ssd hard drive vs 8gb ram using 64bit xp/win7

[firubbi]

ssd can read 250mb/sec. so 4gb ram with a ssd should run like 8gb ram in win7.. or not? i need some tips for speed up win xp ( im going to buy a intel ssd)
thanks

[astroman]

well, first of all forget about those datarates from spec sheets.
I've recently copied a lot of stuff on the MacPro via internal SATA drives.
The application controlling the process constantly reported the current datarate.
Obviously depending on filesize and directory structure, it covered a range from 20-80 MB 'effective speed' per second.

cheers, Tom

[Neutron]

SSD makes more difference than huge RAM simply because no matter how much RAM you have a lot of programs, and the operating system like to read a lot of small files, this is where the advantage shows, because on small files, mechanical hard drives really really bad. (of course lots of RAM is good as well)

Copying a huge file might be faster, but the whole bunch of small files id where it really shines.

To me OS on the SSD makes more difference than any Hard drive,CPU,RAM or complete PC upgrade i have ever done. photoshop opens as fast as notepad used to and 3ds max opens as fast as word used to

what you wont notice much difference with are single large files, and things which are CPU intense.

have a look at this dinky little PC booting scope on an old Pulsar1 PCI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFVdGL6nQoM

I use NI maschine, and monomes, and when i put their samples on a SSD, i can load sounds as fast as if it were a hardware synth, with HD, it has a small but noticeable delay when loading sounds.

[dawman]

You need to teach me the YouTube thing.
I am finally ready after decades of word of mouth for work, I will try and become hip.
For Piano gigs they want to see and hear but will not allow auditions at the new City Center.
I figured I would sit down and play for free as that has always worked for me, but there are rich Dubai Kings and Princes from the Middle East who live there, and they thought I was an Israeli Mossad hit man and escorted me out, plus Obama spoke the next day so our own Gestapo scoped the place out for days prior to his triple monitored Teleprompted speech and poor jokes.
I never in my entire career have been told to hit the bricks........jergovs.

[firubbi]

but there are rich Dubai Kings and Princes from the Middle East who live there, and they thought I was an Israeli Mossad hit man and escorted me out,

hahah... you look like a hit man.. why don't you show them some arpeggio form Chopin those ass.... kings/princes .. i really hate them..

what i want to know: after installing xp on a ssd shall i increase the virtual memory to 16gb :lol

[valis]

I would look into which SSD model to use with XP, as different controllers & firmware have very big differences in the way they will react to that OS. I think one of the Sandforce drives had surprising results in terms of being 'self scrubbing' in real world usages, but the ones that rely on TRIM will obviously need Win7 and the ones that need to be periodically manually cleaned essentially require reformatting each time.

Personally even with the X-25M G2 (Intel) I would just use Win7 anyway. If you go for XP you'll not only need to choose the SSD carefully but you'll need to know what changes to make to the OS itself. Disabling things like prefetch/dll caching/all defrag and steer clear of any utility for doing defrag/partitioning/formatting that's not approved for use with both the SSD model & Xp. Also I would probably not lock the size of the pagefile if you've had a habit of doing that, it doesn't keep it contiguous on an SSD anyway.

Finally to answer specifically your question, it depends entirely on why you needed 8GB of ram. For instance if you're loading large samplesets for music you'll still need 8GB unless you happen to use a specific sampler that supports disk streaming and benefits from having a single SSD in your system (most will benefit more from just having their library installed to their own drive more imo.) If you're just using hte SSD as a boot drive in a multi-drive system (working space & samples on other drive(s)) and you were just using 8GB ram to keep it from paging stuff to disk, that wouldn't be a problem for say leaving Office open in the background (and having it paged to disk) but several bits of audio software that are all trying to work in realtime will still want actual ram to work in as well.

[firubbi]

hi valis,
youre saying win7 works better than xp with ssd? (i bought one 80gb intel g2)
thanks

[valis]

the G2 might still have non-trim oriented firmware but yes Win7's TRIM will (in theory) improve longevity and capacity of the nand as the drive will require less 'scratch space' to be set aside (and thus able to wear level better--nand chips wear out.) Also Win7 will automatically setup an SSD properly in terms of he various windows subsystems that have been created around traditional magnetic platter drives and thus don't apply the same way to an SSD (superfetch/prefetch, defrag, paging etc.)

However that doesn't mean you can't use XP, it just means you need to make sure you know what you're doing (including how to start with a partition aligned to the SSD's sector boundary.)

