Storage Solutions VFM 128GB SSD - budget ₹6000 EDIT: bought Crucial MX100 256GB
- Thread starter vyral_143
- Start date
I called up yesterday morning and spoke to them voice.
They ASSURED me the item would ship on Wednesday evening LATEST and reach me by Friday second half. They also said they would send me courier tracking details.
No news from them so far.
If this is they response time & quality of service when someone is BUYING something from them then I worry about what it will be like -IF- there's ever an need to RMA something.
I expected a much higher level of service from Prime and I'm frankly disappointed...
They ASSURED me the item would ship on Wednesday evening LATEST and reach me by Friday second half. They also said they would send me courier tracking details.
No news from them so far.
If this is they response time & quality of service when someone is BUYING something from them then I worry about what it will be like -IF- there's ever an need to RMA something.
I expected a much higher level of service from Prime and I'm frankly disappointed...
Yes, I got mine just few minutes back; was about to post it. I would have got it yesterday only but due to holiday on account of Ganesh Chaturthi it got delayed by a day. At the moment, I'm excited.
One major oversight on my part - I didn't consider a mounting kit/bracket. This thing is so small I don't know how to install it. Guess I will have to buy this -
http://www.amazon.in/Vantec-Mountin...r=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=Ssd+Bracket+Mounting+Kit
or this -
http://www.amazon.in/Solid-Steel-Mounting-Bracket-Silver/dp/B00KGSD4HC
though I have seen videos on youtube of people using Velcro, Paper Clips and other radical/inventive methods to secure their SSD. I want a bracket though. The Vantec is slightly cheaper on Snapdeal than on Amazon.
Unfortunately, there was a cheaper "Sandisk SSD Mounting kit" for Rs.149/- that would have been ideal except its out of stock. So this means MORE delays now plus its the weekend...
http://www.amazon.in/Vantec-Mountin...r=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=Ssd+Bracket+Mounting+Kit
or this -
http://www.amazon.in/Solid-Steel-Mounting-Bracket-Silver/dp/B00KGSD4HC
though I have seen videos on youtube of people using Velcro, Paper Clips and other radical/inventive methods to secure their SSD. I want a bracket though. The Vantec is slightly cheaper on Snapdeal than on Amazon.
Unfortunately, there was a cheaper "Sandisk SSD Mounting kit" for Rs.149/- that would have been ideal except its out of stock. So this means MORE delays now plus its the weekend...
Hi vyral
Did you get around to installing your drive? Having mixed results here. Did a clean Win7-64 install.
OS boot time has gone down from 55 seconds for my ancient 80GB to around 16 seconds with the SSD. Shutdown time is incredibly fast as well, just 3-5 seconds.
However some weird stuff.
Formatting the SSD (I did a FULL format not a quick format) took 16 minutes! That seems kind of excessive for a 256Gb SSD but as this is my first SSD I don't know what the norm is for this capacity.
I did all the recommended stuff like disable prefetch, Search indexing etc. checked to ensure Trim is enabled etc. based on an article online before I cloned the drive.
Even cloning the OS partition right after a clean install took around 13 minutes for a 6 GB partition.
I cloned C:\ Drive to E:\ Drive both on the SSD. This I know for sure is VERY HIGH as my ancient 80GB IDE would take around 15 minutes to clone a fresh Win7 install.
Funny thing is, when I did it a SECOND time just to check it - it completed it in under 5 minutes! Really weird. No settings were changed in between the two Clones. Software used was Paragon Backup 2014 which is NEW for me in the sense that I am used to Ver 2013. Maybe its a quirk with the 2014 version of the app.
Ran some benchmarks. Results seem okay, basically roughly HALF its expected performance which is fine considering I'm on a 7+ year old Mobo with SATA 2 only.
All in all, having an SSD is nice but its not as radical an enhancement as I was expecting considering my earlier drive was truly ancient.
Let me know what your experience is like.
Did you get around to installing your drive? Having mixed results here. Did a clean Win7-64 install.
