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Comparing SSD's
- Thread starter NightAngel79
- Start date
alostpacket
Over Macho Grande?
IMHO reliability is most important. With value a secondary concern and speed a last place concern.
Most SSDs dont differ enough in speed for anyone to notice except in some tech website benchmark.
alostpacket
Over Macho Grande?
I have had similar experience with mushkin. Good, nothing to write home about, but no complaints either.
Looks like I'm still undecided. Microcenter (love that frikkin place) has some good deals on the top models...
If only I could decide on something, or some really great deal pops up
If only I could decide on something, or some really great deal pops up
Intel being the most reliable then ? Or are Muskin still ok?
If I'm not mistaken its on sale for 150 right now after a rebate. May have to jump on that
alostpacket
Over Macho Grande?
I think both are good, but Intel is probably better. Depends a bit on your budget I guess. I havent heard anything bad nor good about Mushkin. I just used Mushkin RAM in the past and it seemed to do fine. Intel SSDs are definitely known to be reliable though. Samsung as well. (although both had some minor firmware hiccups on some product launches).
I can't spend over 200 so I'm going with whatever Intel or Samsung I can for around 150ish. Hopefully that means I can get a 240
Speed Daemon
Android Expert
The two advantages that SSD has over spinning platter HD is that SSD can move data a lot faster and because there are no moving parts, they aren't vulnerable to head crashes or other mechanical damage from drops or rough handling. If you don't have at least one of these two properties as a need, you're just wasting money.
Until more robust forms of solid state drive technology are developed, all SSD drives are subject to losing bits, just like in RAM and flash drives. The brand on the face of the SSD box is not a guarantee of who made the chips that make up the solid state storage media, so IMO it's safe to say that all but the most fly-by-night brands are more or less equivalent in their susceptibility to the kinds of errors that all SSDs get sooner or later. As long as they're made by ISO9000 standards, they should be equally reliable.
That would make value strictly a function of price, capacity and throughput. What I'd like to know is what brands offer the best throughput for the dollar at a given capacity.
I keep reading Intel, but it's always phrased in a way that's akin to the old "nobody got fired for buying IBM" reasoning. The problem is that kind of reasoning just plain doesn't work these days. Intel may make the fastest CPUs right now, but that doesn't mean they must make the best SSD as a general rule. So, bearing in mind that Intel doesn't have any unspoken advantage over other brands, which is really the best bang for the buck? The fastest overall?
EDIT: Yes, speed varies a lot! And it seems to keep on changing every day, so a magazine test from a month ago may or may not still hold true.
johnlgalt
Antidisestablishmentarian
My post above, though, is most definitely not akin to the old reasoning you mentioned. 7 days, including 2 weekend days, from initiation of RMA to having a replacement SSD in my hand when lightning took mine out, no questions asked. For your particular query, my post above is not necessarily applicable, but then again, it can be, and here is how.
Let's face it - if you're in the market for an SSD, and particularly if it is your first, you're almost guaranteed to be using it for OS and programs. If it breaks, you'll want a replacement ASAP so you (or, more appropriately, your system) can be up and running again. And I'm willing to bet that most companies will not be able to match that kind of track record very easily.
The bottom line is you have to do the research for yourself and delve really deeply into the overall advantages and disadvantages of buying a product, regardless of whether you are a first time buyer or a repeat customer.
Case in point: back in the early 90s, the only HDs I would ever use in a system were Conner. I despised WDs and Seagate were more high end SCSI drives for servers. When WD bought out Conner, I was stoked - WD had been making a name for themselves and buying out Conner, my most trusted brand, should have, in my mind, vaulted them to the top.
This was not the case. over the next decade, I had drives from several manufacturers, notably the IBM `deathstars' (made by Hitachi, IIRC) and a couple of off brands, Seagates and WDs. Want to know which HD never, ever failed me in any manner (not even bad clusters!)?
