SSD brands and speed

I didn't want to start a new thread to ask my question about a SSD.
When viewing the properties of the SSD which Trainz is installed on, by default the tick box " Allow Indexing service to index this disc for fast file searching " is ticked. Is that correct for a SSD?
 
Racn said:
I didn't want to start a new thread to ask my question about a SSD.
When viewing the properties of the SSD which Trainz is installed on, by default the tick box " Allow Indexing service to index this disc for fast file searching " is ticked. Is that correct for a SSD?
Click to expand...

I would uncheck that whether that's an SSD or not. Indexing a drive gets in the way of Trainz as it opens lots of data folders and Windows then goes through and adds them to a database to make searching faster. This does not speed up any disk access for programs and only for humans when we search for files.

John
 
I have 3 Intel SSD's installed, the oldest being 2.5 years and the youngest is 1 year old. Itel SSD's are not the snappiest, but they're reliable. No problems to date. Intel also has a software toolkit to trim and maintain your drives.
 
I'm completely useless when it comes to technical computer stuff, I have a couple of Buffalo Ministation 500GB external hard-drives that I use as storage of all my gaming content, etc, and have read on here that some folks use a SSD to utilise installing and playing their Trainz versions on, BUT, I don't want to start delving inside my computer as it's brand new and I'm worried that I might do untold damage to it, I'd rather it be something external that I can just plug in and play, is this possible for an SSD, please, you geeks, money isn't a worry as such, as long as it's not hundreds and hundreds of pounds......:D

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.
 
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ex-railwayman said:
I'm completely useless when it comes to technical computer stuff, I have a couple of Buffalo Ministation 500GB external hard-drives that I use as storage of all my gaming content, etc, and have read on here that some folks use a SSD to utilise installing and playing their Trainz versions on, BUT, I don't want to start delving inside my computer as it's brand new and I'm worried that I might do untold damage to it, I'd rather it be something external that I can just plug in and play, is this possible for an SSD, please, you geeks, money isn't a worry as such, as long as it's not hundreds and hundreds of pounds......:D

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.
Click to expand...

It is perfectly possible to have an SSD running externally. They are much more robust than HDD's will ever be due to the lack of moving parts, so say you dropped a drive accidentally, you would have far less to worry about!

However. Don't expect the same performance over USB compared to SATA. Current SSD's will reach the maximum rated throughput of SATA 3, resulting in read and write speeds in the 550 megabytes per second range. While USB3 on paper should be close, it just hasn't turned out that way for a number of reasons. There will be a benefit in speed over a HDD even over USB3, just not as much as there would be compared to SATA.
 
ex-railwayman said:
I'm completely useless when it comes to technical computer stuff, I have a couple of Buffalo Ministation 500GB external hard-drives that I use as storage of all my gaming content, etc, and have read on here that some folks use a SSD to utilise installing and playing their Trainz versions on, BUT, I don't want to start delving inside my computer as it's brand new and I'm worried that I might do untold damage to it, I'd rather it be something external that I can just plug in and play, is this possible for an SSD, please, you geeks, money isn't a worry as such, as long as it's not hundreds and hundreds of pounds......:D

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.
Click to expand...

If you're very lucky and I suspect you probably are unless its a laptop then inside your case will be room for a second drive and there will be a spare sata cable and power connector. Slip the SSD in the spare slot, it may need a couple of guides to hold it, plug the cables in then power up and you should see the new drive.

Cheerio John
 
John's absolutely right...I've just installed an SSD in a new build and it was a piece of cake. It took about 5 minutes. It's a Samsung 840 EVO 500 GB SSD. I love it so far...and maybe should have gotten a 1 TB one, although they're a bit pricey.

Cheers,
Fred
 
LNERlover5 said:
It is perfectly possible to have an SSD running externally. They are much more robust than HDD's will ever be due to the lack of moving parts, so say you dropped a drive accidentally, you would have far less to worry about!
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply, it's the robust and sturdy issue that is a big bonus, not that I go about throwing my computer accessories around the house, you understand. :D


Zorronov said:
I've just installed an SSD in a new build and it was a piece of cake. It took about 5 minutes.
Cheers,
Fred
Click to expand...

