1 SSD an O.S. and Trainz...

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

SSD technology has really moved forward in the past few years. The read/write issue is not as big a factor as it was in the past, thanks to things like TRIM. I have 2 Crucial M4 SSD's on my machine, 1 128GB system drive and a 256GB drive solely for Trainz. Both are almost 6 years old and have worked flawlessy.

As far as Samsung goes, I would not dismiss them. right now they make some of the best SSD's out there, in fact, I'm planning on having a new system built soon and will be putting at least 2 Samsung EVO SSD's in it.

Here are more things to think about since I too recently made the plunge a few months ago myself as I too watched the reliability curve go up and the price go down.

1) Don't go cheap on the SSD. Go for a name brand such as Samsung or Intel. Intel are not super fast, but extremely stable, while the Samsung EVOs are super, nice and fast, and quite stable. Avoid unknown cheap brands and even Kingston or Crucial. Sure these are cheap, but dork out really fast. When an SSD tanks, it takes everything with it.

2) Put your OS and T:ANE on the SSD. In fact install only applications on the SSD and documents and data on the old 7200 RPM drives.

This is my current setup. It works great actually and there is less worry about the constant writing that Trainz and other data-intensive programs do the device. With T:ANE, you can split up where your data is located which is the best thing for this. I then keep TS12 on one of my 7200 RPM drives all by its lonesome except for TransDEM data files such as DEMs and route exports. I then have another newer 7200 RPM drive I use for T:ANE data only and nothing else, and finally what was once my C: drive 7200 brand new drive a year old or so became my documents drive. This is drive is also the same one which contains all data downloads, music files, documents, beta tests, and even my Steam Games so even they don't live on the SSD. With things setup like this, it keeps all the data off of the SSD so there's no worry about it wearing out too soon.

From what I've read, SSDs are becoming better and better and more reliable, but like any storage device you need to have reliable back ups and an established backup routine. With the setup I have above, it would be a pain in the butt should the system die due to a failed boot SSD drive, but nothing data-wise would be lost. The OS can be reinstalled, the programs reinstalled, but data can't so having that on the drives which take lots of read-writes, though slower, works fine.

I have read of SSDs dying quickly, and when they go they go quite fast too after a really bad performance. When they go there's little chance if any of recovery because of the way they work. Then again, if you use the better brands, you have a better chance of this not happening.

Anyway these are my thoughts and experience on this. I'm sure you'll here from those with a lot more than mine.

John

After the first of the year I'm going to build a new computer and plan on using a Samsung 850 Pro 512GB SSD for my operating system and TANE.

Regards,

Avoid a Sandforce controller, use the Samsung 840 EVO or newer, or Intel Cherryville or newer. You'll be glad you did.

SSD are great ( I have two - one for my OS and the other exclusively for TANE), but don't expect to see a great performance increase. For best TANE performance you need to look at a good multi core CPU (i5 or i7) and an advanced graphics card. Both my SSD are by SanDisk and both have a 10 year warranty. I use my larger capacity Hard Disk Drives (X 2) for all my other stuff, including TS12. However, as your current HDD is 5 years old it is starting to reach the limit of its life, so it is definitely time for a replacement.
Regards
Bob

gisa said:

1) OS/Trainz on an SSD and all my media, games, etc...on my HDDs

Click to expand...

As I also only could afford 1 SSD at the time I bought it, this is the scenario I went for.
I had multiple Trainz versions installed, so what I did do is move the least used versions to my HD to safe space on the SSD.

Over 3 years, still going strong.

I have 2 SSDs and 1 HDD. One SSD has Windows and what programs that insist on installing on the OS drive, the other has TANE and TS12. The HDD has all other programs and data which I find works quite well. As usual the mantra applies - back up to an external drive regularly.

I just had to put in an SSD as my C: drive a few weeks ago and had to re-install OS and I had to re-install TANE as it was missing a .dll file. This left me with 2 working copes of TANE, one on the SSD and one on a HD, testing the FPS and only got a deference on 1FPS witch is within the margin of error. I did not test TS12 as it worked OK.

Sorry for the delay everyone. Busy week! I appreciate the time you took to reply and thank you for your advice.

boc61 said:

SSD technology has really moved forward in the past few years. The read/write issue is not as big a factor as it was in the past, thanks to things like TRIM. I have 2 Crucial M4 SSD's on my machine, 1 128GB system drive and a 256GB drive solely for Trainz. Both are almost 6 years old and have worked flawlessy.

As far as Samsung goes, I would not dismiss them. right now they make some of the best SSD's out there, in fact, I'm planning on having a new system built soon and will be putting at least 2 Samsung EVO SSD's in it.

Click to expand...

