Hard Drive that will change your boxxing forever

[pwnstarz]

Hey guys, I just bought a new hard drive and I had to post it here as it has taken boxing to a new level. I had a computer with pretty much the best of everything and it still didn't handle 4 boxing perfectly but then i bought a new hard driver. They are called a solid state drive, don't get too excited unless you have 400 to 600 to spend on one but they are well and truly worth the cash.. windows boots up in 4 to 5 seconds and everything in windows is instant.. when it comes to wow like taking portals, loading screens or waiting to load it pretty much doesn't exist.. if people are running them I would love to hear their thoughts or if anyone upgrades tell me what you think.. I'm in heaven! :D

[MiRai]

People have been talking about SSD's for... a long time now? You can easily browse this hardware forum and see who else is loves their SSD.

[pwnstarz]

Oh sorry i thought they were pretty new and didn't think there would be a thread.. feel free to delete then :)

[genocyde]

400 - 600 :eek: I hope you aren't talking USD. Does it brew coffee? I didn't pay anywhere near that for my raid of SSD's.

[alcattle]

400 - 600 :eek: I hope you aren't talking USD. Does it brew coffee? I didn't pay anywhere near that for my raid of SSD's.
It is Australian Dollars but still $1AUD = $.85 US

[Ualaa]

Which did you go with?

[Iru]

Depending on the model you may want to be careful using an SSD as your Windows drive (although I do), due to degradation over time with small writes. Ualaa can give you all the details though; he has that stuff down cold.

[Owltoid]

I should put this as part of my sig:

If you're only using your SSD for WoW, you do not need a top of the line expensive version. I 5 box without lag, including Dalaran and WG, with a cheapo RiData 32GB MLC version.

Run Windows off a regular mechanical drive.

[genocyde]

Which did you go with?

I have corsair force's that i got for around $250 for the pair in my desktop. And one of the original Corsair CMF style in my carputer.

[kate]

Newegg is selling a really nice 80GB one for $215 USD. I'm picking up 2 of 'em (one for my gaming machine, another for a laptop)

[ciscokid454]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167025
More than enough space for just wow, and relatively inexpensive

[alcattle]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167025
More than enough space for just wow, and relatively inexpensive
Great price for a Intel brand. Get 2, one for WoW and 1 for Win 7

[lans83]

I'm thinking this one right here would be the best one for the prices cause of the high read/write speeds for the a 32gb drive

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220455


edit: next time I'll read reviews first before suggesting. This one turned out to be a bad one after all unless you can manage to get a working one and update it after install. Bunch of people flaming Patriot for this flop.

edit #2: Just placed an order for an 80g ssd for my laptop. I hope like hell I see a major performance boost in not just WoW, but all my other games I play. Wish I coulda sprung for the much larger ones tho. I'd love to have two in my laptop, but I'll settle for one.

[kate]

Great price for a Intel brand. Get 2, one for WoW and 1 for Win 7

Cheaper and easier to set up just to go with the 80gb intel one for $215, IMO. I can't wait to get mine installed.

Though, actually, since tweaking my config files to use all cores and some other performance boosts, I've been having near instant load times everywhere (including 5x showing up in Dalaran). The only thing that kills my performance now is the maximum shadows setting :(

[Semperfix]

Is the 80gb intel one the x25m one or something like that. Was looking at buying one of them the other day.

[alcattle]

I think they are new models. 25V were listed cheaper than first Intel units

[ZooljinX]

thumbs up for SSD, i've been using mine a while now and its awsome to have OS, and wow on it! greatly recomended if you can afford one

[Umbaalo]

I'm new here and not wanting to derail/hijack the thread, but I have a question for my build I'm working on for 5 boxing for WoW when Cataclysm comes out. Wanting a SSD for WoW and windows 7, planning on running the other WoW clients off of a Western Digital Caviar Black HDD (1 TB). I want to know what size SSD to buy for just Windows 7 and my main WoW client. The price per Gb on the drives is still crazy expensive and hoping they'll drop sometime soon. Thanks in advance for any input!

[alcattle]

I'm new here and not wanting to derail/hijack the thread, but I have a question for my build I'm working on for 5 boxing for WoW when Cataclysm comes out. Wanting a SSD for WoW and windows 7, planning on running the other WoW clients off of a Western Digital Caviar Black HDD (1 TB). I want to know what size SSD to buy for just Windows 7 and my main WoW client. The price per Gb on the drives is still crazy expensive and hoping they'll drop sometime soon. Thanks in advance for any input!
not sure about Windows 7's size, but I think 60 gigs would be enough.

