

Why are you not using a SSD yet? - trustfundbaby
http://debuggable.com/posts/why-are-you-not-using-a-ssd-yet:4d64ad6f-22d8-4eca-99e8-765acbdd56cb

======
patio11
My SSD has been the single biggest win for hardware for me in the last decade.
Dell quoted me $600 on putting one in my new laptop. It would be cheap at
twice the price.

In addition to my perhaps unprofessional weakness for playing games, the huge
win for me is that it slashes boot times for hefty programs, most noticeably
the VMs that I do all my development in and, of course, browsers. Chrome boots
practically instantaneously -- I often have to wait for my wireless to come up
so that it has something to do right after a system boot.

My other suggestion, which combos well with SSDs and is ridiculously cheap to
implement these days: get more memory. I have 8 GBs. If there were a
convenient option for getting 16, I'd be all over it -- I never find myself
thinking "Dang it all, I have too much stuff in memory, why don't I page out
some to disk".

~~~
StavrosK
$600? Wow. You can get them for under $100 now, I got one for my dad for 60
GBP and it's made my 5-year-old macbook faster than my brand new macbook pro.

Seriously, if you don't have an SSD yet, go now and order one. Otherwise
you're just wasting your time.

------
ENOTTY
Because it costs an outrageous amount of money. I'm waiting for further
development of hybrid drives, which are SSDs combined with a traditional hard
drive for mass storage, but seen as one drive by the OS. The SSD is basically
used a huge read cache. Current models of hybrid drives from Seagate have only
4 GB of SSD cache, which I don't feel is large enough.

~~~
ctide
Since when is $200 an outrageous amount of money for a seriously significant
performance increase?

~~~
acqq
Since when it's a "serious" performance increase when "it boots faster"? Or if
the first grep after the boot is faster (others must be fast since the file
cache kicks in for every next one, unless you have, say, 128 MB RAM). Really
not worth to mention.

~~~
mpakes
Spoken like someone who has never used a machine with an SSD. My SSD is by far
the best performance investment I've made in recent years.

A fast CPU is worthless if you're burning 30% of your cycles waiting for the
HDD to deliver your data. Relying on file cache is not good enough.

~~~
jonah
I just upgraded my MBP and opted for the slowest 2.0 Ghz CPU and spent the
savings on 8Gb RAM and a Vertex 3. Absolutely worth it.

Just to give a rough idea - 4k random writes:

    
    
      Vertex 3 - 214 MB/s
      WD VelociRaptor - 1.9 MB/s
    

<http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph4256/36481.png>

------
keyle
I'm all SSD now. I've been telling my friends "This is as big as the floppy
disk, get one".

Corsair SSD are like $250. And don't tell me you need 1.5TB in your desktop!
You'd be a lot smarter to have 180gig hdd and all externals.

When I jump on someone's machine who has spinning disks and do a build in
visual studio, I feel like time stopped. I keep moving the mouse "is it
frozen? What's wrong?"

~~~
chrisjsmith
That's a problem with Visual studio. It doesn't do incremental builds. You
basically have to create an entire assembly from scratch every time you build.

~~~
masklinn
Kinda missed the point, replace "do a build" with "do a full build" and you
get the same thing, I used to have the exact same issue when installing lxml
via easy_install/pip in a virtualenv (which entails a full compile from a
source tarball) on an MBP with a factory drive (5400rpm), I could just go and
grab myself a coffee because it would pretty much slow the machine to a
grinding halt.

Nowadays, I don't even notice I'm doing it (replaced factory drive with an
x25M g2.

------
andreaja
I'm amused at how strongly the for/against sides are arguing in this thread.
This is a case where the cost benefit analysis is quite simple. I used to
start my day at work by doing git status on my project repos to warm up the
disk cache, then go get coffee. Now I just dive straight into whatever's on my
plate. Then there's the 20 seconds I save whenever I start up Eclipse. The 2
minutes I save on every reboot. It all adds up.

What I'm interested is why people are so adamantly against. People drop huge
amounts of money on RAM for their development rigs, but making the slowest I/O
device faster and more predictable is a bad idea?

I'm not saying it's right for everyone, but is there a backlash because the
people who are happy about their SSDs are so enthusiastic about them? I
realize this is the internet and spending energy wondering why people are so
angry is pretty futile, but what's the point?

~~~
elliottkember
The people who have them are for them. The people who don't are against them.
I have yet to see a comment from someone who bought one and regrets it.

~~~
andreaja
I noticed that, I just don't understand why people who don't have them are so
negative about them.

