Computer Hardware and Electronics

[Telex Ferra]

the hard drive on my desktop is showing signs of failure and I'm looking to replace it with one or two SSDs. My motherboard has a total of four SATA-II connectors and I'm not totally against getting four drives. I know SATa-II doesn't support the high bitrates that SATA-III does, but I've read that there's little difference except during large bursts of activity or file transfers. (even then, the speed would exceed that of my current hard disc) Does anyone have any recommendations for high capacity, reliable SSDs?

[Kurt Fraser]

the hard drive on my desktop is showing signs of failure and I'm looking to replace it with one or two SSDs. My motherboard has a total of four SATA-II connectors and I'm not totally against getting four drives. I know SATa-II doesn't support the high bitrates that SATA-III does, but I've read that there's little difference except during large bursts of activity or file transfers. (even then, the speed would exceed that of my current hard disc) Does anyone have any recommendations for high capacity, reliable SSDs?

1TB Samsung 840 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/S (upto540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
480GB Kingston V300 SSD SATA 6Gb/S (450MB/R | 450MB/W)
Or there are the Seagate Hybrid Drives, I have not personally used them but they may be worth a look, they go up to 4TB

Also another Kingston worth a look is this one http://www.kingston.com/en/ssd/hyperx
It is Kingstons top of the range gaming standard SSD.

With this it primarily depends whether you want to go full SSD or not, one thing to consider maybe 1 or 2 SDD's + 2 more HDD's set as either RAID or Mirror Volumes (the latter will allow you to have a back up of your data, I would note, although in theory it should be fine regardless of Memory size, I would limit the volume of your mirror)

[criminula]

I've seen decent reviews about the 1TB Samsung Evo SSD. 1TB seems to be the largest size that is easily available (I've heard stories of 4TB ones selling for several thousand dollars - not sure how accurate they were). The hybrid drives seem to get more mixed reviews - the concept seems like a good idea, but from what I can tell it often seems better to get a small SSD to house some of the more core elements, and have a large HDD to cover the rest.

[Veritas]

the hard drive on my desktop is showing signs of failure and I'm looking to replace it with one or two SSDs. My motherboard has a total of four SATA-II connectors and I'm not totally against getting four drives. I know SATa-II doesn't support the high bitrates that SATA-III does, but I've read that there's little difference except during large bursts of activity or file transfers. (even then, the speed would exceed that of my current hard disc) Does anyone have any recommendations for high capacity, reliable SSDs?

What's your budget like? Size requirements?

It would be worth it to upgrade to SATA-III when you get an SSD; SATA-II's max effective speed is 375 megabytes/sec (3 gigabits/sec) and SATA-III's is 6 gigabits/sec, so roughly double that. SSDs frequently run at 500MB/sec for both reading/writing. You won't be taking full advantage of that performance unless you upgrade to SATA-III.

You could get two large SSDs and put them in RAID, that'd be the best option if you can afford it, but that'll run you quite a bit of money that's probably better spent elsewhere. My recommendation is to get an SSD for operating system/frequently used programs (240GB can be had for $100 and would be more than enough), and a larger (2-3TB) HDD for storage. You probably don't need RAID unless data loss is a serious concern and offsite backups (Dropbox, SkyDrive, etc) are not an option.

[Telex Ferra]

I've read that the actual transfer rate between the computer and a hard drive very seldom exceeds the 3Gbps offered by SATA-II, and I don't think I'm looking to replace my whole motherboard.

I definitely see the logic in buying a smaller SSD to serve as the boot drive and to hold programs I use frequently. Honestly, I don't really have enough media that isn't backed up (e.g. itunes, steam) to justify using more than 240 GB.

Can you provide some links to 240GB SSDs for $100? I've been looking around online and most SSDs with that capacity are in the high 100s range.

[Veritas]

Can you provide some links to 240GB SSDs for $100? I've been looking around online and most SSDs with that capacity are in the high 100s range.

I actually was just doing this for someone else. Here you go:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7768769
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A1ZTZNM/ref=sr_1_10?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1400798806&sr=1-10
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BQ4F9ZA/?tag=pcpapi-20 (Select the 240GB model)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820171741

The very last one is a larger version of what I have, and I'm very happy with mine.

I've read that the actual transfer rate between the computer and a hard drive very seldom exceeds the 3Gbps offered by SATA-II, and I don't think I'm looking to replace my whole motherboard.

It will have an effect, but it won't prevent you from noticing massive increases in speed.

[Telex Ferra]

Thanks Veritas!

Yeah, I found yet another article that pretty much said the SSDs do much better on SATA-III when they run the benchmark tests, but those tests are not very accurate representations of how a user will actually access a HDD; they eventually concluded that the user experience will hardly be different when using 2 instead of 3 for most circumstances.

Also, I read you can get a PCI-E card for SATA-III support, but I'm not looking to break the bank here.

[Veritas]

Also, I read you can get a PCI-E card for SATA-III support, but I'm not looking to break the bank here.

Yeah, but I wouldn't bother. I'd just add it to the list of things to persuade you to eventually upgrade your motherboard when you have time/money

[Telex Ferra]

and I'm  dubious as to whether you can connect your boot drive that way

EDIT: I chose to go with Pie's recommended SSD and an additional 1TB HDD

[andrewthetechie]

Its possible to boot off of a SATAIII controller connected via PCI-E, but usually unnecessarily complicated. I am very much in agreeance that while a SSD is faster on SATAIII, you probably won't see that much difference of it over a SATAII bus. They are so much ridiculously faster that even on the SataII bus a SSD will make you feel on the top of the world.

I have two "mid-range" SSDs in my older (sata II) laptops and they rock.

[Telex Ferra]

Yup, I'm loving the SSD right now. I've also upgraded my graphics card(s) from 2x 5670s to 1x R9 270 and I'm having a blast.

The only issue I've had was installing some more memory. I bought 3x4GB memory sticks and was constantly getting MEMORY_MANAGEMENT blue screens. I did the windows memory test, PSA, and even ran memtest++ and found no problems. I eventually just took one of them out and I'm running stable with 8GB.

I'm confident my board can handle that much; the manufacturer says it can handle up to 24GB of physical memory. Since virtual memory is supposed to adjust based on how much physical memory is present, I'm hesitant to say that the problem lies in the virtual memory settings....it could just be a bad stick, but why didn't it throw any errors in any of the tests?

[Veritas]

The only issue I've had was installing some more memory. I bought 3x4GB memory sticks and was constantly getting MEMORY_MANAGEMENT blue screens. I did the windows memory test, PSA, and even ran memtest++ and found no problems. I eventually just took one of them out and I'm running stable with 8GB.

I'm confident my board can handle that much; the manufacturer says it can handle up to 24GB of physical memory. Since virtual memory is supposed to adjust based on how much physical memory is present, I'm hesitant to say that the problem lies in the virtual memory settings....it could just be a bad stick, but why didn't it throw any errors in any of the tests?

Resurrecting an old thread to answer this: RAM likes to be in increments of powers of 2, so 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, etc. 12GB of RAM is not always going to be very stable, depending on your motherboard configuration and the RAM involved. Your best bet would be to stick with 8 or go up to 16, but you probably don't need more than 8.

[Telex Ferra]

In this day and age you'd think they'd have hammered out the kinks in the virtual memory system

[andrewthetechie]

You'd think right?

[The Investigator]

Added secondary desktop to list of computers.