SSD or Raptor to make Vista more spritely?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kris
  • Start date Start date
K

Kris

Would put Vista on 32gb SSD (13gb out of 25gb)(Patriot or OCZ, probably) or
on WD Raptor (75gb or whatever)

page is currently on a different drive from opsys.

tia!
 
32GB is pretty tight. I bought 150GB Raptors. I just built this box
just a few months ago. I have been careful most of the time to store
large files on non-os drives, but before I knew it I had used 65GB on
the OS drive. Get the Raptors so you don't have to watch your drive
usage like a hawk.
Click to expand...

Actually I have had it in a 25gb partition since I started it and it's only
using 13gb. I have tons of other stuff on other partitions. 2 Hitachi
sata 500gb, 160gb. The only thing I would put there is the opsys...
 
I just checked prices - SSDs have come down DRAMATICALLY since last time
I checked. Looks like 32GB SSDs are only about 2X the cost/GB of a
Raptor (Raptors are about 1/2 the price they were a year ago). At $140
for a 32GB it may be worth experimenting. Just not on my main box. I
would still go with a Raptor for an important box, but I'm conservative
that way.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your time and your comments. Yeah, looking at zipzoomfly and
newegg, prices for 32gb SSDs are roughly $140-$160 incl shipping, and
Raptors are about $140 for 75gb and $180 for 150gb. I would really like to
experiment with a SSD, but I also have the feeling that their speeds,
though much improved over a year ago, will improve much over the next year.
On the other hoof, it annoys me that the 75gb Raptor is only SATA I.
However the 150gb Raptor is SATA II, so that may push me in that direction,
though I would hate to put anything other than the opsys on it as it would
conflict with the head location which a bit defeats the whole purpose.
 
The Raptors are probably the best bang for the buck when it comes to SSD vs.
Raptors. The SSD's can be fast, but in some benchmarks the Raptors are
faster. And the cost/performance ratio is better with the Raptor.

Good luck! And, yes, it is a huge difference once you get them installed and
compare the speeds (loading OS, loading games, etc.).
 
The Raptors are probably the best bang for the buck when it comes to SSD vs.
Raptors. The SSD's can be fast, but in some benchmarks the Raptors are
faster. And the cost/performance ratio is better with the Raptor.

Good luck! And, yes, it is a huge difference once you get them installed and
compare the speeds (loading OS, loading games, etc.).
Click to expand...

Well, I became rather afraid of the SSDs for now after reading forum
threads and newegg reviews. In a year, they'll be hot, but not for me at
the moment... So I found a 36gb Raptor 8mb cache for $36 at ascendtech and
took a chance because of resellerratings and it's very solid (it has a
"mediamax" label on it and in it, but looks like a Raptor, sounds like a
raptor, runs like a raptor, (7.9 av access time via HDTune and HDTach). I
have tried to trash it with a couple of defrags, but it just keeps on
ticking - no errors (I use jkdefrag and defraggler - best way to stress a
drive is to defrag it with one, then use the other, heehee. I use jkdefrag
normally because I like the spaces it leaves.

I used Acronis 11 to image vista, and then used it to "cleanse" and restore
to the Raptor. I then used GPARTED to remove the boot flag and set the
hide flag on the original Vista partition. Since I plugged the Raptor into
Sata6 port, I had to stop at bios and set the boot order. Then it booted
just fine as C.

I got caught by forgetting that when you set bios to AHCI, or back to IDE,
it resets the HD boot order to simple sata port order - couldn't figure out
why I was suddenly getting a mbr1 error on boot - heehee. Just stopped at
bios and corrected the boot order and off it goes.

Another gotcha - well, it's not there, now - one time when I changed to
AHCI, HDTach and HDTune started showing 50%cpu even though it wasn't using
that. It's notmal now - about 8% I think actuality is about 4% on it.

Random access continually shows about 8% whereas my 2 Hitachi deskstars
show 21%. HDTach shows burst 107mb/s and avg read 58mb/sec (max 67). So
again, for an opsys, where mostly small files are getting read or shuttled,
it's great - not so for a large database. But that is as all the reviews
have shown.

I don't know that it boots Vista much if any faster than my deskstars,
which are pretty quick - circa 30 secs from where the bios starts Vista.

Not having any conflict is a plus in any situation. My page is off on one
of the Deskstars.

So thanks for your time and thought I'd let you know where I went with
that.

It's all pretty quick and I find Vista generally quick except when you do
the first windows explorer access....... )

I have turned off indexing on the Raptor, and disabled the windows search
service in Services. Don't know if that makes much if any difference.
 
Well, I became rather afraid of the SSDs for now after reading forum
threads and newegg reviews. In a year, they'll be hot, but not for me at
the moment... So I found a 36gb Raptor 8mb cache for $36 at ascendtech and
took a chance because of resellerratings and it's very solid (it has a
"mediamax" label on it and in it, but looks like a Raptor, sounds like a
raptor, runs like a raptor, (7.9 av access time via HDTune and HDTach). I
have tried to trash it with a couple of defrags, but it just keeps on
ticking - no errors (I use jkdefrag and defraggler - best way to stress a
drive is to defrag it with one, then use the other, heehee. I use jkdefrag
normally because I like the spaces it leaves.

I used Acronis 11 to image vista, and then used it to "cleanse" and restore
to the Raptor. I then used GPARTED to remove the boot flag and set the
hide flag on the original Vista partition. Since I plugged the Raptor into
Sata6 port, I had to stop at bios and set the boot order. Then it booted
just fine as C.

I got caught by forgetting that when you set bios to AHCI, or back to IDE,
it resets the HD boot order to simple sata port order - couldn't figure out
why I was suddenly getting a mbr1 error on boot - heehee. Just stopped at
bios and corrected the boot order and off it goes.

Another gotcha - well, it's not there, now - one time when I changed to
AHCI, HDTach and HDTune started showing 50%cpu even though it wasn't using
that. It's notmal now - about 8% I think actuality is about 4% on it.

Random access continually shows about 8% whereas my 2 Hitachi deskstars
show 21%. HDTach shows burst 107mb/s and avg read 58mb/sec (max 67). So
again, for an opsys, where mostly small files are getting read or shuttled,
it's great - not so for a large database. But that is as all the reviews
have shown.

I don't know that it boots Vista much if any faster than my deskstars,
which are pretty quick - circa 30 secs from where the bios starts Vista.

Not having any conflict is a plus in any situation. My page is off on one
of the Deskstars.

So thanks for your time and thought I'd let you know where I went with
that.

It's all pretty quick and I find Vista generally quick except when you do
the first windows explorer access....... )

I have turned off indexing on the Raptor, and disabled the windows search
service in Services. Don't know if that makes much if any difference.
Click to expand...

I have added to this by
Disabeling indexing - set service Windows Search to Disabled.
Kill enablesuperfetch (in registry). (also disabled service)
Kill enableprefetcher (right next to superfetch in registry)

I put a link to perfmon.exe (/windows/system32 ) in quick launch - to
easily check hard page faults. Almost none now. Reduced page to 1gb and
it uses less than 10% of that.

I temporarily changed my system to 4gb ram - 3.163ghz,1001mhz ram. But
this clearly did not help my system so I went back to the 2gb of the faster
ram. Nice easy experiment.

My plans are for a 150gb Raptor to replace the 130gb or less of stuff on
the Hitachi 500 deskstar - mainly to get my NWN2 game stuff (12gb) on
there. NWN2 is already more spritely with the little Raptor doing Vista
opsys service. Think of what life will be like when the SSDs finally come
of age!!!!!!!
 
Back
Top