But you can not really say the benefits of a faster CPU/GPU are comparable to an SSD. My point is that it's not. The quicker access is not what most feel a need for, unlike a better CPU and GPU.
The difference is actually much bigger than a new CPU or GPU. Really.
As an example, before I installed an SSD booting my computer into linux took about 20 seconds + BIOS time.
Afterwards it takes about 2s + BIOS time, and launching applications is more or less instant.
The same is true when starting applications in Windows. Before the SSD there was a rather noticeable delay, afterwards
everything is much faster.
But not many care for boot times. Especially when many of us do it less than once per week. I think it's funny that my friend sometimes reboots his SSD because it can be too fast causing one or two of his startups to not load properly. Sure he can reconfigure them, but he rather just reboot.
As for apps loading, I still say the time required without one is not a concern...it's just the load time. Hasn't been since 7200 rpm drives became standard.
More I think about it, what I see is that it will lead to programs becoming less inefficient. People will stop demanding MS for more efficient load times with their OS. Web browers will go back to loading more bloat and not fine tuned like Chrome. When SSDs become standard, we'll be fine with that. Just as we are fine now with having a multicore processor with atleast 2 gigs ram to use an OS.
It's an upgrade. It's new. It's expensive. It's very fast. It's silent.
Why? Same reason why one would pay for a high performance video card or CPU but let them sit idle most of the time. It's there when you need it.
But you can not really say the benefits of a faster CPU/GPU are comparable to an SSD. My point is that it's not. The quicker access is not what most feel a need for, unlike a better CPU and GPU.
Nor is a GTX 590 over a GTX 580 over a GTX 570 or a 6990 over 6970 over 6950 in this day and age of console ports and "good enough" computing.
Forget console ports. I'm an MMO player and there's never enough FPS, even with WoW. The latest MMOs engines demand more than older GPUs. Now a 6950 with a bios upgrade to 6970 would be good enough. Even playing Rift with a HD5770 is agonizing. Especially after seeing it with crossfired 6970's. The newer games, like Witcher 2, and older games like Civ IV makes a huge noticeable difference with a GPU upgrade than an SSD loading Chrome.
With the prices as they are now, and the extra configuration and maintenance required, it's more comparable to installing a water cooling system. This is also an upgrade, expensive, faster (for OCing), and silent. It's easier now with better made kits, just like SSDs have gotten better. Though may feel SOL if spent the money on the earlier versions. The need for one is overblown and has a ways to go before becoming a consumer standard.
But I do think they would be worth having for a laptop, if concerned with weight and battery longevity...a cheap slower one would do.
many "extra configuration and maintenance" guides on the internet are on the over-cautious(read:paranoid) side.
I excluded the SSD from indexing, all other drives are indexed for fast search(many HDD users turned off indexing completely which is dumb TBH).
I changed the superfectch service to manual.
These are the only tweaks I have done for my Intel X-25M 34nm 80GB.
There are several other tweaks which I have performed even before I got my SSD, like disabling 8.3 filenames on NTFS, putting the page file on a separate physical drive, turning off defrag scheduling, etc.
I can understand why some turn off indexing when it's service starts to hog the CPU, when it's supposed to stay low priority in the background..sometim
es reinitializing the whole process and never completing. All due to it trying to index a a not fully supported file. Sure, you can set which to ignore, but most users don't or want to bother. Or can wait for next MS update if it becomes really common...as another problem file shows up. Then there is moving huge number of files which is slowed due to the indexing service trying to re-index at the same time. I feel that it's odd to use the service, while ignoring the SSD. Btw, I keep mine on, though it does need much more work.
As for tweaks, what about temp files that get written often? Browser cache, thumbnails, folder views, or any prog that keeps and updated database and config? Sure, Trim has solved many of the issues of preventing the SSD to slow to a crawl with many writes and deletes. But not good enough to also use it for the page file? When the pagefile is what you'd want the fastest access times? And how can you use the OS and Apps on only 80GB?
I'm not saying there aren't benefits with an SSD, I just think it's small in comparison to other upgrades one can spend their money on.