OS boot time has gone down from 55 seconds for my ancient 80GB to around 16 seconds with the SSD. Shutdown time is incredibly fast as well, just 3-5 seconds.
However some weird stuff.
Formatting the SSD (I did a FULL format not a quick format) took 16 minutes! That seems kind of excessive for a 256Gb SSD but as this is my first SSD I don't know what the norm is for this capacity.
I did all the recommended stuff like disable prefetch, Search indexing etc. checked to ensure Trim is enabled etc. based on an article online before I cloned the drive.
Even cloning the OS partition right after a clean install took around 13 minutes for a 6 GB partition.
I cloned C:\ Drive to E:\ Drive both on the SSD. This I know for sure is VERY HIGH as my ancient 80GB IDE would take around 15 minutes to clone a fresh Win7 install.
Funny thing is, when I did it a SECOND time just to check it - it completed it in under 5 minutes! Really weird. No settings were changed in between the two Clones. Software used was Paragon Backup 2014 which is NEW for me in the sense that I am used to Ver 2013. Maybe its a quirk with the 2014 version of the app.
Ran some benchmarks. Results seem okay, basically roughly HALF its expected performance which is fine considering I'm on a 7+ year old Mobo with SATA 2 only.
All in all, having an SSD is nice but its not as radical an enhancement as I was expecting considering my earlier drive was truly ancient.
Let me know what your experience is like.
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Well, I am a guy who is already using a SSD for 2.5 years. My initial impressions are close to little bit what is expected. I installed Windows 8.1 in some 7.5-8 minutes. However setting few things took additional time. Start-up and shut down is faster than my previous SSD. Start-up is around 5-6 seconds and shutdown is just little more than a blink - like closing a folder. I am yet to run Crystal Disk bechies but installing few apps like iTunes is noticeably faster. Also note that mine is connected to SATA 3 6Gbps port. For me performance have improved but may be my expectations were not huge. One thing I want to test/see is how much faster games are loaded once installed on SSD.
256GB/(16*60)s = ~266MB/s. Seems alright. Considering SATA 3.0Gbps will be limited to 300MB/s peak.
You are one of the very few techies lucky enough to be truly content with his system!
I just spent a few days with a 5400 rpm hard drive on a laptop, and even though I'm on the older Samsung 830, the difference was painful. I have to agree with what a leading reviewer said - there just isn't any other piece of hardware that you can plug into your PC today, that will make as big a difference as an SSD.
^Good to know that the format time is "normal" - I was worried about that.
I'm a gamer. Gamers and techies are two categories of users who are NEVER content with their systems (except maybe for a few week/months after a brand new build - if even that). There's always something better out there that we simply MUST have.
However my PC is some 7-8 years old now and upgrading it means new mobo/cpu/ram/gpu/psu - ie. a LOT of cash. So of late, I have been restricting myself to playing old games like QL which runs on pretty much anything. I have had to miss out on so many games (BF4/Titanfall etc.) simply because my current PC just can't run them - it doesn't even meet their "minimum required spec".
So I'm not a "content" user at all - just a plain broke one.
As for your second point, I think its also about being used to something that's FAST and then going BACK to something that's SLOW. The difference is always much more apparent when one does that. For oldies like me, a difference of a few seconds in load times, while always welcome, is not such a big deal.
Plus the fact that I was upgrading a 10+ year old clunky mechanical drive which is truly ancient beyond belief led me to expect a massive change - ie. OS load in 5-6 seconds (like vyral gets) and to see all my apps flying the moment I launch them. Sadly its not quite like that - nowhere near it in fact.
I forgot to mention earlier that I REGULARLY used a RAM Disk in my PC (since Win XP days). Reason was, I had 4Gb of RAM and I was on a 32 bit OS. The fact that I could not directly utilize about 800Mb+ of my actual physical RAM annoyed me. So I found a way to put it to use via a Rdisk! And once you try a Rdisk, you get hooked because its so blazing fast. I started giving the Rdisk more and more of my system memory over and above the "invisible" memory that my apps were otherwise unable to access. At some point I had to back off because with 4Gb RAM, there's a tradeoff between how much RAM one can devote to a RDisk versus how much you need to run your system efficiently without paging.
