Until recently, media operating on the principle of magnetic recording were used to store data. In the 70-80s of the last century, they were floppy disks, which then gave way to more reliable and capacious hard drives. This state of affairs was observed until the end of the last decade, until SSDs appeared on the market - solid-state electronic media, devoid of moving mechanical parts and characterized by high performance.

At first, they were distinguished by their small capacity and high price. The service life of these devices also left much to be desired. Therefore, there was no clear answer to the question of why an SSD drive is needed. With a capacity of 32 or 64 GB and a price of several hundred dollars, these media seemed like an expensive toy to most. And the slight advantage in write/read speed (up to 1.5-2 times) made SSDs interesting only for “geeks” trying to squeeze maximum performance out of their PC.

But progress does not stand still, and soon more capacious and affordable solid-state drives went on sale, which attracted the attention of a wide audience. The question of why you need an SSD hard drive has become more relevant than ever.

Design features, advantages of SSD drives

To understand why install an SSD drive, you need to understand the main advantages of such drives. It doesn’t hurt to know the main disadvantages of these gadgets.

Design of HDD and SSD drives

The most important difference between SSDs and traditional hard drives is a different design and operation principle. Unlike HDDs, solid-state drives do not have any mechanical components in their design. High-speed flash memory arrays are used to record data, accessed by an internal controller. This design gives SSDs a number of advantages that are not available to classic HDDs.

• Silence. Due to the absence of moving elements, the SSD does not make sounds during operation.
• Shock resistance. Unlike an HDD, where the magnetic head can scratch the surface of the disk when the device is moved or dropped (thereby damaging it and the stored data), an SSD is less vulnerable. Of course, as a result of a blow to the case, contact between components may be disrupted, but a drive hidden inside a computer or laptop is sufficiently protected from this.
• Low power consumption. The main energy consumer in a railway is the motor that drives the disks. It rotates at a speed of 5, 7 or 10 thousand revolutions per minute and consumes up to 95% of all electricity supplied to the drive. Thus, an SSD is up to 10 times more economical, which is especially important for thin laptops.
• High read/write speed. The magnetic method of data recording has reached the limit of perfection. It is impossible to get more than 100-200 MB/sec in sequential recording mode from a hard drive without reducing its service life, increasing its size, increasing power consumption and increasing its price. SSD flash memory does not have this minus and works up to 10 times faster.
• Stable operating speed. If information on a traditional hard drive is recorded on physically different disks (their designs are HDD 2 or more) or sections thereof, there is a delay caused by the need to move the reading head. Because of this, the speed of work is significantly reduced. A similar latency when reading cells in an SSD flash memory array is millionths of a second and does not significantly affect overall performance.

Disadvantages of SSD

Despite all the advantages, it is too early to talk about the perfection of SSD technology. The disadvantages of such drives are their insufficiently low cost (3-10 times more expensive than an HDD in terms of 1 GB of memory) and limited resource work (from 10 thousand to 1 million rewrite cycles per cell). This indicator for HDDs is theoretically unlimited, but in practice reaches tens of millions of cycles.

Another disadvantage of solid-state drives is electrical vulnerability: when high voltage is applied due to problems with the power supply, both the controller and the flash drive burn out.

SSD drives - why are they needed?

Knowing the main advantages of solid-state drives, answer the question “Why do you need an SSD drive in a computer?” much easier. Purchasing this gadget will, first of all, increase the comfort of using the gadget and extend its battery life (if it is a portable PC). High operating speed will have a positive effect on OS loading time, opening documents and gaming performance.

Why is an SSD drive needed in a laptop?

If it comes to a laptop, then the question “why do you need an SSD” can not be discussed at all. In any case, buying a solid-state drive will not make things worse. Energy-efficient technology will allow you to achieve longer operating time on a single charge, the absence of high voltage in the supply circuits minimizes the risk of permanent disk failure if the power supply fails, and the amount of memory in a laptop PC does not play as important a role as in a desktop one.

As for the shorter service life, the experience of service centers shows: the laptop hard drive fails and undergoes premature wear several times more often and faster than in a desktop computer. This is due, first of all, to the significantly greater number of dynamic loads to which the device is subjected during transportation and operation. If you accidentally drop a laptop from your lap while data is being written to the HDD, there is a high risk of damaging the drive, even if the computer is not visually damaged. Therefore, there is a high probability that the SSD will last even longer than the HDD.

Why an SSD drive in a gaming PC?

Gamers are the main this moment, some SSD buyers. The use of a solid state drive allows them to achieve better performance in 3D games by reducing their startup time. Loading levels, inventory, surrounding objects and other elements of the game world from files stored on disk is also much (up to 10 times) faster.

The difference is noticeable in "seamless" games such as Skyrim, Grand Theft Auto or Fallout. The inner world in them is located on one huge map, and to reduce the load on hardware in random access memory Only part of it is stored. This could be a situation, for example, within a radius of 200 meters around the character. As you move through the area, moving away objects are removed from RAM, and objects toward which the player is approaching are written in their place. Thus, reading from the hard drive occurs constantly and it is not difficult to guess that an SSD will allow you to supply data to the processor much faster and more efficiently than a hard drive.

For gamers, the high cost of a gigabyte of solid-state drive is not critical, since games take up relatively little space. If a collection of 100 movies in FullHD quality weighs approximately 1 TB, the same Fallout 4 requires less than 50 GB of free space.

Why do you need an SSD hard drive in a multimedia computer?

In a home PC used for web surfing and multimedia tasks (watching movies, listening to music), an SSD drive is the least needed. Only connoisseurs of Blue-Ray quality content may need such a disc. It takes a long time to wait until a 40 GB movie is written to the PC memory (about 10 minutes). But to store a selection of your favorite movies in FullHD, QHD or 4K UHD, capacious SSDs of 500, 1000 or 2000 GB are required. The cost of such drives exceeds a thousand dollars, and not everyone can afford such a purchase.

