Computer Build with a Twist

[Lostwalker]

Now when you do this, say making the SSD a D drive, doesn't all the information that is on the faster SSD D drive still have to processed through the slower C drive? Or does the processor draw the data solely from the D drive, so that it's not effected at all by the slower C drive?

Also, if there any good links of info on setting up the SSD to run as a D drive? When I normall do a search for SSD it doesn't work, I'm guessing this is due to being only 3 letters. Don't think to many would spell it out as solid state drive.

Originally Posted by Ualaa

Not really sure if Tim's operating system is on the SSD or not. I've got the 64GB version of the same drive, which is a bit slower but is otherwise very close to the same drive.

In my case, I have warcraft (one install) on the SSD, and that's pretty much it. I boot up windows on my regular raptor drive. The shortcut is on my desktop, but points to the wow folder which is on the SSD. Don't need to reboot or any such thing.

It's basically another hard drive. No different then booting up from C Drive, but having the game on D Drive. Except that the seek time is 100x faster and the sequential reads are 5-10x faster depending on the SSD and the drive you were using before.

[Ualaa]

The processor is reading it from the drive its on.
It doesn't need to write to C drive to read what is on the SSD.

It will put what it needs into ram, most likely.
I suppose, if it had to use the swap file, that would be a slow down.

Whatever the next free drive letter is, that's what the SSD will be automatically, just from installing it. You can probably change the drive letter, but that doesn't impact its performance at all.

If the drive is large enough, you could put the operating system on it, in addition to the gaming folder. You'd boot up and shut down a lot faster, but warcraft wouldn't run any faster then just having your gaming folder on the SSD.

A consideration for SSD's, is that they can only be written to so many times. The better drives are in the neighborhood of 100,000 writes, but many have only 10,000. If your drive is 128GB, and warcraft is using 15GB, it will be a long time until the entire drive has be written to once; not a whole lot of data is changing. The more the drive is used, the slower it gets; but with the TRIM command (Win 7 only), it will run nearly as fast as new (sometimes faster, sometimes slower, but in that ball park).

*Edit*
This is one the better write ups on SSD drives: http://www.anandtech.com/storage/sho...spx?i=3631&p=1

[Lostwalker]

Thanks,
That information will be a great help

[Lostwalker]

I'm thinking of going with this SSD.

Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDSA2MH080G2R5 2.5" 80GB SATA II MLC

Any thoughts?

[Ualaa]

The X25-M, is a generation 2 device.
Generally speaking, it is one of the best SSD's on the market.

Looking at reviews on SSD's, the X25-M's are easily the best for read speed.
They're probably the best drives for an operating system.

If there's not much of a price difference, take a look at the 160GB version.

[Tim]

Hey there,

I have my OS on a standard RAID and my SSD is powering all my games (Starcraft 2, 3x WoW installations, etc).

Make sure you use AHCI because, for me, I was able to get about 110mb/sec faster speeds over using IDE.

My benchmarks show about this:

Seagate 7,200rpm - ~70mb/sec
WD Raptor 10,000rpm - ~90mb/sec
RAID stripe (speed) 7,200rpm - ~95mb/sec
SSD128g Patriot IDE mobo setting- ~110mb/sec
SSD128g Patriot AHCI mobo setting- ~255mb/sec

[Lostwalker]

I'll be sure to check that out. I picked this one up today off newegg for $224.
Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDSA2MH080G2R5 2.5" 80GB SATA II MLC

I'll run the SSD on my current setup until I order all the parts for the new monster, which will be mid to late April.