Of course SSD's have other advantages over RDisks but I think its my constant use of a Rdisk over the years that has kind of "spoiled" me in a sense where it comes to file load & execute speeds. You click something on a Rdisk and it just loads - instantly. I was expecting an SSD to be even faster overall (read/write) but it isn't - it seems slower (especially writes) though one might argue the difference is minor. Plus, unlike an SSD, a Rdisk is essentially FREE - there's no reason not to use one if you have spare RAM as long as you are familiar with its quirks and limitations.
Maybe I will notice a larger performance increase when I put together a new PC with SATA-3 sometime later this year and plonk this SSD in. But one things for sure - no matter what PC I build, I will be buying an extra 8GB of RAM purely for a RAM disk, SSD or not...
I'm a gamer. Gamers and techies are two categories of users who are NEVER content with their systems (except maybe for a few week/months after a brand new build - if even that). There's always something better out there that we simply MUST have.
However my PC is some 7-8 years old now and upgrading it means new mobo/cpu/ram/gpu/psu - ie. a LOT of cash. So of late, I have been restricting myself to playing old games like QL which runs on pretty much anything. I have had to miss out on so many games (BF4/Titanfall etc.) simply because my current PC just can't run them - it doesn't even meet their "minimum required spec".
So I'm not a "content" user at all - just a plain broke one.
As for your second point, I think its also about being used to something that's FAST and then going BACK to something that's SLOW. The difference is always much more apparent when one does that. For oldies like me, a difference of a few seconds in load times, while always welcome, is not such a big deal.
Plus the fact that I was upgrading a 10+ year old clunky mechanical drive which is truly ancient beyond belief led me to expect a massive change - ie. OS load in 5-6 seconds (like vyral gets) and to see all my apps flying the moment I launch them. Sadly its not quite like that - nowhere near it in fact.
I forgot to mention earlier that I REGULARLY used a RAM Disk in my PC (since Win XP days). Reason was, I had 4Gb of RAM and I was on a 32 bit OS. The fact that I could not directly utilize about 800Mb+ of my actual physical RAM annoyed me. So I found a way to put it to use via a Rdisk! And once you try a Rdisk, you get hooked because its so blazing fast. I started giving the Rdisk more and more of my system memory over and above the "invisible" memory that my apps were otherwise unable to access. At some point I had to back off because with 4Gb RAM, there's a tradeoff between how much RAM one can devote to a RDisk versus how much you need to run your system efficiently without paging.
Of course SSD's have other advantages over RDisks but I think its my constant use of a Rdisk over the years that has kind of "spoiled" me in a sense where it comes to file load & execute speeds. You click something on a Rdisk and it just loads - instantly. I was expecting an SSD to be even faster overall (read/write) but it isn't - it seems slower (especially writes) though one might argue the difference is minor. Plus, unlike an SSD, a Rdisk is essentially FREE - there's no reason not to use one if you have spare RAM as long as you are familiar with its quirks and limitations.
Maybe I will notice a larger performance increase when I put together a new PC with SATA-3 sometime later this year and plonk this SSD in. But one things for sure - no matter what PC I build, I will be buying an extra 8GB of RAM purely for a RAM disk, SSD or not...
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RAM is volatile, i.e. data in a RAMdisk is not permanent. Data still needs to be copied from a non-volatile storage medium like a HDD/SSD into the RAMdisk every time you start your system. So your nv storage medium is still the bottleneck in a RAMDisk.
Starting Windows, launching apps, all involve nothing more than loading the kernel and other pieces into RAM. I hear SQL server when serving up a big database also gobbles up RAM because its caching whatever portion of the database can fit in the RAM. The only difference with RAMdisk is that it allows you to selectively force data into RAM.
But I'm not sure everyone will be able to fit everything - OS/Programs/Swap/user-data - within only 800MB (or 8GB). So in effect it remains a cache, which is what RAM already is in the first place.
