| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | New PC - is a Solid State Drive Smart Response Technology enhancement worth having? Thread poster: Caroline Lakey
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Hi,
I’m upgrading my pc, and am close to making a decision. I’m looking at a Dell Vostro 470 with an i7-3770 (Ivybridge) processor with 8MB of cache and 8GB of DDR3 RAM (1600 Mhz).
The hard drive is a 1TB Serial ATA III (7200rpm) – of which I will probably fill a tiny fraction! My question: is it worth upgrading this with a 32GB Solid State Drive Smart Response Technology enhancement? It costs about an extra EUR100, and I’m interested in knowing whether it will make a signifi... See more Hi,
I’m upgrading my pc, and am close to making a decision. I’m looking at a Dell Vostro 470 with an i7-3770 (Ivybridge) processor with 8MB of cache and 8GB of DDR3 RAM (1600 Mhz).
The hard drive is a 1TB Serial ATA III (7200rpm) – of which I will probably fill a tiny fraction! My question: is it worth upgrading this with a 32GB Solid State Drive Smart Response Technology enhancement? It costs about an extra EUR100, and I’m interested in knowing whether it will make a significant difference to running speeds.
I’m a confident user but certainly no computer whizzkid (as you can probably tell!), and I run standard translator kit – Windows 7, Office 2010, Trados 2009 (possible 2011 in future) with quite big TMs, Skype, etc.
I’d be very grateful for any insights!
Many thanks in advance,
Caroline ▲ Collapse
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This sort of SSD caching* sounded promising when it came out but it never really caught on... I suspect it's not as good is it sounds.
If it's possible, I would forget about the 1TB platter drive altogether and just get a 120GB SSD. If they offer a decent drive, it will be faster and more reliable than the hybrid thingamajig they cooked up.
*What this system does is use the SSD to speed up data transfers to and from the 1TB traditional platter drive. Whey your OS writes someth... See more This sort of SSD caching* sounded promising when it came out but it never really caught on... I suspect it's not as good is it sounds.
If it's possible, I would forget about the 1TB platter drive altogether and just get a 120GB SSD. If they offer a decent drive, it will be faster and more reliable than the hybrid thingamajig they cooked up.
*What this system does is use the SSD to speed up data transfers to and from the 1TB traditional platter drive. Whey your OS writes something to disk, it is written to the fast SSD and you can move on with your life. Then when there is some idle time, it is written to the actual platter drive. Similarly, stuff you use often is copied to the SSD so that you can access it quicker when you need it. The bottom line is, it offers more storage than an SSD but it's worse in every other respect. Still, it's better than the platter drive on its own. Whether it's worth it depends on how much they charge and how important speed is for you.
[Edited at 2012-07-30 12:54 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | SSD's vs. conventional drives | Jul 30, 2012 |
Caroline Lakey wrote:
The hard drive is a 1TB Serial ATA III (7200rpm) – of which I will probably fill a tiny fraction! My question: is it worth upgrading this with a 32GB Solid State Drive Smart Response Technology enhancement? It costs about an extra EUR100, and I’m interested in knowing whether it will make a significant difference to running speeds.
I have no idea what the "Smart Response Technology enhancement" is, but the main advantages of SSD's is that they are much faster than conventional drives, totally quiet (no mechanical parts) and they should also be more reliable/durable. Drawbacks are related to price and capacity (cost per GB much higher than with conventional drives).
The Dell Vostro you're interested in is a mini-tower with several slots for drives. I assume the 32 GB SSD would complement rather than replace the 1 TB drive. You would therefore not benefit from the quietness effect (if noise is an issue for you). You would have to decide what to copy (OS, frequently used programs, frequently accessed data etc.) to the limited space of the SSD, unless the system is smart enough to use the SSD for speed-sensitive stuff. There are "hybrid" drives (for instance from Seagate) that do this automatically. A better choice (than the 32 GB SSD + 1 TB conventional drive combo) might be a single, bigger (eg. 250 GB) SSD: probably big enough for your needs, and would eliminate the need to decide what to copy/install where.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:32
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| I've heard that..... | Jul 30, 2012 |
I've heard that SSD is amazingly fast - at first, but then slows down due to the fact that an SSD cannot be defragmented.