~~~
acqq
Because if you 1) have enough RAM and 2) between two boots you use less files
from the HDD than the size of the RAM then you'll observe the speed up from
the SSD exactly _only once_ between two boots. Every modern OS uses the RAM
cache like that -- once you actually start to work, you work from RAM. On
another side, those who buy SDD "for speed" are the same who when asked "but
SSDs are significantly smaller" answer "I have everything in the cloud."
Absurd, isn't it?

Edit: The title of the topic is "why are you not using a SSD yet," I give my
exact arguments and get downvoted. Eh, crowd.

~~~
andreaja
Not absurd, just human. People are generalizing and deliberately
misinterpreting each other. That's why I find this so odd. It's _easy_ to find
out if an SSD is right for you or not. Why are people's identities so tied to
spinning metal vs flash storage?

~~~
obfuscate
> Why are people's identities so tied to spinning metal vs flash storage?

In this case, probably because the original article was needlessly
confrontational.

------
kogir
Can't agree with this enough. If your workload is IO bound, SSDs will make a
world of difference. Measure before making a decision though. You'd be
surprised what's bound by CPU (Loopt's iPhone and Android builds) and what's
bound by IO (Loopt's server builds).

On Windows use perfmon or Resource Monitor to look for a disk IO queue
frequently over 1. On Linux or OS X use iostat and/or Activity Monitor.

If you don't check before taking the plunge, you could be in for an expensive
disappointment. On the same machine, Intel X25MG2s made a 2% difference in
Loopt's Android build time, but a 50+% difference in Loopt's server build
time. Don't spend the money if you don't need it.

Also, it may be worth it to spend the extra money on a reputable brand drive.
Loopt has had 20+ drive-years on 15 drives without incident, but they're all
Intel. In fact, we run our primary user database on 4 X25-Es striped in a
RAID-0 configuration. I've heard horror stories second hand from friends who
tried cheaper GSkill and Patriot drives and lost some or all their data.

Loopt server developers all get 80GB X25-M drives + 160GB RAID 1 platters.
Totally worth it. Buy SSDs for your employees!

------
wladimir
I'm using a SSD for the operating system and 'hot' files that I'm currently
working on, and a harddisk for bulk storage.

This works very well, and is much cheaper than going 'full SSD'.

I do agree that SSD is the single greatest advancement of computer technology
the last 10 years. It's such an awesome speedup. And nicely silent.

~~~
tlrobinson
I do this too. The SSD is effectively another layer of cache, but one that has
to be managed manually. I wonder how difficult it would be to write a
filesystem that does this automatically.

------
cafebabe
As a developer, I'm more concerned about the lifespan of a SSD than a 'usual'
user. That's why I didn't get a SSD, yet. I probably would, if the SSD will
last long even when thousands of files change on a daily basis (compilation
etc). But maybe my concerns are unnecessary...?

~~~
phamilton
If it's replacement cost you are worried about, I think an SSD will last on
average about as long as your system, assuming a max 3 year upgrade cycle.

If it's data preservation you are worried about (ie, if I wear it out and lose
everything) then remember than flash memory, unlike spinning disks, is fail on
write. That means that even if the drive dies, it can still be read. Compare
to an ever so slightly misaligned platter getting a big scratch from a drives
head.

~~~
cafebabe
I do daily backups for data preservation. So my concern was more for the point
where writes may fail (of course the controller will care about it). You're
right. As they get cheaper, I'll probably buy one this year.

------
config_yml
I recently made the choice to put an 80GB SSD into my 2007 MacBook, instead of
getting a new machine (and my RAM was already maxed out). It's amazing what
this 4 year old machine still does, it feels so much faster, no more
beachballs for me.

~~~
robgough
I did the same with my late-2008 MBP. First time I don't feel that I _need_ to
upgrade 2 and a half years later. Hell, it's the first time I didn't _want_ to
upgrade after that long.

------
dlsspy
I'm on my second in this machine. Burned through the first one. It had a rough
death.

------
Mavrik
Because the performance improvement still isn't significant enough (for me) to
spent 200€ on a 64 GB SSD instead of 80€ for a 2 TB HDD.

This article is the typical case of buyers euphoria... he just got his brand
new toy a week ago and now wants to push it on everybody else regardless of
their preferences. And he doesn't even own the thing long enough to find the
bad sides.

------
phamilton
I'm on a "crippled" Macbook Air 11". 1.4Ghz C2D, 2GM RAM, and a 64 GB SSD. The
SSD makes this machine snappier than my previous 2009 macbook pro. As far as
living my life on 64GB, I have room for development (Rails), I keep my music
on Amazon Cloud, and any movies on my linux server. It's my portable
workstation and it zings along.