An SSD isn't going to be faster than a RAMdisk - not yet atleast. And a RAMdisk is not really free either : as per current DDR3 rates, 8GB of RAMdisk space costs you 5k, or about 20 times more expensive than an SSD in price/GB.
The Samsung Evo actually has a RAMdisk like feature called Rapid, you could've probably got that instead since you find it useful. Otherwise IMO its only good for benchmarks.
Starting Windows, launching apps, all involve nothing more than loading the kernel and other pieces into RAM. I hear SQL server when serving up a big database also gobbles up RAM because its caching whatever portion of the database can fit in the RAM. The only difference with RAMdisk is that it allows you to selectively force data into RAM.
But I'm not sure everyone will be able to fit everything - OS/Programs/Swap/user-data - within only 800MB (or 8GB). So in effect it remains a cache, which is what RAM already is in the first place.
An SSD isn't going to be faster than a RAMdisk - not yet atleast. And a RAMdisk is not really free either : as per current DDR3 rates, 8GB of RAMdisk space costs you 5k, or about 20 times more expensive than an SSD in price/GB.
The Samsung Evo actually has a RAMdisk like feature called Rapid, you could've probably got that instead since you find it useful. Otherwise IMO its only good for benchmarks.
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Party Monger
Skilled
Ramdisks can be useful in some very specific scenarios. Like editing a very big/complex psd file etc. Otherwise at most times, it will be bottlenecked by the hdd. Now SSD are fast across the range. If you get an SSD the random reads are much faster even on sata 1.
Maybe we should start a separate thread on RDisk's.
Another thing RDisks are very useful for is editing large Video (and uncompressed audio) files. Provided the files fit in the RDisk, they load up instantly and scrubbing through them is like butter. My SSD is nowhere near as fast.
IIRC, 3DSMax also had a feature where a large no. of pre-rendered image files could be pre-loaded onto a RDisk for the purposes of real time "previews". Essentially, the image files would be played back extremely fast in sequence so that it would "appear" like a continuous movie. Much like the flip-books we used to play with as kids. However to do so required extremely high speeds which only RDisks could provide.
RDisks also don't don't "wear out" like SSD's nor do they have limited P/E cycle issues or require Trim/Garbage collection.
Plus, as in the case of 32 Bit OS's like XP (not sure about Win7-32 'cos I haven't used that), RDisks allow you to allocate and utilize "invisible" RAM that would otherwise be completely wasted. This is what I meant by saying they are "free". The app I use has a "freeware" version that costs nothing. The extra RAM I couldn't utilize via the OS was being wasted. A RDisk allowed me to allocate and utilize it for free.
As for the volatility issue - some people (like me) actually like that. Your PC is left "as is".
CIS has a sandboxing feature (much like Sandboxie) that I use all the time. Apps run/installed via it are "volatile". This is not necessarily a bad thing. When you exit the sandbox, any changes you may have made to your system are gone forever because they were never really implemented other than in a virtual sense - just like a RDisk. Despite being volatile, a sandbox does serve a very useful purpose in that you can save the "output" from a sandboxed app without actually installing the app itself. You can do the same thing with a RDisk if you choose to.
So while RDisks are volatile, that's not necessarily a bad thing. This is why I posted earlier that they are very useful if you understand their quirks and limitations.
As for the Samsung 840EVO, I WOULD have picked it over the Crucial without hesitation had it been the same price. I was looking for VFM and the Crucial was better from that POV although its significantly slower...
Another thing RDisks are very useful for is editing large Video (and uncompressed audio) files. Provided the files fit in the RDisk, they load up instantly and scrubbing through them is like butter. My SSD is nowhere near as fast.
IIRC, 3DSMax also had a feature where a large no. of pre-rendered image files could be pre-loaded onto a RDisk for the purposes of real time "previews". Essentially, the image files would be played back extremely fast in sequence so that it would "appear" like a continuous movie. Much like the flip-books we used to play with as kids. However to do so required extremely high speeds which only RDisks could provide.
