SSD and XP?

[Professor Layton]

Now that SSD's have matured a little bit, I wonder if it's worth getting a 30-50GB SSD for myself. I would be using it on Windows XP as the title implies, and it would be for my OS and the games I mainly play.

Two things I'm trying to find out but haven't so far:

- Are SSD's significantly faster than HDD's on windows XP?
I've seen some people mention that it's not utilized to it's fullest on windows XP systems, anyone got a clear view on this?

- What would the average lifetime of a SSD be, given that I only use it for a few select games and my OS?
I've heard of SSD's having a finite amount of writes as opposed to HDD's (Technically HDD's also have a finite amount of writes perhaps, but that's hardly reachable with normal computer usage)
I've also heard about windows 7 supposedly writing in a smarter way to the SSD, so that the writes get equally divided among the SSD for longevity, is this the same case for windows XP?


At the moment I'm not really desperate for a SSD or anything, but just considering it to decrease load times for several things, so if there's any issues I haven't mentioned, bring 'em up meights.

[Alex]

Even though it's not entirely related to the topic, but why not upgrade to Windows 7?

More on topic: Windows XP apparently doesn't support the 'trim' command. I'm not sure what it exactly does, but it has something to do with cleaning spaces on SSDs. There are some workarounds and some SSD brands (OCZ and Intel, I believe) offer software to add support for trim.

[Professor Layton]

While windows 7 is much less bloated than Vista, it's still a lot more bloated than XP. I don't feel like switching to a new OS yet, especially not if it's just for a bit better SSD support.

As for trimming, it's a method to avoid the SSD's performance degrading if it's writing over old "deleted" data on the drive. (SSDs don't work exactly the same as HDDs) But there's several workarounds to also get the trimming on XP as you already mentioned.

[Dae]

'm not sure what it exactly does, but it has something to do with cleaning spaces on SSDs.

I have read about it a couple of days ago, I'll try to explain but don't quote me on that . Basically as we all know when you mark something as "deleted" in your file system, the data is not physically erased. On SSDs the data is grouped in blocks, and when your system tells the drive to save some new data somewhere in the block that was previously marked as deleted, the SSD has to read the whole block (which is much bigger than your data), erase space physically, modify it, and then write it back — due to a technological limitation. On the other hand, if the block is "new" and has never been used before, the whole procedure goes much faster.

As far as I understand Trim is the command which tells the SSD to physically erase the data when it is marked as deleted, so when your SSD needs to write data into the same space, it goes much faster. It's a way to 'bridge' the file system and the SSD.

Without Trim support, your SSD works slower with time.

Sadly Mac OS X 10.6 as well as XP does not support TRIM officially (only Mac OS X 10.6 for MacBook Air does).

Speaking of SSD lifetime, I've seen calculations telling that one would need to use the drive many, many years (more than 5 at least) before it dies. The same article warned against using XP though

[Aidan]

Purchase a sandforce powered SSD.

I used to have a Crucial 64Gb C300. Although it was SATA III, the read and write times were much slower than most SSD's (So I sold it to someone on OCN). Being that the Vertex 3 is ridiculously overpriced (it is. I know someone who upgraded from vertex 2 to vertex 3 and there's barely a difference), I would recommend going with a vertex 2 that you can buy for around 100 quid.

If you're going from an HDD to an SSD for your boot drive, it really doesn't matter what SSD you go with. It's a whole other tier of speed.

Also, on a random note Clix. Windows 7 is 3x more secure than xp.

[Professor Layton]

Alright, seeing as I'm not stupid enough to use the SSD as a hourly cleaned storage of anything, the lifetime won't be a problem I guess.

Still gotta look into what's actually up with windows XP and SSD's though, very vague messages so far.




As for security, I'm sure there's a lot of little evil things blocked in windows 7, but you can't really keep hax from abusing exploits in any piece of software. As windows 7 is just a lot larger than windows XP, I wouldn't be surprised if there's more security exploits in it, still to be found out by someone.

Also, security breaches are usually caused a lot by other applications. It only has to take one big exploit in a program to bypass all your security.

[Tantalus]

SSD's are still noticeably faster in XP but exponentially faster in 7.

Plus with the inclusion of TRIM, as already discussed, the write speeds remain constant.

However, gigabyte/euro is still pathetic, so I would suggest a hybrid drive. They are not just a miserable compromise, but are both cheap and fast (faster than a 10,000RPM HDD at least).

[Aidan]

Either go with what tant said (I've heard great things about the price/performance of Hybrids)..

..or if you're feeling frisky, you can pay a bit extra and buy a cheap sataII 60Gb SSD for your OS/apps.

Imo, the price for SataIII SSD's just aren't worth the money right now.

Is the jump from 350Mbps to 500Mbps transfer speeds really worth the extra 60-70 euros?

Especially when most of the time, you won't notice much of a difference.

Unless you're trying to open a 10Gb Program

(and even then, it's only a difference of 2-4 seconds)

[Professor Layton]

SSD's are still noticeably faster in XP but exponentially faster in 7.

Any idea what makes XP so slow compared to windows 7 though? Everyone mentions it but no one gives a cause, oddly enough. The TRIM thing can be achieved with other software as a workaround, so I'm not really sure what else would make the drive slower on XP

Gonna look up what a hybrid drive actually is though, because I've seen the word thrown around a few times and I still don't know what it exactly is.

Imo, the price for SataIII SSD's just aren't worth the money right now.

SSD's are expensive yeah, hence I'm only thinking of getting a small one, as I already have a 1TB HDD for any kind of storage.

Edit:
Looked up on hybrid drives, from what I understand it's a really just a little SSD part with the rest just being a standard HDD. I already have enough space for any kind of storage, so is it still better to get a hybrid drive for just my OS and a few games?

[Alex]

SSD's are still noticeably faster in XP but exponentially faster in 7.

Any idea what makes XP so slow compared to windows 7 though? Everyone mentions it but no one gives a cause, oddly enough. The TRIM thing can be achieved with other software as a workaround, so I'm not really sure what else would make the drive slower on XP

Gonna look up what a hybrid drive actually is though, because I've seen the word thrown around a few times and I still don't know what it exactly is.

Imo, the price for SataIII SSD's just aren't worth the money right now.

SSD's are expensive yeah, hence I'm only thinking of getting a small one, as I already have a 1TB HDD for any kind of storage.

Edit:
Looked up on hybrid drives, from what I understand it's a really just a little SSD part with the rest just being a standard HDD. I already have enough space for any kind of storage, so is it still better to get a hybrid drive for just my OS and a few games?

I'd just buy a not-so-expensive SSD ( http://tweakers.net/pricewatch/257819/o ... -60gb.html ) and try it out. If Windows XP does happen to influence it's lifetime/performance badly, it's not that big of a deal, as it's not a hell lot of money wasted (and the lifetime wont decline to 1 week or so). And you can always decide to switch to Windows 7 later on.

Wouldn't spend money on hybrid.

(edit: OCZ Vertex 2 has some cons: it's not really 60GB. Of course, Windows counts bits/bytes differently, but the OCZ Vertex 2 also reserves extra space within the 60GB. So 60GB will become 57GB and in Windows will show up as 54GB - These numbers are simple guesses).