SSD or Mechanical HDD

[Zenara25]

My relative has an external drive for backup. However I like to make an image of all my drives and especially for close family too so I don't have to reinstall everything all over again. They don't want to spend $100-200 on a SSD. So I gave them a choice of an Adata S510 SSD 120GB drive for $99 or a WD mechanical Sata drive for $64. I wanted to provide a SSD drive that was as close in price as possible so they'd make the SSD choice. They only use around 40-50gb with the Windows 7 install included. Also the new drive would be used as the main drive obviously.

They chose the SSD. Was this the right choice?

 

[yinan]

yes

 

[davidthemaster3]

yes, since they do have an external drive, they could always put most of their data on it.

 

[Cerb]

No. The PC will blow up on them.

Given that the small M4s aren't as cheap as they were a few months ago (big ones, OTOH, are better than ever...inventory clearance for a new series?), it doesn't look bad, and the review are decent. I'd get a Plextor M3 ($129.99 w/ $30 MIR), and do the rebate, if it's not set in stone, yet, myself.

 

[philipma1957]

the cerb's pick gives you 2x the space at the same price AF

 

[Blain]

They chose the SSD. Was this the right choice?

No, they're now living YOUR dream.
You made their options too limited.

 

[Cerb]

the cerb's pick gives you 2x the space at the same price AF

Looks like only 8GB, to me, which is just a matter of going away from Sandforce (~7% v. ~15%), and doesn't really matter, in practice.

 

[davidthemaster3]

Now that I think about it ... Blain's right ... after reading you post it almost sounds as if you are forcing the SSD on them.

Perhaps you can give them more options and explain the benefits of having an SSD to them?

 

[Zenara25]

No, they're now living YOUR dream.
You made their options too limited.

Thank you everyone for your thoughts.

Does anyone else have any other options?

I did explain the benefits of SSD. They really just don't want to spend more than $100 at this point.

The Adata seemed like the lowest cost with best reviews. And I did look at the Plextor M3. But they don't trust MIR so in their eyes they would spend $30 more for almost the exact same GBs.

 

[kmmatney]

I would have gone SSD. My wife didn't really want one either, but I gave her an SSD in her desktop and she really noticed the difference. People who only use 40-50GB of disk space are perfect candidates for 120+GB SSDs. I might have tried another brand, although I aven;t had any issues with the only A-data (Microcenter branded) SSD I've ever bought.

 

[d3fu5i0n]

Well, my grandmother's system uses about 50GB, including the Windows install - and the HDD was getting slow (not from any use of the capacity being too much [as that wasn't the case], the drive was just having issues); the 500GB drives weren't realistically any dearer than smaller sizes.
A current 250GB drive was (and still is - for backup purposes) installed in the system.
I game on it with one or two games from time-to-time [I sometimes stay there], but even the SSD can easily store that - a 64GB m4 was purchased.
Not only is the speed improvement noticeably nice with no hitches, but my grandmother notices them and is happier. The drive was no different in cost than that HDD (the 500GB), so it was entirely worth it in my opinion.
The 250GB is storing a copy of all the files for backup purposes.

Overall... I think the correct choice was made.

 

[bryanW1995]

ssd is the way to go. Don't feel badly for pushing them in that direction, they'll notice a significant difference.

 

[dangs]

I would of chose the hdd for the price. For some reason, my ssd crapped out on me while using it and I ran out of warranty. I never had a problem with a hdd before. Still have a hdd from 1998 and it still works fine.

But I guess if you got the money, the ssd would of been the best choice.

 

[exdeath]

ssd is the way to go. Don't feel badly for pushing them in that direction, they'll notice a significant difference.

+ 9001

 

[KAZANI]

If they only use around 50GB then we're talking about very light users who won't really benefit from the extra performance.

 

[sm625]

Keep in mind that a typical modern multibrowser computer user will amass 20GB of temporary files in 6 months or a year. And windows system cleanup does not clear most of these files. So whenever you install a low capacity SSD for someone you should also set up a scheduled CCleaner event so that their drive dont get filled with crap. I amass roughly 5GB a month of crap that windows cleanup doesnt get, including lots of files that IE9's "delete browsing history" doesnt delete.

How to schedule CCleaner scan using Windows 7 Scheduler

 

[Makaveli]

Keep in mind that a typical modern multibrowser computer user will amass 20GB of temporary files in 6 months or a year. And windows system cleanup does not clear most of these files. So whenever you install a low capacity SSD for someone you should also set up a scheduled CCleaner event so that their drive dont get filled with crap. I amass roughly 5GB a month of crap that windows cleanup doesnt get, including lots of files that IE9's "delete browsing history" doesnt delete.

How to schedule CCleaner scan using Windows 7 Scheduler

Great suggestion.

I manually run this once a month but didn't bother to auto schedule it.

 

[bryanW1995]

+ 9001

but...but...that's OVER 9000!!