Speeding up your machine. SSD Boot drive - £149

[NoScream~SPARTA~]

5th and 6th generation SATA SSD drives

A simplified look, for those still on HDD

 

CHRISTMAS is coming (15 weeks) thinking of an upgrade part? £150 will get you a high end 120GB boot.

OS boots quicker.

 

120GB+ boot drives, enough storage to hold OS & main day to day programs.

Std Spindle HD's do around 120Mb/s transfer, even in RAID a HDD does not match a SSD.

 

Six drives compared

 

 

 

 

 

Main advantages:

Speed

Long service life (10-15yrs)

no moving parts

spin up time virtually zero

constant data rates through the drive

No sound/noise

Low power

Low heat

light weight

 

 

 

$200 / £149

 

 

128GB Crucial M4 2.5" Solid State Drive CT128M4SSD2

 

Micron MLC NAND

6Gbps SATA interface

Up to 175Mbps write speed

Sequential Read 415 MB/s

Limited 3 year warranty

 

http://www.cclonline.com/product/56562/CT128M4SSD2/Hard-Drives/128GB-Crucial-M4-2-5-Solid-State-Drive/HDD0532/

 

http://www.provantage.com/crucial-technology-memory-ct128m4ssd2~7CIAL6KU.htm

 

 

Adata S511 Series 120GB

Sequential Read 550 MB/s

Sequential Write 510 MB/s

Connectivity: 1 x SATA III - 6Gb/s

Memory Type: MLC-Flash

 

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/120gb-adata-s511-500-series-sata-iii-ssd?utm_source=google+shopping&utm_medium=google+shopping

 

 

The one main thing that makes a big difference today is dumping a HDD & installing a SSD, if your on a HDD boot, think about it....

 

Time to switch....

[MH6~SPARTA~]

Saw an ad for Newegg for a $50 60GB SSD. Not sure of the quality, but it was an OCZ so can't be but so bad.

[peter~SPARTA~]

Key is sata III 6 Gb, older sata 2 are not so good.

[Batwing~SPARTA~]

So,

 

at 42" into the first Video, it starts the stop watch. I still have to understand when the time Is taken to start.

 

I was thinking the time should be taken since when you push the power botton, but obviously this is not the case, because you should see the POST screen and all the crap your MB is loading.

My "lovely" ASUS has a couple of stand by during POST procedure, never understood why they made it like that. I can t do anything to speed up that.

 

Here is looks like he is starting the stop watch right off the POST procedure, which is right because now is when the OS really starts the loading process.

 

And, when is considered full loaded ? Win 7 gives to you a working OS right away, while secondary processes are loading "delayed". So when do Stop the time ?

 

I will make a test this afternoon when I go back home, possibly I ll get a video too let s see what I come out with

 

EDIT:

 

On that video it looks like the winner is the SSD RAID Intel V25 which achieve the 2 small icons loaded in the lower right corner in about 16 secs

I will take those 2 icons as Ending point because I can t see any other marker I can use to decide when this test ends.

Edited August 26, 2011 by Batwing~SPARTA~

[peter~SPARTA~]

Here is something for you to play with

 

http://www.soluto.com/

 

I have 1'35" start up time for my desktop and about 2'35" for my laptop with i5

[Skaz~SPARTA~]

i got 13 seconds on my g53 laptop i7 and 240 gb ssd. its priceless, you cant even go for a piss before it boots up.

[Batwing~SPARTA~]

looking better at the first video I see there are 3 icons coming up, which slightly change the results.

 

The SSD Raid intel V25 seems to take 18 seconds to get to the 3 Icons loaded - Skazbr, are you sure your system takes 13 seconds???

 

Then as HDD best performance the WD 500GB RAID (which bytheway I guess is a mistake, it should be 1 TB - 2 500GB disks in Raid 0 = 1TB available)perform up to the 3 icons in 38 secs

 

My system is a RAID 0 500GB (2 x 250 WD) is loading in 48 secs up to the 3 icons

 

So, I am not super happy about it, but I know the weak part of my system are the HDD. I am still not sold about SSDs. Their performances is obviously undeniable, but still too much expensive for my taste.

[NoScream~SPARTA~]

Here is something for you to play with

 

http://www.soluto.com/

 

I have 1'35" start up time for my desktop and about 2'35" for my laptop with i5

 

 

Nice link, installed.

