Programming... Solid State Drive or Hard drive 7200rpm 32mb/64mb cache, Needed?

Hey. I have been coding on my system for a little while now(php,html,css,javascript). I am a windows user and will start to dabble more into Linux(ubuntu)... I basically had ordered 2 Sandisk SSDs. Both 128gb. Not super performance like the Samsung Evo840, but still good nontheless

I had a issue and received only one drive. Need to reorder the second ssd and then will install both when it arrives.

I currently have a 128ssd for the OS and all programs. And I have an internal 2tb Hard drive for storage..

I will most likely be using Netbeans,Eclipse,Notepadd+, Aptana Studio...for PHP,HTML5,CSS3,Javascript,Python,Lua

My question is. Do I need that additional SSD? The purpose was to hold all my development files. My Apache will be pointed to the SSD. Someone mentioned about the write life cycle of the ssds. They said that using the ssd for continuous writing of my scripts will rapidly decrease the life cycle.

Would it be wise for me to purchase and use the SSD for my coding? Or should I use a standard drive? I am curious because I dont want this to fail on me within a year.

I dont think I can afford any space on my 2tb drive. So I would have to get another hard drive.

Will i see any performance difference of coding the files on the ssd vs the hard drive?

All of my applications are on the operating system's ssd.

And lastly. I have a couple usb3 ports available. I was thinking about getting an external 500gb to have my coded files and use for code creation, execution and testing. This would work out the best for me.

What are your thoughts? And would it be a big difference using an external portable drive at 5400rpm versus a powered external at 7200rpm....?

 

You won't notice any difference, it being the SSD, a 5400 or a 7200 RPM drive - as I said earlier, continous (or at least frequent reads and writes) is what kills an SSD - as for performance, nothing you're gonna use this for is gonna need any performance boosts - normal harddrive will be perfectly fine. External or internal doesn't really matter much either - USB3 is more than fast enough (faster than some SATA-controllers) and you'll have the benefit of being able to take your projects with you, if need be (granted, that means you'll have to host your database-files on the external drive as well, to have complete transportability - or at least create backup-copies of the databases frequently).

 

Thanx. Yes. I was wondering who it was that gave me that info. Here's the thing. The drive has just been ordered, but I may be able to cancel that an order an external 500gb usb3 5400rpm. Is there any rated life expectancy on how long an internal ssd would/should last? ...... If I did move things around and used it for coding, would the solid state drive last2, 3 years? or would you think it would be less... I know this would be more of an educated guess. But still would like your opinion.

 

Oh, it would probably work fine for 2-3 years, and more.
What you also need to consider is the ability to recover data if the drive dies. On normal harddrives, recovery is more or less just a question of how much you're willing to pay - there are a lot of companies providing harddrive recovery. Getting data from an SSD, on the other hand, can be a lot trickier, and also more costly (and none of this is cheap to start with).

However - I've been running my main desktop box on an SSD for... at least 4 years now, if not more, and it's still performing just fine - given, this is a Windows install, with less than heavy use of the drive, but it is almost choke-full, hence not able to shift data much - and yes, it's trudging along.

I just wouldn't suggest SSDs for storage, simply because of the issues with space vs. price, and the potential wear. Most high-quality rotating drives have a MTBF of at least 5-7 years, or more, and will usually perform more than adequately for your needs.
I would be a little concerned about WHAT drive you're buying, though - a low-cost, external drive, it being WD or others, will usually use the cheapest drives they provide, and might not be as good as standard internal drives, or a self-built external drive.

 

You dont like western digital? Thats my goto and always my recommendation when someone is buying a drive.

Yes. I have had some small issues in the past with losing data, so I am more secure now. Backup drives for every drive/partition is what I am setting up. My internal 2tb drive is split in half (basically) because I have 2 x 1tb external hdds (1WD and 1Toshiba Canvio). So I have backed up my data from both partitions on to the externals.... Then theres my os ssd(128gb) , the new ssd(128gb) and the other ssd(128gb) thats on the way. I have a western digital passport 320gb usb3 which should be able to backup these 3 ssds.

I've decided to not cancel the order and just receive the last ssd. Also. I really only plan on having this computer for 2 additional years. Then the next rig, I will build will be:

OS: 500gb Samsung Evo 840 ssd (<-unless there's a better alternative by then)
Storage: 4tb Western digital 7200rpm 64mb cache sata3 hdd
........................
Backup for OS ssd would be an external 500gb usb3 western digital...... I may probably get two external 500gb to have 2 backups of the OS drive since these things are so cheap now.
Backup for storage will most likely be an internal 4tb. Same as torage. Unless I can find a good external that isnt much more $.

Nice full tower case with a watercooling kit, and quality low noise fans.
Core i74770k(I believe), but by then, it'll probably be a newer model. But an i7 with 3.9ghz+ and 12mb l3 cache
A quality internal sound card/system.
A beast of a graphics card. Currently have an evga gtx 660 with 3gb ram(I believe. or maybe 2gb). I would want something that'll blow this away
2 x 27in monitors. Will look at whats good at that time. Many brands have good stuff.
2 x blu ray burner
Ofcourse a quality motherboard. Will most likely be Asus or Gigabyte. And then the other smaller cheaper things needed. This rig will be for programming, and some gaming. Will build this out to last atleast 3,4 years.

 

Oh, I like WD, just not their cheap drives. WD Red or other gear directed to storage solutions are quite good, the blue and green drives are... not so good.
Personally, my main box has been going for at least 7 years now, with minor upgrades (SSDs, more harddrives, new GFX) - I don't really see the point of upgrading something that doesn't need an upgrade (basically the only reason to upgrade a desktop machine which is already doing what you need it to do, is gaming/playing games - which I don't, at least not on my computer).

I would however need more than 4TB. I think I have a total capacity for storage now somewhere in the vicinity of 10TB, and free space is getting scarce. I just saw WD released a 10TB drive - I'm thinking that will probably be quite affordable in a couple years

 

That 10 Tb may be an option in 2, or 3 years. LoL. Copy. Thats massive space you're using. Do you mind sharing what you use your computer for? Photographer, Videographer? Massive porn collection?

 

In my opinion an SSD is one of the most remarkable upgrades I ever had on my PC. definitely worth it

 

Oh, I just collect data, for the most part.
My media-center uses about 3-4 TB, and perhaps 1-2 TB is being used for photographs - Games does still take up a bit of space, but that's just a few hundred GB (even though I never play, I still keep the games on my drive). Mostly it's collections of stuff - TV-series, old games (think GoG-stuff), movies that are hard to find etc.
And software... loads and loads of software.
And backup from customer's computers (I run an IT-support firm, so a bit of the storage space is reserved for backups and such).