Which is better? Solid state HD and cheap mechanical HD or the fastest mechamical HD?

I'm going to upgrade from an old IDE mechanical hard drive for something a bit faster and am torn between tow options: should I buy a single fast 10000rpm Raptor hard drive or a small 30GB solid state drive and a cheap 7200rpm drive?

Western Digital WD1500HLFS 150GB Hard Drive SATAII 10000rpm 16MB Cache - OEM WD VelociRaptor - Ebuyer

OCZ Vertex Series 2.5" 30GB Solid State Hard Drive SATAII 64MB Cache - Ebuyer
OCZ Vertex Series 2.5" 30GB Solid State Hard Drive SATAII 64MB Cache - Ebuyer

I like the idea of a fast solid state drive but 30GB won't be enough so I'll need a separate mechanical drive for my files and just keep the SSD for the OS.

I know that the price of SSDs will probably fall more than traditional hard drives in the coming years so I could just buy the Raptor and upgrade to an SSD later.

I'm not one for always having the latest hardware but I know that the hard drive is the main speed bottleneck and I'm better off upgrading it than anything else.

I've just got my brother's old motherboard, here's the spec's:
Asus A8N-VM CSM
AMD Athlon 64 Processor running at 2GHz.
1GB RAM - don't know what sort, I've been told it's not very good so will probably get some faster RAM too.
Sapphire Radeon X300SE 256MB RAM

Much better than my old PC but not top of the range I know.

I've just ordered some two 2GB RAM modules off ebay, wish me luck getting XP Home to see them both. It's not a big issue since Linux certainly will or at least it will if I upgrade to 64-bit. For Windows I might get hold of my brother's old 64-bit XP pro CD, if he can find it.

I've got a Vertex in my Netbook. No mechanical drive comes close.

Oh, I forgot to say it's a destktop.

What sort of SSD does your netbook use and how large is it?

Hi Hero

There are a few things you may want to consider in all this beginning with the RAM (memory modules). Your motherboard supports:

4 x184-pin DIMM, Max. 4 GB, DDR 400/333/266 ECC,Non-ECC,Un-buffered Memory
Dual Channel memory architecture

Click to expand...

Since you bought 2X2GB you want to be sure that the motherboard can handle 2 GB per slot for a 4 GB total rather than 4X1GB for a 4 GB total.

As to Windows XP in the 64 bit version. I did some BETA testing with XP64 and a big problem was driver support and that issue remains to some extent today. Overall the OS ran fine as long as there were good hardware drivers available but the drivers were limited. You just want to be sure that drivers for all the installed hardware are available prior to installing XP64. **broken link removed** as to driver support for your motherboard and check the BIOS updates for any references to supported RAM by slot.

As to new HDDs and mechanical versus solid state obviously the systems with SSD will boot fasted than an older conventional HDD but beyond that it really depends on what you are doing with the machine and how much R/W activity is required of the HDD. Additionally what other background applications or programs are using the drive and how fast the overall system can get data to and from the drive(s).

Personally my take is simple in that you have an OK system for general computing purposes. I would add a few higher capacity HDDs and let it go at that. Even adding a few WD Raptors or 10K RPM drives may not be at all worth the bang for the buck. Unless you really have a need for speed on that system I see no real merit in spending the bucks. Strictly my take on that.

Ron

I was told that it supports EEC, buffered memory, oh well if it doesn't work then I'll just have to stick it back on ebay.

The trouble is that the two middle RAM sockets might be broken as a couple of RAM modules smoked when my bother had it so I don't want to risk putting RAM in them. If I can't get the 2GB modules to work, then I'll just ebay them and buy two 1GB modules and be happy with that.

A faster boot time would be nice and I've noticed some programs take a bit longer to load than I'd like. At the moment, I think the hard drive is slower because it's and IDE and I should at least upgrade to a SATA. Space is not a problem, I still haven't even used up half of my current 150GB drive so speed is more important to me.

