Ask Engadget HD: Would an SSD upgrade help my HTPC performance?
By Richard Lawler 
posted October 14th 2009 12:25PM
posted October 14th 2009 12:25PM
"Wondering if you guys think it's worth upgrading my HTPC to an SSD. The SSD I think will make a huge impact, as a lot of the caching of images, etc. is all done on the main OS drive (from what I understand). Have you ever experienced an HTPC based on an SSD or done a side by side comparison of one with a regular HDD vs. an SSD? My current configuration is as follows:
Q6600 2.4GHz CPU
8GB DDR2-800 RAM
2x 1TB hdd's
nVidia 9300 IGP based MicroATX motherboard (ASUS)
Hauppauge HVR-2250 dual tuner PCIe card
Antec Fusion Remote Black HTPC case
Windows 7 RC (Soon to be Home Premium Retail)"
Anyone gone the SSD route for a HTPC yet and seen any difference? The main problems we see are cost and size capabilities, but if it means quicker loading times and less fans it could be a worthwhile upgrade. With Windows 7 just around the corner we're sure James isn't the only one eyeing an upgrade or two, let us know how your project is going in the comments.
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Only if you want to save on power draw (not much savings) and if you want ultra quiet performance. Fast Read/write speeds for DVR uses is not needed.
Spend the money on a 5400 rpm 2 TB hard drives instead.
I put a 30GB OCZ Vertex SSD in my HTPC, but that was to further reduce noise, not to gain performance.
I've built a number of HTPC's and if you have the cash then an SSD is a nice option. A VelociRaptor is a totally bad idea because of the noise.
In all honesty a better build is an SSD or a small quiet 7200 HDD and keep the media to a NAS and stream films. That way cooling is not an issue. A quad core is also a waste unless you want to game as well, and at that point its not really a HTPC.
Here is what I think. My setup before I bought an OCZ Vertex Turbo 128gb was:
Core i7-920 overclocked to 3.8ghz
12 gb of DDR3 2000mhz RAM
300gb VelociRaptor drive for OS and Programs
1tb Western Digital drive for my Data
1tb Western Digital drive for my WMC DVR's
XFX Geforce 285 video card
My point is I had a beefy computer, really fast.
I decided to purchase the OCZ Vertex Turbo 128gb SSD to replace my VelociRaptor.
I was blown away by the speed and performance upgrade. With what I already had, I didnt think my computer could get any faster. I cant get enough of SSD's. I bought another and RAIDed them. I showed my dad how fast programs load, open, and how fast I boot up. He is not a computer guy by all means, but he really wants one in his work laptop. I am buying the 60gb OCZ to put in my work laptop, because it is painfully slow. Basically what I am saying is SSD was the biggest performance increase I have seen in a PC for myself and I wont ever go back.
All that stuff you said is all-well-and-good. But what does it have to do with HTPC?
I don't think people will be restarting their HTPC's a lot so boot times is irrelevant. And for most users, the only program they will have running is MCE or other MCE type programs.
Investing in SSD's for a HTPC will not make much sense unless quietness is you main concern.
What you say is 100% true, and applies for desktops and laptops.
Unfortunately tho, this doesn't apply to a HTPC.
Maybe a file server backend.
I currently use 3x Raptors drives in RAID 0 .. it sure is fast but it is really loud now
This entirely depends on your HTPC purpose/configuration.
If you are like me, and use your HTPC as an extender only for media playback, with all of the media on network shares, then an SSD doesn't make much sense for the price premium. If noise/heat/power consumption is of concern, then you could buy a low end SSD or USB flash drive to get the job done.
If you use your HTPC as a multifunction computer, and perform other tasks such as games, video encoding, dvd ripping, then a high end SSD would make more sense. If you need storage for media, then the most cost effective route would be the $99 1.5TB samsung drives off newegg. Currently that is the best cost/GB ratio.
If you run XBMC, you could build a sub $200 1080p box that boots off a flash drive with excellent performance. I believe the perfect HTPC is a small, silent, and simple device that easily integrates into your home AV setup. There just doesn't seem to be a need to build those old style large HTPC boxes with 500Watt PSU's that are larger than AV Receivers.
I have and its sooo nice. faster boots and quiet.
Oh, I forgot to mention, I also have a "Windows Home Server" and have ability to move shows off the media center and stream from... this is huge, now I store 1Tb in the other room and have NO big server type machine under the TV. I am using a semptron, 4 gigs, 60Gb SSD and a GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H AM3/AM2+ mother board (Radeon 4200 built in), win7. ONE fan on CPU... thats it. Dead Quiet, and HD is flawless....
Simply put, an SSD for an HTPC is useless. Current SSD’s over time with a lot of reads and writes start to get slower and slower. The only good use for an SSD is for a boot drive/program drive. All of your photos, video’s, and recorded HDTV should be put on different physical drive. My current setup is as follows:
Asus Crosshair Formula II Mobo
8GB of DDR2
1x PCIe Aver media dual ATSC/NTSC tuner
2x PCI MSI ATSC HDTV Tuner
AMD Quad core Proc
Nvidia GT280 Graphics card
2x 60GB Hard drives in Raid-0 (boot)
1x 250GB Hard drive (storage)
1x 500GB, 1x 600GB hard drives in Raid-0 (Recorded HDTV/Movies/ TV)
Sustained write speed on the array is about 150-200Mbs per sec.
