Finally got an SSD... Not sure what all the hype is for?

ycon on 25/08/2014 - 19:56
Last edited 26/08/2014 - 13:05

Hi,

I held of getting an SSD for years.

I just bought a new laptop (W230SS- i7 4700m, 860M etc), which came with a 1TB 5400RPM drive. I installed W8.1 (on the mech drive) and everything ran quickly and smoothly.

I then bought a mSata SSD (Samsung Evo 840). I was very excited to see a 'massive' difference in my day-to-day activities. I wiped the 1TB drive, and installed W8.1 onto the mSata (of course).

I'm quite disappointed. Boot time isn't much quicker, and programs hardly load faster.

Is this because my mechanical hard drive is brand new, so realistically it would start slowing/lagging soon?

Computing

Comments

  • scrimshaw on 25/08/2014 - 20:02
    +8

    Run Crystal Disk Benchmark on both drives, and post up the results. Maybe something went wrong. Is your SSD aligned properly, for instance? Is Windows actually installed on the SSD and not on the HDD?

    http://crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html

  • conan2000 on 25/08/2014 - 20:58

    Strange. It was easily the best upgrade I made in years, on both desktop and laptop. My desktop moved from about 45 seconds boot time to less than 20. Now that I have a newer motherboard from a recent upgrade it's at a usable desktop in less than 5 seconds.

    Never seem to get any hanging any more on either machine and everything is always responsive. Used to get lots of hanging before I upgraded to SSD.

    Could be right, the mechanical drive is likely to slow over time without defragging.

  • cypher67 on 25/08/2014 - 22:30

    Id check the partition windows is installed on. On my desktop I went from 2-3 minute boot times to around 20s once I'm past the BIOS. As previously stated, easily the best upgrade and also the best $$ per performance upgrade possible.

  • Sage on 25/08/2014 - 23:02
    +5

    I wiped the 1TB drive, and installed W8.1.

    you didn't say that you installed it on the SSD, did you actually change out the drives?
    proof read your posts.

    How old is your laptop? It could be bottle-necking the SSD.

    • cwongtech on 25/08/2014 - 23:07

      you didn't say that you installed it on the SSD, did you actually change out the drives?

      Yeah, I don't know why you need to wipe it to install on the SSD.. I'd just leave W8.1 on in the harddrive as a backup in case the rare chance of SSD failure and you need to use a functional computer ASAP (unless you need the 60GB off the 1TB drive for storage)

  • cwongtech on 25/08/2014 - 23:05

    20 second boot times?
    I've been consistently hitting 2-3 second boot times with my desktop.
    5-10 second boot time for my SurfacePro2 which has the 256GB SSD

    • conan2000 on 26/08/2014 - 08:10

      This depends on the machine and OS. I originally put an SSD in a machine that was 5 years old but was still quite powerful running Windows 7 and it was probably just sub 20 seconds.

      New build machine with Windows 8 which I have now would be similar to yours.

      • cwongtech on 26/08/2014 - 11:12
        +1

        Ah okay, both mine are W8.1, maybe that's why.

  • silent1 on 25/08/2014 - 23:10
    +1

    Have you set the boot order in the BIOS?

    You should disconnect all other drives other than the SSD when installing the OS so that important system files don't get installed elsewhere.

    Also Win8.1 is said to improve on boot times on HDDs so you may not see as much of a difference compared to older Windows.

  • ycon on 26/08/2014 - 10:36

    I updated the OP with more info- laptop is the W230SS (i7 4700M).

    @silent1
    "Also Win8.1 is said to improve on boot times on HDDs so you may not see as much of a difference compared to older Windows."

    I think this is correct. Even on the 5400RPM mech drive, it booted in about 10 seconds. Apps (eg chrome, photoshop) loaded in about the same amount of time too (which I found strange).

    I just expected a lot I guess- extremely snappy and smooth. Maybe over time, the mech drive would have slowed but my SSD will stay the same?

  • samfisher5986 on 26/08/2014 - 11:44
    +2

    The answer seems obvious to me.

    Your laptop is too slow to make good use of the SSD. Sure there are probably heaps of tweaks you can do but none of those are needed to see the difference of a decent SSD.

    The faster your computer the more you will notice a fast SSD.

  • matabuntu on 26/08/2014 - 12:32

    It will make more sense if your hdd is a hybrid one i.e. comes with ssd cache.. maybe can post the exact model?

    • ycon on 26/08/2014 - 13:06

      It's the 120GB mSata Samsung Evo 840. I wouldn't think my "laptop is too slow to make good use of the SSD" as it's specs are pretty decent.

      • matabuntu on 26/08/2014 - 13:11

        Sorry I meant your mech drive model.. a hybrid mech drive will behave like an ssd especially when booting therefore there is no significant difference when you switch to ssd?

      • samfisher5986 on 26/08/2014 - 15:40

        There is going to be an answer though as its not very hard to have a lightning fast computer…

        Perhaps the laptop is being too aggressive with power savings.

        Your memory is slow

        Your laptop is overheating

        The sata speeds are too slow.

        plenty more possible reasons.

