Who here uses an SSD?

Hey guys, recently I have been having trouble with my computer running meteatrader 4. It tends to be very slow, and the movements are very choppy. Takes seconds to switch between periods. I spoke to a friend who said that he thinks that my computer limitation is in the hard drive. My laptop specs are: Intel Core 2 Duo P7350 2.0 GHZ; 4GB CL 6 - 800 RAM; 5200RPM 500GB drive.

My question is how many of you traders are using SSD drives? What is your experience? Any tips or recommendations? Do you place both Metatrader and the data files (ie, indicators, profiles, ea's) on the SSD or separate them?

I am in the process of making an upgrade on my trading computer system, but am unsure whether I should just make modifications to my current laptop which is close to being sufficient. I was thinking about just adding a 120GB SSD, plus some lower CAS RAM. My other option, is to purchase a desktop either with a Core i5 7xx series, or i7 8xx series processor (only the core i7 has the hyper-threading). With the new computer upgrade I was also going to add a 50GB OCZ RevoDrive running off of a PCI-e slot which will have super fast read/write, and IOPS.

Imagine that, I am looking for suggestions from others on how to spend my money? Think of it as spending money vicariously through me!!

Cheers, CH

Sounds like a virus. Try Spyware Doctor.

You are probably have alot of charts open with lots of indicators on them. This can really slow down MT4. Some indys out there use alot of processing power and many are buggy and not very well written. Some use lots of complicated calculations tick by tick and again causing it to slow. Even if you upgrade it might still be a prob with too many indicators. (Thats if you are using lots, if not, then go ahead and upgrade!)

I bought a SSD and witness a huge improvement in my performance.

Mine is Mercury Extreme Pro RE SSD 100G.

I don't use MT4 a lot, just to compare some indis here and there but for any data mining or dealing with heavy writing and reading on HD you will never go back.

I have roughly 30 charts opened and running at any given time. This includes my 30minute charts, and a replicate of those currency pairs on weekly charting. On the 30 minute charts I run two separate MACD's, and 3 of "The Rumpled Ones" indicators. they are not used for my strategy, but I use they as supporting evidence for a move. I have heard that these programs may be a hog on resources.

I just finished placing the order for a new computer (minutes away from sending the credit card number in!). It concerns me that the added computer power may not alleviate the problem, as has been stated! I did not order a SSD drive yet. My mainboard has SATAIII, and so I am waiting for the new SSD drives that run on SATAIII to come out to take full advantage of the SSD speeds they are capable of. In the mean time, I will be running a WD Caviar Black 7200RPM SATAIII drive.

unless you are writing tons of logs, you will get the largest improvement by adding more RAM. how much exactly depends on your EA's. some use very little RAM and others use it like it's going out of style.

when windows runs low of RAM it will begin to use disk swap, which is a disk file that is used like RAM. this will slow things down, even with SSD.

so my .02...add RAM

As crazy as it sounds, the cost of new ram was way too much for my laptop (2 x 4gb = ~$400), and so I figured its a better option to just buy a new computer!! It will come with 8GB of 1333RAM. I actually changed my mind and have called back the shop to add an SSD drive to the system as well.

8GB is plenty

Thought I would give an update to an earlier post that I started. So I upgraded to and SSD drive, and it is substantially faster. I run another equity software program, Stockfinder 5, which scans for specific parameters that I set it to search. In the past with my previous laptop computer configuration it would take 15 minutes to run a full scan. Once I had the SSD it ran it in 4 minutes. Also all other trading platforms were running much smoother, and now my Metatrader is running well!!

I did want to make one comment that will likely help a lot of people out. Just before I received my new computer system, I ran into excruciatingly painful, computer speeds when running my Dukascopy trading platform and Metatrader. So I called Dukascopy to ask for help. Their suggestion was to go into my Java settings and clear the cache. I thought, okay well I will give it a shot to fix the Dukascopy platform, which it did help significantly. I also realized almost normal speeds on the Metatrader charting as well. So, to anyone out there finding that their Metatrader is slow, clear out your Java Cache and it will definitely speed things. Who knows, you may not even have to purchase a new computer!!!!

Go to: control panel - java - settings (temporary internet files) - delete files

Glad I could help

Hello people,
I want to rent a VPS with SSD disk.
Do you know an appropriate company located somewhere close to: Equinix NY4 , LD5
and reasonably priced.
I would pay $20 per small VPS.
Best regards,
Eugene