samsung 830 online it was in the cnet top 5 ssd's this year.

When it arrives do I just plug it into the same slot my currently hdd is plugged into?

m4dcow

You can plug it into any slot you want once it is the motherboards primary SATA chipset.
I would go ahead and plug it into the same slot your hard drive is currently in, leaving the hard drive unplugged, install windows on the SSD since sometimes the installer can get a bit annoyed if there is an existing windows installation on another drive. Then after everything is working with the SSD install, plug in your old drive, and format and/or fish any files off of it.
Make sure you set in you BIOS which drive to boot to though, because when you plug back in the old drive, it might try to boot to that since that is what it was booting to all along.

malcolm

Thanks a lot for all the tips.

claydough

Anandtech has a nice benchmark tool that makes comparing drive speeds for several different usage scenarios.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/65

Testing the Samsung 830 256 gb against the smaller 128 gb version is enough to show the signifigant performance the additional nand gives you with 256gb over 128gb. ( in most cases not enterprise 256 always seems the best sweet spot for performance )

Sounds like you are trying to find the best configuration in combination with yer hard drives? You might be interested in a SSD cache solution to boost speeds?

LSI hardware solutions boast top speed leveraging memory and dual proc to accelerate it's cashcade 2.0 pro solution. Comes at a high price and the CC software does not usually come with the Controller card hardware.

( if u go the LSI route and was interested in futureproofing for the bandwidth performance of PCI-E 3.0 on yer new/future Ivy/Haswell rig and future sata standards with a higher ceiling than u might want to wait later this quarter for the PCI-E 3.0 MEGARAID cards from LSI. I believe "CC" in the new models designate that the model comes with the CachCade software )

The SSDREVIEWs.org website has a nice review that describes using SSDs ( RAIDED in the review ) to accelerate Hard drives using LSI's CC 2.0 pro:
http://thessdreview.com/raid-enterprise/lsi-megaraid-cachecade-pro-2-0-review-total-storage-acceleration-realized/

On a budget, a lot of people seem to get results from Highpoint for a lot less pricewise. Highpoint makes a line of cards to cache harddrive speeds leveraging SSDs. ( Every single hardware solution is chock full of issues depending on your configuration and if u want a bootable system and if u are going to also RAID. I would research your motherboard and controller and firmware fer each )


Personally I wanted to go with the Samsung's as well. last week the 256gb Samsung 830's went on sale on New Egg for $189/free shipping! And by the time I checked my finances and ran home to order 5 ( the maximum order ) they had sold out in a matter of hours! very very painful!

Mushkin Cronos Deluxe "DX" is a dreaded Sandforce SSD as well but feedback has been pretty positive on reliability particularly with the newest firmware. ( compared to Crucial's forums where u would think the famously reliable SSD's were the worst pieces of junk ever. I have had a system on firmware 002 c300 256gb for 2years now with no issues myself ) The DX deluxe model ( not MX ) have the desirable High performance, Supposedly Long Lasting, Toshiba Toggle-Mode NANDs that deliver the high compressible benchmark scores on SSDs like the OCZ MAXiops, Patriot Wildfire... Where Corsair initially had firmware BSOD horror stories the new Corsair Force Series GS also uses the 24nm Toggle-Mode NAND. A Corsair fan should be happy with their best performing SSD to date with better writes and IOP boost over previous Force SSDs and with their website listing the overprovisioned size of 240gb @ $239 I am willing to bet some intoductory sales might follow soon enough as INSANE price events have been common with SSDs lately!

After I missed the SAMSUNG 830 256gb fer $189@ NewEGG I snagged four 240gb "DX" MUSHkin's with said toggle-Mode goodness @ NCIX US for $179 * 4 + free shipping! :-)
Newegg currently has that Mushkin cronos Deluxe DX for only $199! ( take care as there a 3 different cronos two of which are deluxe although only the DX has the toggle-mode NAND advantage )

Hopefully Anantech uploads the Corsair 240gb FORCE GS to it's benchmark utility soon.
I suspect the performance of the toggle-mode NAND will probably be nearly identical to other models? For instance OCZ3 MAXIOPS and Patriot Wildfire:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/389?vs=392

Considering what might be cheapest next it is almost tempting to buy as much to fill out the 4 more drives required for my final RAID config. ( If I knew the firmware driving each drive under the hood was simply using generic methods I would easily just buy the cheapest contender with the same NAND. Even with Identical results I doubt the companies would ever admit as much? )
Luckily the MUSHkin DX model is on sale consistently.