------
dexen
For a desktop, a 147GB, 15k RPM harddrive, bought second-hand, is the price-
performance-reliability sweet spot. For example, a Seagate Cheetah one
generation older than the current.

Also, because I've been using XFS on it. With journal on another drive,
performance is blazing fast -- and yes, including mass deletes of small files.

XFS used on the only SSD (cheapest one, admitably) I have was performing
terribly -- because it has to do lots of random writes

And no, a 15k RPM is not noisy -- both thanks to good bearings and human ear
not being very sensitive at that frequency.

\--

For a laptop, sure, the available harddrives (7.2k at best, often even 5.4k)
have terrible random access times; an SSD may be way better. But not on my
desktop, not yet anyway.

~~~
slashclee
Some of the first-gen SATA SSDs (based on the JMicron 601 and 602 chipsets)
had nasty stuttering problems with lots of concurrent writes, but pretty much
every SSD made in the past 12 months is going to blow away _any_ spinning-
platter disk when it comes to random writes. SSDs based on Sandforce's
1200-series controller can do 30,000 IOPS, sustaining more than 150MB/s with
4kB random writes.

You should probably investigate the current hardware (OCZ's Vertex 3,
Crucial's m4, Intel's 510 series); it might surprise you just how much better
it's gotten in such a short time.

~~~
dexen
Look, as an average individual, I'm not limited by drive interface (PATA, SATA
and SCSI u320 are all OK for me), nor disk size (be it 2.5'' or 3.5'' or any
other, really), nor capacity (I have a 1.5T drive for bulk storage, and only
need about 20G for home & system & some breathing space), nor power usage. The
only two real constraints for me are: 1) budget and 2) information on actual
(``real-world'') performance of drives. As opposed to cute benchmarks.

 _> You should probably investigate the current hardware (...)_ \-- that has
never been an option to me, and probably won't be for some next 25 years.
Budget, ya know.

\--

TBH., I'm irritated by folks comparing top-of-the-line SSDs with slowest
harddrives on the market (5.4k and 7.2k RPM, especially in 2.5'' form factor)
and making a big woo about SSDs being faster. Get yourself a decent 15k
harddrive, you'll be pleasantly surprised. Perhaps even short-stroke it if you
are a racer.

~~~
reitzensteinm
While SSDs aren't that much faster at sequential access than top of the line
hard drives, they asbolutely blow 15k drives out of the water when it comes to
random reads and writes. And random reads and writes are basically the most
common access pattern on most PCs - load a program, and tons of DLLs and
config files are loaded as well. Compare the just released Vertex 3 with a
Seagate Cheetah - at the _same $/gb_. The SSD has 5% the latency of the 15k
rpm drive.

[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227706&cm_re=vertex_3-_-20-227-706-_-Product)

[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148280)

This isn't just spec sheet or benchmarking bullshit, either - real world
performance for random reads and writes really is that much better.

Of course, SSDs are only worth the price if you're limited by drive IO - and
as stated elsewhere in this thread, that's not necessarily a given. But if you
are limited by IO, and you're looking for a performance drive in todays
market, unlike just two years ago, 15k rpm drives are dead in the water unless
you need 600+ gb.

~~~
dexen
Thanks to the second-hand market, I can get an (older) Cheetah at an
affordable price (as per my other reply below). If I had about 2000PLN to
spend on storage, I'd probably toy with DIY SRAM based SSD, rather than ready-
made Flash-based one.

------
WalterBright
Because I'd have to reinstall my OS from scratch, then all my apps, etc. It's
a full day of work.

~~~
ctide
I can't speak for Windows users, but on my Mac, I didn't have to do any of
that.

~~~
masklinn
I don't think you need to do so under Windows either, just clone from disk 1
to disk 2, maybe fiddle a bit with the drivers, and you should be done.

~~~
stewbrew
IIRC good performance of ssd requires slightly modified formatting parameters.
I'm not sure if this is still true, though. Anyway, with different block sizes
etc. I'm not sure if cloning works, does it?

On windows, unfortunately information essential to running an app is stored in
the registry and the files are scattered over several directories. So windows
users might have to reinstall the stuff -- which could turn out to be a good
thing anyway if you were already running your windows system for a long time
of period.

~~~
cyann
This is what I've done to move an existing Windows 7 installation from an HDD
to a SSD.