For undemanding PC users, a large SSD in a multimedia computer is unnecessary. The capabilities of classic (magnetic) hard drives are sufficient to satisfy the needs of 99% of users. However, small (64 - 128 GB) solid state drive, used as system media (for installing Windows), will not be out of place. It will significantly increase the overall performance of the PC, reduce the noise level of the system unit and use more energy economically.

A big fan of high-quality Chinese technology, a lover of clear screens. Supporter of healthy competition between producers. He closely follows news in the world of smartphones, processors, video cards and other hardware.

I will try to clearly and briefly explain what an SSD disk (solid-state drive) is and what it is needed for. I think most of you are familiar with the structure of a regular hard drive (hard drive). In short, the structure of a modern hard drive resembles an old record player. That is, inside the case there is one or more plates, information from which is read using a special reading head. Certainly modern technologies allow you to store great amount information on the hard drive and access it very quickly, and the recording technique differs from that on gramophone records. But the essence of the principle of the information storage device is very similar.

An SSD drive, in turn, is essentially a large flash drive. Information on which is stored on special memory chips. The technical differences between SSD and flash drive are of course very significant. But the main difference between SSDs and hard drives is the absence of moving mechanical parts inside the drive case.

So, if we consider the average modern (and even not so modern) home computer, it turns out that the main components that affect computer performance (processor, RAM and video card) are developing quite dynamically. As for hard drives, over the past five years only the capacity has actually changed, please do not throw rotten tomatoes at me, everyone can have their own opinion on this matter. Now it’s the end of 2012, for testing I took a disk from 2005, the system installed on it loads a little slower than on modern ones. But such a “breakthrough” in seven years is simply insignificant compared to the same processors.

HDD capable of performing hundreds of search operations per second; modern processors and video cards have millions, or even billions, of operations. This is the same as buying a modern low-slung racing car somewhere in the outback - maximum speed will still be limited by the quality of the roads.

SSD drives, in turn, are an order of magnitude ahead hard disks by reading and access speed. The processor will be idle less waiting for data to be received from the hard drive. This means your system and applications will load faster and be more responsive. This is visible to the naked eye immediately after installing the drive into the system.

Solid-state drives also have disadvantages - less durability, higher cost with less volume. Currently it is considered optimal SSD installation a small capacity drive for the system and main programs and a separate large capacity hard drive for all other user data.

It is worth noting that technology does not stand still, some of the “childhood diseases” of SSD drives have already been overcome and the future definitely belongs to solid-state drives.

It's no secret that today the computer has become a very integral part of our lives and is almost an integral part of it. Every user would like to have a computer device that would combine excellent design, great performance and, of course, an insignificant price. However, this combination is quite rare. If a good design solution and low price can still be combined, then high performance and low cost are a rare phenomenon. Therefore one of optimal options One way to increase the speed of your favorite computer is to purchase and install an SSD.

Today, solid-state drives are used in almost all computer devices: laptops, smartphones, desktop computers, netbooks. In terms of power, they significantly exceed hard drives.

Why do you need a solid state drive?

If you compare the increase in RAM and the use of an SSD, you can see that in the first case the performance increases by only 10 percent, and in the second - three times.

If, for example, “modernize” old laptop using a solid-state drive, then its operating efficiency will be equal to the efficiency of a modern computer device of the corresponding price category. Also, when using SSD, the launch speed of all programs without exception increases significantly.

Solid state drives have a number of positive qualities, thanks to which they are quite popular among users. These qualities include:

1. stability:
2. absolutely silent operation;
3. high read or write speed;
4. low energy consumption;
5. small dimensions and weight.

SSDs, compared to hard drives, whose moving heads and rotating magnetic platters are sensitive to various types of damage, are practically unresponsive to the same damage and shock. Their memory chips do not have moving parts, therefore they are insensitive to negative influences from the outside. For example, if a laptop, netbook or smartphone accidentally falls from a small height, then no data will be damaged.

If we talk about silent operation, it is worth noting that the presence of flash memory plays an important role in this. Thanks to it, data is transmitted at a fairly high speed, and the computer device itself operates absolutely silently.

SSD installation

In order for a solid-state drive to provide increased performance of a computer device, first of all, it must be installed correctly. Modern computers They have a special compartment for this. This allows you to use both an SSD and a hard drive at the same time. However, to improve performance, it is necessary to migrate the operating system from the HDD to the SSD.

To simplify this process, manufacturing companies produce special computer programs. In addition, you can purchase external containers that facilitate the use of SSDs as removable storage. To do this, using a USB cable, information is transferred to a solid-state drive, then, after removing it from the external container, it is installed on a computer device. It is worth noting that all data from the hard drive remains in place.

Sometimes there are computer models that do not have a special compartment. Then the hard drive will simply have to be replaced with an SSD. In this case, the information system is transferred to external hard disk, using an SSD with an external container, and then replaced.

How to choose the right solid state drive

The choice of an SSD solid-state drive, as well as its installation, must be approached with the utmost seriousness. Since the performance of a computer device, be it a laptop, desktop computer or smartphone, largely depends on this.

The main characteristics that influence the increase in computer performance are:

1. solid state drive capacity;
2. excellent memory;
3. controller;
4. connector

So, for example, both the controller and flash memory have an extreme impact on data transfer rates. If a consumer wants to download a movie he likes, then, of course, it will be convenient for him when this happens as quickly as possible. Therefore, it is these two qualities that determine how long the movie will take to download – 45 seconds or one and a half minutes.

The SATA connector through which data is transferred is best suited for a solid-state drive. An SSD with a SATA3 or SATA2 interface also helps increase data transfer speeds. In this case, the drive speed is several times greater than hard speed disk.

Increases the speed of the computer device and the capacity of the SSD. Of course, if the computer is equipped with a 500 gigabyte solid-state drive, then its performance will be much higher than that of a device equipped with a 250 or 120 gigabyte SSD.