Based on what you have written and what others have vouched for, I will have to consider Samsung again. The reason I have defacto boycotted them was due to an external HD that I had that died on me. It was still within warranty, but I really wanted to get back the data on the drive instead. I had two choices: send the drive back, and get a new one (and lose the data) or take it to a shop, open it up and try to get the data (and void the warranty). I went with option 2 which failed. I wish Samsung had offered an option 3 (they try to get the data back and if not, they replace the drive as it has only been opened by theM) but I suppose that would cost more money to do. Still, current policy screws over anyone in that situation. That being said, maybe things have improved and they deserve a second chance...

JCitron said:

Here are more things to think about since I too recently made the plunge a few months ago myself as I too watched the reliability curve go up and the price go down.

1) Don't go cheap on the SSD. Go for a name brand such as Samsung or Intel. Intel are not super fast, but extremely stable, while the Samsung EVOs are super, nice and fast, and quite stable. Avoid unknown cheap brands and even Kingston or Crucial. Sure these are cheap, but dork out really fast. When an SSD tanks, it takes everything with it.

2) Put your OS and T:ANE on the SSD. In fact install only applications on the SSD and documents and data on the old 7200 RPM drives.

This is my current setup. It works great actually and there is less worry about the constant writing that Trainz and other data-intensive programs do the device. With T:ANE, you can split up where your data is located which is the best thing for this. I then keep TS12 on one of my 7200 RPM drives all by its lonesome except for TransDEM data files such as DEMs and route exports. I then have another newer 7200 RPM drive I use for T:ANE data only and nothing else, and finally what was once my C: drive 7200 brand new drive a year old or so became my documents drive. This is drive is also the same one which contains all data downloads, music files, documents, beta tests, and even my Steam Games so even they don't live on the SSD. With things setup like this, it keeps all the data off of the SSD so there's no worry about it wearing out too soon.

From what I've read, SSDs are becoming better and better and more reliable, but like any storage device you need to have reliable back ups and an established backup routine. With the setup I have above, it would be a pain in the butt should the system die due to a failed boot SSD drive, but nothing data-wise would be lost. The OS can be reinstalled, the programs reinstalled, but data can't so having that on the drives which take lots of read-writes, though slower, works fine.

I have read of SSDs dying quickly, and when they go they go quite fast too after a really bad performance. When they go there's little chance if any of recovery because of the way they work. Then again, if you use the better brands, you have a better chance of this not happening.

Anyway these are my thoughts and experience on this. I'm sure you'll here from those with a lot more than mine.

John

Click to expand...

Thanks! I look for deals but I wouldn't cut corners. Crucial and Kingston? I thought the latter was one of the best for memory? I guess I've been out of the loop for too long. I like your advice and it makes a lot of sense (to put the data on a HDD but trainz and OS on the SSD). I'm running windows 7 and would like to put on trainz 12 and possibly TANE (programs only). How much room do you think I'd need?

jkinzel said:

After the first of the year I'm going to build a new computer and plan on using a Samsung 850 Pro 512GB SSD for my operating system and TANE.

Regards,

Click to expand...

Tempting, but unfortunately out of my budget for now. Perhaps later (or if Santa drops a few extra financial contributions I wasn't counting on).

pdkoester said:

Avoid a Sandforce controller, use the Samsung 840 EVO or newer, or Intel Cherryville or newer. You'll be glad you did.

Click to expand...

Samsung and Intel seem to be the heavyweights here it seems!

Robert3a0 said:

SSD are great ( I have two - one for my OS and the other exclusively for TANE), but don't expect to see a great performance increase. For best TANE performance you need to look at a good multi core CPU (i5 or i7) and an advanced graphics card. Both my SSD are by SanDisk and both have a 10 year warranty. I use my larger capacity Hard Disk Drives (X 2) for all my other stuff, including TS12. However, as your current HDD is 5 years old it is starting to reach the limit of its life, so it is definitely time for a replacement.
Regards
Bob

Click to expand...

I would not expect a 25 FPS jump but if load up times, database repairs, importing content, committing content, etc...could be sped up, I'd be happier. Bonus if my operating system would boot up faster along with a faster browser too. Plus, as you mentioned, it's getting time for me to consider the inevitable for my HDDs...

oknotsen said:

As I also only could afford 1 SSD at the time I bought it, this is the scenario I went for.
I had multiple Trainz versions installed, so what I did do is move the least used versions to my HD to safe space on the SSD.

Over 3 years, still going strong.

Click to expand...

I might have two on the SSD I eventually get (if I can fit it).

teddytoot said:

I have 2 SSDs and 1 HDD. One SSD has Windows and what programs that insist on installing on the OS drive, the other has TANE and TS12. The HDD has all other programs and data which I find works quite well. As usual the mantra applies - back up to an external drive regularly.

Click to expand...

