Why didn't i see this BEFORE I bought it...

[stilly]

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2513228/solid-state-drives/users-frustrated-with-seagate-s-next-gen-hybrid-drive.html

I have been happy with my Recent Windows 7 X64 install on he game system but I was curious about this weird litle LAG that happens in Skyrim.

I installed this HD because my last HD ran out of space with the last Steam update for CS:GO...

So I have been playing Skyrim and the entire game will just freeze for about 1-2 seconds and continue on like nothing happened. I figured it was my old AMD Phenom X4 9750 that just could not keep up with anything. I thought that maybe it was freezing to catch its breath...

NO. Then I shut it all down after playing for about 4 hours today and I decided it was still hot outside, so I will go and fire it up again and now it is like, HEY, There is no HD in here... So apparently now my system is registering only ONE HD, and that was the original 500gb Constellation drive that I had. This is a brand spanking new HD. Should it be disconnecting like that so soon? Damn, maybe the cable just came a little loose, I will troubleshoot later when I add more RAM... :\

I might have to look for a new SSD or new HDD now if this thing is jacked. I just finished grabbing about 10GB of mods for Skyrim too. Not even a chance to install them yet... Dammit.

[danfinger]

Yeah, SSD is the way to go for OS and programs. disks for storage.

WIN10 boots up in 30-40 seconds. Star Citizen has about 5 second startup time.

[stilly]

Aren't you an IT guru?
Your post is very schizo. New HD, original HD, "disconnecting," loose cable, diagnose after making changes and adding RAM... best of luck to you.

That is exactly how I operate. Drop me in the middle and I will figure out the game plan...

My current game system is old. and BIG and kinda heavy, but I did not plan it to be like that. It is only really heavy because of my current and temporary health issues.

I have been needing to add RAM and now I had a reason to do that. And as usual it looks like all of my RAM is DDR-3 while the RAM I had in it was DDR-2 PC 8500...

So now it seems as though I have over 48GB of RAM and none of it fits as it is all 3200 or PC-3... :\ OH wait. I DID find 4 GB of PC-6400... I guess I will see if it will play nice...

And it looks like the power cable was also coming out of the SSHD...

Now to see how to update the firmware and stop the little freezing spikes it goes through.

Oh. Due to modesty, I have never called or referred to myself as a guru, but thank you. I appreciate that. CLEARLY my reputation precedes me...

[fishmonger]

so you got a new hard drive and it wasnt a ssd? they are the way to go i would never use or build a computer with out the main drive as a ssd.

[stilly]

There really is no hardware/software issue. I tried to run CS:GO and the update filled up the HD with the amount of space it took. As a result I stopped playing CS:GO and stuck with Skyrim, but even it had issues, so I decided that it would be nice to just get an SSD but because i am ME, I wanted a different one, I wanted an SSHD because it was a new HYBRID technology, and the BEST of both worlds! (damn I am a sucker for advertising) and it worked EXCELLENT. I put it in, And booted up, installed windows 7 (My previous OS was Windows XP -32) so as far as I am concerned, I am starting fresh. So far the only two games I loaded up were Steam/CS:GO and Skyrim and then I spent all Monday downloading all of the mods (which turned out to be 10.5GB and 229 downloads) and I surely will not use them all, but damn I really wanted to remake Skyrim because the world has more than 2 butterflies in it and if I kill you and take your clothes, I am taking EVERYTHING, plus I can not have just 50 knives/swords to make, I gotta have at least 80+ and well, I am going down the path of Vanilla is not for me. So since CS:GO is fine and works well, I figured that I would load up Skyrim and make sure everything ran fine for it. I noticed that the game pauses about every few minutes for about a second but I grew used to it because i honestly thought it was just my old *** CPU trying to keep up pace and the GT 570 was not playing nice. But hey, that all works. No BSODS, everything is running smoothly and sadly I know that all of my other games will need to be reloaded but that is further down the road.

I did not post this looking for help. I posted it as a warning so if anyone else is considering any of these SSHD drives, or if anyone else has one and they have similar issues, now maybe they can read a bit more on it. Until I saw that article, I had no idea that this little lag spike is caused by the SSHD. I think I have seen it in CS too, but I will have to look closer at it...

My only gripe about getting an SSD is that when it goes- it GOES. There is NOTHING for you to recover. At least with the HDDs there is hope with a PCB swap out, or a drop start or frozen rice bag trick or other things. But once the SSD goes bad. You are done for. Like a thief in the night.

I guess when you cut out all possible avenues of failure, you only have ONE left, on or off.

My next evolution will be to run 4 SAS drives in RAID and see how they stack up for being bulletproof. I can get them for around $15-25 each for 10k rpm mini drives at around 70+ GB of space on each, but I need to play around a bit more with that.

[bacon_lover]

SSD for OS and apps. Data on spinning media. A SSD will still be faster than booting off RAID 0. Hybrid doesn't necessarily mean best of both worlds... often I find it means that it performs neither role particularly well. As always, research before you buy.