RDisks also don't don't "wear out" like SSD's nor do they have limited P/E cycle issues or require Trim/Garbage collection.
Plus, as in the case of 32 Bit OS's like XP (not sure about Win7-32 'cos I haven't used that), RDisks allow you to allocate and utilize "invisible" RAM that would otherwise be completely wasted. This is what I meant by saying they are "free". The app I use has a "freeware" version that costs nothing. The extra RAM I couldn't utilize via the OS was being wasted. A RDisk allowed me to allocate and utilize it for free.
As for the volatility issue - some people (like me) actually like that. Your PC is left "as is".
CIS has a sandboxing feature (much like Sandboxie) that I use all the time. Apps run/installed via it are "volatile". This is not necessarily a bad thing. When you exit the sandbox, any changes you may have made to your system are gone forever because they were never really implemented other than in a virtual sense - just like a RDisk. Despite being volatile, a sandbox does serve a very useful purpose in that you can save the "output" from a sandboxed app without actually installing the app itself. You can do the same thing with a RDisk if you choose to.
So while RDisks are volatile, that's not necessarily a bad thing. This is why I posted earlier that they are very useful if you understand their quirks and limitations.
As for the Samsung 840EVO, I WOULD have picked it over the Crucial without hesitation had it been the same price. I was looking for VFM and the Crucial was better from that POV although its significantly slower...
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For those obsessed with numbers, I just noticed that the Sandisk Extreme II 120GB is now available from Primeabgb at a much more realistic price of 5.4k, and yes it's faster than the 840 Evo.
Let me illustrate :
> With an SSD when I start my PC, as soon as I see the desktop, I can hit Firefox and I'm on. Once I'm done, I can close firefox and shut down the PC within a few seconds.
> Now with your RAMdisk + 80GB HDD, can you tell us how long it takes to hit your desktop (don't forget the wait for all the hard disk thrashing to end even after you see the desktop), for your RAMdisk to initialise, for Firefox to get copied into the RAMdisk; once your Firefox session is done, to copy back your profile data onto the HDD (most normal users including me have a lot of bookmarks and other such data that we need intact) and then to shut down the system? Is this whole process genuinely faster and more convenient?
My point about volatility wasn't the security, and I highly doubt anyone here will be using their home PC with that in mind. My point is that your storage medium is still the bottleneck, which a CrystalDiskMark benchie will not show.
Let me illustrate :
> With an SSD when I start my PC, as soon as I see the desktop, I can hit Firefox and I'm on. Once I'm done, I can close firefox and shut down the PC within a few seconds.
> Now with your RAMdisk + 80GB HDD, can you tell us how long it takes to hit your desktop (don't forget the wait for all the hard disk thrashing to end even after you see the desktop), for your RAMdisk to initialise, for Firefox to get copied into the RAMdisk; once your Firefox session is done, to copy back your profile data onto the HDD (most normal users including me have a lot of bookmarks and other such data that we need intact) and then to shut down the system? Is this whole process genuinely faster and more convenient?
I don't believe I EVER claimed that my 10+ year old HDD and a RDisk would be faster than an SSD when it comes to OS loads. If this was so, why on earth would I have bought an SSD to being with?
Forget my old 10+ year IDE - even a brand new top of the line SSD could be considered a "bottleneck" if you were to load a boot image off it to a RDisk. But that's not the point I was trying to make when I was recommending RDisks.
I thought that by mentioning RDisks and their features/quirks, perhaps some other TE users would find them interesting & potentially useful and be tempted to try them out. I honestly didn't mean to start some sort of "SSD vs RDisk" argument.
RDisks can be configured to load a NV image in the background while your OS is booting. This cuts down RDisk image load times significantly. And if your NV image consists of apps like "Firefox" the boot and launch time difference is negligible - you wont even notice the difference because its trivial.
