# SSD for system disk?



## seanspotatobiz (Mar 3, 2010)

I was wondering about using an SSD drive for my system disk - I understand that PCIe SSD drive is faster than a SATA SSD drive. Would it come with a driver that would enable installation of Windows (7) onto that drive?

Assuming that it's used every day, how long would it last, compared to the magnetic platter-based drives of yore?

I checked out my 'Windows Experience Index' and everything is 7.4 except my HDD which is 5.4. If I understand right, there's generally not much point in getting a HDD beyond 7.4, so I'd probably go for an old-fashioned SATA II HDD, if I can achieve that at lower cost and with better longevity than one of these new-fangled space-aged solidity stabiliser wotsits.


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## whs (Mar 3, 2010)

I use an 80GB Intel with Windows7 (as Sata). Works great since November 09. A good option is this one for $90 and free shipping. It is ample. My win7 has never been over 18GBs (but I have my own data in another partition). There is not much special you need to do because the Win7 installation does the settings automatically (alignment, stop defrag, Trim, etc.). The only thing I have done is delete the hibernation file with *powercfg.exe -h off* - saved a few gigs.


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## ANNR (Mar 3, 2010)

I have a OCZ agility SSD and it give me a 7.4 reading on the windows 7 rating.  

If you want a fast OS drive get a SSD.  Get either Intel G2, OCZ vertex, agility ext.  

With the Agility my laptop total boot up time is 34 seconds from the moment I push the power button to the moment the laptop is connected to the wireless internet and ready to go.


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## sniperchang (Mar 3, 2010)

As for the PCIe cards, I'm pretty sure they require drivers, so you will not be able to boot from them yet. But I'm sure future motherboards will start supporting booting from PCIe SSDs.


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## Vampiric Rouge (Mar 3, 2010)

Also you should move you paging file off of the SSD. Keeping the page file on an SSD will hurt how long it will last. The same goes for the /swap file on linux, encase you ever go down that road.


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## 2048Megabytes (Mar 3, 2010)

Someone else on the forums told me he used and liked the following Solid State Drives:

OCZ Vertex Series OCZSSD2-1VTX30GXXX 30 gigabyte Solid State Drive

SUPER TALENT UltraDrive ME FTM32GX25H 32 gigabyte Solid State Drive

He said his read speeds are a little over 200 megabytes per second (that is about twice as fast as regular hard drive read speeds).

I am personally waiting for the price to come down to around $100 on the 64 gigabyte Solid State Drives.  I dual boot and 32 gigabytes is not enough space for my wants.


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## whs (Mar 3, 2010)

2048Megabytes said:


> Someone else on the forums told me he used and liked the following Solid State Drives:
> 
> OCZ Vertex Series OCZSSD2-1VTX30GXXX 30 gigabyte Solid State Drive
> 
> ...



1. the SSD read speeds are in the 200MB/sec range. But that is more than 3 times an HDD that spins at 7400RPM.
2. You can get an OCZ Vertex 30GB for $89.99. (  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227393&cm_re=ocz_ssd-_-20-227-393-_-Product )   That would be ample for Windows7. And I would not mix another OS into that because only Win7 has Trim support. Move the other OS to another drive - preferably as an independent OS (not double booted).


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## 2048Megabytes (Mar 4, 2010)

whs said:


> You can get an OCZ Vertex 30GB for $89.99. (  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227393&cm_re=ocz_ssd-_-20-227-393-_-Product )   That would be ample for Windows7. And I would not mix another OS into that because only Win7 has Trim support. Move the other OS to another drive - preferably as an independent OS (not double booted).



How can you dual boot then if you can't put another operating system on a solid state drive?  Who would want to plug and unplug cables in order to switch between operating systems?


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## whs (Mar 5, 2010)

2048Megabytes said:


> How can you dual boot then if you can't put another operating system on a solid state drive?  Who would want to plug and unplug cables in order to switch between operating systems?



Easy, you put more than 1 disk into the box, make independent installations and switch with the BIOS. At least that's what I do running Vista and Win7 on the same box.


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## whs (Apr 18, 2010)

2048Megabytes said:


> How can you dual boot then if you can't put another operating system on a solid state drive?  Who would want to plug and unplug cables in order to switch between operating systems?



If you have only one disk bay (e.g. on a laptop), an SSD is not such a good idea (mostly because of the price of the bigger SSDs). And double booting is a very bad idea because you lose the Win7 and SSD Trim capability.
As was suggested earlier, put your other OS on a different HDD (if you have a desktop or one of the recent 17" laptops with 2 bays), same for your user data. Then you can get away for under $100 with a 30GB OCZ Vertex.


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## funkysnair (Apr 18, 2010)

Intel X25-M Mainstream 80GB is what im rocking and it is a good performer, not many beat it and the drives that do normaly have less space (64gig)

i do belive crucial have released a demon of an ssd now and im looking at it


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## whs (May 3, 2010)

Vampiric Rouge said:


> Also you should move you paging file off of the SSD. Keeping the page file on an SSD will hurt how long it will last. The same goes for the /swap file on linux, encase you ever go down that road.



With paging file it will last 10 years - without paging file it will last 11 years.


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