[dynamis_dk]

Hi all,

I was just wondering what experiences you have had using a SSD as your boot drive on your XBMC rigs??

I stream media from an unraid box so storage isn't a consideration for my actual xbmc machine. I've got a spare 64GB Vertex 2 so I'm thinking of rebuilding from scratch on the 64GB drive.

How have you found XBMC on a SSD??

There much general improvement??

Obviously cold boot times will be better but i have mine in S1 sleep most of the time. Is a SSD overkill??

[natethomas]

I just installed an ssd. My impression is that loading the library for the first time was a great deal faster, as was initially starting XBMC, but beyond that there was fairly little effect. The simple fact is that XBMC is a pretty resource-light program to begin with and probably shouldn't need an SSD except for things like boot up time.

[X3lectric]

minimal Linux not windows test here.

ssd has been tested, I will agree with the boot time and loading of library in principle, because it is faster then a hdd.
Having said that, my htpc has 2x2.5" hdd's @5400rpm, boot time is around 20 secs from full shutdown and the loading of library in main hdd was around ~2-3 seconds slower then the vertex2 I tested.

Marginally faster on both counts the boot dropped ~5 seconds and library loading was ~3 seconds faster for a modest £300 difference in price.

So overkill is depending on your pocket.

Each system or setup boot times will vary, the biggest draw on any bootime is bios and the more USB stuff you have connected the longer it takes. This time is included on both tests.

Beyond the marginal gains on my test, XBMC runs just as fast off hdd or ssd.

results, wacked the ssd on my desktop as it was meant to be since its a 3.5", and there was no reason to keep it on HTPC and since testing, never once did I regreat not having a ssd on my HTPC, V happy with waiting the extra 5 seconds from boot and hardly any difference on the material loading.

Noise wise no difference.

Saved myself a bundle of money which I invested on a much better gfx card for my desktop.

cheers.

[seand]

I think fan art does pop-up a little quicker on an SSD also, as one might expect, but its not earth shattering.

Also if you are running a compact form it reduces heat quite considerably.

With a 60 gig you have room enough to dual boot two OS's easily if its really just a HTPC.

[jayhawk785]

depending on the skin/fanart - the load times are much improved when scrolling through large libraries. However, that's quickly negated when you keep your thumbnail store on the network to share between a few

I have ssd's in all of my htpc's expect a little zotac box--cpu seems to make the difference in loading across the network, not ssd.

[vikjon0]

I use SSD with win7 (but not with xbmc). The desktop is quicker for sure but a great advantage is reduced heat.

The reduced heat "should" benefit your htpc and reduce fan sound, but if it doesnt I guess the difference is that the 5400rpm disk in a standard ion box doesnt overheat like my 10000rpm laptop disk in a small space.

Back to xbmc. I have experimented with RAM disk and while it makes it a bit quicker the conclusion was that cpu is the bootleneck for the library load.

This parameter may help more than a SSD.
<useddsfanart>true</useddsfanart>

I havent tested it yet.