>>>> I'm considering buying a solid-state drive to improve I/O performance >>>> and even reduce noise. Has anyone tried this? I was considering >>>> getting the lowest capacity I can find and putting most of the system >>>> on it. There is a roundup on tomshardware.com and it sounds like some >>>> are very much better than others. SLC sounds vastly superior compared >>>> to MLC, but also much more expensive. > > On the topic of using CF for the job... just looking at > http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007, which > doesn't take CF -> SATA adaptors into account, the highest read speed > across the board is about 50MB/s, which is half of what the > Velociraptor averages (and 1/5 of its burst read).
I think my real reason for posting this is I'm unhappy with my IO performance. I've got a 320GB Seagate SATAII drive. How much better can I do with conventional hard disks? Is there a test I can run to make sure my Seagate is performing as it should? - Grant