The ECC or non ECC is just error checking where systems like workstations seem to prefer ECC which actually slows the memory down a little. Actually anymore ECC is falling from grace as memory becomes more reliable. What you want is DDR memory. Not DDR2 or DDR3 but plain DDR at the speeds I mentioned in the quote. Nice thing is that the wrong RAM won't fit in the slots.

Again, as to the HDD thing I just don't see any real merit to using SSDs in that system.

I did notice this:

2 xUltraDMA 133/100/66/33
4 xSATA 3 Gb/s ports Support RAID 0,1,0+1,5 NVIDIA MediaShield storage management technology

Click to expand...

OK you will have 4 SATA ports. Personally I would shove the optical drives (CD, DVD, whatever) on the PATA IDE. That leaves you 4 SATA drives to work with. The NVIDIA SATA controller supports RAID0 and personally not a fan of RAID0 I would configure two SATA drives in a RAID0 array which will give you speed. Small drives are fine like 200GB or so. That will give you 400 GB and I would install the OS to that array as well as programs. Then a few more 200 (or whatever) in a RAID1 array for redundancy. You store what you care about on a drive other than where the OS resides.

Looking at the overall system I just don't see a need for SSD as the system won't really take advantage of it. For the same chunk of change the setup I mentioned would likely give you more bang for the buck. Hell just my opinion and you know what they say about opinions.

Ron

It's the 32G Vertex.
I have a Linux server / gateway with massive storage & simply don't need lots of storage on the local drives. So little drives in the PCs are plenty.

The RAM I've purchased is 184 pin, 400MHz PC3200; so it should work?

It it doesn't work, it won't damage the RAM, will it?

Currently none of the SATA sockets are used, both the CD and DVD writer drives are IDE.

I've never used a RAID configuration before. Is it comparable with dual booting Linux?

400GB is really overkill for me (I'm currently using <50% of my 120GB drive) so I'd rather spend the money on speed. What about mirroring? I've heard that can increase the speed but again I'm concerned about dual booting Linux.

I know that by current hard drive is letting me down speed wise, it's the weakest link. The seek time is 9ms to 21ms and the reed speed is 100Mbps, the RAM, processor are all much faster than that.

The RAM should work fine as long as the slots can handle 2 GB sticks. That was my only concern early on but you did order the correct RAM. I also saw a few BIOS updates for your motherboard but didn't see what they addressed. Initially I saw 4X1GB and wondered if the BIOS (motherboard) would see 2 GB sticks. Not a big deal.

As to HDD capacities I just tossed some numbers out there. Unless someone is running server applications and storing endless GB of data I see no need for multiple 1 TB drives for storage. Anymore I don't think you can even find less than 200 GB HDDs new in box on a store shelf. It wasn't long ago when everyone was waiting for storage versus capacity to drop below a buck ($1.00 US) a GB. Came a long way on that note. The same will happen with SSDs as prices come down and capacity goes up. Drive speed as to read & write really only matters in applications that access the drive consatntly and then is only as good as the rest of the system.

As to Linux I have run a Suse Linux distro for years in a dual boot with XP Pro and it has no issues with seeing a RAID array. I only suggested RAID0 for the speed factor. Since I was running with and happy with Suse I never bothered with the newer distros like the familys of Unbuntu in Linux.

The best way to set up a dual boot configuration is start clean and Install the Windows OS first and then add a Linux distro after Windows in my opinion. You don't mention a Linux distro?

Ron

You could always buy two cheap ultra fast HD's and do a Raid 0 stripped array. A large number of computers come with hardware raid support, and it's possible to do it via the OS as well.

I use Fedora.

I've decided that if/when I upgrade to 64-bt Windows and Linux I will go with a RAID.

If not, I'll go for the Raptor, unless anyone can give me a good enough reason to go SSD. Come to think of it, if I do go with the SSD, I might as well keep my IDE 120GB drive because I don't see the point in buying a slightly faster SATA drive for my files.