It goes without saying that storage capacity is directly related to price, which increases as capacity increases. But it is worth noting that the money spent will be repaid in the future by the ability of the computer device to maintain its functionality for several years.

Leaders among solid state drives

The popular magazine Computer Bild conducted independent testing, which compared solid-state drives and identified the leading models. Depending on the speed of data transfer, performance, consumption electrical energy and heat dissipation became the leader among drives with a capacity of 120 gigabytes Samsung SSD 840 Pro. The first place among solid-state drives with a capacity of 250 and 500 gigabytes was taken by SSDs from the well-known company OCZ Vector series.

When choosing and installing an SSD solid-state drive, it is worth remembering that it does not help reduce power consumption and does not increase the battery life of a computer device. Despite replacing the hard drive with an SSD drive, these two indicators remain the same as before the replacement. However, this quality of a solid-state drive does not at all affect its relevance among modern users.

Today, some manufacturing companies are able to produce solid-state drives according to individual orders of consumers, thanks to which the latter will always be able to choose those SSDs that meet their requirements for design solutions and, of course, performance.

It's worth noting that the performance and efficiency levels of SSDs are evolving quite quickly, although the capacity remains the same. However, this indicator does not have a significant impact on changes in consumer attitudes towards this type of equipment. And, despite everything, the demand for solid-state drives is increasing every day. This means that the future belongs to SSDs!

Cache speeds up launch system and programs to a level comparable to a conventional SSD, since data is read from the SSD. But work The cache does not speed up the OS and programs, nor does copying large files. However, for many programs, once launched, the speed of the disk is not particularly important.

This system makes it possible to partially achieve a compromise between SSD speed and HDD capacity. Depending on the laptop model, a caching SSD is built into the hard drive (resulting in hybrid drive, SSHD) or connected via mSATA interface.

Does it make sense to install the system on this SSD?

I think this is a bad idea. Of course, you can break software RAID and cram Windows onto a small SSD, but there are a few things to consider.

1. Low drive performance

Yes, it will be higher than that of a hard drive, but it will not reach a “normal” SSD. For example, the Intel SSD 313 is equipped with durable SLC memory (you won't find it in traditional drives anymore), but is limited in speed by the SATA II interface. And even if the drive supports SATA III, it is unlikely that the controller and firmware are optimized for the drive to operate as a system drive.

In addition, you should not expect performance miracles from it for the following reason.

2. Critical lack of disk space

To begin with, you immediately make all 6 mistakes people make with a small system partition, and that already says a lot. It is for this reason that Pavel quickly came to the conclusion that a 32GB system partition would not be enough for long-term operation.

But let’s say you got twisted and disabled/moved everything you could onto your hard drive. It’s not clear what you won, but meanwhile your SSD is still very full, i.e. you cannot leave the recommended 10-20% of space unoccupied.

On eBay and in Chinese stores it costs mere pennies - search with queries HDD Drive Caddy, SATA HDD Caddy etc.

When choosing an adapter, consider its height (9.5 or 12.7 mm), since the dimensions of the optical drive differ depending on the thickness of the laptop.

In addition, the adapter may not be quite suitable in depth. So, mine is a little shorter and, as a result, recessed into the body. But I'm not worried, because... my laptop does not participate in beauty contests :)

3. Buy a good mSATA SSD

Until recently, commercially available mSATA SSDs differed from their larger counterparts in performance for the worse, but now the situation has changed.

Major players have entered the market, and their mSATA drives are equipped with the same NAND, controller and firmware as the flagship models.

This is true, for example, for pairs of Intel 520 and 525 (on SandForce controllers), Plextor M5P and M5M (on Marvell). Cost 1GB disk space mSATA drives are somewhat more expensive, but the presence of a hard drive in a laptop allows you to get by with medium-capacity SSD models.

mSATA drives are much smaller in size than their older brothers, and the picture does not reflect the actual dimensions of 3x5 cm and weight of 9 g.

If you use such a drive for cache or have a free mSATA port, you will get a fast and sufficiently capacious SSD, and also increase the total amount of disk space in the system. Previously make sure what's in your laptop:

1. The mSATA connector is connected to the SATA III interface of the motherboard. We once discussed this issue with Artem Pronichkin in relation to his Lenovo laptop W530. The chipset only supports two SATA III connections (the main drive and optical drive use them), so the mSATA SSD must be connected to SATA II.

   Of course, even in this case, you can use an mSATA SSD, and its speed will be higher than that of a hard drive. However, it will still be limited by the throughput of SATA II.

2. Supports booting the system from a disk connected via mSATA. Otherwise you will need to place the boot manager on the HDD.

Information about the availability of mSATA ports and the chipset can be found in the laptop user manual (including service manual), on the manufacturer’s website or in Google Yandex. It would also be a good idea to search the laptop manufacturer's forums for possible obstacles or problems.

Still, is it possible to install Windows on this small SSD?

Do you want to step on the rake yourself? The general requirements before installing the OS are:

1. In UEFI/BIOS:

• AHCI mode enabled
• SSD is higher than HDD in the list of devices from which to boot (Boot Order)

SSD volume should be simple, not dynamic

Specific instructions depend on the laptop model and the caching technologies used.

Discussion and poll

1. Your laptop model
2. Did you consider the disk configuration before purchasing?
3. What physical disks were installed in the laptop
4. Are you satisfied with the performance of the disk subsystem?
5. What did you do to improve the performance of your disk configuration, and what were the results?

Any other opinions on this topic are welcome!

You can mark fragments of text that interest you, which will be available via a unique link in address bar browser.

about the author

I bought it and replaced the HDD with an SSD. Before complete cleaning before Windows installation 8.1 small SSD was not used in any way, since it was not visible to the system. After cleaning it works as a small storage unit for all sorts of nonsense.