[ZooljinX]

I use a 60 and its fine, Windows 7 ultimate for me takes up about 15gb and WoW takes up 16 so 60 is fine if that is all you will be putting on it

[MiRai]

I'm new here and not wanting to derail/hijack the thread, but I have a question for my build I'm working on for 5 boxing for WoW when Cataclysm comes out. Wanting a SSD for WoW and windows 7, planning on running the other WoW clients off of a Western Digital Caviar Black HDD (1 TB). I want to know what size SSD to buy for just Windows 7 and my main WoW client. The price per Gb on the drives is still crazy expensive and hoping they'll drop sometime soon. Thanks in advance for any input!
So you're going to run 1 WoW from the SSD and the other 4 [I'm guessing] using separate folders on a WD 1TB Black? I think this would defeat the purpose, no?

[Umbaalo]

Already have the WD caviar purchased and originally intended it to be my mass storage drive. Guess I'd be better off getting another slightly larger ssd for the other wow folders, but trying to keep this build slightly within a budget. My main question has been answered and I'm really grateful for the help, but now looks like I'm gonna have to throw in another ssd, lol.

[Owltoid]

Put one WoW install on the SSD. Play WoW.

You don't need multiple installs, symlinking, etc, unless your key broadcasting software does not use customized config files for launching WoW.

If anything, I'd put your OS on the regular harddrive, and just leave the SSD for WoW.

[MiRai]

Already have the WD caviar purchased and originally intended it to be my mass storage drive. Guess I'd be better off getting another slightly larger ssd for the other wow folders, but trying to keep this build slightly within a budget. My main question has been answered and I'm really grateful for the help, but now looks like I'm gonna have to throw in another ssd, lol.
Just curious as to why you still use multiple WoW folders since it actually hurts performance, I'm sure less noticeable on an SSD but still...

[Umbaalo]

So I only need one WoW install for 5 boxing? Planning on running Keyclone, ISBoxer, and Jamba. Really new to this and only now slowly building the pc a little each paycheck. I had assumed that I'd need 5 installs of the game to do this. My current pc had a hard drive crash and the psu crapped out a month before that. Just building new from scratch (except for psu bought for old pc) and I'm doing all my research at the library after work or on my phone. Thanks again for pointing out something I probably overlooked or missed!

[MiRai]

So I only need one WoW install for 5 boxing?
Yes, if you're using ISBoxer to virtualize your config file(s) or if you plan on using some sort of symlinking.

Planning on running Keyclone, ISBoxer, and Jamba.
No need to run both Keyclone and ISBoxer. ISBoxer includes all the functionality of Keyclone and more. ISBoxer is a little bit more money but you get what you pay for.

[Umbaalo]

Yes, if you're using ISBoxer to virtualize your config file(s) or if you plan on using some sort of symlinking.

I think I get what you are trying to say, but I have no idea what symmlinking is. My original plan was 2 moderate sized or 4 smaller SSDs to have the clients installed onto. Pricing was going to be brutal, but the more I find out about the software solutions, its not going to hurt my wallet as badly as I first imagined.
I'm definitely DEFINITELY going to be downloading ISBoxer after seeing the tutorials on youtube showing what it is capable of. But as I mentioned I had always previously believed that I would need 5 installs running to pull this off.

[MiRai]

I think I get what you are trying to say, but I have no idea what symmlinking is. My original plan was 2 moderate sized or 4 smaller SSDs to have the clients installed onto. Pricing was going to be brutal, but the more I find out about the software solutions, its not going to hurt my wallet as badly as I first imagined.
I'm definitely DEFINITELY going to be downloading ISBoxer after seeing the tutorials on youtube showing what it is capable of. But as I mentioned I had always previously believed that I would need 5 installs running to pull this off.
Definitely check out the videos on www.isboxer.com (http://www.isboxer.com) to get a feel, also the guide section as well. Ualaa and Zanthor both have lengthy guides talking about ISBoxer's features, the guides are from this forum but they're not stickies so they might be harder to find here; they are, however, listed in the isboxer.com (http://www.isboxer.com/) guide section.

When WoW starts it reads off of config.wtf in the WoW folder to find the settings you've chosen to run WoW with. If 5 clients are trying to read that one file they share identical settings and trying to make a change on one results in a change on all of them essentially... this is annoying for multiboxers. By virtualizing the config.wtf file InnerSpace tells each separate WoW window that you launch to run off it's own config file that is specified in the ISBoxer software [ie wow01-config.wtf, wow02-config.wtf, etc]. This helps you make individual changes to each window as you wish and it also lets the game remember the account name for each on the login screen. No need for multiple installs or multiple drives.

This thread has been officially hijacked.

[Umbaalo]

Very interesting! I will check those guides and I guess wait till I have my rig up and running and start with one WoW and ISBoxer then see where I go from there. Again, I very greatly appreciate the advice and knowledge shared. This has saved me a lot of time and money.
I now relinquish this thread back to the OP! SSDs are freaking awesome! Can't wait to buy my OCZ vertex 2!