The Seagates, all except 1 of which were from the Barracuda line. Color me confounded when my first WD died - and then 2 more side by side and then 2 more independently of eah other (in different system builds, TBH).
So, I'm betting by now you can guess which mechanical drives I've been religiously buying for the last 8 years? Yeah. Seagate. because, in my personal experience, they have outperformed every other brand tested.
People out there are going to tell you "SandForce controllers rock! JMicron controllers suck! Samsng's proprietary controller is cheating!" You have to sift through the muck and find the real facts. The best way is to use customer reviews at various sites as a very low percentage of the total score you give any product - too many people out there break their purchases and then whine and complain b/c it did not work. Review sites, however, put hardware through its paces, and give you the good, the bad, and the ugly all in one. AnandTech, Tom's Hardware Guide and a few other sits will never steer you wrong - If there is a problem, they tell you - if the results are stacked in favor of a particular device and they still feel another is superior, they'll tell you - and explain why. They even go so far as to explain reasons for making a particular purchase based upon different criteria - such as buying Product A if you want all out speed, but buying product B if you want reliability, etc.
The bottom line, is that, if you ask people their opinions that is exactly what you're going to get. But, you are the one that is going to use the product that you buy, and it should fit your needs. Do you need speed more than reliability, customer service more than both? Do you need absolute reliability and the customer service to back that up, and speed is side issue? Will 520 MB/s make your life unbearable b/c another drive has 540 MB/s?
Finally, realize also that this post is not only aimed at you SD - it's for everyone - so it is a lot more general. Yes, speed varies, and it does keep changing rapidly - just as fast as the processors and RAM and Flash memory chips do. Buy a great product today and tomorrow it is eclipsed by a better one - which is then eclipsed the day after by another. That's where the whole "jump in feet first" adage comes in - at some point you have to stop and make the decision - else you'll forever be waiting for the 'bigger better faster more" thing just around the corner.
Speed Daemon
Android Expert
Well it's the company that developed the very first flash drives, back when their name was Sun Disk. (They had to change their name in deference to then-mighty Sun Microsystems.) SanDisk is also the leader in the newest, fastest flash media on the market. I just bought a bunch of SanDisk SDXC cards to use in my pro video gear. I didn't make that decision lightly. FYI
SamuraiBigEd
Under paid Sasquatch!
For SSD's I have two OCZ's at home and a Kingston at work and no problems out of any.
If there is one thing I learned by personal experience and working as RMA supervisor for the SA branch of Supercom in it's heyday is everybody's experience will be different. I have always had great luck with WD but Seagate has let me down more times than I care to repeat (a good friend has the exact opposite), my experience with OCZ and Kingston won't necessarily be the same for somebody else, and while Sandisk is good for my money I go with Lexar for all of my photography needs (other than the four PNY 2GB CF cards I bought at Best Buy on sale for $5.00 each). Personal preference and experience are the most important factor in play here.
If there is one thing I learned by personal experience and working as RMA supervisor for the SA branch of Supercom in it's heyday is everybody's experience will be different. I have always had great luck with WD but Seagate has let me down more times than I care to repeat (a good friend has the exact opposite), my experience with OCZ and Kingston won't necessarily be the same for somebody else, and while Sandisk is good for my money I go with Lexar for all of my photography needs (other than the four PNY 2GB CF cards I bought at Best Buy on sale for $5.00 each). Personal preference and experience are the most important factor in play here.
Speed Daemon
Android Expert
Yes, my DSLR bag is filled with Lexar flash cards too. I would have preferred Lexar for my video cameras, but Lexar doesn't currently offer the capacity and transfer rates needed for full-HD video production. At least for now, SanDisk is the only trusted brand that meets the specs I need. So far I'm impressed.
Addendum: Yes, RMAs are never fun, but IME in data centers and other mission critical installations we always keep plenty of spares on site. Old habits die hard. As I write this I have a box of Chinese-made 2TB Seagate drives and four "bad" 1TB drives that were running in my NAS appliance when I accidentally knocked it to the ground (2 show no signs of damage, 2 stubbornly refuse to fail the SeaTools test) as backup to the RAID arrays just in case. Since I have no backup file servers with the capacity to duplicate every file on a separate machine, the next best thing is to keep enough spares to last a weekend if necessary.
