A SSD is much faster then a regular hard drive. It will take only 4-10 seconds for your computer to load and will run software much faster. Most trading computer companies include them in their standard setup. http://www.tradingcomputers.com http://www.newegg.ca/Store/Category.aspx?Category=119&Tid=11699&name=SSD
Never believe these 4 second reboot marketing gimmicks. Maybe for DOS. I run Windows 7 on 2 computers with SSD. In reality the boot up time is about 30 seconds or so. By the time you type in the password and login to Windows, it will be about 60 seconds before you can start your app. And it gets slower and slower when you have more and more apps installed. Every app seems to need to do something at bootup time.
I posted my times not that long ago and I think it was something like 36 seconds from pressing the power button to all open and running. That is also becuase I do not lock my machine with a password.
Regarding Windows 7, has anyone come up with a list of tuning options to minimize O/S overhead for a trading workstation ? Usually this means turning off some services, etc. I am about to move my trading station to Windows 7 from.....Windows 2000 !! Yes, you heard me right. But let me tell you this: Win2000 was so lean-and-mean compared to any tuned Windows XP environment. I mean it just ROCKED ! I was running TOS's Java-based platform and the CPU utilization rarely got above 20%. Everything was so responsive....unlike my XP machine. Alas, I must move up now as many programs won't run under Win2k.
It depends a lot on personal preference and the particular machine. A new machine with a good processor and tons of ram probably wonât be affected by a few extra processes running. On the other hand if you are picky about that stuff, I have only 30 processes running after my machine boots and all the initial stuff is done running â it is actually 28 when you take away the task manager and system idle which are there just when you are looking. The easy place to start is: http://www.blackviper.com/2009/10/01/black-vipers-windows-7-super-tweaks/ and http://www.blackviper.com/2010/12/17/black-vipers-windows-7-service-pack-1-service-configurations/ Also go into msconfig and turn off any Startup items that you donât actually need.
i still dont get what the big fucking deal is. Even the basic computers nowdays can run most trading software just fine, they are not that demanding. Just pick up a dell pc or imac(less wires) and stop wasting time with this performance masterbuation. SSD is order of magnitude faster than mechanical hdd but you dont need any of that stuff for a trading computer. Maybe if you are building a gaming rig... I also havent turned off my computer in over a year now, so not sure what you guys get out of a 30 sec vs 60 sec bootup comparison. Do you reboot your pc in the middle of daytrading, is it some sort of new strategy depends on how fast it boots up? ps my macbook pro boots up win 7 64bit on intel x-25m under 20 sec.
I agree that speeding up the boot up time by 30 seconds or whatever is not that relevant. But for trading apps that do a lot of disk I/O for price data caching or storing temporary results it certainly helps to have faster disk I/O speeds.
SSD's are cheap enough where you can buy a 50g or 100g for just the OS. Forget boot times, it makes a huge difference in computer performance IMO! I've been running different SSD's on my desktop, even the bottom of the line ones are way better than disks. I hate the hard drive on my 17" mbp (Hardly a month old)! The zero-latency means speeds are CONSISTENT = big benefit, regardless of what your'e running. So go buy a small SSD and keep your big files on a hard drive, internal or external.