1\. SSD preparation - format the SSD with the correct alignment:

    
    
        diskpart.exe
        list disk
        select disk n (where n is the number that was given for your SSD in list disk)
        create partition primary align=1024
        active
        exit
    

2\. Ensure that the current OS is not using drive letters to boot:

    
    
        bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device boot
        bcdedit /set {default} device boot
        bcdedit /set {default} osdevice boot
        bcdedit /set {memdiag} device boot
    

3\. Use PartedMagic to copy the partition from the HDD to the SSD.

4\. Disable the scheduled defragmentation.

------
geekam
What about the shelf life of an SSD? I have also heard that your system needs
some kind of TRIM support otherwise performance slowly degrades. what's the
truth in that?

~~~
geekam
I asked a question sometime back: [http://superuser.com/questions/208560/hard-
drive-question-ss...](http://superuser.com/questions/208560/hard-drive-
question-ssd-for-white-macbook-2008)

------
rdl
I just switched my mid-2010 17" mbp to 300gb intel 320 SSD in the drive bay
and a 7200rpm 750gb spinning rust seagate drive in the optibay (for mp3,
infrequently used vms, etc).

Advice: do it, but make sure your homedir from your old drive, if you use file
vault, is smaller than the new drive. Manually mounting the sparse bundle
later to copy files is a big pain.

------
jarek-foksa
I remember hearing bad things about the usage of journaling file systems
(Ext3, Ext4, NTFS) with SSD devices. Is this still relevant this days? Which
Linux filesystem gives best long-term performance when used on SSD devices?

------
eyeforgotmyname
Would be tech writers need to learn that when you mention jargon like a solid
state drive (ssd) you should define it in the beginning of the article, and it
helps to explain what it is.

------
radu_floricica
On the subject, any tips on running a Mysql server on SSD? I've just taken the
jump, and what I can find on the net seems more like opinions then solid info.

~~~
tlrobinson
RethinkDB's site has a good overview of the problems with traditional
databases on SSDs: <http://rethinkdb.com/learn-more/>

------
wil2k
How about Trim support under OSX?

AFAIK it still isn't there.. is this (still?!?) a serious negative factor when
considering a SSD in a MBP?!?

Certainly considering inserting a SSD. Once I played with an MBA in a shop, I
could sooo feel the difference in speed compared to my MBP which has a much
faster CPU.

~~~
andrewmcveigh
I think Trim support will be in Lion. I'll get an SSD wedged into my iMac
then.

------
sliverstorm
Why am I not using a $100-200 SSD?

Because my laptop cost $350, and my desktop cost $300.

SSD's amaze me, and I don't need an SSD larger than 64-128GB, but the
performance boost just isn't as important to me as keeping my rigs cheap.

Oh, and when I need truly fast disk access? I use ramdisks.

~~~
aw3c2
Same here. I had a SSD for a week. It was absolutely underwhelming on my
already lean and light Archlinux system. I returned it.

------
sjs382
Mainly because my primary (non-work) machine is a netbook and, from what I've
read, it's unclear whether I'd see a performance boost.

------
chrisjsmith
I don't use an SSD simply because the operating system block cache is good
enough! More RAM is a better investment if you ask me. And I only reboot my
laptop every month or so, so I don't notice the boot speed.

I use Windows 7 x64 with 8Gb of RAM on a cheap Acer laptop.

On a side note, developing software on the "best workstation you can get" is a
really bad idea. You never get to see how the software will run on a piece of
stink like the ones your client probably owns.

~~~
robotresearcher
By your argument, shouldn't you toss out 3/4 of your RAM?

You should indeed test your code on a client-like machine, but for many if not
most apps, building is much more demanding than running them. Developer time
is expensive, so building on the fastest available machine is a good idea.

~~~
chrisjsmith
Picking the right tech and keeping your product size small is sensible.

------
ck2
Because a $55 Samsung 1TB drive is 80% as fast as a SSD ?

<http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/common_drives.html> (HD103SJ)

I actually use the 500gb model @ $40 each, I have three that I rotate for full
backups which take only 1 hour with a sector-to-sector based copy.

But seagate just bought samsung so best stock up on these drives soon as they
are sure to disappear.

~~~
StavrosK
More like 1/8th. That benchmark isn't indicative of real-world performance.

------
vegai
Because I'm on a platform that doesn't require massive IO performance on A
FREAKING DESKTOP.

How could we implement a tax on horrible programming?

------
rickmb
Here's a tip for getting lightning fast boot times without investing in
overpriced SSD's: _Stop shutting things down in the first place._

