What's your opinion about solid-state drives today?

please if i am wrong in this statement tell me but... aren't ssd glorified sd cards?
i have been running pc since the 70's i had a trash-80 from radioshack btw it died 3 yrs ago anyway i had only 1 hd croak on me in like 30 yrs i was in photo business for a # of yrs and have seen many xd ans sd fails
but again if my first statement is wrong please tell me

Is a Ferrari just a glorified VW bug? I believe the SSD drive is about 100 times faster and an SD card. This is about the same as saying that a hard drive is just a glorified Floppy disk.

sorry wrong choice of words but how about a more advanced sd card is a better choice of word but... i have had many cust come to me with cards that go bad at the drop of a hat again sorry for my bad choice of word thanks

The number 1 cause of memory card failures is corruption due to user errors such as removing them without ejecting them first. Other problems are due to trying to jam them into the slot the wrong way. Internal SSD drives are not being removed and ejected or handled like memory cards, so many of those issues do not exist. But failures are always possible and often likely with any kind of storage device, which is why a good backup plan is mandatory if you have data that is important to you.

There are significant differences. The memory gradually wears out as it is repeatedly written to. Windows is constantly doing things in the background that write to the system drive. SSD's have built-in "wear leveling" algorithms that reduce the amount of writing to any specific location to extend the life of the overall drive. SD cards don't have the same level of sophistication.

Also, there are huge differences in read and write speed. A very slow (older) SSD has write speeds of around 180-220MB per second. For read speeds, even the older ones can normally max out a SATA II interface. A pretty fast SD card has read speeds of around 40MB per second. Those are basically only used in cameras. The really fast ones are listed as "600x" which is 90MB/s read transfer rate.

Also, SD cards are basically for data storage, not constantly being written to.

This should make for a faster almost instant boot and less time wasted waiting for the system to boot, I have seen a SSD which uses memory modules that slot into the unit but I don't think that would give as much as the already built SSD and should not have the problems like the hard-drive glitch problem where the hard-drive light stays on constantly instead of flickering on and off.

I am using a Sandisk Extreme 128G with a Sandforce 2281 controller. To reduce wear and tear on the SSD I downloaded and installed an AMD RAMDISK in a 16G 1866 MT/s AMD RAM. The idea is to install as many application programs in the RAMDISK as practical which is set in my case to use only 3G. This especially includes IE "temporary internet files" which can decrease browser response times. On startup the 3G RAMDISK file is pulled off the SSD and setup in the RAM. When shutting down the 3G RAMDISK file written back to the SSD. The beauty of this is the NAND chips are only read once upon startup and only written once upon shutdown thus extending the SSD MTBF.

Your an officer and a gentleman!

Dana wrote: "The numbers were very impressive and a real time saver in an office environment."

Thanks for all the details. I find that my employees often surf the net, in a hidden window, and they text on their Iphone hidden in their lap whenever they sit on the computer unwatched for a while. Other offices are no different.

I agree that, in my exam rooms, for example, the SSDs would speed things up. Thus, in an office, the SSDs are useful personally or in select office situations, particularly where large files are routinely manipulated, but in not all offices.

I am still worried about sudden boot failure that some people have reported.

Has anyone tried recovering files from an unbootable or completely failed SSD with a good recovery utility, Easus Data Recovery for example?

My 100 gig SSD on my new gaming HP Pavillion desktop is nothing but a headache. My one on my 250 gig SSD on MacBookPro is a dream.

Unfortunately, like just about any product you can purchase, there are good and bad models and manufacturers and always the possibility of getting a lemon. But you also have to take into account installation and setup. Without knowing all of the details, it is impossible to even guess at why you are having issues.

What kind of problems are you having?
Was it a high quality product to start with?
What operating system is it being used on?
What is the make and model of the computer?
How was the SSD setup?
How much memory does the computer have?
What are your Virtual memory settings?
Did you keep the drive below 1/2 full?
What is stored on the SSD drive vs. some other drive?
What is the computer being used for?
Did you shut down automatic defragging?
Is the computer infected?

A possibility you might not have thought of:

I had a PC running Win 8 that works fine with Win 7 on an SSD but 8 was a nightmare. "Reinstall-the-O/S" level crashes -- repeatedly.

I finally got so disgusted I bought a hard disk and installed that. Still crashes.

That motherboard (2009-era) died. I took another mobo (a "+") version out of my spare machine and put in the machine. Again, Win 7 worked fine. Win 8 still crashed.

Then I realized, "Wait a minute! That mobo ran Win 8 fine for a year on the other machine. It can't be Win 8 or the SSD I took out!"

I realized that on the PC that ran fine I was using the on-board Intel video, but on the main machine that continued to crash (and remember -- Win 7 always worked fine) I had an Nvida video card.

I checked on-line and found loads of complaints: Nvidia's video drivers are not 100% compatible with Win 8/8.1. Even the most recent ones were not. "Fixes" that work fine for one person do nothing for others. Nvidia doesn't know what's causing the problem.

I replaced the Nvidia card with an AMD card and now Win 8.1 works fine. Win 8.1 runs so fast on even a 2009-era board with only USB 2, Sata II, a dual-core CPU and 4GB RAM that I've never bothered moving it to the SSD. Win 7 on the SSD is slightly faster but not much. (But I don't do video editing, gaming, etc.)

