Dave Britzius' Computer Hardware – Graphics, Gaming & CAD – Cape Town

Physically installing an SSD is a actually pretty straightforward and can easily be done at home. The solid state drive is the same size as a laptop (notebook) 2½” mechanical hard drive. They usually come with a bracket which enables you to simply slide it into the stiffy disk drive bay of your chassis. The SSD connects to the motherboard via a standard  SATA cable. (I’ll supply you with one if you need it). Switch on the computer and the machine should recognize the Solid State Drive without any fuss.

If you are doing a complete new re-install of Windows, then you are good to go.

However, if the contents of your existing mechanical hard drive are to be transferred to the SSD (because you want the Solid state drive to be the boot drive and reap the most speed rewards), then it gets a bit more complicated.

First of all, you need to establish that the actual used space on your mechanical drive is less than the total capacity of  the new SSD. If not, then you will have to copy off (backup) some of the stuff from your mechanical hard drive somewhere else (like a removable backup hard drive) until the actual used stuff on the old mechanical drive takes up less space than the capacity of the new Solid State Drive.

Once that is done, then you use cloning software (like Acronis or Norton Ghost) to make a mirror image of your old Mechanical drive into the SSD. Once that is done, you remove the old mechanical drive and boot up with the new solid state drive. Most people then format the old drive (wiping it clean) and put it back into the machine as a second data hard drive and restore the data that was backed up in the preparatory step above. That’s it!

If this all sounds a bit too complicated, there is an easier option. When you purchase the SSD, I will perform the above procedure for you – migrating the operating system and transferring the data for you for a very special discounted labour price (Because you purchased the drive from me.) I’ll quote you, but to give you an idea, depending on how much data has to be backed up and restored and any other procedures that you need done, it will probably cost you somewhere between R250 and R750 labour charge.

For my latest prices of SSD’s, click here

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A tremendous amount of hype seems to surround the SSD – The solid state hard drive. Incredible figures are quoted in the advertising, but what is the real practical difference to you and me and are SSD’s worth the money?

Let’s first get the real facts:

• Solid state drives (the acronym is SSD) are expensive when compared to the standard Mechanical Hard drive (the acronym is HDD). On average, 1GB of SSD storge will cost you about R20. (July 2011 prices)
  Whereas 1GB of mechanical Hard drive storage is running at about 80c. (July 2011 prices)
  That’s 25 times more expensive! (Click here for current prices)
  
• Solid State drives have faster Read and Write speeds.
  The SSDs using the latest technology and running on new technology motherboards (SATA6G) can produce measured read and write speeds of over 500Mb/sec (That’s Megabit/sec, not Megabyte/sec).
  Whereas HDD’s using this same latest technology can produce measured read and write speeds of 100-120Mb/sec
  So, in the laboratory, the SSD is 5 times as fast
• Solid State Hard drives are solid state – i.e., They have no moving parts, no spinning platters and are impervious to shock. Therefore, SSD’s are inherently more reliable.
• The Mechanical Hard drive has a theoretical maximum number of writes which far exceeds that of Solid State Drives. However, this is not really a factor unless you intend to use an SSD for continuous 24/7/365 operations for years (like video surveillance). Otherwise, with the technology built into Windows 7 (The trim function) the SSD will be obsolete long before it fails.

A Practical Real-World Test – SSD vs HDD

I decided to spend a few days ignoring all the Internet hoopla and make my own practical tests on my own equipment using the software that I use every day. I installed a new Windows OS onto a brand new Western Digital SATA6G HDD, and installed various major software packages. Once I had tested everything, I cloned an exact image onto the SSD so that the same settings for each software package was identical. While Windows itself would probably alter its configuration slightly when it detected a solid state drive, that change would be an integral part of the test.

Once testing began, I connected the HDD to the motherboard using a SATA cable into a SATA6G port. Once a test was run, I removed the HDD and replaced it with the SSD using the exact same cable into the same SATA6G port. I then cold booted the machine twice to allow any changes in the BIOS to complete, and then performed the exact same same test. Then the cycle began again – I removed the SSD and replaced it with the HDD, cold-started twice and conducted a different test… and so on. Each test was conducted 6 times and the average of all the times was calculated and published here.

The results are interesting:

Windows 7 Experience Index

The first and easy test was simply the results of the Windows Experience index. This was the only test which was done only once for the HDD and then for the SSD:

The results were as follows:

 

The Processor, RAM, Graphics and Gaming Graphics figures remained the same as is to be expected. The primary hard disk rating shot up from the slowest subscore of 5.9 up to the maximum of 7.9

Since the performance info tool only measures up to 7.9, one doesn’t know how much higher this would have actually risen to.

Big thumbs up for the SSD !

Windows Boot Tests

Cold Boot

Here we need to acknowledge that neither SSD nor HDD will have any effect on the BIOS loading speed but only the total time could be taken until Windows had completely booted up, the start melody had played and the cursor had stabilized. On my machine, The BIOS loads particularly slowly so I would estimate that at least 25s was constant on both tests before windows even bagan to load.

Results:
HDD: 70s
SSD: 41s

Restart and Warm Boot

Then after running a few programs, I measured the time taken for a restart – i.e., the time taken when the restart button was clicked – computer shuts down – warm boots – loads Windows.

Results:
HDD: 77s
SSD: 53s

Software Load Tests

Load AutoCAD Mechanical 2012 up to when the Exchange window pops up.

Results:
HDD: 49s
SSD: 14s

Load 3D Studio Max 2012 up to when the welcome window pops up.

Results:
HDD: 50s
SSD: 15s

Load Photoshop CS5

Results:
HDD: 11s
SSD: 4s

Load lightroom and a large catalogue which was resident on a server. (Yes, it can be done!)

Results:
HDD: 13s
SSD: 10s

Software Running Tests

Most operations – Rending, Regenerating, and complex calculating:

No appreciable difference

Machine Response

This test is perhaps the most important and is purely subjective. I call it the look and feel of the machine. Its that hesitation or lack thereof, its that snappiness.

My opinion:

A lot more snappy! Makes the day to day operations just that little bit less exhausting.

Overall conclusion:

Yes, despite SSD’s being much more expensive, your time and your exhaustion is more important. They are worth the money, but only for storing Windows, program files, and a virtual swap disk. The solution is to buy a small (120GB) SSD and have a fast HDD as a secondary data drive. Unless you are a gamer with huge games, or someone who has a huge number of installed programs, it is unlikely that you will need a larger SSD than 120GB.

On older equipment using motherboards not fitted with SATA6G, the speed gains will be appreciable but not quite so impressive.

In contrast to Windows 7, Windows XP does not support the trim command so you need to use a third-party driver. The best is the “Intel SSD toolbox” and of course choose an Intel SSD.