Hero999 said:

I use Fedora.

I've decided that if/when I upgrade to 64-bt Windows and Linux I will go with a RAID.

If not, I'll go for the Raptor, unless anyone can give me a good enough reason to go SSD. Come to think of it, if I do go with the SSD, I might as well keep my IDE 120GB drive because I don't see the point in buying a slightly faster SATA drive for my files.

Click to expand...

Before I forget if you do go with SSD the drives you linked to initially are for notebook or netbook and not really a desktop tower. As to OCZ then these drives are the family you would want.

As to the final decision let us know what you come up with. I am sure what you have to work with will give you an all around good system.

The dual boot should not be a problem at all and will make for a nice system with versatility.

Ron

All the 3.5" drives are well out of my price range.
Solid State Hard Drive | Hard Drives - Ebuyer

Is there a way to use a 2.5" drive in my desktop?

I'll probably go with the Raptor, even though RAID does look slightly cheaper and more reliable, simply because I don't like the idea of having to reinstall everything.

Hero999 said:

All the 3.5" drives are well out of my price range.
Solid State Hard Drive | Hard Drives - Ebuyer

Is there a way to use a 2.5" drive in my desktop?

I'll probably go with the Raptor, even though RAID does look slightly cheaper and more reliable, simply because I don't like the idea of having to reinstall everything.

Click to expand...

Hi Hero

Yeah, there are adapters out there like this example. That or you can get creative. The ***** here is the larger drives were always cheaper than the smaller laptop drives. Now it seems when looking at SSDs it has become reversed.

Aside from the above which has the mounting hardware there are simple adapters (I think) to get you from a SATA 2.5" drive to a desktop SATA data and power connector. I have used PATA adapters for 2.5" laptop drives but never a SATA. I guess I could open my laptop and see what the creature looks like. Anyway to answer your question it would be yes.

Years ago I placed several WD Raptors (the 74 GB flavor) in a few of my builds including my current workstation and those drives have performed well for years running 24/7.

Not sure what you mean about "reinstall everything"? If you mean you are getting this system from your brother I think you mentioned. Now if you for example take the existing HDD from your current machine and place it in your new system it won't work. Well it can be done but generally leads to disaster. The main problem is all the drivers are for the motherboard the HDD was in. Especially things like the chipset motherboard drivers as well as other motherboard drivers. The OS will not be happy.

Ron

I've already moved the IDE hard drive from my old PC to my brother's newer PC.

It wasn't that bad. Linux didn't need anything doing to it but I have a feeling this was because the drivers were generic and not optimised.

Windows XP failed to boot, even in safe mode, fortunately, it wasn't too hard to do a repair using the Windows CD. After repairing the only things I needed to install were the updates, SP 3 and the patched uxtheme.dll I need for my custom themes to work. This was much easier than having to set up Windows XP, plus all of the programs I use.

Tried to send a PM yesterday but your PM box seems to be overflowing.

Oh yeah, in case you don't have one this link is to your motherboard manual and drivers and just about everything.

Ron

Thanks, I've cleared my PMs so you can now message me.

I got the RAM but unfortunately it didn't work.

I was annoyed with the seller because he wrapped it in printer paper and clear bubble wrap rather than proper ESD shielded packaging. I used the poor packaging as an excuse to return it which he accepted and refunded me.

I don't think I'll bother upgrading the RAM for now as I hardly ever seem to use the full 1GB I already have, may be later I'll go to 2GB.

I'm still going upgrade the hard drive though as I think the current drive is really slowing it down. I'm going to go with the Raptor for now, then upgrade to solid state when it gets cheaper.

Download a hard drive benchmark program, they'll give you the throughputs you get on your current hard drive and you can look up the benchmarks on other harddrives.
Try Tom's Hardware: Hardware News, Tests and Reviews they do a LOT of benchmark testing.