I didn't know that they slow down over time. Don't like that at all.
JJK

SSD drives will get slow over time IF, and only IF, you don't use the TRIM command. It's not something you do intentionnally or not. It a command that has been implemented in Windows 7. Not only that but some drive manufacturers do not implement the TRIM command into their expensive devices.

Sadly, the SSD command has not been implemented yet for RAID configured drives. However, Intel came up with a solution with the new 520 series drives that were just released last month. They have implemented a system tuner that can run on a schedule in the background and keep your SSD healthy.

How much trust do they have in their drives? They come with a 5 year warranty! So I would ask people to please check into the reasons why their computer devices do not work like they used to before passing on wrong information.

Just like for anything else in the world, it pays to be an educated consumer.

I will give a crack at explaining TRIM.

Unlike mechanical drives which can simply write over old data, a SSD must first erase the old data before new data can be written. When you delete data on a SSD the data isn't actually deleted it is only viewed as deleted by the drives logic. It would take too long to actually erase at that moment. A TRIM pass physically erases all of the previously "deleted" data so it can be written over.

So what happens is that after your drive has been written to in all data locations, if old data is not physically deleted the drive must delete and then write to the previously filled cells. And this takes quite a while.

Windows 7 has a TRIM command which during idle periods simply erases data in the previously deleted cells so that writes will occur at the speed they used to. I don't know the specifics of how Win 7 does this. Some drive manufacturers include a small bit of software where you can run a TRIM pass yourself or schedule it to run. A TRIM pass does not decrease the lifespan of the drive since this deleted data must be erased eventually to be written over again, it only speeds up overall operation of the drive.

As for wear of the SSD. This has been calculated but for the average user a SSD should last at least 5 years, probably more like 10.

I love my SSD's. They are addictive.

- Mark

I said earlier than an SSD improves many aspects of computing. Here is my proof:



Stringer showed how much faster booting is with an SSD. Here is how fast it is at loading programs. If an SSD can improve a computer's performance this drastically, it will also affect just as much the reading and writing of large data files. Someone please correct me if I am wrong but I believe it is also an important aspect of programs such as Vegas.

Those four little starts that appear in Win7 start up... They don't even make it together before I'm in windows. I see them for about 4 or 5 seconds. My boot time is about 15 seconds total.

Have to laugh here. When we first got a 16MHz 386DX with 2MB RAM and Windows 3.11, it booted from power on to Windows running in about 6 to 8 seconds.

We've come so far.

Chienworks wrote: "Have to laugh here. When we first got a 16MHz 386DX with 2MB RAM and Windows 3.11, it booted from power on to Windows running in about 6 to 8 seconds."

You want to talk about old times? How about trying to load something in a Commodore 64 using the 5 1/2 inch drive? I said something because I did use it for more than games. I used it for word processing and some spreadsheet as well.

Edited to add: and for BBSing as well. We didn't have the Internet in those days. So we used Bulletin Board Systems instead.

SSD gives boot and program start a big boost, but SSD's write very slowly. And the more you use them, the slower they write. That is the main reason that I have stated that you will not see much, if any, performance improvement in edit preview or encoding time.

well i went with os on ssd. if i get a couple of years at this speed i'll be happy. of course it's not going to do anything for renders, etc., but by golly, going from one prog to another is a joy, and it's also helping cut down my coffee intake.

meanwhile, loading programs on a sinclair z80 from cassette was a three course meal....

Steve Mann wrote: "And the more you use them, the slower they write. That is the main reason that I have stated that you will not see much, if any, performance improvement in edit preview or encoding time. "

The more you use them, the slower they write is no longer true thanks to the TRIM command. I explained that in one of my other posts. As far as edit preview or encoding, the bottleneck is no longer located on the SSD, it's up to the CPU and the GPU to get the job done. They certainly do not have to wait for the hard drive to write... especially when you've got an SSD that can write 500 MB/s.

The SSD can do a lot of great stuff for any computer user. Yes, even NLE users!

ushere wrote: "meanwhile, loading programs on a sinclair z80 from cassette was a three course meal.... "

In North America, Sinclair partnered with Timex and the computer (if you can call it that) had twice the memory than the British models. And we could buy a 16K expansion pack that was the size of a pack of cigarettes.

Now compare that to a 32 gig class 1 SDHC or 64 gig class 1 SDXC... LOL

I don't really know whether SSD is worth the price. My laptops with Windows 7 boot up in about 20-30 seconds max and most programs open in about 4-5 seconds ( the first time you open something like Photoshop on a given day, after that, for the rest of the day they pop open in at most 2 seconds ).

I don't see what saving a few seconds a day is really supposed to do for me.

And for someone like me who opens up the half dozen programs i'm going to use right after i boot the computer, and then leave them all open and running for months on end ... i really couldn't care less about startup times.