Final note...
Anyone considering buying the LSI 9265 which has gotten the lions share of attention compared to the other 1gig cache memory megaraid solutions might be better served with the LSI 9266 instead which was built with cachcade in mind and which is upgradeable to CacheVault ( NAND FLASH Memory solution instead or in addition to battery backup. Buying a BBU at $150 every year sounds like a hassle yet critical depending on RAID used. @ $221 CacheVault seems like the better option ) also comes with the two 8087 port in the rear instead of the side for easier cabling configuration.

CacheVault :
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMFcLQWPX5g"]LSI CacheVault Technology - YouTube[/ame]

The PCIE 3.0 variant that most resembles the 9265-8i sweet Spot for price performance is probably the 9271-8i however if the CC version actually ships with CacheCade Pro 2.0 and Fastpath Software at a reduced price then the 9271-8iCC will probably be very popular!
http://www.lsi.com/products/storagecomponents/Pages/MegaRAIDSAS9271-8iCC.aspx


If u don't want to wait a month or two there is an 8i HBA solution already by LSI for PCI-E 3.0
"LSI SAS 9207-8i PCIe 3.0 HBA"
Last weeks sexy thessdreview.com benchmarks showing scaling throughput of 8 256gb Crucial M4s! :

So, as it turns out, we can make the most of 8 Crucial M4 256GB SATA III SSDs. Read and write throughput scales beautifully. 2.15GB/s for sequential writes is exactly 8x the seq. write speed of one M4, while 4.18GB/s is exactly 8x the seq. read speed. Had this been a PCIe 2 device, read scaling would have stopped with five drives or so, being that overhead limits theoretical bandwidth by 20%. The M4s only write half as fast as they read, so they come in under the 3GB/s limit of PCIe 2, but scale well nonetheless.

time to upgrade to PCI-E 3.0??

The LSI SAS 9207 HBA is still young, so new developments with respect to drivers and firmware could change performance as it matures. Given LSI’s track record, the 9207-8i has a prosperous future. In contrast, given that 12Gbps products are going to be on the market sooner rather than later, the 9207 could just be a short-term stepping stone to the PCIe 3 12Gbps HBAs of the not-too-distant future. Predicting the future is never easy though, so it’s best not to make any firm prognostications. We’ll take advancements anywhere we can find them, and LSI’s Gen3 HBAs are certainly great advancements if you have the hardware to make the most of it.

But then again I will only be investing in a beefy controller cuz my Rampage III extreme came with first gen onboard Marvell sata 3 misery. If I had an onboard IVY sata III I imagine I would be happy with drive performance? Photoshop load times? tmp disk read write performance when unraring/installing applications? virtual memory? If still not transparent drive slowdowns I am excited enuff with the dropping prices. Might as well have some fun?

malcolm

My Samsung 830 arrived and it was a somewhat smooth installation. Unplugged my old hdd and plugged the ssd into its slot, bios automatically recognized it and installed win 7 as normal off the disc. From there I then plugged my old hdd back in and it showed up as an inert second drive, formatted that and am currently in the process of copying my files over from my usb backup drive. The Samsung 830 also ships with a diagnostic tool which is great because there is an auto configure button which sets all the secret switches in Windows appropriate for solid state drives.

A couple things to note which were annoyances in this process:

Samsung 830 does not come with a mounting bracket or a data cable, totally lame I had to drive back to NCIX twice to get these two parts after realizing I needed them.

tristamus

malcolm wrote: »

My Samsung 830 arrived and it was a somewhat smooth installation. Unplugged my old hdd and plugged the ssd into its slot, bios automatically recognized it and installed win 7 as normal off the disc. From there I then plugged my old hdd back in and it showed up as an inert second drive, formatted that and am currently in the process of copying my files over from my usb backup drive. The Samsung 830 also ships with a diagnostic tool which is great because there is an auto configure button which sets all the secret switches in Windows appropriate for solid state drives.

A couple things to note which were annoyances in this process:

Samsung 830 does not come with a mounting bracket or a data cable, totally lame I had to drive back to NCIX twice to get these two parts after realizing I needed them.

So I see you took my advice >D Well chosen sir. I'm sure it'll treat you well.