RDisks actually can be setup in such a way that they constantly monitor changes you make to the RDisk partition and instantly commit those changes to the NV Image File the moment they are made. AMD refers to this feature as "background update". So effectively, when you shut down or kill the RDisk, there's only a trivial amount of data (if any) to be written out to the image file and not the ENTIRE content of the RDisk. Again, the difference in shut down times is negligible if you use this feature (available in paid version only). It also addresses your point regarding "volatility" as the RDisk can be configured to save data changes immediately to the NV Image if you wish to configure it that way.
Its all a matter of perception and personal opinion. For me personally, its fast and convenient and fully automated to boot as no user intervention is involved either during boot or at shutdown.
Plus RDisks are so versatile. For example, you can configure the RDisk to IGNORE changes made to its partition and the apps residing thereon regardless of any changes you may make during a session. This way, every time you load your OS, the apps re-loaded on your RDisk will be "as new" - as if they were just freshly installed with absolutely no configuration changes or only with specific "tweaks" you want it/them to be loaded with.
IMO, RDisks are even MORE important with SSD's as they can cut down SSD P/E writes and actually extend the life of your SSD.
I have linked some videos below regarding the features and benefits of RDisks that are quite informative IMO. The videos are from AMD. Yes, AMD sells an RDisk app that works with their own RAM offerings (the app & the RAM are actually made by "Dataram Corp." specifically for AMD). This app works fine with standard RAM of any make (up to 4GB RDisk) as well. Note that because the "background update" feature is NOT available in the "free" version it does result in a slight delay when you shut down your PC as it has to write the entire contents of the RDisk to the NV image. The free version does however have a "Save Disk Image Now" option that does the same thing but requires manual intervention.
You can stripe a RDisk with an SSD to DOUBLE the performance of your SSD. Have a look -
It can load games far, far faster than an SSD can -
Best uses for RDisks -
Video Rendering Optimization (scrub to 4:44 if you want to skip the setup part) -
Speed up Net browsing -
More secure Net browsing -
Optimizing Software Development -
Interview -
More videos & demos -
http://www.radeonmemory.com/support_tutorials.php
AMD Product page -
http://www.amd.com/en-us/products/memory/ramdisk
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I don't know how else to interpret this statement, but you said the SSD was slower 'overall', which implies you compared across OS/Apps/User-data/etc. And when you say 'slower', I assume you're referencing your older setup which comprised a mechanical HDD + RAMdisk setup.
Yes, the mechanical HDD is part of your hybrid RAMdisk, because a RAMdisk is not a standalone disk that can function by itself but is a cache that needs a supporting storage medium. Loading data onto a RAMdisk and then running benchmarks is kinda pointless, since all it tells us is what we already know - that caches are fast. I'd agree that its a tweak, but fortunately or unfortunately, most apps emphasize data reliability over performance, hence there is less of a tendency to rely on large caches - which is what a RAMdisk is. Your statement gives the impression that the HDD+RAMdisk combo is faster than an SSD, which seems a bit misleading since you aren't comparing storage mediums but storage mediums and caches.
But if you were seriously expecting an SSD to be faster than RAM, then I hope you have heard of RAM speeds like PC3200, PC6400, PC12800 (hint: the numbers are in MB/s). RAM was actually designed to be a bridge between L1/L2/L3 caches and super slow HDDs. SSDs in a way are adding one more bridge between HDDs and RAM. RAM will always improve and SSDs will similarly improve. HDDs though appear to be hitting their physical limitations and aren't scaling as much. RAM/RAMdisks cannot become a substitute for HDDs because of their volatility and comparatively smaller size, which is where SSDs come in.
Unfortunately I'm unable to find a suitable use case for me from the videos above. Some of it like "speeding up internet browsing" is pure hype - a typical broadband connection in India will never saturate your I/O, anything faster might probably saturate your network link first, and finally any decent browser will use a RAM cache anyway. You aren't striping RAM with an SSD but cacheing (your SSD already has a similar RAM cache, but much smaller for reliability reasons again). IINM audio editing apps like Audacity have an option to keep an audio clip entirely in memory. A video editing app should similarly be able to cache a video clip in RAM. I don't see why we need to assume that an app cannot use RAM for working data without the assistance of a RAMdisk. Cutting down SSD P/E cycles is debatable since a lot of writes happen to the pagefile, and the pagefile is hit hard if the system feels there isn't enough RAM.