Alexey Matashkin

Until recently, the main home PC was a desktop, but I switched to a laptop. The choice fell on Dell Inspiron 7720.
One of the important selection criteria was the hard drive configuration. The laptop has two HDD bays and space for mSATA, although with some nuances: mSATA is paralleled with second HDD, so it's either one or the other.
It is for this reason that I took the configuration only with a 1Tb HDD and immediately purchased a 256Gb SSD for it.
The system is installed on an SSD, the second disk is used to store large volumes of photos, videos and the like.
In this configuration I did not do any additional actions; the performance is already more than enough for me.

Sergey

By the way, such an adapter with SATA and IDE interfaces is on sale at Yulmart. But the thickness needs to be specified separately.

Michael

1. Samsung NP300E7Z-S01.
2. No, I only looked at the HDD capacity.
3. 1 HDD 500GB, 5400RPM.
4. Absolutely NO, especially after seeing the speed of a PC with an SSD.
5. I bought an SSD, installed it instead of the HDD, and installed the HDD in the ODD bay using an adapter, and the drive plug fit perfectly into the adapter.

The cache speeds up the startup of the system and programs to a level comparable to a conventional SSD, since data is read from the solid-state drive.

After “level” a comma is required.

Igor

For me everything is simpler and dumber
In the working beech there is OZZ 3 on sandforce, you can’t stick anything else there. but there is a docking station for the laptop where they just did the option of replacing the ODD through an adapter to a hard drive and 640 GB sticks out from the VD. For cold backup and not very important, there is a 1 TB Hitachi (more precisely hgst group) and a portable working box Zalman Ve-300 with 500 GB vd. This is on mobile.
I have a server on an atom where I want to install a 60 GB SSD and replace the 1 TB laptop with a 1.5. but it’s not Windows at all, so it’s not included in these statistics.

By the way, Intel did the same on atoms on the board - 1 satashnik or through standard port, or msata. the second one is just a satanist. I understand now that many people have started doing this.

Igor

Sergey,

We have 4 times more expensive than the Chinese (((

Basil

1. HP Pavilion Sleekbook 15 laptop.
2. Yes. I was looking for a hybrid laptop.
3. Hard drive 320 GB + SSD 32 GB
4. Completely. Loading is the fastest 21.4 seconds. Better than a laptop with a 120 GB SSD (it took 23.3 seconds to load. I gave it to my grandson).
5. Tried to install Windows 7 on an SSD. It didn't work out. I restored Windows 8 and soon upgraded to Windows 8.1. I downloaded it directly to my desktop. And I only turn to the tile when I need to download an application.

Arkady

Voted. Instead of me DVD drive there is a HDD Caddy with a WD Black 500 Gb 7200 SATA2 hard drive. And on the main one there is a 128 Gb SATA3 Corsair SSD. The trick is that I have a 60-month warranty on both disks. Now I don’t know what brakes and lags are, and even the seats of the car.
Before this there was a HDD 5400, a living hell. In general, I don’t like 5400 drives, they are terribly slow.

The external panel from the drive fits the HDD Caddy and from the outside it is not noticeable at all that there is no drive inside.

Alexander

And I also used a tambourine and wasted a lot of time to boot a laptop with an mSATA SSD, when the device (BIOS) does not support mSATA as a boot one. But, in the end, the difference, even with a 90% full SSD, is significant.

Ivan

What do you think about hybrid hard drives (for example, Seagate ST500LM000), where the hard drive itself has 500 gigabytes and NAND 8 gigabytes for acceleration?

Alexei

1. Laptop SAMSUNG ATIV Book 4 NP450R5E
2. No, I didn’t attach any importance to it
3. Hard drive 500GB 5400 rpm
4. not very
5. replaced a 500GB 5400 rpm hard drive with a 7200 rpm one, it’s now running Windiows 8.1, I haven’t measured the loading speed, but it loads and works quickly, I’m quite satisfied

Alexander

Vadim Sterkin: Alexander, how did you end up booting from an unsupported mSATA?

Vadim Sterkin, cloned the OS from the HDD, leaving the MBR on it. There is a wonderful EasyBCD utility for managing the boot sector, OS boot order, etc.

Vladimir

Dear Vadim, I want to object to your statement
“It’s not clear what you won, but meanwhile your SSD is still very full, i.e. you cannot leave the recommended 10-20% of space unoccupied.”
Here's what you can win: I have only the system installed on a 32 GB SSD, the occupied space is 13.4 GB, which leaves more than 50% free. All programs are installed on another partition. Also, folders in which the system writes a lot have been moved to another partition. The OS was installed 2.5 years ago (what is this like - long-term work?) and all this time the SSD filling has been approximately the same.
As a result, the gain in loading speed is very noticeable, and the durability of the SSD should not suffer.

1) HP Pavilion DV7-7171er.
2) Yes, by default there were two HDDs (5400 rpm).
3) Toshiba, but I don’t remember the model.
4) No. And at that moment I thought about the feasibility of 2 TB in a laptop, in the presence of a home NAS.
5) Replaced the system HDD with a Samsung 840 Pro.
Didn't do anything special:
— In addition to the standard reserve area, I did not mark out another 20-25 percent for longevity.
— Didn’t bother “tuning” Third party SSD utilities, as well as branded Magican.
- Removed SSD defragmentation - according to the article from your blog (by the way, is this relevant for 8.1?)

The speed is quite good - I'm happy. Although there was no point in doubting this.

Alexander

I agree that installing Windows 7 - 8.1 on a 25-35 GB SSD is not worth it. I have a 60 GB SSD. After transferring working user profiles (but not the entire USERS folder), the swap file, and the Installer, MSOCache and folders to the HDD Search Windows 7 x64 takes up about 34 GB. A freshly installed system will take up less, but it’s still not an option—it may not last long.
In my opinion, hibernation for a system installed on an SSD is completely unnecessary. What's the point of once again writing large amounts of data to a solid-state drive if a clean start takes a few seconds? Again, no one canceled the sleep mode.

Igor

Hello, Vadim.

