Is an SSD worth it?

[Leaf]

I've heard some things about SSD hard drives massively increasing PC performance; since I don't have one, I was wondering "is it worth it?" .

What exactly do they do and will it make a difference in-game? 

[ST_ami7b5]

Formerly I had my W7/64 system on 40GB SSD.

In the course of time it appeared it's not enough (ofc)

So I bought 120GB SSD for the system and moved RoF and BoS to that 40GB.

The difference in loading your OS is significant. In games not so much - they load faster ofc.

[39bn_pavig]

Huge difference in performance for loading etc. Anything that swaps to disk will perform much better with an SSD. Highly recommended. As for the effect on BoS I couldn't say, as I don't know how much it tinkers with disk during play. 

[jarg1]

I can't imagine not using one at this point.  Odds are though that if you have enough RAM you won't see much difference in game.  But if RAM is an issue for you, then the system use of the paging file on an SSD should be much faster than on a hard drive.

[GrieverGriever_XIV]

It will improve your computers boot time significantly, along with most programs you might install on the ssd that require a lot of loading (like photoshop, or 3d software). As for games, I have hardly seen a difference, if there is its very minimal. Windows on the other hand boots easily twice as fast if not more, and those editing programs open twice as fast too. 

[Matt]

I currently use a 250 GB SSD for the OS, games and programs and 2x 500 GB HDD for data.

 

Wether or not it makes a difference, depends on the game/application. I can't say how huge the difference is for BoS, but in RoF, mission load time decreased to about 30% when i moved to the SSD. You'll also get rid of micro stutters, which can be annoying in RoF (usually when new objects get loaded because of spawn triggers etc.).

 

It's definately been worse it for me. But i would not advice to use a SSD for data storage, because constant writing and reading can decrease the life time considerably. That's why i would also never put the page file on a SSD.

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

 Going SSD was propably one of the best, if not best, upgrades I have done recently. They are worth it, using SSD for both OS and games.

[Leaf]

Sweet, thanks for the advice guys! Considering they're on of the cheaper upgrades out there, I'll definitely consider getting one soon.

[Gambit21]

The Samsung Evo is the one you want BTW.

[Afwastus]

Yeah, it's pretty nice and the price is right at the moment (at least if you buy the 840 Pro and not the latest model).

[Mastermariner]

I have the 840 pro 120 gb for win 8.1 and some fs "games", at the moment 30 gb is free. There is a neat prog for the 840 pro ,Samsung magician, that will enable the SSD to use some of your RAM as buffer, on my comp it uses approx. 2 gb.

Smote as a baby's behind!

Master

[Dakpilot]

Just a tip, a single 250GB SSD cost the same as two 120GB they use little power and contribute no heat and take up virtually no space. I have had one fail on me so splitting the risk make total sense, you could also use a very small one which are quite cheap now, to run your page file on, guaranteeing max speed possible and reducing writes on the larger drives and increasing longevity of the others..perhaps that is overkill  but I like redundancy when possible

 

Cheers dakpilot

[SeriousFox]

I'm using single Samsung EVO 750GB.

Can't think of going back to HDD.

SSD is awesome

[jaydee]

Sweet, thanks for the advice guys! Considering they're on of the cheaper upgrades out there, I'll definitely consider getting one soon.

Leaf, just a tip :buy the biggest SSD you can afford. Don't get caught up searching for the Fastest. SSD's slow down as they fill up... So a 10% Full 512GB  "Slow" SSD will perform better than a  128GB "Fast" SSD that is 60% Full.. ~s~

[jaydee]

Just a tip, a single 250GB SSD cost the same as two 120GB they use little power and contribute no heat and take up virtually no space. I have had one fail on me so splitting the risk make total sense, you could also use a very small one which are quite cheap now, to run your page file on, guaranteeing max speed possible and reducing writes on the larger drives and increasing longevity of the others..perhaps that is overkill  but I like redundancy when possible

 

Cheers dakpilot

Hey Dak. This is what I found with Flight-Sims since buying an SSD a few years ago. I disable Page File(virtual memory) and it reduces Micro stutters ! Here's my theory : My Ram is talking Directly to my SSD without   adding Windows Page File Sys into the equation. I may be wrong ! ~S~

[Dakpilot]

I believe your principle is correct, but there are some instances when windows will not work correctly without a page file, when that occurs windows will just create/use one anyway, even if your ram is large enough to support no page file, having page file on a small SSD different to OS will give the best read/write speeds and potentially avoid any hiccups.

 

I may be out of date and talking out of my ass but I like the belt and braces idea

 

Cheers dakpilot

[BFsSmurfy]

Best money you`ll ever spend if you haven`t already got one mate, simple as that. I have 2 ssd and a big old type platter drive, 1 60gb ssd  for OS , 1 128gb (need a 256 really ) for games and the big one for various crap like photos etc etc.

[Ice-]

While I would agree that this is one of the best upgrades you could buy, it does very little (if at all!!) for gaming.  The best effect you would see with an SSD is faster boot/startup times, applications take quicker to load, games and sims take less time to take you from the 2D interface to the 3D screen, and video recording eats less FPS.

 

If you are suffering from low FPS due to a weak GPU, buying an SSD won't help in that department at all.  Some people claim it helps with micro stutters but I've never noticed this myself so I can't verify that.

 

Think of it this way -- buying an SSD will improve general PC performance but will do little to improve PC gaming/simming.

[dburne]

I built a new system last December, and went SSD for the first time.

I put two ea Samsung 840 Pro's - 256 gb , and use them for my OS and Games, and could not be happier. I then have regular hard drives for all my data storage.

As others have said, the main difference for games is loading times.

Boot time on Windows screams, very fast.

[Streiff]

As always everything is relative. A high end regular disk can be faster than a cheap ssd. Its all about how much cash you want to spend. Samsung is ok`ish but be aware that samsung basic and evo suffers badly from massive degrading performance over time. This is already confirmed by Samsung themselves and they released a fix. But that's all that it is, a temporary fix. If you go with Intel or samsung pro (differant memory than Basic/Evo) or similar the price will be accordingly. 

 

Oh, btw, i wouldnt bother with anything less than 120 GB, 64 fills up real fast and 40 GB is, imo, completely out of the question.

 

 

As for loading times, well, i cant see any difference compared to a regular disc to be honest, it still loads very, imo, slowly in for ex BoS.

Edited November 1, 2014 by Baron

[1./ZG1_ElHadji]

Can't say I notice much difference in IL-2 BoS but in DCS it is essential to have the sim installed on a SSD. At first I had IL-2 installed on my Corsair Force SSD but since I needed the space on it I moved it to a Seagate Momentus Hybrid disc. Loading time is a tad slower but I notice no performance loss in-game.

Edited November 6, 2014 by -=XBOYZ=-ElHadji

[SharpeXB]

Having an SSD is a decent boost for load times in BoS and RoF

But in DCS the improvement is huge!