I do that now as well (because no data drive is immune to failure). As long as I have safely backed up content, I'm relatively happy (yeah, frustrated if something crashes and requires a reinstall, but that's not too bad considering the alternative).

whitepass said:

I just had to put in an SSD as my C: drive a few weeks ago and had to re-install OS and I had to re-install TANE as it was missing a .dll file. This left me with 2 working copes of TANE, one on the SSD and one on a HD, testing the FPS and only got a deference on 1FPS witch is within the margin of error. I did not test TS12 as it worked OK.

Click to expand...

If I followed JCitron's suggestion, I wouldn't expect a massive FPS increase, but an decrease in load times, etc...as I mentioned above.

Thanks again for all your input everyone. Part of me wants to wait until after Xmas or in February (I read a rumour some tech is cheaper then) but I'd have to do reinstall my OS and I won't have the time later. That's life, isn't it? I always say that we either have the time, and no money, or no money and the time. C'est la vie!

Gisa

You won't need to reinstall your OS unless you want to. The SSDs come with a disk migration tool, which is actually a lite version of Acronis disk backup. I used SeaTools by Seagate which did exactly the same thing one day for another project, and I recognized the interface right away.

The data is migrated bit for bit, as long as the destination device in this case the SSD, is bigger than all your data on your boot drive. Once everything is migrated you can then unplug your old C drive and boot off the SSD. Remember if things don't boot up, you still have your old drive. I kept mine intact for about two weeks as I gave the system a chance to settle in and me to determine everything worked. I then put my old drive in an external USB drive holder and formatted it.

Speaking of which, I highly recommend these things... They cost about $40 at Best Buy and you can load up any hard drive or SSD into them. All you do is eject the drive, even while running, by pressing a button. These are great for backup drives and for reading drives from other systems.

Yes, there are tech sales a plenty after the holidays. What way to spend gift cards and tax return money.

John

Gisa,

This might help you choose and SSD or two:

http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/ssd.html

All of the recognised brands of SSD are reliable really. Best to avoid mysterious brands that are cheap. I wouldn't listen to one person opining that well-known brand X is no good just because he had a bad experience with one (or heard a rumour about someone else who did). There are better sources concerning reliability, summarising the experiences of many users rather than one. Amazon reviews for example, despite the odd scandal about shill entries, are still a better benchmark than one person's opinion.

It is a good rule to put executables on the SSD (OS, programs) but also those data items that are numerous need to be loaded quickly and continuously as part of the ongoing processing. One example of the latter is Trainz data used to paint the continually changing assets present in a screen, as you move the trains and viewpoints. So, if you have only one SSD and it's big enough, put not just the OS and programs on there but the whole of the Trainz application, including the thousands and thousands of data assets that Trainz typically uses. These small data items will load (and unload) much more rapidly from an SSD than from the fastest spinning disc. If your GPU and processor are up to it, SSD-hosted Trainz data will tend to make you Trainz route/session load much faster and your screen refresh rate improve or at least lose/greatly reduce any stutters it might have had.

If you can afford it, have two SSDs - one for OS & programs and the other dedicated to Trainz.

As others have mentioned, it's pointless having a fast SSD if there are some other bottlenecks in your system that slow down the data transfer & processing. You still need a decent processor and GPU, connected by the swiftest internal comms technology (e.g. SATA 3 for hard drives) you can afford. Basically, this means that you need a good motherboard too.

Lataxe

JCitron said:

You won't need to reinstall your OS unless you want to. The SSDs come with a disk migration tool, which is actually a lite version of Acronis disk backup. I used SeaTools by Seagate which did exactly the same thing one day for another project, and I recognized the interface right away.

The data is migrated bit for bit, as long as the destination device in this case the SSD, is bigger than all your data on your boot drive. Once everything is migrated you can then unplug your old C drive and boot off the SSD. Remember if things don't boot up, you still have your old drive. I kept mine intact for about two weeks as I gave the system a chance to settle in and me to determine everything worked. I then put my old drive in an external USB drive holder and formatted it.

Speaking of which, I highly recommend these things... They cost about $40 at Best Buy and you can load up any hard drive or SSD into them. All you do is eject the drive, even while running, by pressing a button. These are great for backup drives and for reading drives from other systems.

Yes, there are tech sales a plenty after the holidays. What way to spend gift cards and tax return money.

John

Click to expand...

I could migrate my OS over (Win 7) but I'd like to start from scratch. It runs fine by and large for me, but I personally find that too many programs, even when uninstalled, slow the machine down. Or it could be that technology is just demanding more but going from scratch would not be a bad idea. Would love to see how long it takes with an SSD too.

Thanks for the external recommendation. I had one for several years but then it got wonky. Had to fiddle with the cables to get it going, then it would cut out for no reason and finally about a month ago, it wouldn't turn on. I had backed up my data so nothing lost and it served me well, so I bought a USB 3.0 external which works wonderfully (and is essentially the size of a pack of playing cards).