I recently replaced my hard drive and after considering the very much higher cost of SSD and the reported drawbacks of SSD, I decided to spend the extra money on a "traditional" drive with much higher capacity and spinning faster at 7200 RPM.
All up-to-date computers are fast these days, and I can see no particular need to just be faster, faster, fas... See more I've heard that SSD is amazingly fast - at first, but then slows down due to the fact that an SSD cannot be defragmented.
I recently replaced my hard drive and after considering the very much higher cost of SSD and the reported drawbacks of SSD, I decided to spend the extra money on a "traditional" drive with much higher capacity and spinning faster at 7200 RPM.
All up-to-date computers are fast these days, and I can see no particular need to just be faster, faster, faster. For me it was more important to have a big HD with plenty of storage capacity. As for speed - everything is as fast as I could want.
The thing that makes a computer run slowly is third-party anti-virus software but I think Windows 8 will resolve this.
[Edited at 2012-07-30 10:46 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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| About performance degradation over time | Jul 30, 2012 |
Tom in London wrote:
I've heard that SSD is amazingly fast - at first, but then slows down due to the fact that an SSD cannot be defragmented.
Here is what Microsoft has to say about it:
Performance Degradation Over Time, Wear, and Trim
As mentioned above, flash blocks and cells need to be erased before new bytes can be written to them. As a result, newly purchased devices (with all flash blocks pre-erased) can perform notably better at purchase time than after considerable use. While we’ve observed this performance degradation ourselves, we do not consider this to be a show stopper. In fact, except via benchmarking measurements, we don’t expect users to notice the drop during normal use.
The underlined part is by me. After almost two years of using an SSD (on a laptop with Win7), I would tend to agree with that statement.
| | | | Adam Podstawczynski (X) 
Local time: 04:32
Polish to English
+ ...
| Ask for a bigger SSD. | Jul 30, 2012 |
I second what Dominique said: if you don't need a 1 terabyte hard disk, then go for a smaller one, but ask for a bigger SSD instead.
SSD is definitely worth having, be it with Intel's Smart Response Technology or not.
If you put your system and applications on the SSD (usually "c:" drive), and then your client's files and other data on the hard drive (usually "d:"), you WILL notice very significant speed increase.
If you have a bigger SSD, you may also opt ... See more I second what Dominique said: if you don't need a 1 terabyte hard disk, then go for a smaller one, but ask for a bigger SSD instead.
SSD is definitely worth having, be it with Intel's Smart Response Technology or not.
If you put your system and applications on the SSD (usually "c:" drive), and then your client's files and other data on the hard drive (usually "d:"), you WILL notice very significant speed increase.
If you have a bigger SSD, you may also opt for putting some often-used data there, like TMs, termbases, invoicing database, etc. The hard disk would then be like an archive for less frequently used files. Unused harddrive, if properly configured, will switch off when not needed which -- at least in case of laptops -- makes the computer almost totally quiet.
I recently purchased a ThinkPad with both SSD and a hard drive, and I currently see the SSD as the single most effective improvement in computer speed I have seen in 10 years. The system starts almost instantly. Trados and SDL Studio, too, work much faster. Any Office application opens in 2 seconds. With 8 GB of memory installed as in your system, you can also forget about closing any applications -- all CATs, office apps, dictionaries, IMs, a browser with tens of tabs open, can work simultaneously.
So, SSD is definitely something to go for, but go for a bigger one. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Caroline Lakey
France
Local time: 04:32
French to English
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks, Tom, Dominique and Adam, for your help.
I can see the point about going for a smaller hard drive and a bigger SSD, especially as there's no way I need a 1 terabyte hard drive! I don't know whether that's an option which is on offer though - I'll have to find out, or perhaps look at similar machines from other suppliers.
I do also take Tom's point that any new PC with this kind of spec is actually going to be fast anyway though, especially as my current pc is coming up 4 years... See more Thanks, Tom, Dominique and Adam, for your help.
I can see the point about going for a smaller hard drive and a bigger SSD, especially as there's no way I need a 1 terabyte hard drive! I don't know whether that's an option which is on offer though - I'll have to find out, or perhaps look at similar machines from other suppliers.