 

 

 

 

 

Then as HDD best performance the WD 500GB RAID (which bytheway I guess is a mistake, it should be 1 TB - 2 500GB disks in Raid 0 = 1TB available)perform up to the 3 icons in 38 secs

 

 

The 2x WD 500GB RAID is running RAID 0 stiping which should have the text 1TB (2x 500GB) a text error. Not mirror (RAID 1).

[NoScream~SPARTA~]

Soluto runs .net 4

Looks Benign (harmless) opening up 4 port addresses for data update & reporting on boot.

 

Installed, run.

 

for boot up it analyses the time used by each background startup app and allows you to DELAY or PAUSE (Remove from bootup) there by improving boot times.

 

My initial boot time was 1' 32"

First boot after, time 1' 10"

Second boot 1' 07"

 

Winamp was 12 sec of delay... Bah...

 

This app gets a thumbs up.

 

 

Switch on to OS 45sec (BIOS), +66 seconds to full desktop

 

From end of BIOS, start of OS load to Desktop finish = 66 sec. down from 92 seconds.

 

 

 

BIOS LOAD = 45sec

OS LOAD = 66sec

APPS loading at BOOT = 75

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

I used this Soluto

 

My Sata SSD PC has gone from 0:54 to 0:47

 

My PCIe SSD PC has gone from 1:08 to 0:26

 

Amusingly Soluto takes 1 second in the startup.

 

Thanks Peter and Viii

 

PS I dont really understand these numbers so I timed the boot manually

 

From the physical startup (not reboot)

 

0:15 to BIOS

0:39 to Windows Startup

0:61 to windows ready for use

 

How does this correspond to the soluto numbers

[Hunter~SPARTA~]

I'm having a hard time putting any faith into this Soluto. Perhaps its not suited for old HDD boot drives. I rebooted and got my first time, paused and delayed some 30+ apps, then rebooted again. My second time was 5 seconds slower than my first time. I dunno.

 

 

- JHunter

[peter~SPARTA~]

I like Soluto for 1 reason it let me manage what is booting without hassle of looking in to registry or searching for ways to disable unwanted software.

 

I don't really care how long it take to boot my PC, im doing it only 1-2 times a day

[Batwing~SPARTA~]

I did not install this Soluto program.

 

I am a little bit concerned with third party programs interfering with my stuff. If I want to check and kill useless stuff at start up I know how to do it.

 

Besides that, Win 7 already optimize the system to delay secondary processes at start up. However I have about 65 processes running after boot, so, I don t know exactly which one are the priority ones, but I don t think there are too many to disable or delay to have a consistent improvement.

 

Furthermore, I usually put my PC to Sleep and fully reboot sometimes twice per week, so... the all "Boot speed" is not exactly a primary concern to me.

 

Above and beyond all of the possible benchmarks, we do know SSD is the best way to go. If you have a deep wallet or you are eligible for a gift (Birthday, Xmas, Anniversary, Dog Birthday...) just ask for the nice gift I think this is what I ll do for Xmas, simplifying my g/f search for the right gift.

 

Otherwise, SSD is still really overpriced for what is does for a stream line, medium PC user. Using it for Bussiness is different

[Skaz~SPARTA~]

I used this Soluto

 

My Sata SSD PC has gone from 0:54 to 0:47

 

My PCIe SSD PC has gone from 1:08 to 0:26

 

Amusingly Soluto takes 1 second in the startup.

 

Thanks Peter and Viii

 

PS I dont really understand these numbers so I timed the boot manually

 

From the physical startup (not reboot)

 

0:15 to BIOS

0:39 to Windows Startup

0:61 to windows ready for use

 

How does this correspond to the soluto numbers

 

 

Do desktops usually take longer to boot than laptops?

[peter~SPARTA~]

No, its up to PC configuration (cpu,HDD and how much programs you load at the start up).

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Your machine must be the knee of the bee, 13 seconds is really fast for a full boot.

[NoScream~SPARTA~]

Another test another reason to dump the boot HDD & install a SSD

 

 

@toms hardware a bias but in-depth test

a SSD v HDD

Samsung 128Gb SSD v 3GB Seagate barracuda

 

October 2011 TOMS HARDWARE TESTS

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/ssd-upgrade-hdd-performance,review-32292.html

 

Seagate Barracuda XT (3TB, SATA 6Gbps) 64Mb cache & 7,200 RPM

 

 

The SSD is on SATA II 3Gbit port the Barracuda is on a SATA III 6 Gbit port, yet the SSD rapes the HDD even that it's on a 1/2 speed port. The SSD on a SATA III port would terminate the HDD.