Anyone use an SSD as their primary drive?

squire777

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I am thinking of getting an SSD for my desktop before Windows 8 comes out then doing a clean install on it once I get my hands on Windows 8. I just wanted to know if there are others here that are using a SSD as the primary hard drive on their computer?

I have read things like SSDs are not as reliable in the long run as HDDs are, and that SSDs are more prone to failures, data corruption, system crashes etc - is this true? A lot of people say that those were issues of the past and newer models are much more reliable.

Reading reviews of some popular SSD on the market and I see a good chunk of reviews that state that the drives failed after a few weeks or a few months. I see that certain brands such as Intel and Samsung have the best reviews (even though they might not be the fastest) so I'll probably stick with one of them.
 

jhoff80

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I won't buy a PC without an SSD anymore.

An SSD does have a limited number of write cycles, but most people won't come anywhere near that amount.

If it doesn't fail right away, then you should be good for years, just like any hard drive. The only caveat is that some drives have firmware issues (based on the controller chip they use) to be aware of. If you stick to Intel and Samsung, you should be pretty safe from those.

Edit: As mentioned below, Crucial is another reliable brand as well.
 
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berty6294

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I have used SSD as my primary drive on my gaming rig. I have 2 64 gig Crucial SSD drives and the first thing you will notice, is the insane difference in speed. Everything is done quicker, the boot time of my pc (and it has many many applications loaded on it) is just about 10 seconds. (keep in mind i also have 16gigs ddr3 and an i5 processor) As far as games go, it loads everything in the games super quickly so there is no lag. Im really happy with my SSD, i went with Crucial cause everyone said they were the best. I have 2 in my computer and 1 my mom accidentally threw away (but thats a different story) as well as a 2tb western digital drive for all other things that speed is not required of.

But yeh, its been a year and mine are going steady!
 

MR.WaynesWorld

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I have four machines running off SSD's. My laptop has a 256 GB SSD as its promary with a 500 GB HDD as secondary drive. My home office machine has a 256 Gb SSD as Primary with multiple other HDD's as secondary drives. My two servers are running off of 128 GB SSD's.

Laptop and Home Office machine running Windows 8 Enterprise and the two servers are running Server 2012..

My laptop was the first SSD and I installed that a year ago. Use the laptop every night.

So far so good with my SSD's....

Oh I'm also using 16 GB SSD's in my Media PC's.. So in total I have 6 SSD's running diffferent machines for about a year with no issues.;)
 

anon(5335877)

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I won't buy a PC without an SSD anymore.

An SSD does have a limited number of write cycles, but most people won't come anywhere near that amount.

If it doesn't fail right away, then you should be good for years, just like any hard drive. The only caveat is that some drives have firmware issues (based on the controller chip they use) to be aware of. If you stick to Intel and Samsung, you should be pretty safe from those.

Yeah, I think most of the issues were firmware issues or bugs rather than an outright failure of the drive.

The two drives that I would recommend that I usually see good deals on are the Samsung 830 series or the Crucial m4. Both are pretty popular and can be had at a great price if you wait for a deal. This past week or so there have actually been several deals where you could get a 256GB Samsung for $150-160.
 

berty6294

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OHHHH and FYI they come as 2.5in drives, you need to get those little attachments to mount it securely in your 3.5in drivebay!

I had my one ssd sitting around in the box while i was waiting for the little attachments to be delivered and my mom picked up the box and thought it was empty and threw it away. DONT LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU!
 

wpguy

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I have heard this but have trouble finding a clear answer. Basically, what considers a write cycle?

Every time I transfer? Save? File size matter?
Anytime something is written to the drive, whether explicitly triggered by you (save, download, etc.) or by the operating system.

Note: Never do a defrag on an SSD. You will waste useable write cycles. File defragmentation isn't much of an issue with moderen operating systems, and insignificant for SSDs.
 

jhoff80

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I have heard this but have trouble finding a clear answer. Basically, what considers a write cycle?

Every time I transfer? Save? File size matter?

To simplify it, each cell of the memory can only be written to a certain number of times. (The cycle includes erasing the old information, and writing the new information) However, the drive controller evens things out, so that you get equal wear on each cell. Besides that, drives usually include a buffer of extra storage above what they're rated for, to extend the life of the drive.

Crucial actually does the math for you; their 128GB drive is rated to 72TB of writes... which means that you could write 40GB on the drive every single day, for 5 years and still be safe. That's a ridiculous amount of data for most people, who probably won't hit that for another five years after that.
 

trazer

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I have been using SSDs for a while now. I am currently running a new Samsung 128gb SSD and it is working well now, I've only ever had one issue with it. It was a big issue and I lost all my data, but it's working perfectly fine now.

I installed it and ran it for about a month with no issues on my Windows 7 laptop, ran absolutely great. One day at about 4:50pm on a Friday I was surfing the web and got a sudden popup from the Samsung SSD software warning me of something - before I could even read it the computer shut off. On reboot I had no readable drive. I tried lots of fixes, to no avail. I reinstalled Windows 7 from scratch and had to try to get all my data back but I've now ran the drive for three more months and not had another problem. I back up more now though!

I was on the newest BIOS of a year old laptop, newest firmware of the drive, all correct drivers and settings with 15gb setup for extra leveling space on the SSD and still had this one fluke problem. I am in IT so I've setup and used many SSDs and this was my first personal problem like this. My only other issues I've seen have been SSDs on XP, that is not a good combo. Any OCZ SSD is just a problem waiting to happen, have had multiple units suddenly die never to return. Purchased three and all three died within 14 months!

On my desktop I'm going to use a swap SSD with a z77 chipset, as a feature of the chipset. Another option you might consider is the new swap SSD setups that are out there. Sandisk has a new entry, and there are a couple of other options. See this review for some basic info:

HARDOCP - Introduction - SanDisk ReadyCache 32GB SSD Review

I will go that route on my personal desktop as I get 90% of the SSD speed but can still have my 2tb of data in movies and such. And then there is no risk of data loss on my primary machine.
 
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squire777

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I was hoping to get something like a 256GB SSD but with all the gadgets coming out soon I have to rethink my budget and I might end up going up with something smaller like a 128GB model for now. I would still have my HDD to hold my media.
 

freddoflip

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Yes ever since these little monsters were out they became primary drives and will never use an HDD again. Nowadays I'm thinking of upgrading to a as fastest as humanly possible just to immerse into this phenomenon.
 
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VegaNovus

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I use a 256GB SSD in my custom built computer, I will NEVER build a computer without an SSD anymore.

The computer boots up in 8 seconds and has done cleanly for a year.

I encountered a space problem where I was eating up my SSD with my documents etc, but created a mirror link to my HDD :smile:
Oh, try the Samsung 830/840

BTW if anyone needs helping moving their user area to a second HDD, please let me know :)
 
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xandros9

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I threw in an OCZ Agility-3 120 GB SSD into my laptop when I got it last August/September, and I am a happy panda.

Main perks for me is durability and lower power usage. Speed is nice too. Got it from one of those one-day sale sites.

My Thinkpad boots in 30 seconds, on par with my friends GSIII
 

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