So the answer is if you are wanting to use it for recording don’t. Get two big drives and run them in Raid-0. If it is for boot only your fine. I have been using my setup like this for a year and a half with no problems. Also must state I am running Win7 x64 RC, and using extenders for MC.
Some SSDs already have a fix for that. Keep up.
I use my HTPC as a multifunction computer with Media Center Extenders throughout the house. It's got a single 1TB 7200 HDD. I do however have a 16GB ReadyBoost cache, which makes a noticable difference on Windows 7. All my data except the majority of recorded TV is stored on my Windows Home Server. The only time I notice a performance issue is when I'm recording 3 or 4 shows, Media Center is updating the guide at the same time and I'm watching another recording. It never impacts recording or playback, though. Just the UI gets sluggish and even freezes briefly at times. The guide updates seem to be more disk I/O intensive in Windows 7. I didn't notice this when I was running Vista.
Simply put: it depends (never heard that over here right?)
If you have a central storage place like a NAS or a WHS where you put your recordings and want a small and silent WMC, then "yes". Noiseless performance is an easy sell there.
However, if your Media center box is where you store your recordings I say put that money to better use and save up for a windows home server. Then buy yourself a WMC machine that is small and silent. Oh, and make sure you have wired for gbit Ethernet if you want to stream HD reliably.
zeeke
You are better off getting 2.5in laptop hdd spinning at 5,400rpm or 7,200rpm if performance is your goal.
HTPCs usually don't need a ton of speed, just enough to be able to decode HD files.
This is spot on. The only difference an SSD would bring is the convenience of fast startup/shutdown of the HTPC itself. And of course the quiet operation which in all honesty is the holygrail of those that want a HTPC in a family room, or media room rather than a closet.
Although it may be quieter and draw less power, an SSD is not going to gain you performance on any typical HTPC activities, except maybe saving you a second on boot time. IMO, it is not worth it at the current prices unless you are real zealot for absolute silence.
For the most part I agree. Sure there's minor speed improvement, but the cost can be excessive. However I'm planning on using an SSD with my future HTPC rig, reasons being that the case may not be adequately cooled to keep noise down (will have power supply fan and CPU fan, that's it), and the SSD will only need an OS keeping it small, all media is on the network
However, looking at this person's rig, it's generally considered overkill for HTPC use. The SSD is necessary for power savings or noise control (or maybe it can handle/give off less heat), but this PC already has 2 1TB drives in it, and well, you're obviously not worried about a few watts when you've got a quad-core processor. This PC is not a typical HTPC, and perhaps the OP doesn't use it as such. Basically we have to ask ourselves, would a deesktop computer with this setup benefit from a SSD? I think... perhaps.
Everyone above pretty much nailed it.
So, the question is, what performance is he trying to improve? If he tells us what problem he is trying to address we might be able to offer solutions.
I have the same issue as superswiss - when 3 or more tuners are used and I watch recorded TV or live TV the system becomes sluggish. As numeber of tuners in use goes up it becomes increasingly sluggish.
My setup (living room):
E4400 core 2 duo in antec Fusion case, ECS Intel G31 microATX board
Patriot 64GB SSD for Vista-TV pack OS and programs
500GB - storage
Seagate 1TB - Recorded TV drive.
Hauppage 2250 as QAMx2, Fusion 5 usb and ATI HDTV wonder as ATSC and couple of hardware encoding analog tuners.
Same problem happened in Gigabyte AMD690/AMD4800X2 machine. This sluggishness is really annoying. I think the 1TB HDD is the bottleneck and writing performance in particular.
I was thinking getting 80-120GB SSD for 1-day worth or recording (for later watching it will be dumped to WHS or couple of 750GB green WD setup as JBOD in the living room system - supposed to be quiet). I hope that Windows 7 utility that "cleans" SSD will make this work.
Second option is to record to Velociraptor and then dump it to "storage" volume - but its noise concerns me.
Third option is just RAID 0 couple of 1 TB drives and keep all recorded stuff there, without any smaller "buffer" / "fast" drive. I can back up all my recordings to WHS in case RAID 0 fails.
Any thoughts?
Use a raid 0 configuration and back them up on your home server if possible. Also some of your slow down could be the use of the QAM tuners. Mine always locked up the sys. So I stopped using them and went all OTA and download. If you put all your recorded TV and movies, and music on the Raid-0 array I don't think you will have a problem anymore. On another note my recommendation on the Raid-0 array would be 3 1TB drives. Look for the western digital black drives. They are made more for hard daily use and speed.