[firubbi]

in that case i'll switch to win7 32 bit. does scope 4.0 runs nice on win7_32bit?
thanks
i saw that Neutron amazing.

[CroNiX]

AFAIK, only Scope5 will run in Win7. If you are looking for a SSD, the OCZ Vertex2 is the best on the market right now. It beats the intels.

6 seconds from the time I press the power button to turn the PC on until everything, I mean EVERYTHING (as in the HD isn't accessed any longer, all BG services are loaded and running), is fully loaded and ready to rock.

The HD is really the last bottleneck in the modern PC.

[zangsta]

AFAIK, only Scope5 will run in Win7. If you are looking for a SSD, the OCZ Vertex2 is the best on the market right now. It beats the intels.

6 seconds from the time I press the power button to turn the PC on until everything, I mean EVERYTHING (as in the HD isn't accessed any longer, all BG services are loaded and running), is fully loaded and ready to rock.

The HD is really the last bottleneck in the modern PC.

I´d say it´s the DVD/CD reader, in case you ever need to use it.....

[firubbi]

AFAIK, only Scope5 will run in Win7.

you mean 32bit win7 dont support SFP 4.0!

[valis]

Think you have to use compatibility mode (with some other caveats) just as with Vista before it (so look for the Vista related threads?) Also perhaps 4.5 with 4.0 keys is a good idea, though again I'd defer to the info collected here over my input (I still run Scope on Xp on a 2nd machine.)

You *can* get XP setup properly for an SSD with just a little work, and Intel/OCZ at the very least should provide this info (as I'm sure others do too but haven't experience with them.) It's just 'automagic' when you install Win7 on an SSD or install a new SSD as an additional drive under Win7.

[firubbi]

hi valis,
i want to go to sfp5 - win7 32bit - and ssd. i have pci 6 dsp. does sfp works nice under pci cards in win7?

[firubbi]

no valis.. i cant go to win7 right now ( i have 3 cards, duende pcie hasn't tested under win7) plz help me with installing on xp. im trying to find info at intel. if you have an idea plz reply.
thanks

[valis]

Did you get an SSD yet? There are some differences depending on which SSD (ie, hopefully it supports TRIM) and the SSD maker should include instructions where necessary, and additional info comes from the userbase (forums etc.) For instance under the OCZ forums, if you check the subforum for "# Core V1/V2, Solid V1 and Apex SSD" you'll find threads like these:
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum ... D-friendly

They're not only recommending subsystems to disable but ways to limit other things applications do under windows that can degrade performance on those specific SSD's.

What I cannot do is give specific recommendations beyond the basics: disable prefetch/all defrag/disk optimization, find out the best pagefile method for your SSD and find a good DOS boot utility for dealing with your SSD when issues arise (OCZ should have some utils etc.)

[firubbi]

i got the ssd. intel 160GBg2. i have 2 options:
1. install a fresh xp3 on that ssd (c drive) like we do on a normal sata. is that ok?
2. upgrade to sfp5 + unplug ssl duende pice untill they have ready for win7 32bit. Then install win7_32bit on ssd (as c drive)

thanks
** im trying to understand that topic on ocz forum.

[valis]

Well first congrats, the X-25M g2 is one of the best drives around atm.

#1, insure you've got a properly aligned partition before installing xp (don't let Xp repartition, though it can reformat the partition it is to be installed to). It's possibly already setup with a single properly aligned partition, but you'll need a way to confirm this. Intel's SSD utilities assume you're prepping the drive on another system I think, or that you're using the SSD on a system already installed. If there's no info shipped with your drive there's this thread on OCZ forums. It might be wise to specifically ask about your drive there.

Here's a FAR more nerdy discussion that goes into some depth.

#2, I've heard some say that it's better with the current G2 firmware (which is TRIM optimized) to only format about 80% of the usable space on your SSD so that you have 'scratch space' aplenty and don't fill up the drive (many users don't notice degraded performance until their drive is too full.)

Also note that you'll have to look into your backup routine. Partition based imaging (which is nice and fast and the default for Acronis etc) may not preserve partition tables with XP when doing a restore of a backup. Win7's default backup software again does, but you can find a specific workflow with most software that will still work with a bit of research.

[firubbi]

thanks valis. looks xp3 can handle ssd. i'll post what i find over intel page and youtube.

[valis]

Please do
Certainly it should be able to handle it fine, it's just about stopping services & background processes that were intended for magnetic media (hard drives) and insuring that you maintain partition alignment. Some people use specific versions of backup software (like acronis) to 'fix' bad sector alignment once things are already installed--I would personally just do it beforehand.