I am thinking about adding an SSD. I understand I will be turning off some commonly used Win features should I go SSD. Although Rollback Rx has SSD with Trim support I am thinking Rollback will shorten the life of the SSD. Is this right? I am teetering back and forth with SSD because my mobo is an EVGA P55 FTW which came out just before SATA3 so I will have to go through a controller card that when even plugging into x16 slot(these are x1 cards), full SSD potential is not reached. Helpful comments appreciated.
No. Windows itself will disable some features for the SSD drive only when it senses the SSD is connected - not your other drives. You do not need to do anything - at least not with Windows 7. How and where will you be using this drive? As an extra drive or are you replacing your boot drive? Either way, with today's SSDs, I would not worry about shortening the life of the SSD. Even the cheap drives sold today have a MTBF rating of 2,000,000 hours. Thats 83,333.3 days or 228.3 years. Not sure, but I think you will be quite dead by then!
Hello Bill..I had read System Restore will shorten SSD so thought I would check here. Not sure how I will use. Most likely for everything except static data. I am looking at Crucial M4 with a 2.0 SATA III (6.0Gb/s) Controller Card for reasons mentioned in my first post. Wondering if gain would be worth the $ as even w/Controller plugged into x16, I can not get up to full speed. I understand to buy or not buy is my decision, however I appreciate your various commentaries on various subjects so....what do you think?
System Restore shortens life? Never heard that. SR is not activated enough to worry about that. Not sure what that means. Static normally means it never (or rarely) moves or changes. To me, that would be like MP3 files and maybe system backups. It might mean something else to you. So I ask again, "as an extra drive or are you replacing your boot drive?"
Sadly, that does not answer the question. We don't know your hardware configuration so we don't know how many hard drives you have, or which drive you will be replacing. That is why I asked if you will be "adding" the SSD, or are you replacing your boot drive? From the side of the one giving advice, "replace HD" does not automatically mean the "boot" drive. *** After another cup of coffee, maybe we need to back up a minute. You said you are thinking about adding an SSD but you did not tell us why. How do you use your computer? What is your goal? What do you expect to achieve by adding an SSD? Faster boot times? Higher WEI scores? SSDs can do that. Better performance? Not for most computing tasks! Not on a properly "balanced" machine. If the CPU is starving for RAM space all the time, an SSD can help out a lot as the holder of the Page File. But that is not the ideal solution. With sufficient amounts of RAM, the OS and all your running programs will pull in all data from the drives they need and stuff it RAM. Then rarely (in terms of clock cycles) needs to touch the drives. Note most computer users do not do use programs that are very disk intensive. Assuming adequate RAM, SSDs will not improve anything having to with the Internet. It will not improve your music or movie streaming or viewing. All that is done in RAM. Disk performance is important, but most HDs are no slouches either. If you are looking to get better performance out of your computer, we need to look at other things first - if you want the most bang for your money. And that starts with RAM. Your motherboard supports up to 16Gb in dual-channel. I generally recommend 8Gb (2x4Gb or 4x2Gb) with dual channel as the "sweet spot" - but that does require a 64-bit OS. So we need to know how much RAM you have now, and what OS you are using. If you have 32-bit Windows, then I still recommend 4Gb with dual-channel motherboards. Finally, if you bought your board when it came out, nearly 3 years ago, it may be time start thinking about a new computer, with SSDs from the start. No doubt, that motherboard has the potential to last many more years. But 3 years is getting long in the tooth in terms of keeping up with "current" standards and technologies. It may be time to turn that machine into a reliable network/backup storage or music server and build that new screamer you want.
Hi Rainwalker. I took the plunge a while ago and went SSD on my main boot drive, using the other drive as storage. Best upgrade I have ever done, the computer is so much quicker at loading now, from switch on to usable is just 10 seconds after the bios screen. All the programs load quicker in fact, and the AV scans so much faster. I used the following site which was a great help to an SSD novice like myself h**p://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/260710-14-tomshardware I did a fresh install of windows as thats the best way that Windows 7 will configure your SSD. By my own choice I have turned off system restore as I prefer Macrium and image once a month to make sure I have a recent backup to restore in case of disaster. I hope that all helps you with your decisions
The last I saw the above drive was being sold for $90. And this drive is 128GB and not 120GB which most of the drives are. I have six SSDs on six systems and this is the best investment I have done on all my systems. Best regards,
Hi Rainwalker, SATA 2 will reduce the SSD speed somewhat, but not that much to be noticeable, unless your are into running tests and then unnecessarily worrying about. The Curial M4 is SATA 3, which can be later used with other systems in future. Don't worry, go for it! Best regards,
Though Windows 7 does disable some features when a SSD is detected, on some systems, Please be assured that this is NOT! the case on every system, check just to make sure
