Is 24GB SSD Worth it?

[bruce20]

I'm going to buy a new laptop Hp Envy 15 - J138TX with 1TB HDD & 24 SSD. OS will be pre-installed on SSD, but my question is, Is 24GB SSD Worth it? I mean almost all the Softwares/Programs by Default are installed to the OS Directory, so how will 24GB carry all those programs? Will it eventually annoying for me, if it forces me to install a lot of programs to other drives when this 24GB SSD is full?

I've another similar laptop in consideration (HP Envy 15 J039TX), the only difference in the 2 is, this one don't come with an SSD & it only has a 1TB.

My Question is, Shud I get this one, to avoid the annoyance of such Small 24GB SSD? I actually don't want the hassle of changing paths & install a lot of programs to other drives.

Thanks.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

The 24GB SSD isn't user-accessible. It's just a caching drive; it stores frequently-accessed data that's also on the main HDD so it can be accessed faster.

 

[esco_sid]

Thats is not 24 GB separated it is actually just cached so you get ssd like performance from the 1TB hard drive

 

[bruce20]

Also, I noticed some people are calling this 1TB HDD + 24GB SSD as a Hybrid Drive. They say that 24GB SSD will act as a Cache? What does this means?

 

[bruce20]

Thats is not 24 GB separated it is actually just cached so you get ssd like performance from the 1TB hard drive

I'm actually new to this SSD stuff. Kindly explain a bit more in details.

Does this means that 24GB SSD is some sort of merged with the 1TB Hard Drive? And once 24GB SSD is full, we can still add more data to it? I actually don't know if its a separate drive or if its merged with the 1 TB hard drive. That is what confuses me. Pls explain. Thanks.

 

[bruce20]

The 24GB SSD isn't user-accessible. It's just a caching drive; it stores frequently-accessed data that's also on the main HDD so it can be accessed faster.

OK, so you mean on front side, I'll see the normal drives, C, D etc. with lots of (1 TB) storage. And 24GB SSD will be kind of like a part of C Drive? And C may be 100GB or 400GB, whatever the partition size?

 

[Someone Somewhere]

The chipset works out which bits of your data are used most frequently (usually Windows, plus things like Office, Photoshop, browsers etc.). It stores a copy of it (a cache) on the SSD, and uses that instead of the HDD.

That's kind of simplified, but mostly right.

There's two ways to do it. They way that laptop does it is having a separate SSD, and the chipset works out what should be cached. Another way is to have the SSD as part of the HDD, and the HDD controller works out what it wants to copy. That's a Hybrid drive.

 

[bruce20]

The chipset works out which bits of your data are used most frequently (usually Windows, plus things like Office, Photoshop, browsers etc.). It stores a copy of it (a cache) on the SSD, and uses that instead of the HDD.

That's kind of simplified, but mostly right.

Interesting, So can we say that the OS is actually installed on the 1 TB Hard drive, but the booting files & other frequently used programs are stored on the SSD Cached? Sorry for my newbie questions, I'm totally new to the SSD Industry.

 

[esco_sid]

Basically you will just have Drive C and that's it but it will work faster

 

[bruce20]

The chipset works out which bits of your data are used most frequently (usually Windows, plus things like Office, Photoshop, browsers etc.). It stores a copy of it (a cache) on the SSD, and uses that instead of the HDD.

That's kind of simplified, but mostly right.

There's two ways to do it. They way that laptop does it is having a separate SSD, and the chipset works out what should be cached. Another way is to have the SSD as part of the HDD, and the HDD controller works out what it wants to copy. That's a Hybrid drive.

I'm actually trying to understand this, I mean for example if we are going to install a fresh OS on a computer, in normal hard drives, we have a list of drives to choose from, we mostly pick C: to install OS and almost all softwares also go to the same directory where we installed OS. How we'll distinguish this in presence of an SSD ?

 

[bruce20]

Basically you will just have Drive C and that's it but it will work faster

Awesome. Any idea what is the normal partition size & how many partitions are there in latest laptops these days, that come with a pre-installed windows 8? And in case C: is the biggest in size, can we repartition it using the windows partition tools, without harming anything?

 

[Someone Somewhere]

The SSD is invisible - the OS can't see it. When you read the same data many times, the chipset notices and copies it to the SSD, then when the OS asks the drive for that data, the chipset interrupts the request and serves it from the SSD instead.

 

[bruce20]

The SSD is invisible - the OS can't see it. When you read the same data many times, the chipset notices and copies it to the SSD, then when the OS asks the drive for that data, the chipset interrupts the request and serves it from the SSD instead.

OK, Makes perfect sense. So the OS is actually installed on 1TB hard drive, and the purpose of SSD is just to speed up everything?

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Yup.

 

[bruce20]

Yup.

OK Great, now I understand how it works. Thanks