• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

First time seeing the difference in HDD vs. SSD boot times

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

Tech Tweaker

Member
Joined
Dec 14, 2010
Had my first experience with running an SSD this week.

Hooked one up to my main PC (Core 2 Quad Q6600 @3.4GHz, 8GB DDR2 RAM) just for testing purposes and loaded an OS to it.

Now, with my main PC's 7200RPM hard drive I'm used to the system booting up in somewhere between three to three and-a-half minutes to get to a fully usable state at the desktop with all programs and drivers loaded.

With an OCZ Agility 3 SSD installed and loaded with a basic load of the same OS (minus extra programs not installed with the OS load) I was at the desktop and it was fully usable in about 35 seconds.

Then there's my Z77 testing system with an i5 2400, with a 7200RPM hard drive it takes about a minute and-a-half to two minutes to get to the desktop and be fully usable.

Then I took the same SSD and loaded the same OS as I was using on the hard drive (fresh install) to my Z77 system with an i5 2400, it was at the desktop and fully usable in about 15 seconds from pressing the power button.

This level of speed and responsiveness is incredible. I'm used to being able to power up my PC, walk out of the room to get a drink from the fridge, and then coming back and waiting for it to finish booting up. With an SSD it's fully booted up before I can even get out of the room.
 
a whole new world awaits. I would have a hard time living with acomputer without an ssd. have fun
 
a whole new world awaits. I would have a hard time living with acomputer without an ssd. have fun
Agreed! I'm actually surprised you haven't had a SSD until now TT. For benching I now only use SSD's I bought a few a while back for that purpose alone. Bork an Os and you can re image it in a few minutes. Wait till you're running Super Pi and do a copy Wazaa on an older platform. The time difference for the copy files to transfer is so much faster. It's the single best performance increase I've found in using a PC.
 
SSD's really are the best performance upgrade for any pc, you should have gotten into them years ago :eek: imagine all the time you have wasted by not having a SSD?

They are really nice when overclocking as well, between booting and restarting pushing for higher clock speeds it's really nice not having to wait minutes for startup/shutdown.

I haven't actually timed mine, but from pressing the power button, walking out of my closet and around to my desk it is already at the login screen. Feels less than 10 seconds easy. Then again I am on win 10 so faster boot times compared to 7.

You will enjoy them, and kick yourself in the *ss every time you work on a computer without one.
 
SSD are such a great thing to have that once you are spoiled by it, going back to a mechanical is almost torture. It would be like eating Kobe/wagyu beef steak (if you've never tasted the marvelous beef before, find somewhere... it's worth, especially considering it is known as the champagne, no, the Château Petrus of meat) and then something happening to be stuck eating McDonalds beef, or whatever it is.

I was furious with my laptop hard drive (WD Black 1TB SSHD w/8GB cache) very shortly after getting the laptop and ordered an SSD almost immediately to be thrown in it.
 
Lol In one of my first jobs after leaving school I was working with machines that used punched tape for storage. Never thought I would see something as impressive as an SSD to take it's place.

SSDs win hands down as the most impressive technological upgrade ever (in my book)
 
SSD are such a great thing to have that once you are spoiled by it, going back to a mechanical is almost torture.
Exactly the words I would choose.
Some folks compare transfer rate numbers and don't see the benefit of an SSD. That's only part of the benefit and I suspect not the major part. The other thing that the SSD provides is true random access. There is no time wasted moving the read/write heads from track to track or waiting for the portion of the disk with the needed sector to rotate under the head.

I find I cannot tolerate an HD for the system drive. I even upgraded the wife's laptop to an SSD.
 
At work, I drive fork-truck in the warehouse. We use a system called SAP (I'm sure many have heard of this) to keep track of the various products we make and ship, and we MHE operators need to access this system every time we put a product away, move it and/or ship it. We do so on what we call VMUs, which is basically a rugged-ized touch screen monitor with a small computer built into it that's mounted to the mast frame on the truck. Sounds like a great idea, right? Well it is, except that they're all from 2004ish, running XP on the same 5400RPM drive that's been in them since they were installed. From where I pick up my truck to where I park it to pick up my stuff from my locker and my work for the night is about a 2 minute drive, and if I start the VMU before I even start moving, I still can't log in before I get back off the truck. And then of course, because they're so old and abused, every once in a while they'll lock up, causing you to have to restart them and wait all over.

Moral of the story? I relive the reason I will never go back to a mechanical system drive every day.
 
You have been a member here for quite a while, a true enthusiast, and this is your first SSD? Wow! I expect these posts a few years back, but not these days, LOL!

Anyhoo, glad you jumped in to the SSD world. There is no looking back! :p
 
i remember when i first got intel SRT going. never went back. like i know that it was loading faster, but i did not acknowledge it until i was like "hey wait a minute, things are running much faster than usual!!"

although i still favor mechanical. i prefer to keeps things hybrid. i store a lot of stuff :d
 
Had my first experience with running an SSD this week.

Hooked one up to my main PC (Core 2 Quad Q6600 @3.4GHz, 8GB DDR2 RAM) just for testing purposes and loaded an OS to it.

Now, with my main PC's 7200RPM hard drive I'm used to the system booting up in somewhere between three to three and-a-half minutes to get to a fully usable state at the desktop with all programs and drivers loaded.

With an OCZ Agility 3 SSD installed and loaded with a basic load of the same OS (minus extra programs not installed with the OS load) I was at the desktop and it was fully usable in about 35 seconds.

Then there's my Z77 testing system with an i5 2400, with a 7200RPM hard drive it takes about a minute and-a-half to two minutes to get to the desktop and be fully usable.

Then I took the same SSD and loaded the same OS as I was using on the hard drive (fresh install) to my Z77 system with an i5 2400, it was at the desktop and fully usable in about 15 seconds from pressing the power button.

This level of speed and responsiveness is incredible. I'm used to being able to power up my PC, walk out of the room to get a drink from the fridge, and then coming back and waiting for it to finish booting up. With an SSD it's fully booted up before I can even get out of the room.

I can get to a fully usable state in about 35 seconds with a spinner on Windows 7 SP1. (Including, even with a lousy 320!)

Only about 10 seconds with my PNY Optima 120 GB SSD on Windows 8.1, with hybrid boot disabled too! ;)
 
Back