I have already consulted with you about SSDs (see Gmail letter dated July 19, 2013) So for now this matter is postponed for financial reasons, but in general I am inclined to buy 2 devices to replace the standard DVD-RAM drive.

At the same time, I have an interesting point regarding mSATA or a similar connector. I have a netbook ACER ASPIRE ONE D250 (without 3G module). The question is, is it possible to put a solid state drive on that connector? At one time I saw such SSDs on sale but did not buy them for fear of incompatibility with the connector, although they are visually similar. What can you say on this topic?

As an example, you can see here (the connector for the 3G module is right above the fan):

Vladimir

Vadim Sterkin: Vladimir, nothing prevents you from using sleep, and the loading speed does not matter. What else have you won?

Vadim, I actually didn’t write anything about sleep or hibernation, so your answer is not relevant.
In addition to what was mentioned, another benefit is that the system disk image made Acronis program True Image has a volume of about 4 GB and is created and restored in 8...10 minutes.
For me, these arguments are more than enough to use such an organization of work.
I don’t use hibernation on a desktop; I do use it on a laptop, but not often, because now I mostly work on it from the network.

Vladimir

Vadim Sterkin: 1. The answer about sleep is to the point, because. if you use it, you can reboot once a month when installing updates. Everyone who doesn’t like to start working in Windows from scratch all the time knows this :)

Vladimir: I don’t use hibernation on a desktop; I do use it on a laptop, but not often, because now I mostly work on it from the network.

Vadim Sterkin: 2. Acronis does not include swap and hibernation files in the backup image; instead, there are stubs, so the size backup copy and they do not affect the speed of its creation.

I did not claim anything of the kind. In my first post, I wrote that the system partition can be made small, which is what determines the benefit in creating an image and restoring it.
In addition, moving folders to other partitions allows you to not lose ANYTHING when restoring the OS from an image or even when reinstalling the system.

Maksim

1. Asus U500VZ
2. Yes
3. SSD RAID 0 array of two 256 GB Adata drives
4. Yes
5. nothing

Vladimir

Vadim,
At the very beginning you wrote:
Pavel Nagaev (MVP Exchange) bought himself a laptop with a large HDD and small SSD, on which he immediately installed Windows. However, he very quickly abandoned this idea.
And further:
...Pavel quickly came to the conclusion that a 32GB system partition would not be enough for long-term operation.
Based on this, I wrote that it was quite possible for it to work for a long time: after optimizing the OS, 13.4 GB of the 32 GB system SSD are occupied. This is quite enough to work for 2.5 years, and for the hiberfil.sys file. In addition, transferring folders to another partition makes it possible not to lose ANYTHING in the event of a system crash and even in the event of complete physical destruction of the system SSD (stolen, burned with a blue flame...): to restore you only need to install a new SSD and deploy the OS from the image to it, for which it will take about twenty minutes. Not more.
As a result of optimization, the gain in boot speed and system operation is very noticeable, the durability of the SSD should not suffer, the system disk image is small - about 4 GB, which is also good: the time to create and restore it is 8...10 minutes.

Vadim Sterkin: Vladimir, ok, I understand, your goal is to reduce the size of the system image so that it is created faster, and personal files were not lost during recovery/reinstallation.

My goal is not to reduce the size of the system image, but to ensure reliable operation of the computer: data safety (and this is facilitated, in particular, by placing data and the system on different partitions and even on different devices) and reliable operation of the system, in particular - easy and quick recovery, and small size image is just a nice bonus.

Vadim Sterkin: What does SSD have to do with it? What did you gain by breaking the RAID and installing the OS there? Just in case, the loading speed is nothing.

I didn’t write anything about RAID - maybe this is a question for Pavel Nagaev? I compared the loading speed and operation of the system on an SSD and on a HDD.
In addition, an SSD allows you, so to speak, to automate the system on a physically separate device with a pleasant bonus in the form of greater operating speed.

Sergey

“The standard scenario for using a mobile PC is instead of complete shutdown sending to sleep (including connected standby mode on mobile PCs with Windows 8 and higher) and going into hibernation when the battery is low.” - Yes. But in practice full inclusion with an SSD it is faster, or at least no slower, than exiting hibernation with an HDD.

Dmitriy

Vadim, good afternoon!

I just raised this topic in one of the comments a month ago and you promised to write a post about it. I was looking forward to it.

I currently have windows on ssd on two laptops.
I will share with you my thoughts on this matter.
With a home laptop everything is simple, but with a work laptop it turned out to be very interesting.

Home laptop:
Lenovo Y580
8Gb ram
Samsung caching msata was initially installed on 64Gb
Now it serves as a system disk with Windows 8.

The Windows installation was the most common one, so it takes up quite a lot of space, all the necessary things were installed, including working software.
Of the tweaks, only hibernation is disabled, because... The startup is still very fast and this is too obvious a way to save 8GB on disk. The swap file is made with a floating size of up to 4GB, but it seems to be 400MB full.
Free 22 of 60 gigabytes.

The free space is stable and does not decrease much. If you remember that the disk is not rubber and do not use Photoshop or Corel, then the problems you described will not arise at all.

With the work laptop, about which I asked you a question last time, I had to tinker with it and get rid of the problems that you described.

So.
Toshiba U840
8gb ram
caching ssd sandisk 32Gb

Despite the core i5 and a large amount of RAM, all performance was limited by the 5400prm hard drive.
The SRT technology worked, but if you already have a computer with a system ssd in your life, then it seems just a marketing ploy and is not felt at all :)

The problem could have been solved by buying more msata, but this was unsporting.
The problem was precisely windows size after installation.
I needed 10 GB for working software and roaming data. Adding to this 20 gigs of Windows 7 head after reinstallation. I received a disk filled to capacity. And this is exactly the biggest disadvantage. And I was also infuriated by the lack of “spare” space.

The problem was solved by installing a stripped down windows distribution from one of the torrents.
I was scared by the possible crookedness of the assembly, the presence of specially left holes, etc.

