256GB SSD or 500GB Mech drive?

[Jroper]

Given the choice would you prefer a 256GB SSD over a 500GB Mechanical hard drive given the choice?  Is the speed worth the price?  Is 256GB enough space for a machine that runs Inventor?

[sam_m]

SSD always better shout than a mechanical drive - massive speed improvement.

as for the size of the SSD - how do you work?  If everything is on the network then you only really need the SSD for Windows and programs, so a 128GB would be enough.  If you keep everything locally then you're probably going to need the 256GB.

It's always worth having a mechanical drive alongside the ssd for temp data and non speed-critical info, like backups, etc.

If I was to buils a pc tomorrow I'd look at a decent (500MB/s read, 300+MB/s write + 90k+ IOPs - like the Samsung’s 840 PRO) 128gb ssd for the boot drive plus a 500GB 7200rpm mechanical drive for storage/emergency.

[pball]

I would take the SSD over the HDD. I have inventor, autocad, and other things installed here and I'm using 95GB out of 230GB. So if your drive is just for programs and such it'll be more than enough and if you need space for something get a large HDD in addition to the SSD.

Sadly we have HDDs at work but I have an SSD at home and will never boot off an HDD again.

[sam_m]

thinking about it - if you're after using the entire Design Suite alongside Inventor, it might be best looking at a 256GB instead of a 128GB anyway...

As far as I understand it, SSDs more free space is available on the drive (to prevent the same area of the drive being used over and over, and spreading the load more) - so it's usually recommended to always keep about 1/3 drive free for long-life and performance reasons.  With that in mind, once Windows, drivers, usualy carp, Product Design Suite and anything else is on the drive, I could imagine it nearing the 80-100gb mark surprisingly quickly - thus limiting the free space on the 128gb drive...

[mcgyvr]

SSD hands down..

Load Windows and Inventor (suite or whatever) ONLY on it and all other programs on another mechanical drive (or another SSD)

[pball]

Why would you want to load all other programs on an HDD? There wouldn't be any harm in having all programs on the SSD and that'd be better from a performance standpoint.

[blair]

All I have used the last 5 years are SSD drives in my "desk-top/beside" units. I'm also running them in RAID0 which increases the data transfer speeds even more.

[LT.Rusty]

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@pball wrote:
Why would you want to load all other programs on an HDD? There wouldn't be any harm in having all programs on the SSD and that'd be better from a performance standpoint.

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Only load the programs where the performance really matters on the SSD.  Inventor, games, etc.  MS Word?  Not as necessary.  The more free space you have, the better your performance will be, and extraneous crap that doesn't need to run all that fast doesn't need to be taking up that free space.  Keep your Inventor data files on the SSD, though - access time for those is where a big chunk of Inventor's performance boost comes from when using an SSD.

In my laptop at home I've got the 256 GB Samsung 840 (non-pro) paired with the 750 GB drive that came with the computer.  My workstation at the office has the 512 GB 840 Pro, paired with a 250 GB platter drive and a terabyte external.

[sholmes]

Can't recommend SSD enough! Love mine. I've got the 256GB Samsung. I've got Windows 7, the full Product Design Suite Ultimate as well as SolidWorks on it, still plenty of room left.

My "data" drive is a 1TB regular hard drive. The performance of the SSD is crazy!

[swhite]

Since we use vault i would take the SSD drive anyday. We have Inventor set to delete checked out files on close anyway, so space wouldn't be an issue. besides, you can always backup and delete any older unused files from your HD, or get a cheaper normal drive to store old assemblies on that you no longer work on. Always options for storage, while speed is at a premium.