Instead of all this, perhaps you can you just tell us how *you* use your RAMdisk, what sort of RAMdisk setup you have, etc. so we have a more practical idea of how normal users are using it. Please don't tell us all this is for Quake Live
Wait - what? I made no such claim.
If I did, please point it out.
You have taken my statement of "slower overall" completely out of the context it was mentioned in.
Let me try and clarify that entire para for you line by line without leaving out a single word with further clarifications as appropriate -
"Of course SSD's have other advantages over RDisks but I think its my constant use of a Rdisk over the years that has kind of "spoiled" me in a sense where it comes to file load & execute speeds. You click something on a Rdisk and it just loads - instantly. I was expecting an SSD to be even faster overall (read/write) but it isn't - it seems slower (especially writes) though one might argue the difference is minor."
Firstly, I have clearly stated in the very beginning of the first sentence that -
"SSD's have other advantages over RDisks".
To expand, these advantages would be for functions that are condusive/approriate for NV storage mediums vis-a-vis volatile storage like a RDisk. OS boot would be one such funtion.
Then I said -
"but I think its my constant use of a Rdisk over the years that has kind of "spoiled" me in a sense where it comes to file load & execute speeds."
In the above sentence, I clearly mentioned that I was referring here specifically to "file load & execute speeds".
We have already established that RDisks are faster than SSD's when it comes to file load/execute speeds which is precisely what that statement means.
When I said "spoiled me" what I meant is I was already "accustomed/used to" (read - SPOILED) with the high speed RDisks offer versus other options having used the technology from the late 1980's when DOS supported RDisks via via Himem.sys & Ramdrive.sys.
Consumer SSD's are a much newer tech. in comparison and have been around for a much shorter time.
So for me personally, its quite disappointing that a technology that has essentially been around for almost 25 YEARS - ie, RDisks, are still unmatched in terms of what it offers in terms of sheer read/write speeds versus SSD's that are much more "modern". Again, I specifically referred to one and only one parameter here while comparing the two namely read/write speeds.
Of course a large part of this is because RAM tech has also made huge progress and correspondingly boosted RDisk performance but RAM is something all PC's require by default - its not something "optional" that one has to buy specifically for a RDisk. RAM is present in your PC whether you want it or not. The only difference is how much you can "spare" for a RDisk should you choose to use one.
So when I said the SSD was "slower overall" I was comparing its read/write performance specifically in the context versus a RDisk and stated as much in that very sentence as well as the sentence prior to that one where I said -
"You click something on a Rdisk and it just loads - instantly."
Ergo - I was referring here to the "load" speed of something that is already present on a RDisk. Its only after this sentence that I said -
"I was expecting an SSD to be even faster overall (read/write) but it isn't - it seems slower (especially writes) though one might argue the difference is minor."
So the context/reference for my use of the word "overall" was specifically to read/write performance of a SSD versus a RDisk.
As for your question on what I currently it for, I'm severely limited due to the amount of existing PC RAM which is just 4 GB.
While I was exclusively on XP, it served another VERY useful purpose in that it allowed me to access 800 MB ie. 20% (certainly not a trivial amount considering how "expensive" RAM is) of my RAM that was otherwise being completely wasted and unutilized because XP would not allow me to directly access it. A RDisk allowed me to access it and put it to use for FREE. Win-win.
What I was using it with my old mechanical HDD + RDisk was for editing family home videos. I would allocate 1.5 to 2 GB RAM to the RDisk and copy .avi files to the RDisk and load/edit them via Avidemux. Scrubbing and editing was butter smooth this way. I still plan to do this with my SSD as it will save it needless writes to large files apart from being faster.
How I plan to use it when I buy my new PC-
Create a 8-10GB RDisk (going to get 16GB of RAM) and install apps & games via Steam directly to the RDisk with the only criteria being, the entire game install must fit on the RDisk. Currently experimenting with another FREE RDisk util that has no memory size limitations while allowing image load/save functionality.
