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rommi
05-27-2009, 12:56 PM
hi,

i wanna buy a new pc just for poker. Can you give me some advice which hard drives solution gives me the best performance for a big hm database.
What do you think about SSD hard drives?

greets rommi

stretch00
05-27-2009, 01:27 PM
Here is link for performance stuff with some hardware info from posters that I know have experience and knowledge!

Top 10: HEM performance increase tips (http://www.holdemmanager.net/forum/showthread.php?t=11194)
http://www.holdemmanager.net/forum/images/rating/rating_5.gif Patvs

Patvs
05-27-2009, 07:44 PM
There are a lot of pros and cons using a SSD harddisk.

Pros:
-Random Read Latency (Access time) is 0.1 ms (vs average 9 ms for a normal 7200 RPM harddisk and 7 ms for a 10.000 RPM Western Digital VelociRaptor)
-Sequential Read speed is 2x times that of a VelociRaptor
(advantage of those will be noticable in starting programs, starting Windows, and accessing graphs and info of your HEM database)
-You don't have to defrag a SSD (it will find all the information with the same speed, whether its scattered all over the disk, of nicely right next to eachother.
-"X" (number) SSDs in RAID-0 will increase performance almost "X" times the speed.
-They don't make any sound
-They use less power
-They produce less heat
-They're shock/vibration/extreme temperature proof (since they don't have any moving/spinning/mechanical parts)

Cons:
-Sequential Write speed is slower than a VelociRaptor
-Price per GB is a LOT higher!
(in result: most affordable SSDs are max. 60 GB and impractible to use as a storage harddisk)
-They get slower over time, as you fill up the drive with data (they keep slow, even if you remove that data!)
-The announced TRIM function to fix this (really emptying the data cells when you delete a file) doesn't exist YET. (only OCZ recently released it, and it should be implemented in Windows 7 FINAL)
-The OCZ TRIM function does NOT work for two (of more) SSDs in a RAID-0 array... yet.
-RAID-0 is dangerous: if one drive has a hardware failure, you lose ALL your data.
-Even Tomshardware/Anandtech who call SSDs "the single most noticeable upgrade you can do to your computer" recommend to wait another 3 months, untill they have a proper TRIM function (that both works for RAID and works in Windows XP/Vista)



I'm planning to buy a new poker computer myself within 3 weeks. I would love to get two SSD in RAID-0, but I just can't decide whether I should just get a regular harddisk for now (and spend my money on CPU/RAM and an extra monitor) and wait 3-6 months before I buy the SSDs... Or just buy one OCZ Vertex for FUN now.