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I'd love to put a SSD in my HTPC, but $160 for 40GB != "value" when you can get 2TB of conventional disc for that much $.
Intel to Ship Value-Based X25-X SSD in Q4
Mon, 10/19/2009 - 8:46am
#1
Intel to Ship Value-Based X25-X SSD in Q4
Mon, 10/19/2009 - 11:45am
#3
Cost is pretty much the only prohibitive factor for me. Since I've moved to the extender model and ditched my dedicated HTPC, having SSD on my main rig makes sense from a performance standpoint. Even this X25 announcement isn't affordable enough for me to make the switch just yet though. I'm sure I'll have changed my tune a year or two from now.
Mon, 10/19/2009 - 11:59am
#4
Here's a good read on the subject:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001304.html
Mon, 10/19/2009 - 12:48pm
#5
I actually have one (Patriot Torqx) running on my work laptop, which I use for about 8-10 hours every day: dual monitors, minimum of 5 apps open at all times (Outlook, Excel, Word, browser, IM). While it is very true that everything is much quicker, the capacity and cost makes me say that the benefits are not worth it for an HTPC. That said, I AM considering putting one in my server because I regularly see the OS drive get pegged and I sit there waiting for something to respond/finish.
Mon, 10/19/2009 - 1:15pm
#6
Skirge01 wrote:
All kidding aside, the only benefit I see to having an SSD in an HTPC is to reduce heat, but I don't think a single or double platter regular hard drive adds all that much heat to the case, assuming it has proper airflow.
Heat and noise. 3.5" Hard drives are loud and needing less "proper airflow" will further reduce noise.
Mon, 10/19/2009 - 1:42pm
#7
Not all 3.5" drives are loud, though. SPCR has the test results and I can attest to very quiet drives being available. Even having 15 3.5" drives between my server and client PC in the same room as the TV, you can't hear any of them. My DirecTV DVR with a single 3.5" drive was louder.
Mon, 10/19/2009 - 2:09pm
#8
Why has nobody mentioned 2.5 inch harddrives yet? If you want to limit drive noise and heat in a HTPC, doesn't a 2.5 inch drive make more sense?
In my work PC, yeah, I love my SSD, but i don't need one in a HTPC yet.
Mon, 10/19/2009 - 2:58pm
#9
I want one for my main rig, but not my htpc (which at the moment is an old laptop and the sound from the constantly running exhaust fan is way more annoying than the hard drive sound).
Mon, 10/19/2009 - 3:27pm
#10
2.5 mechanical drives are pricey also. It really depends on the purpose. For a sever you wouldn't give up valueable drive bays for small high priced laptop drives. But I could see a SSD drive being tucked in for the O.S. I miagine a SQL app like MyMovies would really like the instantaneous seeks and fast reads.
We tried out one of the Kinston V series of SSDs here at work last week and I can't say I was overly impressed. But they are on the lower end of the SSD scale at around 100MB compared to the 200 plus reads of SSDs with indilix or intel controllers.
Mon, 10/19/2009 - 3:59pm
#11
Skirge01 wrote:
Not all 3.5" drives are loud, though. SPCR has the test results and I can attest to very quiet drives being available. Even having 15 3.5" drives between my server and client PC in the same room as the TV, you can't hear any of them. My DirecTV DVR with a single 3.5" drive was louder.
I guess "loud" is relative. Personally, if I can hear it then it's loud. When my HTPC isn't doing anything it's almost completely silent, but I can hear the discs churning during commercial analysis.
If that noise was cut in half (I have 2 discs in my HTPC) and I could keep the fan speed down for a reasonable price. What's not to like about that?
2.5" drives do provide a good alternative, but I worry that I/O performance would suffer vs. what a good/fast 3.5" disc can provide.
Tue, 10/20/2009 - 1:05am
#12
Meester.Rip wrote:
2.5 mechanical drives are pricey also.
They are but at least they're not terribly priced. For example, I can get a 750 gig 2.5 laptop drive for $150 (3.5 750 gigers are $55) while this 40 gig SSD is suppose to be around $160.. ?!?
Honestly, I really don't understand much of the point of an SSD as it comes to how I use my PC. I currently have an 80 gig 3.5 HDD in mine and I plan on upgrading it to a 2.5 160 gig for $55 soon (this is my gaming rig but I want it as compact as possible).
Tue, 10/20/2009 - 1:25am
#13
i have an Intel SSD in my work laptop, and while I was underwhelmed with Vista, I honestly see the improvement with Win7--from startup time, coming out of standby, application launching, switching (i'm a huge multi-tasker),e tc.
That being said, not sure JUST how noticeable it is on an HTPC...but if you can afford it, there's little reason to not. And i'm with Andy, maybe it's just my sensitive hearing, but when i sleep, i can literally hear any sort of little click or read from mechanical drives.
Tue, 10/20/2009 - 7:53am
#14
I can't stand drives seeking either. When I was beta testing a drobo unit a few years back I thought I was going to go mad. I would unplug it at night which is probably why my unit had so many problems. But it was supoosed to be built for that.
I am looking to buy a cheap SSD to help my wife's P4 system to be a lil snappier. I was just hoping the better SSDs would drop down in price like the JMicron controlled drives are.
