OK, I'm planning to build a custom computer. But I need a bit of advice for the storage part, I have decided to post here because it does
involve a little question about the operating system. I have always wanted to have the glory of trying out an SSD, however prices are still
quite high for most and as a steam user my drives are filled with games.
I have thought a few scenarios for my new builds storage:
1. Go with a OCZ Technology 32 GB ($50AUD) + Hitachi 3.5" Deskstar 3TB SATA HDD 5400RPM ($220AUD) $270
2. Go with a Seagate MOMENTUS XT, 750GB, 7200RPM ($250AUD) + Seagate 3.5" Barracuda 1TB ST31000524AS SATA3 7200RPM ($105) $355
This is the one I need help with (Can I fit Windows 7 or maybe 8 (In future) on a 8GB SSD)
3. Go with a Kingston Digital, Inc. 8 GB SSD ($40AUD) + Hitachi Deskstar 4TB 5400RPM ($329.98CAD)<-Not Sure Australian Price yet. $360~approx.

If you can think of a better scenario which enables me to use a SSD for my operating system please do post it. Budget for this is about $350 Tops. (AUD)

Thanks.
Yours sincerely,
YoshiHDify

I recommend you go for a 60gb+ ssd, you store way more apps, here in aus it costs $100 and the rest $250 you can spend on a hdd. Also you need a 32gb drive minimum for a windows install, because windows uses your system drive for updates and it wont have enough space on a 8 or 16 gb ssd.

I personally own a 60gb patriot pyro ssd, and I use it by storing Windows on my hdd, and apps I frequently use on my ssd. This gives me alot more space on my ssd, and I dont care about boot times so windows stays on my hdd.

As for steam apps, I have most of them on my hdd, but the ones i most frequently play i redirect to use my ssd via junctions(LINK HERE). Oh and one more thing, do your research and make sure the ssd uses the latest sandforce controller. Hope this helps .

I'd personally recommend splitting your money equally between the SSD and the HDD.

Also, two things to think about: You really need SATA3 to make proper use of an SSD, and hold off for the HDD as long as possible - prices are just starting to come back down after the shortage because of the flooding in Thailand. You'll probably be able to get a notably better HDD in a month or so than you can now for the same price.


Also, installing Windows onto the SSD is essential - it's not just about boot times. Even if you were to junction your entire Program Files out onto an SSD, but keep Windows on a HDD, then you're still going to take a hit because all apps rely on shared libraries in Windows.

Yeah I forgot to tell you that junctions have alot slower access times because it goes through the hdd, but it's still way faster. In my case I had already installed windows on my hdd and it would be too much effort to re install and re download all my apps. Sadly your mobo does not support sata 3, so it wont be able to use the full potential of the ssd. You could buy a new mobo, but im not sure its worth it because you could buy a bigger ssd for the same money as well.

I recommend 60GB SSD for your boot drive and then whatever size HDD you want for your programs/games/storage. I have an OCZ Vertex II which is 60GB and has a max speed of 285MB/s, which is the maximum for SATA2. It's got faster counterparts so it's your choice what you go for.

With an SSD, IOPs is important. You could get one with 500MB/s speed but only 40,000IOPS (a regular HDD does about 100IOPS by the way). The higher the IOPs generally the faster it will be, but look at what the IOPs refers to. A lot refer to linear speed which means nothing. It has to be random read/write IOPs to get the best performance.

You should use hardware review sites to make the choice as they'll explain the ups and downs for the model of SSD you're looking at.

I paid £100 for my 60GB SSD and I'm very happy with it. It was easily 3-4x faster than my 2x250GB in RAID0 for most operations.

I appreciate all the former advice given but choose at least 128 SSD

Why? Windows 7 will happily fit on 60GB with plenty to spare. You'd only be wasting money on double the size.

SSD Drives are generally faster than a 7200rpm HD, they can access files pretty fast and bootup takes a few seconds also depending on your CPU. But you should never defragement a SSD it shortens it life even more and it lowers the speed of read and write

Well if you're looking for a 128gb ssd its around $160+ here in aus, the very popular crucial m4 128gb ssd is $210+ here depending on where you buy. Also you mentioned 8gb and 32gb ssds so why are 64gb ssds too small?

Before investing a lot of money in a huge SSD one should spend some time thinking about which benefits this is supposed to bring. An installation usually consists of data which is only read and also data which is frequently written. SSDs only support a limited number of write accesses which makes them pretty inappropriate for installations where there's a lot of data to write.

An extreme case is a developer's machine like mine. When I build my project I easily write data of 500..1000 MBs (large webapp, contains lots of stuff besides the actual Java classes). Some colleagues simply installed everything on SSDs and regretted it, as after about a year they started dying. Some guys had a smarter approach, they got themselves HDDs and lots of main memory which would get mounted into a RAM disk at bootup. That RAM disk would contain all the data which gets written while working. The actual source code is still on the HDD, so there's no danger of losing anything if the machine locks up or powers off.

In general, SSDs may make some sense for the operating system's base installation. I'm not too familiar with Windows, but as far as I remember, it's pretty difficult to separate a Windows installation into a readwrite and readonly part. On Unix systems this is rather easy. I even used to run my Linux'es /usr tree on a read-only partition a couple of years ago but found in the end that it was not worth the hassle (had to remount,rw each time I wanted to install something). However the base system on SSD does make sense, loading applications gets much faster. Thus, having both, a HDD and an SSD seems another valid option.

Since I usually don't run more than 7 programs a day I stick to HDD and RAM for now

Thank you everyone for your answers!
Just some of you know I won't be install the SSD into my current system, as I said I plan on building a "new" system.
For now it looks like the 60GB SSD and Variable HDD seems to be most popular so I will take to my top choice, thank you
other people I will still take your setups to consideration. I did at the start of my search want a Kingston HyperX 120GB SSD
but it costs like $230 AUD and will drain my HDD money. My original intention for the SSD was really just to "Try" out this
new craze of super fast SSDs, with a bit of extra money in my rig budget I thought "hey why not ditch out ~50AUD for a SSD
just for my operating system would run very fast. As for loading up other programs I'm quite ok with HDD Speed.

Just one question. Does copying a file from a HDD to SSD or vice versa make it very slow? As in like slower than the HDDs rated
operational speed because I worry running programs may be even slower while converting from Flash to Mechanical or vice versa

Thanks everyone one again,
YoshiHDify


EDIT:
I found something really cool, how about the OCZ Revodrive Hybrid 1TB?
I found this on ebay:
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/OCZ-RevoDriv ... 416217738e
Price adds up to about 370AUD

What really strikes me about this is it retails for about 500 so this could be a bargain, because it has 128 GB SSD with 1TB HDD this does look quite appealing.
Tell me what you think people?
Also this is a PCI-E drive not SATA.

From what i've heard Hybrid hdds dont work very well, stick to ssds and hdds for more dependable performance.

Hybrids are awful from my hearings. A friend got some for a set of PC's at work and he didn't notice any performance gains.

Stick to a 60GB SSD and a 1TB HDD. I recommend the Vertex 2 if you can get one at a nice price. They've shot down over the last year and can probably be had for under $130.

I concur with Andy's Vertex 2 suggestion, I've got about 6 of them in various machine w/o issues.

I recommend a 120gb SSD (I have a OCZ Agility 3) While 60gb is enough, I would recommend installing programs to your SSD too like few games and apps.
Some games are quite big so I would recommend a 120gb if you can afford it. Then even a 5400rpm large data hdd drive is good enough.