I do also take Tom's point that any new PC with this kind of spec is actually going to be fast anyway though, especially as my current pc is coming up 4 years old. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | You can defrag SSDs, but... | Jul 30, 2012 |
there's no need for it since an SSD can access any location on the drive in the same time. This is one of the main advantages over hard drives. This also means that there is no need to defragment a Solid State Drive ever. These drives have actually been designed to write data evenly in all sectors of the drive which the industry is calling wear leveling. Each sector of a Solid State Drive has a limited number of writes before it cannot be overwri... See more there's no need for it since an SSD can access any location on the drive in the same time. This is one of the main advantages over hard drives. This also means that there is no need to defragment a Solid State Drive ever. These drives have actually been designed to write data evenly in all sectors of the drive which the industry is calling wear leveling. Each sector of a Solid State Drive has a limited number of writes before it cannot be overwritten anymore. http://www.ghacks.net/2009/01/03/should-you-defragment-a-ssd ▲ Collapse
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Gianni Pastore
Italy
Local time: 04:32
Member (2007)
English to Italian
will definitely have a SSD disk for OS and programs and a couple of traditional ones for storage. PC with OS on SSD start almost immediately when switching on, also will open programs in no time at all. Bucks well worth spending, IMHO!
| | | | Kiwiland Bear
New Zealand
Local time: 14:32
Russian to English
+ ...
| To defrag or not to defrag | Jul 31, 2012 |
Meta Arkadia wrote:
there's no need for it since an SSD can access any location on the drive in the same time. This is one of the main advantages over hard drives. This also means that there is no need to defragment a Solid State Drive ever.
Sorry, but the last part of the statement above is false.
You see, it doesn't matter where you read/write for the SSD drive itself, but for the OS that uses it (be it Windows or whatever) it sure matters whether or not it can read your file in one operation (contiguous file) or several thousand operations/requests (a large and heavily fragmented case).
The main issue here is the tradeoff between compacting such fragmented files and the SSD performance degradation when it is forced to perform many repeated rewrites during defrag. The general consensus seems to be that it makes sense to defrag the often used but rarely updated files and not to worry about transient, often modified ones.
But I'm afraid this is getting a bit too technical for the translators' site by now.
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Kiwiland Bear wrote: Meta Arkadia wrote:
there's no need for it since an SSD can access any location on the drive in the same time. This is one of the main advantages over hard drives. This also means that there is no need to defragment a Solid State Drive ever. Sorry, but the last part of the statement above is false. You see, it doesn't matter where you read/write for the SSD drive itself, but for the OS that uses it (be it Windows or whatever) it sure matters whether or not it can read your file in one operation (contiguous file) or several thousand operations/requests (a large and heavily fragmented case). The main issue here is the tradeoff between compacting such fragmented files and the SSD performance degradation when it is forced to perform many repeated rewrites during defrag. The general consensus seems to be that it makes sense to defrag the often used but rarely updated files and not to worry about transient, often modified ones. But I'm afraid this is getting a bit too technical for the translators' site by now.
I'm not sure where you got that from, but it's not true. The OS doesn't care if a file is fragmented because this is handled at the controller level. I.e. the OS sends a request for the file to the SSD, and the SSD serves up the file. The SSD's controller knows where the various bits of the file are physically stored, collects them and passes them to the OS. The OS will never know if the file was contiguous or not.
SSDs should not be defragmented as it provides no discernible benefit and causes the minor wear problem you mention.
See Intel's FAQ entry on this here, and Microsoft's here.
With some luck, your OS will automatically disable scheduled defrag when you install an SSD.
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With the current prices for SSD atm, I would definitely get one (60 or 120GB). The difference will be more noticeable than getting a better CPU or some more RAM.
Anyways, I always thought this sells it well 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt6VbOY3xE0
Kind regards,
Geert
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Hi,
just my 2c - SSD is indeed faster than conventional drives. It is also silent.
Downside is that it has limited write/overwrite yet if you are not going to fill it I would not worry too much about it.
Is it worth $100? Well, if you are going to purchase i7 core than I'd say - get it.
| | | | Caroline Lakey
France
Local time: 04:32
French to English
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks everyone for all this info. I've actually just found a new local computer guy who can build a PC to specifications, so this gives me plenty to talk to him about!
| | | | | Buy a branded computer | Aug 6, 2012 |
Caroline Lakey wrote:
... a new local computer guy who can build a PC to specifications
They all can… Unless you have proof he (M/F) is good, buy a brand name.
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