Advice Yet another SSD thread...

[old.user4556]

Gents,

I'm currently running a Core 2 duo 'Wolfdale' system at 3 GHz, 6 GB Ram with a 1 TB 7200 rpm disk (Western Digital if memory serves).

I'm starting to formulate some ideas for a system upgrade (95% Photoshop, 5% gaming) and would like to take advantage of faster storage for working with 100MB TIFF files (sometimes several 100MB TIFFs). I'm thinking of running two drives; the SSD will hold the OS and applications, with a 1TB standard disk for images, porn, music etc. I will plan to hold current TIFF images on the SSD until I'm finished working with them, then archive them onto the 1 TB standard disk.

I've done some digging as I'm concerned about reliability, and I read that "crucial M4 drives are good for reliability at the expense of some speed" - is this a fair assessment?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-010-CR&groupid=701&catid=2104&subcat=

Do you need a special disk controller for an SSD or do most modern motherboards support them?

Any other advice or suggestions about products you've bought and can recommend? How is your SSD setup?

 

[soze]

There is a M4 on HUKD atm.

There are apparently some reliability issues on all early SSD's which Intel claim to have fixed on the latest generation they released. I had 2 Kingston SSDNow drives and both went DOA and had to go back under warranty. This was fixed with a later firmware, but i still would not recommend or buy them again.

 

[Embattle]

Reliability wise they've improved from the initial drives, like anything though a good backup system is advisable.

No special controller is really needed, although if you get a SATA III SSD it may be limited to SATA II on older hardware but it'll still be faster than a mechanical hard drive plus Windows 7 natively supports SSDs.

I looked at the M4 this weekend but went for the slightly newer Sandisk Extreme 240GB since they've both reached the £160 mark, the purpose is to replace my 120GB Vertex 2 and 1TB Samsung F3 setup at the moment. The new setup will include the newer Sandisk as the main drive and the Vertex 2 as the secondary drive, I don't use as much space since massively expanding my NAS recently.

 

[old.user4556]

Thanks guys.

 

[TdC]

Glar, I've been trying to get a photographical mate to invest in an SSD. I want him to use it specifically as a Photoshop scratch disk. You have any experience designating a disk for that purpose?

 

[Poag]

If anyone else is looking to buy a SSD. ebuyer have a 120gb OCZ for £78
http://www.ebuyer.com/268244-ocz-120gb-agility-3-ssd-agt3-25sat3-120g-agt3-25sat3-120g

I have one of these which i use for games and another 60gb which i have windows on. Tis bangin
1TB internal swap drive for Steam etc and a external USB3 1Tb for archives

 

[old.user4556]

Glar, I've been trying to get a photographical mate to invest in an SSD. I want him to use it specifically as a Photoshop scratch disk. You have any experience designating a disk for that purpose?

Not sure what you mean by scratchdisk?

 

[Poag]

A scratch disk is a disk to work on where things are created and destroyed fairly rapidly. It's a basically a high speed working drive rather than long term storage.

 

[TdC]

oh, sorry! what Poag said basically. you can designate one specifically for PS afaik: what I want my mate to do is copy his RAW's off his camera into scratch, then do his edits, crops and stuff, then save to his NAS. the speedy SSD should help him lots methinks.