Just to clarify, I only notice the slow down when MC decides to update the guide at the same time and I believe I just solved this. I discovered that you can limit the time window during which MC updates the guide and other information. I've set it to between 1am and 10am now (The default time window is around the clock). Nothing is usually recording during those hours nor is anybody watching TV. I have write caching turned on and write-cache buffer flushing turned off for improved writing performance. My system is connected to a UPS so that I don't run the risk of losing data during a power outage.
After reading most of the comments no one has really talked about some of the performances issues in VISTA MCE. I have a large RECORDED TV and Music and Picture collections. Most people know what every time you hit the recorded tv button, MCE dynamically refreshes the thumbnails. If you have a lot of shows, that can take a while. If you are on a extender, that may also take a while. This is most obvious with large music and picture collections.
So, will an SSD improve the refresh rate of thumbnail generation? If the thumbnails are stored in the same drive as the media then this is expensive. But if the thumbnails are stored on the OS partition, then I can see why you would want an SSD. Again, for me the problem is the worst on an networked device, when browsing music, pictures, recorded TV in MCE application.
Does anyone else experience this problem? I have multiple drives all larger than 500Gbyte and average throughput read rates greater than 50Mbytes/sec. Again, if we are talking thumbnail refresh which means creation of a lot of small files, I think as SSD would improve performance. But if the thumbnails are not generated on the OS partition, that would be too expensive!
xdf
What about heat? Don't SSD's run hotter than 2.5" HDD's? There may not be any moving parts, but if it's the same technology as lets say.....a thumb drive, then I'd be a little concerned of the moving electrons. Have you ever touched a thumb drive when consistently moving files in and out? It does get hot. Wouldn't that be a problem for all the other components in a system? Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm no n00b, but I just don't trust SSD's this year. Next year I believe will be the right time. But guys.....what about the heat?
There is literally no heat. I use an 80GB Intel drive in my HTPC and it made everything a lot snappier. MCE is extremely fluid and MediaBrowser loads a lot quicker.
And that's the response I've heard from several others.
I run a 4TB network shared NAS for all my files. the 2 1TB drives are for TV recording.
The SSD will be for OS, Media Center, My Movies, Media Browser only. I want it to be faster. I want My Movies to cache faster. Basically I want the interface of media center to be as responsive as a well designed CE device.
Things like watching the disk thrash while MC tries to load the thumbnails for folders, media, etc. drive me crazy. From what I understand all of this is done from the main OS drive. Thus the reason to try and speed that up.
It will be an Intel SSD if I get it, as I want the sustained high performance (background cleanup, TRIM, etc. which as someone mentioned other SSD's don't do, and thus slow down).
Another purchase that is a "for sure" thing is a new ATI 5xxx series for the upgrade to bitstreaming audio. Once they release the lower power "HTPC" friendly models at the beginning of next year.
I also heard that using a ReadyBoost drive helps with that problem. Something to try before sinking the cash into a good SSD.
Yes - you will see a performance increase with using SSD on a Media Center PC and according extenders.
All of the user accounts and index files (even image caches) are stored on the system drive. So as long as you make your system drive the SSD, your data can reside on other drives and the UI will still seem far more responsive than before - assuming you have large media collections, such as music.
Well, if I can convince the "better half" I'll be picking one up to test out. I've never been afraid of being the guinea pig, though I'm surprised more people haven't tried this. After all, you've already put who knows how many hundreds of dollars into your HTPC, why not go the extra 2 benjamin's for the SSD?
If you want your HTPC to work 'better'/faster , it would be a complete waste of $$ if you ask me.
Any decent pc with decent mechanical harddrive is more than adequate in handling htpc traffic, yes even HD.
I can record 2 HDHomerun High def streams and one SD stream and use an extender on a 2.4 ghz amd processor without any issues. All from a 640GB seagate. No issues.
Now if it was for lower power usage/heat/noise that is something else. Even in that area you would be much cheaper in investing in quiet fans.
Ren,
I'm not looking for "good enough". I'm looking for a better experience from the UI, the interactivity, etc.
Thus the reason I posted the specs of the system. It's not underpowered by any stretched of the imagination. It's way overkill.
Jeff Atwood has a really good article on SSDs here: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001304.html
- Mike
FYI if you have more than 2GB of RAM in the system ReadyBoost won't do much of anything. I checked into it for my HTPC with 4GB, anything over 2GB doesn't show any performance gains. Now if you have a 512MB HTPC ReadyBoost can help a LOT.
I've put an OCZ Vertex into a Sony Vaio Laptop w/ Win 7 RC, used for a media center PC.
Although it is life-changingly fast for all other uses of the laptop, it seems to make little difference for Media Center, as the software doesn't appear to act noticeably faster.
But the laptop runs much cooler and quieter, which is nice, but probably less relevant if you use a larger htpc.
Save your money and hot-rod your laptop with this instead - you will get better battery life, and a serious speed increase. As one poster said, it is hands-down the upgrade with the greatest speed impact that I personally have ever experienced, and I won't run a laptop w/o an SSD.
But make sure you get the right SSD - some aren't really any faster, and some are amazing!
I think a standard SATA 1TB Hard Disk is sufficient for a home HTPC. A good site for HTPCs is http://www.ninx.com.