When I first got into HDTV media center PCs, I tried to replace my older ATI HDMI card for a new one with Nvidias, GPU in it. The darn thing couldn't even do HDMI sound passthrough, You had to jumper the onboard chip and download a special driver for the digital sound card. NO THANKS! I learned my lesson for good after that. The only other Nvidia card I've owned, burned up just after the warranty expired - I should have taken a clue from that experience!

Welcome to the world of Apple nuts. Watching my 71 year old wife enjoy her Mac Air each morning v/s she never touched our loaded Lenovo for anything has proven to me once again why there's so many Apple addicts out there. Meanwhile I never need to worry about her ever inadvertently messing up something just because she clicked on the wrong thing. There's a reason 90% of Mac owners never buy anything else ever again - quality.

I almost agree. I love me my Macs, But then after experimenting with Linux, I found that what I really love is Unix-like OS's. OSX just happens to be the slickest, sweetest Unix-like one out there.

But I converted my Wife's touchscreen Acer from Windows 8 to Cinnamon Mint, and the results are they same as with your wife. She had stopped using it , but after installing Mint, she's turning into a regular computer weenie.

I couldn't agree with more minus one exception. Since I'm also the tech head in my little world everyone goes too, I now dissuade EVERYONE from buying ANY of those entry level $300 - $500 notebooks. Lesser price usually equals lesser quality. Most of those people will get along fine with a decent tablet anyway. Unless you don't mind wasting another $500 two years later, why not spend the extra money upfront, and then get four years or more of flawless and painless enjoyment? And no, I'm not convinced the reason many buy the cheaper notebooks is all about cost. In my town we have one pizza joint per 1,000 residents. Lower incomes doesn't stop them from pizza at least once per week. t haven't ordered out a pizza in years, but gee we have nice tech. I sway people into making money earn its keep, even when buying tech. Avoiding a drive through window three times per month easily pays for higher quality tech complete with SSD technology that's a pure delight

Lesser quality need not follow from lesser price; lesser PERFORMANCE, quite possibly, but that has nothing to do with quality per se. It is the right price point one needs to consider. (Each to his own - I am on a $500 notebook, going strong for the fifth year now. You make your choices, and I make mine.)

I have recently purchased both a new
o Desktop computer
o Laptop Computer

For both of them, after creating an initial system ( Windows 8.1, Full Security, Backup SW, Office) , I:
o Converted to SSD
o Cloned the SSD to a Second SSD

Recovering from a non hardware related crash is SIMPLE - FAST - COST EFFECTIVE.

O SIMPLE - Remove the first SSD and Plug in the Backup SSD. Takes only a minute or two.

O FAST - Recover from a total system meltdown can consume weeks of time... even if you have backups

O COST EFFECTIVE - If you even spend 2 hours then you have recouped the $ 130 dollars for the backup SSD

ps: I still do regular backups and total systems backup with separate software to an external HHD.
With the new USB 3 it takes only about 5 minutes.


Make a Backup Clone of your SSD - Great Insurance

My computer has Win8, a 256 Gb SSD and a 1Tb HD. It boots in 7-10 seconds. (2014 64-bit machine)... I try to install software on the HD... keeping as much freespace as possible on the SSD. This is my first time with an SSD but I would have to say Thanks to my younger son for recommending I get an SSD... I do not know whether the way I am doing things is right or necessary, but I LOVE the speed I have. Videos that took 20+ (on a 32-bit machine & Win XP) minutes to convert/edit are now done in about 2 minutes. The old may well work (though slowly) while the new works well and quickly.

Corruption due to a bad memory module would have affected a conventional spinning hard drive as well and to say that you don't trust something that has a limited use lifespan does not really make a whole lot of sense. A standard spinning Hard drive has a limited life as well and is like the tire on your car, it too has a limited lifespan and problem is you never know when it will fail. You can have a blow out at any time and without any notice or it will simply wear out.

I hope this does not mean that you do not backup your data on a conventional hard drive because you trust it?

One or two ssd vendors have gone into bankruptcy protection. Their drives were flaky, and failed either on installation or as you experienced, after 3 months.

I bought a drive with 3 years warantee, full refund if it fails and I am using it for home. It was also guaranteed for several million writes. Expected life was 7 years of heavy use or 20 years of home use (3 - 4 hrs per day).

Boot time went from 90 seconds to 17.00

There are quite a few SSD manufacturers that produce high-quality products and stand behind them. While I have no reason to recommend them over SSDs from other reputable manufacturers that I haven't tried, I've had excellent results with Kingston and OCZ SSDs.

Thanks, that is what I want to avoid. I use Acronis True Image for speedy daily backups to two partitions, with about a monthly swap out of backup drives. My main concern with a SSD would be an unseen or undetected loss of bits which could compound itself over time, including in backups.

Good Luck!

All storage devices have limited life spans. The biggest difference in this regard between an HDD and an SSD is that the lifespan of an SSD is somewhat predictable, while the lifespan of an HDD is somewhat unpredictable. In most cases, most good quality SSDs will outlast most HDDs.

If you are doing anything that requires lots of read/write (video/graphics editing is a good example), then an SSD drive is not a waste of money. Programs and internet browsing is at least 4 times faster. Programs do not hang as much or at all. If you multitask, you will notice a difference. If you hardly use the computer, then you probably wouldn't notice anything anyway.

But even gaming or word processing gets a huge boost from SSD. SSD and RAM upgrade can really soup up a laptop or desktop performance.