So another post about a new setup and I am now onto the hard drive. I am using this setup for gaming and I saw that people who installed games onto their SSD had much faster loading times.
The problem with SSD's is that my game library is relatively large and the highest capacity SSD that I can really afford is around 128GB for about £70.
However I have also seen hybrid drives which say that they use both SSD and HDD and are much cheaper and contain more storage. I found this one:
http://www.ebuyer.com/480300-seagate-500gb-solid-state-hybrid-drive-sshd-st500lm000
and I want to ask how fast is this compared a traditional SSD and a traditional HDD?
As always alternatives are always welcome just want something for no more than £80
As an alternative I am going to tell you about caching SSDs.
Quick explanation: A caching SSD is a small (about 32GB) SSD, the principle is basicly the same as a hybrid HDD. Add a small amount of really fast memory to a slower component to get a break even in performance. This solution will give a huge speed bump to your PC.
Most of the hybrid HDD on the market only have around 8GB of cache which is not that much, a caching SSD is a cheaper solution because you already own a HDD. Basicly the bigger the Cache the bigger the amount of data it can boost performance of.
An example of a caching SSD could be the Corsair Accelerator 30GB which can be bought for only 39 EUR (not even half of the 70 GBP you are willing to spend).
Hope this helps.
P.S. 30GB for 39 EUR could sound somewhat expensive, however keep in mind that Cashing SSDs have a really high amount of "write cycles" compared to "regular" SSDs (they are able to (re)write data to the memorycells a lot more before they break down).
Thanks for the advice. I may go for this and use an old hard drive but how do I set up an SSD for caching?
Normally the caching SSD can be installed using software which is inside the SSD box. For more information look at this video from NCIX techtips.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3MSU1oGIss