Hey guys,
So I want improve my load times while gaming and the general responsiveness of my OS.
Being a bit short of cash lately, (spending it all on games) I'm looking at the caching option as I won't need that large of a SSD, maybe a 64 or 120GB would suffice.
If I go the SSD for the OS and programs with a HDD for storage route I'm going to need at least a 240 GB SSD which is pricey.
My third option is grabbing another WD 1TB Black and putting it in RAID 0 with the one I have. I don't feel this option is viable though because a small SSD for caching is about the same price as a WD 1 TB Black if not cheaper. Also I'm not sure of the numbers but I think this will give me the least performance for my money.
If anyone has some experience with these set ups I would love to hear their opinion on the matter. Come to think of it even If you don't have any experience with these set ups I'd like your opinion anyway.
Thanks,
0vert
TL, DR HDD with SSD cache or SSD for OS/Programs HDD for storage?
I suppose SSD caching would be your best bet for an all around performance increase, but if you want games specifically to load faster, you can keep your OS on the HDD, and use the SSD to install all your games. That wouldn't need a particularly large SSD either.
Thats an interesting idea. Then I wouldn't need to reinstall or clone windows would I? just format the SSD and install the games I want onto it.
Do you actually get better performance from your games with SSD's or do you just get faster load times?
No clone of Windows required. Just format and go. Really depends on how the game is coded, but usually it's just reduced load times with no noticeable performance gains. Usually, when a game/level is loaded, it's all about RAM from there. However, there is a case to be made about some games that load on-the-fly.
I think it'll be worth it for the reduced loading times. I find that a long load time just breaks my immersion and saps my enthusiasm for some games. What kind of set up are you running? or are you in the same boat as me with only a lowly HDD?.
I think I'm going to try your idea of installing my games onto a SSD to start with. I figure I'll grab a 120 GB to start with and when I have a bit more money I've put aside for my computing expenses ill buy another 1 or 2 120GB SSD's and put them into a RAID 0 configuration. Then It will be time to do some cloning or a reinstall.
Also I think 120GB SSD's are going to drop in price as the bigger SSD's come out. There's an OCZ octane 1TB out now for about $2500. As those get cheaper in say a year I think the 120GBs will go south of $100
I might as well be in the same boat. I'm a semi-early SSD adaptor, and grabbed a 60GB OCz Agility 3 and my boot drive. However, I have Windows on a 40GB partition. Not nearly as fast as it used to be, and had some pretty severe firmware issues early on. However, I have a pretty decently fast HDD; I have a 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.12. Caching isn't an option for me since I have an older P67 chipset. Loading times aren't bad for me, except for BF3 and maybe Chivlary. Everything else loads fairly quick, including Skyrim with ~20mods with HD textures. I'm probably going to be due for an upgrade next gen of CPU's (think I'll grab a Steamroller CPU)
Sounds like a solid plan. I think 120GB are already pretty damn near $100. I'm pretty sure Samsungs 840 is at $100 on the dot. They have remarkable read speeds, but the writes aren't that great because of the cheaper NAND flash. Still a tremendous value. I installed one on an A8 machine, and got ~475MB/s with 1MB transfers, and 560MB/s read with 1GB transfers (again read-only), all with access times of 0.02
You scared me a little there with the OCZ agility 3 info because I put a 120GB one in a friends build a fair while ago. There is a pretty cool new one from kingston it's a Kingston SSDNow V300 for $99. The OCZ 128GB Vector is $159 over here in Australia so I think I'll save up the extra $60 and grab that one. The kingston is pretty quick but the vector is a little faster at 550 MB/s read and 400 MB/s write. Up to 90,000 IOPS they claim. I'm hoping when I go to buy another 1 or 2 in a years time they'll be below $100. I had to do this build on a budget and it was a bit of an emergency as my old rig died but I did grab a Z77 chipset motherboard but didn't have enough left over for a SSD.
The new AMD CPU's look like great value for money I'm almost wishing I had grabbed an AMD FX-8120 instead of an i7-3770K when I built this rig then I would have had enough for a SSD.
Does tek syndicate still have the chivalry server? I just finished downloading it. :D
Yeah, that was a while ago. I'm pretty sure OCz started shipping their Agility 3 SSDs with updated firmware. IOPS are a pretty good indicator of SSD performance. Anywhere north of 50,000 [u]read[/u] should be good. Personally, I avoid SandForce drives because the performance isn't as consistent, and their numbers are often inflated because they claim write-speeds, and SandForce drives use on-the-fly compression to obtain fast writes, and not all data is compressible. Also, especially on budget SF drives, the random I/O read can be slow. With mine, I'm only getting about 14000 IOPS read, on a good day, though it's rated at 60,000 (again using write).
I'd recommend going with the Plextor M5S, which is also a fast affordable option. It's pretty much a Crucial M4 (same Marvell controller w/ Micron NAND flash) with 256MB of DDR cache added on. This thing is also stupid fast, but I didn't get the chance to run any benchmarks before shipping it off.
I don't think it's up anymore. I tried connecting a few times, and nada. You're more than welcome to add me on Steam, but I doubt we'll ever be on the same server without one, or both of us, having ridiculous ping.
The Plextor looks really quick for $115. Thanks for the info on the sandforce controllers I didn't know about the on-the-fly compression. Not worried about the lower write speed on the plextor after all the read is what matters for loading times and most of the other options around this price point seem to have a 450 MB/s read compared to the plextors 520 MB/s.
The OCZ Vector is starting to look like a bit of a risk being the first drive with the indilinx Barefoot 3 controller. They say they've tested it more than the vertex and agility models but who knows.
Do you think the Vector is going to suffer from the same issues as the sandforce controllers?
I play a fair bit of League of Legends and I'm on the North American servers anyway as there aren't any Australian of oceanic servers. If you play feel free to add me. or not I don't mind. Summoner name is 0vert with a zero.
I don't think it's that much of a risk, considering Indilienx isn't a stranger to SSD's, and OCz is offering a very generious 5 year warranty. I think it's going to great value for a high-performance SSD. I highly doubt it's going to suffer the issues SandForce controllers do because SF source of issues, at least in my opinion, is that compression. No other controller to my knowledge uses compression. I think it might have some minor performance issues, but they will likely be fixed with future firmware updates.
I don't play League of Legends, and have no idea what Summoner is. :(
I just realized I totally forgot to include my Steam name: st4tus_JB-27
Here is a direct link to my profile, though I have a pretty unique name:
http://steamcommunity.com/id/jerm1027/
I do like the sound of a 5 year warranty on a computer component. At 5 years I'll probably upgrade before the warranty runs out. I think I'm going to go with the Vector If I can afford the extra $45.
League of Legends is a Moba game like dota or dota 2 and heroes of newereth and summoner name is just like a gamertag. Its free to play too so check it out if your into that sort of thing.
I added you on steam. Maybe ill join you in a game of chivalry if my ping to the server your playing on is under 250.
Thanks for all the help and advice and teaching me a few things along the way. You really know your stuff about SSD's.
I'm going to head off and play a few games of league of legends and maybe fire up chivalry before I go to bed. It's 12:20 am over here.
Have a good day all the way over in the US mate.