However, after installation, it turned out to be completely normal to register the license with Microsoft and install all(!) updates from the moment of assembly. All the cut components turned out to be really unnecessary.
In the end I got 9GB for windows folder(5 immediately after installation), 8 GB for everything else, disabled hibernation and installed a floating page file.
There are 14 GB of free space and there are no plans to increase it.

During 2 weeks of testing, I did not find any glitches in the system.

I understand that in both cases, the phrase “22GB and 14GB of free space” may seem daunting. But I prefer to keep the system partition clean and fast. If you want to install something capacious, you can always put it on the second disk and still have a super-fast system.

From here I would like to receive your comment on my way out of the problem with installing stripped-down windows.
In my opinion, the game was worth the candle :)
Prada is of course a fly in the ointment. Ssd from sandisk not best quality, Certainly. And in HD Tune pro, although the speed remains at 300 MB/sec, at the beginning of the graph it drops significantly to 150. However, this is only a test, this is not noticeable in operation and is still faster than hdd.

Dmitriy

The mSATA connector is connected to the SATA III interface of the motherboard. We once discussed this issue with Artem Pronichkin in relation to his Lenovo W530 laptop. The chipset only supports two SATA III connections (the main drive and optical drive use them), so the mSATA SSD must be connected to SATA II.

I tried to solve this issue on my Lenovo y580 for a very long time, and I don’t remember how and where I got the answer to it :) Therefore, I ask you to help me figure it out again.

According to specification Sata drive 3 (6 Gbps) (up to 500 Mb/s)
When tested, HD Tune produces a minimum read speed of 216 MB, an average of 323, and a maximum of 396.
Does this mean that I still have sata 3 enabled on this drive?

I understand that this is a stupid question, considering that sata2 works up to 300. :) But I want to make sure :)

Vladimir

Vadim Sterkin: if in laptop SSD was for cache, SATA controller worked in RAID mode (at least in the case of SRT).

Vadim Sterkin: What did you gain by breaking the RAID and installing the OS there?

Ufff... So it wasn’t me, but Pavel who broke something there? And I was already scared that you got into my computer and found out a terrible secret that was never there...
Generally speaking, I did not discuss the feasibility and correctness of installing the OS on an SSD, originally intended for cache, I am simply commenting on what has been DONE:

Vladimir: Pavel Nagaev (MVP Exchange) bought himself a laptop with a large HDD and a small SSD, on which he immediately installed Windows. However, he very quickly abandoned this idea.

and tried to show that it is possible to work with a 32 GB system disk.

Vadim Sterkin: But it’s somehow strange that in 2.5 years the OS took up only 13.5GB.

I don’t remember how much the OS occupied 2.5 years ago, but the image of the optimized OS after installing all the programs was then 3.2 GB, now it is 4.1 GB. That is, the size, of course, has grown.

Vadim Sterkin: And, probably, you have transferred not only files, but also %AppData%, or very few programs storing data there (even the software is installed on the HDD).

%AppData%, I didn't transfer it. Folders were transferred:
1. My Documents(more precisely, this folder has been in its place since the days of Windows XP);
2. Temp(if they tell me that in this case the installation time of programs increases, then I will answer that when installing some little thing once every two weeks, like mine, this is not significant;
3. Temporary Internet Files. They say that this slows down the browser, but with my Internet speed of about 25 Mbps, I will never notice this.
4. Mail. Windows Mail program databases.
5. Program Files. NOT TRANSFERRED, but created! I install ALL programs in this folder. I have a lot of programs. There are few of those that write a lot to the system partition even when installing them on another: Microsoft Office(incomplete), Adobe: Acrobat and Photoshop. Acronis True Image. There are several other programs that write mere trifles to the system partition. The rest of the programs are Portable.
6. Folders Favorites And Desktop. This is so as not to lose something during restoration.
Now for your questions.

Vadim Sterkin: 1. The safety of data stored on the HDD would be exactly the same, even if you did not install the OS on the SSD.

Yes it is. When I decided to install the OS on a separate drive, I initially planned to take a 30..40 GB HDD. But while I was looking for such a new one, I came across an SSD and simply fell for the new product, which also promised some advantages.

Vadim Sterkin: 2. The type of media is unlikely to affect the reliability of the system, but of course it does affect the speed.

I did not claim that the reliability of the system depends on the type of media. I don't think it has any effect. Although I personally know two ten-year-old HDDs, and I haven’t even heard of five-year-old SSDs, apparently not much time has passed.

Vadim Sterkin: 3. Yes, the small size of the system backup image is a plus, I wrote about it. But how many times have you resorted to image recovery in 2.5 years?

I didn’t count how many times I restored the system, but I think it’s once every two or three months. It happens that I catch some nasty bug (not a single protection system gives a 100% guarantee), I install a “crooked” program, the computer starts without visible reasons slow down a lot... In such cases, if I can’t fix it right away, I don’t think for long - I restore the system from one of the latest images: it only takes about ten minutes of work.

Maksim

The articles are very cool, thank you very much Vadim!
After reading several articles about ssd, I had a question.
There is a laptop Acer Aspire 5750g, unfortunately it only has sata 2 and a 5400 rpm system hard drive in addition.
I want to install a second disk instead of the one I am not using DVD drive. So the question is, which drive should I use? Put a small SSD there (120GB) and transfer the swap file, temporary files folder and several applications to it, or purchase a hybrid drive and clone to it system disk, put the hybrid one in place of the system one, and that one, accordingly, in place of the optical drive.
I just can’t come to the right decision on my own, I would like to know your opinion on this matter. Thanks again for the great articles!

Maksim

Vadim Sterkin,
Yes, looking at the chipset, this is how it should be, but, unfortunately, in fact there is only Sata 2.
When choosing an SSD as a system one, another problem arises, the current size of the system partition is 680GB, but that's another story.