It might have been easy for you Fred, but, to me, it's like performing open heart surgery, without an instruction manual.......:hehe:


johnwhelan said:
If you're very lucky and I suspect you probably are unless its a laptop then inside your case will be room for a second drive and there will be a spare sata cable and power connector. Slip the SSD in the spare slot, it may need a couple of guides to hold it, plug the cables in then power up and you should see the new drive.

Cheerio John
Click to expand...

Hi John,

Laptops are a thing of the past for me Sir, my computer is brand new, an up to date gaming machine with 3 internal Western Digital 500 GB hard drives installed, I daren't take the cover off the Tower as I've only had it a couple of months and don't want to void anything, but, I wouldn't have thought there is any room left inside the machine to install anything else in there, and I don't want to start substituting a WD for anything else, as I've got content stored on all of them at present, and just wanted an external SSD to install my games on for playing direct.
I've just found an external SSD on Amazon UK, that has 7200 rpms and 3.0 USB that looks fairly well priced (£55-ish) a HGST 0S03560 1TB 2.5 inch Touro Mobile Pro External Hard Drive, is this the sort of thing I should be looking at buying, in your expert opinion.

Cheerz. Steve.
 
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Dumb question does your machine have USB 3? If so then go ahead but realistically the frame rates won't improve very much. How did you end up with three 500 MB hard drives? I would have gone with something like a 4 terabyte drive for performance. The multiplatter means the head is sitting over an enormous amount of data which makes loading and throughput for the hard drive very fast. With three drives unless you're running raid you're limited to the single drive throughput.

Cheerio John
 
ex-railwayman said:
I've just found an external SSD on Amazon UK, that has 7200 rpms and 3.0 USB that looks fairly well priced (£55-ish) a HGST 0S03560 1TB 2.5 inch Touro Mobile Pro External Hard Drive, is this the sort of thing I should be looking at buying, in your expert opinion.
Click to expand...

An SSD with a rated spin speed, that's a red flag right there! :hehe: What you're looking at is purely an external hard drive, it's even in the title! The biggest difference between the two is that an SSD is based on flash storage while a HDD is based on spinning platters. It might just be easier to purchase an SSD of choice, such as a Samsung 840/850 EVO for example as well as a 2.5 inch external enclosure that supports USB 3 and pop the drive in.
 
johnwhelan said:
Dumb question does your machine have USB 3? If so then go ahead but realistically the frame rates won't improve very much. How did you end up with three 500 MB hard drives? I would have gone with something like a 4 terabyte drive for performance. The multiplatter means the head is sitting over an enormous amount of data which makes loading and throughput for the hard drive very fast. With three drives unless you're running raid you're limited to the single drive throughput.

Cheerio John
Click to expand...

Yes Siree, it has USB 3.0. I have always had 2, or, 3, drives on my computers, I have them for different games, Microsoft Flight Sim for example, took a complete hard drive's memory with storage and installation on its own over a few years, plus I have lots of other games, Eurotruck Sim, ShipSim, and Train/Railway Simulators, and I split them across all my drives.

LNERlover5 said:
An SSD with a rated spin speed, that's a red flag right there! :hehe: What you're looking at is purely an external hard drive, it's even in the title! The biggest difference between the two is that an SSD is based on flash storage while a HDD is based on spinning platters. It might just be easier to purchase an SSD of choice, such as a Samsung 840/850 EVO for example as well as a 2.5 inch external enclosure that supports USB 3 and pop the drive in.
Click to expand...

Yes, well spotted, I actually typed SSD external into the search field would you believe, this was on page 2 or 3 and I never checked that it wasn't an SSD, good thing I didn't buy it. So, I can actually buy an external enclosure that I can put an SSD into and then plug the enclosure into my PC Tower, well, that's interesting I never knew that, ya see I said I was a complete thicko.....:hehe:

Cheerz. Steve.
 