Well what did you end up getting?
Would the actual capacity of a 128GB and a 120GB SSD make a difference?
Found these reduced to an "acceptable" price on Ebuyer....
OCZ 120GB Vertex 3 Max IOPs SSD SATA-III 2.5".. | Ebuyer.com
OCZ 128GB Agility 4 SATA III SSD, Up to 420MB/s READ.. | Ebuyer.com
Found these reduced to an "acceptable" price on Ebuyer....
OCZ 120GB Vertex 3 Max IOPs SSD SATA-III 2.5".. | Ebuyer.com
OCZ 128GB Agility 4 SATA III SSD, Up to 420MB/s READ.. | Ebuyer.com
Speed Daemon
Android Expert
Not really. Most storage vendors play number games when representing the capacity of their drives, so it's not unusual to see a different capacity than you expected. Most of the time this is due to the difference between the base-2 notations that computers use and the base-10 notation that most humans use. Numbers like 128 that are squares of 2 suggest that you're getting a number in gibibytes instead of gigabytes, which can be misleading. As long as the true capacity is more than enough for your needs, you're good.
120-128 GB (or GiB) looks a little small for something like Windows 7 to me. Technically it can be done, but free space will be tight. Don't forget about the hidden partition. The hidden partition on my laptop is only 100MB, which is smaller than the one that came pre-installed. My C: drive is nearly 200 GiB, which is the smallest that I could shrink it to on my 750GB HD. Microsoft says it'll install, but you may be giving up something that isn't readily apparent. I'd wait until I could buy a SSD twice the capacity, more like 250GB, if I had my druthers.
Linux OTOH will be more than happy with 120GB (or less) of disk.
Thanks for the reply, didn't realise that posting in here meant you had to move threads just to help me out.
250GB SSD's are definitely out of my price window. So is it worth waiting for the prices to go down, or just get a 120GB?
Obviously you said to wait, but would the free space on a 120GB be that tight? I don't even know how big Win7 is tbh...
250GB SSD's are definitely out of my price window. So is it worth waiting for the prices to go down, or just get a 120GB?
Obviously you said to wait, but would the free space on a 120GB be that tight? I don't even know how big Win7 is tbh...
alostpacket
Over Macho Grande?
My /windows directory alone is 22 GB, pagefile is 12GB, hiberfil.sys is 10GB.
So that's ~44GB right there and doesn't include some other basic stuff.
Granted your page and hiberfile/pagefile may be much smaller depending on your RAM. But I think assuming ~40-50GB for Windows is an ok approximation.
120GB is do-able, IMO, just tight.
So that's ~44GB right there and doesn't include some other basic stuff.
Granted your page and hiberfile/pagefile may be much smaller depending on your RAM. But I think assuming ~40-50GB for Windows is an ok approximation.
120GB is do-able, IMO, just tight.
IOWA
Mr. Logic Pants
Wait... 50GB just on Windows? So 60gb free?
I see what you mean actually... Just adding a few games and that 60gb gets sucked up pretty quickly....
Batman is 16GB, GTA is 14.... Then chrome, photo shop and Vegas. That's all I need on it...
Reckon I can squeeze them in?
I guess a £125 250GB SSD isn't too bad. I'll have to wait for it to decrease in price. How long do you reckon? Easter? Summer? Christmas?
I see what you mean actually... Just adding a few games and that 60gb gets sucked up pretty quickly....
Batman is 16GB, GTA is 14.... Then chrome, photo shop and Vegas. That's all I need on it...
Reckon I can squeeze them in?
I guess a £125 250GB SSD isn't too bad. I'll have to wait for it to decrease in price. How long do you reckon? Easter? Summer? Christmas?