WD Velociraptor versus SSD for a PC

We are switching many of our laptops and desktops over to SSD drives, particularly for power users or when a drive fails.  They are now reasonably priced.  We get 128gb Corsairs for about $120 on Amazon.

The drives are very reliable.  They are much faster for booting and opening apps, so users feel it's an upgrade.  We do not put in a second drive unless someone wants a lot of storage.  Such as the case for IT.  We do an SSD main drive and a sata drive as the data drive so that we can put in 1TB data drives.

Thanks. A couple of follow-ups:

I've heard of limitations on number of writes to a particular byte of an SSD before it starts wearing out and can no longer be written. Do you see this as a factor?

I've seen posts citing Intel as the most reliable brand. I see you are using Corsair drives. What led you to them?

Thanks,
Pete

i just put an SSD in a DV6 laptop - it's amazing how well that still works then
so my vote clearly is on the SSD, given their price became very reasonable
the only reason i still use spinning drives, is for storage capacity up to and beyond 2 TB

Both Velociraptor and SSD drives are very good. But there are still differences.
1)Velociraptop is using high speed for quicker access and write. This is advantage and at the same time - disadvantage. It has moving parts and as you know, something mechanical which moves - will get broken after some time. Plus the sound. They are noisy.

2)SSD looks ideal, quiet, fast, very good performance. But as you already have read - the pages could ware out if wrong aligned and intensive read/write is used. I have had several Velociraptors for tests plus SSD drives. And you know what? SSDs won in my opinion the tests.
If you align the partitions on SSD drives properly plus use TRIM technology for erasing unused pages at idle time (it is done automatically) then you do not need to worry about the drive lifetime. 5-10 years it must work. Not every standard drive works so long actually.

Hi everyone,

All your inputs are incredibly useful, thanks. I am leaning towards an SSD.

The application is a single user with fairly limited storage needs (about 9 GB personal files) for whom I do want to provide rapid response. Based on your inputs it seems an SSD will do well.

I'm thinking of one drive to hold Windows 7 OS, applications, user data rather than two Velociraptors in non-RAID as I've used in the past. There is backup both to an external drive and to Mozy offsite backup.

Does one drive seem reasonable or would you suggest a separate drive for user data?

I will need to give thought to Intel versus Corsair for brand although I may not have a choice initially - it may be whatever SSD Dell wants to install. Of course I can change it later.

Noxcho - you said:

If you align the partitions on SSD drives properly plus use TRIM technology for erasing unused pages at idle time (it is done automatically) then you do not need to worry about the drive lifetime.

Can someone explain more about the partition alignment and the TRIM technology. Do I need to setup the drive in a particular way to obtain or maintain the alignment? Is TRIM a utility that comes with the drive or something I install separately?

Thanks,
Pete

Follow-on note. Having reviewed the Tom's Hardware reviews I'm also contemplating some of the Samsung drives and the PNY drive they recommend despite not having tested it. Interesting how the Intel drives don't seem to do that well in the performance rankings. Pete

Pete,

I would only do a separate drive for data if the user needs more space than the SSD can give, most of our users only get the one SSD.

Whatever Dell offers, you get a 3 year warranty on business machines so it should be good.

Ty

Well, based on all your inputs here is my plan:

Still deciding whether the PC will be Dell Optiplex 9010 mini-tower or Precision Workstation T3600 mini-tower. If you're interested in that thread, it is in New Dell PC - Model, HDD, CPU Questions. I'll be updating that thread in a few minutes.

I'll go with one SSD. At least online, Dell offers a Dell 128GB SSD with the Optiplex and an unspecified brand 256GB SSD with the workstation.  Nobus - I wholeheartedly share your view about the importance of both performance and reliability. I'll probably try for Intel if I have any choice.

Since it will be a new system with a newly-installed Windows 7, it should be aligned. QUESTION: Can the drive get misaligned over time such that I should periodically use the Paragon application to re-align it?

I will absolutely keep the Paragon utilities in mind for possible future OS moves to a new drive.

I appreciate the link about TRIM although I must confess limited knowledge here. QUESTION: Is there something I'll need to do to activate this process?

Pete

Question 1: it is impossible that the partition itself gors unaligned.

Question 2: Intel says that Windows 7/2008 have its support by default. But you must check that BIOS has AHCI mode enabled for drive.
http://www.intel.com/support/ssdc/hpssd/sb/CS-031846.htm

Q1 - normally, as noxcho said no; but if it happens you probably have a bad drive

Thank you all for your inputs. It was impossible to choose particular solutions as the best. In reality all your comments combined together to give me a great picture of the choices and factors. Based on what I have learned here I will at some point open a new question about migrating an existing system to SSDs! That is for another day. Again, my thanks.

I recommend that anyone reading this thread study the entire thread.

Pete

tx for the feedback Pete - appreciated!