Tue, 10/20/2009 - 8:18am
#15
shadymg wrote:
That being said, not sure JUST how noticeable it is on an HTPC...but if you can afford it, there's little reason to not. And i'm with Andy, maybe it's just my sensitive hearing, but when i sleep, i can literally hear any sort of little click or read from mechanical drives.
After having slept next to one for my entire childhood, I will never again have a PC in my bedroom. Something like the SageTV HD200, on the other hand, would be very welcome. Unless someone has exceptional hearing, I doubt anyone would be able to hear my hard drives in the TV room. ;D
Tue, 10/20/2009 - 12:11pm
#16
I have a 64GB Kingston SSD in my main PC that I picked up for $120 a few months back. I see it on sale at that price quite often. My HTPC has two 1TB hard drives, two 80mm and one 120mm case fan, an ATi 4650 graphics card with onboard fan, and a 120mm CPU fan. In the same room are two S3 Tivos with both internal and external drives and case fans and a 60" RPTV with a fan for the lamp. Throw in the fact that it's all in my finished basement where the internal heat exchanger is located for my heat pump and the noise generated by my HTPC is irrelevent.
A SSD big enough to match the current storage of my HTPC would be prohibitively expensive, not to mention completely redundant. The HTPC is actually fairly quiet when the heat pump fan switches off and the TV is on. I installed quiet fans recommended by silentpcreview.com and the CPU cooler came with one of the recommended fans out of the box. My surround system tends to drown out low level background noise so I would gain absolutely no benefit from installing an SSD in my HTPC.
If I were to install a HTPC in another part of the house that didn't suffer from the same background noise as my basement I might rethink the issue, especially if it were located in my bedroom.
Tue, 10/20/2009 - 12:28pm
#17
It really depends on the noise to me. Not only do I have a mini fan on my nightstand we also run the ceiling fan whenever we are in bed. I can't fall asleep in silence. It is usually HDDs and optical drives that maek annoying sounds that I can't tolerate. But I haven't had any trouble with my WD green drives.
Tue, 10/20/2009 - 12:48pm
#18
My Patriot X64 is on the way, we'll see how big a difference it makes as an HTPC drive. I'm hoping it will speed up the Media Center interface and make it more akin to an appliance. IE, video thumbnails, Netflix, etc. Ideally I'd like to hardly ever see the spinning circle.
Wed, 10/21/2009 - 12:56am
#19
Skirge01 wrote:
shadymg wrote:That being said, not sure JUST how noticeable it is on an HTPC...but if you can afford it, there's little reason to not. And i'm with Andy, maybe it's just my sensitive hearing, but when i sleep, i can literally hear any sort of little click or read from mechanical drives.
After having slept next to one for my entire childhood, I will never again have a PC in my bedroom. Something like the SageTV HD200, on the other hand, would be very welcome. Unless someone has exceptional hearing, I doubt anyone would be able to hear my hard drives in the TV room. ;D
Don't know about you guys but I can't sleep without my pc being on. 
Wed, 10/21/2009 - 2:54pm
#20
captain_video wrote:
I have a 64GB Kingston SSD in my main PC that I picked up for $120 a few months back. I see it on sale at that price quite often. My HTPC has two 1TB hard drives, two 80mm and one 120mm case fan, an ATi 4650 graphics card with onboard fan, and a 120mm CPU fan. In the same room are two S3 Tivos with both internal and external drives and case fans and a 60" RPTV with a fan for the lamp. Throw in the fact that it's all in my finished basement where the internal heat exchanger is located for my heat pump and the noise generated by my HTPC is irrelevent.
A SSD big enough to match the current storage of my HTPC would be prohibitively expensive, not to mention completely redundant. The HTPC is actually fairly quiet when the heat pump fan switches off and the TV is on. I installed quiet fans recommended by silentpcreview.com and the CPU cooler came with one of the recommended fans out of the box. My surround system tends to drown out low level background noise so I would gain absolutely no benefit from installing an SSD in my HTPC.
If I were to install a HTPC in another part of the house that didn't suffer from the same background noise as my basement I might rethink the issue, especially if it were located in my bedroom.
Can you hear the TV? 
The benefits in noise reduction should be most noticeable when you're not doing anything w/ the A/V system (like reading a book in the same room).
Yeah, but just think how much faster your HTPC will... umm... boot once a month or launch your PVR application each... day. Can't you see the value? 30 seconds/day X 365 days/year = 182.5 minutes saved! Think of what you can do when you regain >3 hours of lost time every year! :
All kidding aside, the only benefit I see to having an SSD in an HTPC is to reduce heat, but I don't think a single or double platter regular hard drive adds all that much heat to the case, assuming it has proper airflow.
Server: WHS, SuperMicro dual Xeon X7DWE, 1 x Xeon L5410, Thermalright HR-01, 4GB Crucial ECC, 8 port PCI-X SATA, 4 port RocketRAID 2300, 5x1 PortMultiplier, Corsair HX1000W PSU, Lian-Li PC343B case [blog]
Storage: 2 x Addonics 5-in-3 bays, 13TB
Client: SageTV 7, Windows 7 64-bit, Foxconn G9657MA-8EKRS2H, Core2Duo E6600, Zalman CNPS7500, 2GB Corsair, 320GB, HIS ATI 4650, Antec Fusion [blog]
Tuners: 2 x HD-PVR (serial control), 2 x HDHR, USB-UIRT