      • beaver2233 on 26/08/2014 - 17:21
        +1

        I'd also recommend downloading the Samsung ssd magician software, it should have info about certain settings; if your using a sata 3 port, ahci enabled etc

  • beaver2233 on 26/08/2014 - 14:31

    weird… recently installed a Samsung 830 ssd (older and slightly slower to the 840) into a family members Lenovo Y560. Previously would take a solid 4-5mins to boot up, now it takes less than 45secs. There should definitely be a noticeable difference if coming from a HDD (not hybrid) to an Ssd.

  • greenie4242 on 04/09/2014 - 17:21
    +2

    Everybody seems to be talking about boot times. Last time I rebooted my Windows 7 desktop was about three months ago. I don't care if it boots in ten seconds or ten minutes or half an hour, it's simply not a issue! Nobody has yet mentioned what real-world productivity improvements come from using an SSD. Do you all just sit and reboot your laptops fifty times a day? I'm joking of course, but I don't think most people care about boot times. Getting Stuff Done is relevant though.

    I'm considering buying an SSD for my laptop (which sleeps, I don't shut it down or restart it for weeks on end either) as the hard disk has developed some bad blocks so I don't trust it any more. Other than boot times (which I really honestly don't care about) is browsing faster? Loading web pages faster? Rendering flash animations faster? Converting video? I know I can't type any faster, so Word won't perform better. My printer can't print faster than the network can send files to it, so that won't be affected. My mail client is affected entirely by network speed, so that won't be faster. Most websites I go to re-load new data frequently, so caching to disk is minimal and fairly pointless. Searching for files would probably be much faster, but as I already have everything neatly sorted into folders, it doesn't take me much time to search for stuff anyway.

    Is gaming performance affected? Honestly, I don't know what to expect. My computer already does nearly everything faster than I can respond, and the things it doesn't are limited by other factors such as network speeds, latency, hardware (printers, USB 3.0 backup hard disks etc) Maybe it's completely pointless for me to spend $$$ on an SSD, when I'd be better off buying a 2TB magnetic storage drive for less than the cost of a 240GB SSD.

    Not trolling, just after some answers from people with experience.

    • mrmarkau67 on 04/09/2014 - 17:56
      +2

      I go from SSD based PCs to spinning disk based PCs every day. I can confirm that having an SSD is very noticeable and it makes your PC feel more responsive. My PC is less liable to random slowdowns. Since it feels more responsive, it also feels more reliable. I know this sounds vague, but that's just my experience.

      The responsiveness of a PC depends on the balance of its components and what it is used for. My work sometimes involves huge data sets and booting/restarting VMs, so in addition to the vague feeling mentioned above, I am actually slightly more productive due to the SSDs.

    • beaver2233 on 04/09/2014 - 18:39
      +1

      boot time is just the easiest and most notable improvement using an ssd. Opening applications is faster for example photoshop (probably most notable application improvement for myself) and Outlook (+ the other office applications).

    • scrimshaw on 04/09/2014 - 21:26

      Also measure how long it takes to fully scan a 5400RPM drive with MalwareByte / AV and then compare it to virus scanning on an SSD. The SSD gets it over and done with way faster.

      Plus, it's nice that I can open Firefox + MS Office right away right after I login. On a spinning HDD there's about a 10 second delay before the computer is fully responsive as it's still loading Windows.

    • conan2000 on 05/09/2014 - 08:27

      I find apps load much more quickly and things such as load times between levels on games is notably faster.

      Don't use my desktop every day and I find it much better to hit the power button and be able to use my machine in t seconds rather than staring at a boot screen like I have to at work!

      And as others have mentioned, I never experience random moments of lag like I used to with a mechanical hard drive. Everything is instantly responsive.

  • [Deactivated] on 05/09/2014 - 09:21

    As with 90% of older laptops, I bet it has overheating problems which are causing the machine to throttle significantly.

    • PVA on 22/09/2014 - 11:54

      OP says it is a brand new laptop.

  • tonyjzx on 05/09/2014 - 10:38
    +1

    the OPs experiences throws the mechanical disk in the best light

    if you install win8 and dont install any apps or do anything on even a 5,400rpm disk it feels fine

    but install the updates and a few apps and actually put it to work and see how it goes

    live with it more and see how fun a slow laptop hdd is as a o/s app drive

    • ycon on 05/09/2014 - 13:30

      Yeah that makes a lot of sense to me- I think you're on the money with that.

  • foobar on 06/09/2014 - 05:31
    +1

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaPNHIl7Mx8

    This is a reasonable demonstration of the difference it makes. Yes, the harware is older and for some reason they're using XP but generally, the comparison is valid.

    As you've started with and compared it to a fresh install, the difference will be harder to notice. I think those that notice it the most are those who image an existing install over to an SSD, in which case the difference can truly be staggering.

  • dqtl74 on 07/09/2014 - 13:10

    The biggest difference for me came with the initial startup affer logging in. I previously would leave the room for a few minutes while it all started up. Now I can immediately open a program after logging in pretty much.

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