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Zorronov said:
John's absolutely right...I've just installed an SSD in a new build and it was a piece of cake. It took about 5 minutes. It's a Samsung 840 EVO 500 GB SSD. I love it so far...and maybe should have gotten a 1 TB one, although they're a bit pricey.
Cheers,
Fred
Click to expand...

I've been looking at these Fred, but, it appears that all Samsung EVO SSD's seem to be getting a bad press recently, something about old files that haven't been read take longer to load after a while, and Samsung are dragging their feet over the issue.

I'll keep searching anyway, the one thing that I have seen is that whatever SSD I get has to have an OS installed, some you can obtain that are already pre-installed, I assume that means WIN 7, or, 8?
If I just want to download and install a game onto it from a DVD, do I need an OS ?

Cheerz. ex.
 
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ex-railwayman said:
I've been looking at these Fred, but, it appears that all Samsung EVO SSD's seem to be getting a bad press recently, something about old files that haven't been read take longer to load after a while, and Samsung are dragging their feet over the issue.

I'll keep searching anyway, the one thing that I have seen is that whatever SSD I get has to have an OS installed, some you can obtain that are already pre-installed, I assume that means WIN 7, or, 8?
If I just want to download and install a game onto it from a DVD, do I need an OS ?

Cheerz. ex.
Click to expand...

If you are just using it for game content then you don't need the operating system installed on it. All conventional disk drives from the major manufactures have free disk cloning available on the web so just use that if you want to clone one with the operating system. Check the web for your SSD first. A number of SSDs have a clone kit which plugs into to a USB port and as long as your USB port is capable of meeting the voltage and current requirements you should be fine. Occasionally on a cheaper motherboard it fails and you can burn out the USB port.

I have a couple of Samsung SSDs for more than a year or two and they seem fine, Win 7 and Win 8 have much better support for SSDs than XP or vista by the way, especially trim.

Cheerio John
 
Hi John,

Thanks for that, I just intend to obtain an SSD purely for gaming, my Motherboard is a brand new Gigabyte Z97-HD3: ATX, LG1150, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, I really went to town on getting my new PC built to my specifications, I didn't think I would have any problems in getting the right tools for the job.
I never had Vista and have said goodbye to XP, so, WIN 7 for me at the moment. I noticed you used the word 'trim' I read that somewhere yesterday but didn't know what it meant, is it something I ought to investigate, or, be aware of?

Cheerz. Steve.
 
ex-railwayman said:
Hi John,

Thanks for that, I just intend to obtain an SSD purely for gaming, my Motherboard is a brand new Gigabyte Z97-HD3: ATX, LG1150, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, I really went to town on getting my new PC built to my specifications, I didn't think I would have any problems in getting the right tools for the job.
I never had Vista and have said goodbye to XP, so, WIN 7 for me at the moment. I noticed you used the word 'trim' I read that somewhere yesterday but didn't know what it meant, is it something I ought to investigate, or, be aware of?

Cheerz. Steve.
Click to expand...

The purpose of TRIM is to maintain write performance over the lifetime of an SSD. I couldn't give you the most detailed explanation so some reading will have to do! :hehe:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2010/02/04/windows-7-ssd-performance-and-trim/

This article seems to do the trick. :)
 
I'm always into a bit of reading, I'll have to have a cup of tea for this it looks quite in depth, thank you very much for your kind assistance, anyway. :)

Cheerz. ex.
 
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There's definitely a problem on the current Samsung EVO series, probably with the firmware, that didn't affect the earlier Samsungs.

I have had a 120gb Corsair GT for over two years now - they're fairly old hat now but I can't fault it, and I have just bought a 500gb Crucial MX100 as my main system drive/Trainz drive with everything else (photos. music, documents etc) on a 1tb WD Black which had previously been the system drive.

So far I'm very happy with the Crucial MX100, and from what I could ascertain the technology within is reasonably tried and tested.

hth,

Anthony
 
I have a Samsung SSD 840 EVO, and it works just fine. 512GB with only Trainz and games on it. The operating system resides on a pair of Corsair SSDs in RAID0.

Paul
 
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