And while you might argue that its a "waste of money" to use RAM this way I feel otherwise.
At one point I did consider running QL from a RDisk considering it would fit quite easily. However considering its a small (around 1GB) MP only game there's very little data read/write once the game is loaded. There are no "level loads" or transitions in the traditional sense like there are for other games which is why I discarded the idea.
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Sudarshan_SMD
Adept
RDisk and SSD can't be direcly compared. Here is what I would put it like:
RDisk is essentially a cacheing software which caches data for users, hence reducing the time taken for it. It(Cacheing not cache) is a `technique`.
SSD is a `technology` that is leaps and bounds faster that it's predecessor, the HDD.
Technology will go on improving, while a superior technique will always be superior.
Cache memory just makes sure that resources that are essential for processing are accessed faster. Data that is frequently accessed is stored in cache. It is nice to way to use the faster memory efficiently, while keeping the cost down. CPU has it's own cache, which is much faster than RAM. One can argue that RAM still lags behind CPU cache in terms of speed.
If you take case of database in a application. Whole database can be stored in memory. Also, there are techniques wherein frequently used queries to database are cached. Some, may even opt to store entire application in memory. So, it depends on much you can spend. You can install huge amount of memory, or you can cache frequently used data.
Performance improvement in cache depends on algorithm that caches it. In some rare cases you can come across a case where performance of application is reduced because of bad cacheing alogrithm. Eg:- Alogrithm has been designed for cacheing database queries in an application. Now, if application is such that there are huge amount of queries generated and none of the queries are same, you will actually end up reducing performance. Application will unnecessary look in cache for data first, then it will hit actual data.
If someone is not impressed with performance improvement in SSD over HDD, I don't know what will.(I am not pointing at you. It's just that SSD's are that awesome. )
Yes, RDisk will be faster, provided cacheing is efficient. But no way it's going to improve boot time/shutdown time. It will be slower at first hit. Performance will increase on consequent access.
Also, as Eddy Saar mentioned, application these days are designed to use RAM( and multiple cores). Which means, application that use RAM efficiently would perform the same, use RDisk or not. You are even say that they are internally using RDisk esque technique, which would be true. Cacheing.
RDisk is essentially a cacheing software which caches data for users, hence reducing the time taken for it. It(Cacheing not cache) is a `technique`.
SSD is a `technology` that is leaps and bounds faster that it's predecessor, the HDD.
Technology will go on improving, while a superior technique will always be superior.
Cache will always be faster than primary memory.
Cache memory just makes sure that resources that are essential for processing are accessed faster. Data that is frequently accessed is stored in cache. It is nice to way to use the faster memory efficiently, while keeping the cost down. CPU has it's own cache, which is much faster than RAM. One can argue that RAM still lags behind CPU cache in terms of speed.
If you take case of database in a application. Whole database can be stored in memory. Also, there are techniques wherein frequently used queries to database are cached. Some, may even opt to store entire application in memory. So, it depends on much you can spend. You can install huge amount of memory, or you can cache frequently used data.
Performance improvement in cache depends on algorithm that caches it. In some rare cases you can come across a case where performance of application is reduced because of bad cacheing alogrithm. Eg:- Alogrithm has been designed for cacheing database queries in an application. Now, if application is such that there are huge amount of queries generated and none of the queries are same, you will actually end up reducing performance. Application will unnecessary look in cache for data first, then it will hit actual data.
If someone is not impressed with performance improvement in SSD over HDD, I don't know what will.(I am not pointing at you. It's just that SSD's are that awesome.
)Yes, RDisk will be faster, provided cacheing is efficient. But no way it's going to improve boot time/shutdown time. It will be slower at first hit. Performance will increase on consequent access.
Also, as Eddy Saar mentioned, application these days are designed to use RAM( and multiple cores). Which means, application that use RAM efficiently would perform the same, use RDisk or not. You are even say that they are internally using RDisk esque technique, which would be true. Cacheing.