I was considering Best Buy but Amazon seems markedly cheaper for the same drive new. I will likely order it this weekend.

Lataxe said:

Gisa,

This might help you choose and SSD or two:

http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/ssd.html

All of the recognised brands of SSD are reliable really. Best to avoid mysterious brands that are cheap. I wouldn't listen to one person opining that well-known brand X is no good just because he had a bad experience with one (or heard a rumour about someone else who did). There are better sources concerning reliability, summarising the experiences of many users rather than one. Amazon reviews for example, despite the odd scandal about shill entries, are still a better benchmark than one person's opinion.

It is a good rule to put executables on the SSD (OS, programs) but also those data items that are numerous need to be loaded quickly and continuously as part of the ongoing processing. One example of the latter is Trainz data used to paint the continually changing assets present in a screen, as you move the trains and viewpoints. So, if you have only one SSD and it's big enough, put not just the OS and programs on there but the whole of the Trainz application, including the thousands and thousands of data assets that Trainz typically uses. These small data items will load (and unload) much more rapidly from an SSD than from the fastest spinning disc. If your GPU and processor are up to it, SSD-hosted Trainz data will tend to make you Trainz route/session load much faster and your screen refresh rate improve or at least lose/greatly reduce any stutters it might have had.

If you can afford it, have two SSDs - one for OS & programs and the other dedicated to Trainz.

As others have mentioned, it's pointless having a fast SSD if there are some other bottlenecks in your system that slow down the data transfer & processing. You still need a decent processor and GPU, connected by the swiftest internal comms technology (e.g. SATA 3 for hard drives) you can afford. Basically, this means that you need a good motherboard too.

Lataxe

Click to expand...

Excellent points. I'm ready to give Samsung another chance. Reminds me of my dad's Hyundae back in the eighties/nineties. It was a piece of junk at the time but now I drive a Hyundae Elantra and it's pretty solid. Looks like they've come a long way. Will check the site you linked to for sure too though.

My vid card (Powercolour 6850) is getting older but my processors should be okay (phenom II x 4 965 @ 3.4 GHz). Motherboard was a good deal and good at the time too. I plan on making a new rig in the future so if that's the case, I'll migrate the SSD over to the new rig when I rebuild.

Thanks again all for your information! ^^

Here's a nice review on the Samsung Pro 950 SSDs

http://www.techspot.com/review/1101-samsung-950-pro/

Those look neat but for me, they are out of my price range. Likely that my board would be a bottleneck too. I would love to see it in action though...

gisa said:

Those look neat but for me, they are out of my price range. Likely that my board would be a bottleneck too. I would love to see it in action though...

Click to expand...

I would like to see these in action as well, but a bit out of my budget since I am a retiree now and watch my pennies. I just replaced a faulty motherboard about 3 months ago and it will handle these drives, but since everything I have works fine, I'll wait until the price drops some more.

John

That sounds like a wise idea. Unless one has money to burn, a business allowance, or a legitimate need, I wouldn't see the point in going for that just yet either. It will come down in price but seeing that reminded me that while technology will improve, so will the demands we place on it. An eternal game of cat and mouse so to speak...

gisa said:

That sounds like a wise idea. Unless one has money to burn, a business allowance, or a legitimate need, I wouldn't see the point in going for that just yet either. It will come down in price but seeing that reminded me that while technology will improve, so will the demands we place on it. An eternal game of cat and mouse so to speak...

Click to expand...

Very true.

I love how some of these kids, I read about on the tech sites, overclock, burn out, and replace hardware as though it's nothing. I cried when I fried a USB port on the motherboard I just replaced!

In this case, though, the waiting game will pay off with faster hardware. Right now these SSDs cost about what the old Seagate 40MB hard drives cost about 20 years ago. Now hard drives 7 times that size go for about $200.

John

JCitron said:

Here's a nice review on the Samsung Pro 950 SSDs

http://www.techspot.com/review/1101-samsung-950-pro/

Click to expand...

Interesting. What MoBo did you buy?

On reading this article I was amused by the price per gigabyte. I can recall shopping in Frys (California) looking for hard disks at $1 per megabyte.

I want to thank everyone, especially the OP as this has been a very enlightening thread.

Eating a bit of crow after doing more research. Ref. post 4 of this thread. I was going to use a SSD for my operating system and TANE in a new computer, but like many on these forums I'm retired, so after thinking about it, counting my pennies and weighing the benefits, I have decided a WD 1TB black HDD is going to have to do.

I'm running a HPe9110t built in August of 2009: Intel core 2 Quad cpu@ 2.33GHz, 6GB RAM, so I figure a new system with a i5 6600 6M 3.3GHz cpu, 8GB RAM and GTX 970 videocard should prove a huge improvement.

Maybe I'll save the SSD for next Christmas.

Regards,