Maksim

Vadim Sterkin, I don’t even know how Acer’s “engineers” managed to cram in Sata 2, but even the support service replies that this model only has Sata 2, which is actually confirmed third party software, I was also very surprised. I have one question, off topic, is it possible to do a “clean” installation of Win7 using a pre-installed system key? (this concerns moving to an SSD as the main drive)

Maxim

Thanks for the article, Vadim!
I am answering the questions:
1. Lenovo IdeaPad U310. One of the main parameters for choosing a laptop (besides price) was the weight and size of this device, since it was intended to be carried with you all the time.
2. Disk configuration mattered to me, but the size of the SSD on mSATA was not decisive. At the beginning I didn't even know what it was separate disk on a separate interface.
3. SSD, I think, SanDisk 24 GB, HDD WD 500 GB
4. Performance was as expected: the same as when working with a regular HDD, in some moments faster due to data caching on the SSD. So I worked with what I bought. The main drawback of my laptop: it has 4 GB of memory, which was not enough for my work: it wasn’t even enough for regular work, not to mention running virtual machines. When I got tired of the inconvenience of working with small memory, I bought 8 GB and installed it myself. “Life has become easier, life has become more fun.”
5. Then, since I had already started changing the configuration, and the costs were distributed over time, I bought a Kingston 120 GB SSD and transferred the system disk to it. The improvements were noticeable immediately. Now I am completely satisfied with the performance of my laptop. I work comfortably in the main system and in a running virtual machine. Virtual machine lives on the HDD, so it runs noticeably slower than the main OS, but this can be tolerated.
Maybe there are differences SSD drives on SATA and mSATA, but I didn’t notice them by eye. I have a desktop PC with Win 7 on an SSD, I don’t see much difference in the speed of working with a laptop.
There are 2 things left in my laptop that I would like to fix: screen resolution and quality WiFi connection. I will not change the screen matrix, but WiFi module I think I'll replace it. You will have to look for which module is considered good.

Ruslan

1. ASUS K95VJ
2. I bought it precisely because of the possibility of manipulating hard drives, since it has a standard 3.5″ HDD (7200) plus a free 2.5″ slot where it was decided to purchase an SSD. The choice was made on an SSD drive Kingston HyperX 3K SSD 120GB 2.5″ SATAIII. It was a bit of a hassle to transfer pre-installed Windows 8 without losing activation, but I managed with Macrium Reflect(by the way, it's a free program). At first I tried to optimize the SSD, but after reading your article about myths I gave up on optimization. The difference is Windows work and the programs on the SSD are really very noticeable, so I was pleased with this upgrade.
Thanks for the articles on SSDs.

Sergey

Sergey,

After installing the ExpressCache utility which is included. The system works from 24g. like a cache.. You can see it in disk management.

Cl3r1k

Thanks for the article, Vadim!
There is no SSD available, so I can’t test my theory myself. According to the first screen with IRST, there is an item Select the size allocated for the cache memory and two items 18.6 GB and Full disk capacity. Those. you can set the partition to be cached on the SSD or the entire disk. And if, for example, it is required a specific program with its data always stored on SSD?
As I understand it, for this you will need to create a partition for the program with data (let’s say 4 GB), and give the rest of the space to another partition, which in turn should be specified as a cache in IRST. Will the first partition be visible to the system? Did I understand correctly? Or is there another solution?

And another question is not entirely on topic, on hard drives there is such a thing as bad blocks that arise for various reasons, but what about SSDs, do they have similar problems? And what happens to faulty memory cells, they turn into broken ones and are also marked as non-working? In the case of HDD, it is possible to perform a remap bad sector, and in the case of SSD? Or does the SSD not suffer from similar problems?

Alexander

I purchased a laptop with SSD Cache
Lenovo THINKPAD Edge E540
Now I don’t understand how to use it, or is everything already set up to work?
No programs from Lenovo are installed, I found some kind of express cache called. But I haven't watched it yet.
What do you recommend? This is to make more fruitful use of this cache.
Thank you

Artem

Lenovo y470
Yes. I knew that there was a slot for mSata
There was one 5400 HDD 500Mb
I was happy with it until a friend showed me how to boot from an SSD
I bought 128 SSD Plextor and HDD Toshba 7200 1Tb. The system is on an SSD, the rest is programs. Satisfied.

Nikolay

Two laptops Old/New:






I installed the system on the SSD and stored the databases with which I worked.

Operating system on the old Windows 7 on the new one Windows license 8 from the manufacturer, transferred it to the SSD

At the moment I can’t understand why the recording tests on the new laptop show a lower result than on the new one, on the old one it’s about 250, and on the new one it’s almost 160 (Maximum result regardless of testing methods)
Model mSata Kingston SMS200S3/120G - http://www.kingston.com/us/ssd/s#sms200s3

Bios updated

Denis

Nikolay: Two laptops Old/New:
1. Dell Studio 1558 / Acer Aspire V5-573G
2. Gave / gave but the Processor and the matrix took their toll
3. HDD 7200 at that time SSDs were still expensive / Simple HDD
4. Both laptops have the biggest performance bottleneck.
5. On the old Dell I installed a 120G SSD instead of an HDD, and instead of an optical drive I installed a pocket with an NDD, the performance improved significantly.
5. On a new one I bought a 120G SSD in mSATA (SMS200S3/120G),
I installed the system on the SSD and stored the databases with which I worked. Operating system on the old Windows 7 on the new Windows 8 license from the manufacturer, transferred it to the SSD At the moment I can’t understand why the recording tests on the new laptop show lower results than on the new one, on the old one approximately 250, and on the new one almost 160 (Maximum result regardless of testing methods)
Model mSata KingstonSMS200S3/120G - http://www.kingston.com/us/ssd/s#sms200s3
If you have any suggestions or advice on where to dig, please tell me.
Bios updated

Nikolay, perhaps the writing speed of your SSD disk on mSATA is such... it’s just physically impossible.....

Http://old.computerra.ru/sgolub/710560/), I agree with the author... And therefore several more options appeared...

