Hi All,
Being the dense gent I am, I have finally realized that an SSD might be the most cost effective way to get a good performance increase in trainz. When I first thought about SSDs, it was about 5 years ago and it wasn't really a question at the time with my budget. Thankfully, that tech has come down in price and matured in terms of reliability. It might have been asked (and I tried to find an answer to my question without success) but I thought I'd shoot a few questions by you all here.
My scenario: I currently have 2 7200 HDD drives (approaching 5 years old). OS and media on one, Trainz on the other. Both work great (and yes, I have backed up my important stuff - you all have done that lately right?). Ideally, I'd go with 2 SSDs but budget wise, I'm only keen on getting one right now. Which scenario would give me best performance?
1) OS/Trainz on an SSD and all my media, games, etc...on my HDDs
2) OS only on an SSD, trainz on an HDD (although I'd have to reinstall...le sigh)
3) Trainz only on an SSD (would still have to reinstall but this might be a lot faster...le sigh 2x).
To complicate things, I've read that repeated access/read/writes can really shorten the lifespan of an SSD and that trainz tends to access data a lot. Does anyone think trainz could last 5 years on an SSD? If so, I'd be happy with it but I've heard some say their SSD died in a year or less. This is also why I'm asking.
And finally, if I got the one SSD, where would I notice the best performance increase? I'm tempted to think putting trainz on the SSD might show that, but I'd benefit in my other computing uses if I used it just for my OS only (and I'm sure trainz would still benefit significantly). It also might last longer, as I just wrote above...
Lastly, anyone have a good or bad experience with a particular brand? I refuse to buy Samsung (based on an experience I had before, ask if you want the story...). Any brands to watch out for in terms of poor quality/good quality? From what I saw, I recognized most of the bigger brand names and would feel safe with them (Kingston, Mushkin, Crucial, Corsair...)
Thoughts, advice, opinions always appreciated!
Gisa
Being the dense gent I am, I have finally realized that an SSD might be the most cost effective way to get a good performance increase in trainz. When I first thought about SSDs, it was about 5 years ago and it wasn't really a question at the time with my budget. Thankfully, that tech has come down in price and matured in terms of reliability. It might have been asked (and I tried to find an answer to my question without success) but I thought I'd shoot a few questions by you all here.
My scenario: I currently have 2 7200 HDD drives (approaching 5 years old). OS and media on one, Trainz on the other. Both work great (and yes, I have backed up my important stuff - you all have done that lately right?). Ideally, I'd go with 2 SSDs but budget wise, I'm only keen on getting one right now. Which scenario would give me best performance?
1) OS/Trainz on an SSD and all my media, games, etc...on my HDDs
2) OS only on an SSD, trainz on an HDD (although I'd have to reinstall...le sigh)
3) Trainz only on an SSD (would still have to reinstall but this might be a lot faster...le sigh 2x).
To complicate things, I've read that repeated access/read/writes can really shorten the lifespan of an SSD and that trainz tends to access data a lot. Does anyone think trainz could last 5 years on an SSD? If so, I'd be happy with it but I've heard some say their SSD died in a year or less. This is also why I'm asking.
And finally, if I got the one SSD, where would I notice the best performance increase? I'm tempted to think putting trainz on the SSD might show that, but I'd benefit in my other computing uses if I used it just for my OS only (and I'm sure trainz would still benefit significantly). It also might last longer, as I just wrote above...
Lastly, anyone have a good or bad experience with a particular brand? I refuse to buy Samsung (based on an experience I had before, ask if you want the story...). Any brands to watch out for in terms of poor quality/good quality? From what I saw, I recognized most of the bigger brand names and would feel safe with them (Kingston, Mushkin, Crucial, Corsair...)
Thoughts, advice, opinions always appreciated!
Gisa