Would I really benefit from an ssd drive.

[tmcthree]

So in terms of software I run windows 7 64bit, 3ds max, zbrush and photoshop (plus ancillary bits and bobs).

I think my main problem is my motherboard. I do plan to switch intel later in the year but for the moment I'm using one of these

http://www.overclock...oard_26633.html

which has only [font=Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif]3 Gb/s sata ports. Given this, will I really benefit from purchasing an ssd now. I don't mind buying one now with a view to gaining most benefit later but will I see much gain using this current mobo?[/font]

Secondarily, given the software I'm using, will I get away with 64gb?

Cheers in advance...

 

[seumasbeathan]

Yes you will benefit

 

[Pr3d4t0r]

yeah, and 64 gig should be fine for os, 3ds other stuff, but make sure you have a big storage hdd to kep those huge files in.

the 3Gbits/s is roughly 450 ishm mb/s of bandwidth(sata 3 is twice that), which is way more than a ssd can push through, unless you run like 10 of these in raid 0

 

[tmcthree]

Cheers chaps

 

[BKCXb]

SSDs speed up older machines more than any other componet. Check out this article:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-upgrade-hard-drive,2956.html

Windows runs on hundreds of small 4Kb files that it has to read over and over, most HDD struggle to get over 1Mb read/write speeds with this load, almost every SSD out can reach 20Mb under the same load, which is 2000%+ increase!

For sequential read/write workloads you will be at the limit of your sata port/chipset speed. The max speed of your ports in a perfect world would be 300Mb/s, but 275 is the aveage across SATA II ports, which no HDD to date can hit. The newest Western Digital raptor drives, just broke the 200Mb/s barrier. Where any SSD should saturate your sata port speed. If your HDD is running at 100Mb/s an SSD will give you roughly 275% increase in speed, worst case,if you got a really good HDD, running at 150Mb/s you should still get around a 80%+ increase.

I would buy for tommorows needs, A better SATA III drive might be the same speed on your older SATA II machine as a SATA II SSD now, but later when you upgrade to a SATA III machine you will get the benifits of the faster machine and faster read/writes of the SATA III SSD.

Once you have one , you will never want to go back and you will want a bigger one, so don't count out a bigger drive to keep programs on that you run alot , because they will lanch and run faster on the SSD also. I would buy 240Gb SSD that was rated at 475Mb/s over a 120Gb one that was rated at 550Mb/s, if they were the same price. The 15% speed increase isn't worth having half the capacity to me. I see no sense in having a super fast drive with no space on it, vs a slightly slower drive that you can actally use.

Run Crystal Disk Mark on your harddrive, it's a free app, and it will let you know roughly how fast your HDD is, than you can compare it to SSD speeds, most reviews include this info.

 

[airdeano]

yes the SSD will promote better performance. it'll sting a lil bit for the price point, but

as said before, it cant get worse only better if an upgrade is in the future. 64gb is too

small for such large appz. win7 is only 8gb, but with updates, backup files for updates,

3-5gb pagefile.sys (which you'll prolly move) i was in the 10gb range, then office and CS,

CAD/CAM i was 20gb. and itll go quickly. the 128gb id say would be minimum and the

240 would be choice. pricing is getting livable @ $1.00-$1.40 per gb.

airdeano

 

[BKCXb]

64 bit windows is up to 20Gb now!