1. SSD for the system, programs and work files + HDD for storage and archives.
Here you will need a larger capacity SSD, at least 500 GB, and in this design I think that the disk resource will run out faster. You can, of course, buy an SSD for a server; their resource is 1.5-2 times higher, but the price is accordingly. Moreover, the idea is to make an automatic daily backup of work files from the SSD to the HDD, although I don’t know how yet (I’ll have to study this topic too). The pluses are high speed, less noise, heating and energy consumption (on a laptop), the minuses are that if the disk “covers up,” the entire system and work for the last day will fail...

2. SSD for the system and programs + SSD for temporary, work files and cache + HDD for dumping and archives
In this option, I think the disk resource will last longer and will take the main load second SSD with temporary files, if it crashes, then restoring work will not be as long as in the second option...

What can you say about these options?

Ruslan

1. Sony VAIO SVN1311X1RS
2. No, I didn’t, I still transfer everything to SSD (32gb is not enough, but 120 will be enough)
3. SSD 32Gb on mSATA+HDD 320 GB
4. No
5., so I moved the OS to SSD, but there are not enough of them yet.

2 days with a tambourine and I finally found a simple option to install the OS on mSATA (the boot order in the BIOS did not change). I pulled out the HDD, installed the OS and then put the HDD back - everything ingenious - simple! Include it in the article, I’m sure it will be useful to someone, because I’ll be replacing the SSD with mSATA, after all extra space A regular screw won't hurt.

Hello friends! Today I will tell you about SSD drives. In this article you will find out what they are and whether they are worth purchasing at all. We will also consider the positive and negative aspects of this device. Well, at the end of the article, you will be able to find out what parameters (characteristics) you need to choose when buying an SSD drive for your computer.

SSD drive is a computer storage device that does not contain mechanical elements. It uses memory chips to store information. That is, in other words, an SSD disk is the same, roughly speaking, a large flash drive. The advantages of this device are obvious: high speed of reading and writing information, noiselessness, and low power consumption.

To make it easier to understand, let's first understand what a hard drive is. Hard disk (HDD) is a computer storage device in which information (system files, videos, music, games, etc.) is stored all the time. This information is recorded or read thanks to magnetic plates located parallel to each other, and which rotate at enormous speed (5600 - 7200 rpm). Between the plates and above them also with high speed The so-called carriage with the head moves, which reads the information.

SSD drive

Let's return to the SSD drive. This solid-state drive is functionally similar to an HDD, but instead of magnetic plates, a motor and a carriage, flash memory chips are used.

A silent device that is not susceptible to vibrations and has incredible write/read speeds, it can compete with a hard drive. However, like any detail, it has its own nuances. Let's take a closer look at the positive and negative aspects of using an SSD drive.

Advantages of SSD drives

Resistance to mechanical damage . As I said above, HDDs are susceptible to vibrations, especially shocks. In this situation, the hard drive can easily crumble. Unlike such drives, SSDs do not have plates spinning at enormous speed, because memory chips are used to store information. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about a laptop with an SSD drive when you’re walking around or on business trips.

Speed ​​of writing/reading information. Friends, this is an important factor, you will agree. After all, with the help of new drives we can observe speeds like never before. In some tests, SSDs are 80-100 times faster than HDDs when reading information. Can you imagine this? For example, operating room Windows system with an SSD drive can boot completely in seconds.

Silence of the device. When operating, the HDD makes some noise because, I repeat, magnetic plates rotate inside at high speed. As for SSDs, no matter how hard you try, unfortunately you won’t be able to hear any noise, because the chips are absolutely silent.

Economical power consumption. Powering an SSD drive requires much less energy than an HDD, so this positive point will be especially felt by laptop owners.

Disadvantages of SSD drives

Whatever positive sides neither were there when using an SSD, alas, there are also negative ones, as in principle with any computer device. Let's look at the most significant disadvantages.

Pricing. It just so happens that SSD drives are 4-6 times more expensive than HDDs of the same memory capacity, or even more. For example, a 512 Gb SATA 6Gb SSD with a capacity of 512 GB will cost around 15,000 rubles.

MTBF. This parameter means that the drive will operate for N number of hours. The characteristics of SSDs always include operating time, which on average ranges from 1.5 to 2 million hours. If you convert 1,500,000 hours per year, then theoretically the drive will last 171 years.

Poor OS compatibility. If you use Windows 7, 8 or 10, then you don’t have to worry too much about the SSD, since the system provides for disabling services that are dangerous for such drives (for example, indexing). If you use older Windows versions, then the SSD drive will wear out, which in turn will significantly reduce the operating time of this device.

Solid state drives are becoming more and more popular, and the price is slowly falling, thereby giving anyone the opportunity to purchase this gadget. This device can give your computer a second wind!

So, if you decide to buy yourself an SSD drive, then I will be happy to help in this matter. Read my tips to the end

1. Typically, the speed of an SSD depends on the amount of memory. This is not an unimportant point, believe me. That is, a 64 GB drive will work slower than a 128 GB SSD. The same goes for 256GB solid state devices. If you take even larger capacity drives, you won’t see much of a speed increase. Moreover, the larger the storage capacity, the larger its so-called reserve zone. Therefore, I would recommend choosing a drive with at least 128GB of storage.

2. When purchasing an SSD, consider the characteristics of the motherboard. If the motherboard is quite old, then installing a solid-state drive will be a illogical solution.

3. To “feel” the full potential of SSD technology, I advise you to choose the SATA III or PCI-E interface. It is in this case that the speed of information transfer will be maximum.

4. Sometimes, purchasing two SSDs will reduce the risk irretrievable loss information. Let me explain: you buy the first SSD for the system drive where it will be installed operating system and all the necessary programs, the second will serve as storage of multimedia information. As you understand, this option involves significant financial costs.

5. I also advise you to choose an SSD with the longest warranty period. After all, the bigger it is, the better. This applies not only to SSDs, but also to any other computer equipment.