Recco for good Data Drive w/ SSD

Gunslinger74 · Post by **Gunslinger74** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 3:34 pm

Hey All -

Been reading up heavily and basically am down to 3 HD choices to pair up with an intel 160 SSD.

I'm looking at the F3, WD10EARS or the new WD10EALS. All 3 have the 500GB platters, but I don't know if the 5400 RPM on the WD10EARS will be a good fit?

I'm basically going to be using it for a user profile partition, my windows temp files and music.

Thanks in advance for your help/suggestions!

swivelguy2 · Post by **swivelguy2** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 5:50 pm

Your user profiles and windows temp files are probably going to be accessed fairly frequently, so I'd put them on the SSD.

The bottom line is if you need the data fast, it goes on the SSD. If you don't need it fast, 5400 RPM is just as good as 7200 RPM while being quieter and cheaper per GB.

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 6:35 pm

If you buy any SSD over the $200 mark with a Intel, Sandforce, Marvell, or Indilinx controller you'll want all the usual files on the SSD not a traditional HD.

Moving the pagefile made sense with older Jmicron and Samsung drives but modern SSDs with 64MB or more cache tend to handle the pagefile better than a hard drive would (see this article for more details.

As to a storage drive I think the standout is the 1TB Seagate LP. I avoid 3 and 4 platter drives which means I won't be recommending higher capacity drives for some time. If you want quiet you need a 500GB or 1TB drive at this point.

I just did a quick search and it's hard to find the 1TB seagate in stock now. You'll have better luck getting the Samsung from what I'm seeing. I'd look for a Samsung Ecogreen 1TB and not get too picky on last years model vs this years model. The SSD will do all the heavy lifting and the data drive will just sit there at idle most of the time.

Gunslinger74 · Post by **Gunslinger74** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 7:04 pm

Thanks for the advice guys!

dhanson - does this also include the temp files for browser/windows as well? that was really what I was concerned with and why I was thinking of pairing a 7200rpm with the Intel SSD i just purchased.

ces · Post by **ces** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 8:01 pm

swivelguy2 wrote:The bottom line is if you need the data fast, it goes on the SSD. If you don't need it fast, 5400 RPM is just as good as 7200 RPM while being quieter and cheaper per GB.

I think I would have to disagree. If you are opening up Word for example, you want the data file to come up as quickly as the application.

Consider using a 150G velociraptor as a working disk for every day data - data you don't put on the SSD.

An alternative would be to get a a Western Digital 1T or 1T Black drive. Partition it into two partitions. The first partition should be 5 to 10% the size if then entire drive.

That means that the arm will be "short stroking" if you keep all your active files in the small partition. That will keep the seek noise down. It will also make it almost as fast as the velociraptor. You get the space on the second partition for free.

Silverstone has a device that lets you use an SSD as a read cache for a regular hard drive. All writes bypass the SSD and go right to the HHD. Any reads are done first from the SSD. It extends the life of the SSD and keeps your data safer than otherwise.

swivelguy2 · Post by **swivelguy2** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 8:38 pm

ces wrote:
swivelguy2 wrote:The bottom line is if you need the data fast, it goes on the SSD. If you don't need it fast, 5400 RPM is just as good as 7200 RPM while being quieter and cheaper per GB.
I think I would have to disagree. If you are opening up Word for example, you want the data file to come up as quickly as the application.

I don't know about you, but I don't have many gigabytes of Word files. The OP bought a 160GB X25.

swivelguy2 wrote:The bottom line is if you need the data fast, it goes on the SSD.

ces · Post by **ces** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 3:59 am

swivelguy2 wrote:I don't know about you, but I don't have many gigabytes of Word files. The OP bought a 160GB X25.

1. Dumb question. What does OP stand for?

2. I have always kept my data on a non-boot disk. I guess you don't have to do that. It makes the data much more portable from computer to computer.

I may have been projecting my own data handling standards on Gunslinger74.

3. Still, I don't think I am at the point where I am ready to trust my data to an SSD.

outbackyak · Post by **outbackyak** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 5:18 am

ces wrote:1. Dumb question. What does OP stand for?

OP = Original Poster = the person who started the thread (or Original Post = the first post in a thread).

Cheers!

Gunslinger74 · Post by **Gunslinger74** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 6:30 am

Thanks for the feedback guys!

Mainly I was looking to minimize writes on the intel ssd, thus looking to move the windows temp, IE cache, FireFox Cache, etc... of off the SSD and onto a "data drive" with a small 300 or so GB partition.

It looks like the newest WD Green (64mb cache) will work in this regard, but still tempted to pull the trigger on the Samsung F3 just didn't know if 7200rpm would be overkill for what I'm looking to do.

I love the performance increase from the SSD but after the price, I'm more protective of that little bastard and how many writes it gets than you wouldn't believe hahahaha

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 8:00 am

fwiw I'm using 40GB Intel SSDs at work and I'm not putting any files on a separate drive.

I definitely see the concern with making backups in case the entire drive bricks but I'm not worried about individual files and I'm not worried about the life of the flash chips themselves.

The media wearout indicator (smart value) is at 99 and hasn't dropped in months of use. I saw another user with an Intel ssd that had written about 10 times as much data and his media wearout indicator was lower but he figured out that at his rate of use for the first year it would take 20 years to hit 0.

Honestly if this drive lasts me 5 years I'll be happy. I'd even find it acceptable if it lasted 3 or 4 years so long as the end is predictable and manageable.

HammerSandwich · Post by **HammerSandwich** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 12:30 pm

Gunslinger74 wrote:Mainly I was looking to minimize writes on the intel ssd, thus looking to move the windows temp, IE cache, FireFox Cache, etc... of off the SSD and onto a "data drive" with a small 300 or so GB partition.

If you can afford it (and you are buying a 160GB SSD...), consider putting an extra 2-4GB RAM in the system & pointing these files at a RAMdisk. Faster than even the SSD, and you don't care if these are lost.