Solid State Drives for the HTPC

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ajst2duk

170 posts

Master Geek

#25928 7-Sep-2008 09:02

Team - I've been thinking about putting my operating system in my htpc on a solid state drive. Thinking that it would be faster to boot, quieter, cooler and generally a benefit to my system. It would be paired with a 1tb drive for media storage etc... has anyone tried this - any pitfalls I hadn't thought of?
I'm thinking the only cons are durability and cost, seems a compelling little project though!

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NZRobin

161 posts

Master Geek

#162735 7-Sep-2008 10:59

I like the idea. I suppose it depends what OS you're using wouldn't it? Linux would presumably take up far less space than Vista or XP. Not sure what you gain in quiet operation though. If anything needs the hard drive going continuously like movies saved to hard drive then would you be gaining much. Is it even possible to load a whole Hi-Def movie into ram prior to playing. Even if you could, or the hard drive moved it over as you are playing the movie then again are you gaining much in time or quietness?

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ajst2duk

170 posts

Master Geek

#162928 7-Sep-2008 20:38

Well probably 60% of the time it is being used just to watch live freeview, about 35% recording and 5% dvd/bluray movies - so I'm looking at quieter quicker boot up and running and less heat than tha two drives are currently producing.
I use vista so thinking either 32 or 64gb drives. My only real concern is the lifespan and reliability of them. Kinda tempted to try one in my laptop but at around $1500 for a 128gb I might leave that one on ice - it's more than I paid for the thing in the first place.

sbiddle

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#162929 7-Sep-2008 20:42

Why is boot time an issue? Everybody I know just uses S3 suspend for their HTPC's and I can't imagine a SSD making much of a difference.

I'm still not sure why you would want one in a machine that still has a HDD. Most people want SSD's for compact machines that have no HDD. While it would work fine it just seems a waste of money to me!

ajst2duk

170 posts

Master Geek

#162955 7-Sep-2008 22:57

sbiddle: Why is boot time an issue? Everybody I know just uses S3 suspend for their HTPC's and I can't imagine a SSD making much of a difference.

I'm still not sure why you would want one in a machine that still has a HDD. Most people want SSD's for compact machines that have no HDD. While it would work fine it just seems a waste of money to me!

Boot time not so much of an issue, but combined with heat and noise and latency - it looks like it could offer some pretty strong benefits?

Asmodeus

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#163092 8-Sep-2008 15:29

I can see that there would be some benefits, but the cost-benefit ratio doesn't add up IMO when you can get really cheap and quiet HDDs already

If money was no object then I would have SSD disks and watercooled everything else but money is an object unfortunately..

So yeah, it would work fine but would double the cost of your rig....

mcraenz

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#163139 8-Sep-2008 18:20

SSDs are the way of furture; the days of spinning discs are numbered but we're not there yet. Apart from the cost an SSD is the ideal device for every situation but since they are still so expnesive I'd only use one to solve a problem that actaully exits. But of course if cost in not an issue then hey why not?

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nzsouthernman

44 posts

Geek

#163174 8-Sep-2008 22:03

My $.02 worth - if you're thinking of quiet, how about getting a couple of the new really quiet 2.5" sata laptop hard drives and use those instead. I've got an Acer NB that you can't hear the HD in until you put your ear up to it. That way you're not wasting your hard earned $$ on SSD's and you can have the benefit of more GB for your bucks as well. In an HTPC the read/write rate isn't going to outperform a older 4200rpm laptop drive as even H.264 is only about 7-9GB/hour to stream down. You don't need to be rebooting all the time (unless you're using a M$ operating system

of course) so startup delays shouldn't be that much of an issue. Once HD noise is eliminated all that's left is CPU and PSU fans to deal with. My htpc has a laptop HD (sata) and a standard quiet western digital 200gb IDE drive in it and the noisest bit is the CPU fan - which can only be heard if you go over to the TV when everything except the htpc is off.

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