ssd recommendations

last month i decided to take my feet and dip them in the pool of ssd's.

i picked up a 64gb ssd to try with my system and see how it went.

all in all i'm sooo happy i'm changing up to either a 120gb or a 240gb drive next month and moving the 64gb ssd to my netbook.

i've been looking around and given the prices are falling i keep having those thoughts of just wait a wee bit longer and hope they drop further but you know i just want to get it now.

i've checked toms hardware and anandtech for reviews but those are benchmark reviews i'm interested in real world reviews from peeps.

i've had a look at ozc/corsair/kingston hyp x/sandisk extreme/intel/samsung......so many choices make choosing one difficult.

questions come up like what is the best controller right now and so forth making choices a pain in the butt.

so drop a mini review of an ssd and help me decide which one to get not fussed about the cost more interested in pure performance and life expectancy.

thanks
gazz

From your list, I'd go with Samsung, Intel, or Kingston. I'd also consider Crucial. The Kingston drives are often available at lower prices.

I'd say no to OCZ.

If you did not know which brand you had, it's not likely you could tell the difference.

My considerations would be reliability, support, price, and return privileges with the retailer. I'd put those 4 things above "performance" or whatever benchmark you might find.

I've never heard anything significant about variations in "life expectancy". My Intel is 18 months old, with over 2 Terabytes of writes, and is still rated as having 100% of it's useful life remaining.

This might be worth a read:

Components returns rates (6) (page 7: SSDs) - BeHardware

It's info on return rates of various SSD brands from a large Internet retailer.

I have had a samsung 830 128 gig ssd for about a month now and wouldnt be without it. I suppose if money is no object then corsair or intel would be the way to go but for value for money and reliability you will not beat the samsung

brand isn't that important, but those are the big manufacturers of ssd drives, returns policies i'm not overly fussed with either that is something i can deal with at the time and wouldn't be an end of the world scenario for me either.

overall life and performance are all i'm interested in, there is no point in an ssd that has a 20 year life expectancy if it performs worse than a basic mechanical drive...would be kinda pointless, i'm interested in a good balance between the two, oddly those are the two things with ssd's that contradict each other as higher performance means higher writes meaning lower life span...go figure.

i've read good things about the samsung drives and they have come up on my list, i've been having a good scour around for info on them as well and like sandisk while relatively new to the market show good results.

i had noticed the earlier ocz drives had some issues which they seem to have been dealing with something to do with the firmware, but generally they do better extremly high end ssd drives ie for servers and high storage cap ssd's well out of my price range such as the colossus 3.5" or the other ssd's that exceed sata 6gb thresholds.

ignatzatsonic said:

From your list, I'd go with Samsung, Intel, or Kingston. I'd also consider Crucial. The Kingston drives are often available at lower prices.

I'd say no to OCZ.

If you did not know which brand you had, it's not likely you could tell the difference.

My considerations would be reliability, support, price, and return privileges with the retailer. I'd put those 4 things above "performance" or whatever benchmark you might find.

I've never heard anything significant about variations in "life expectancy". My Intel is 18 months old, with over 2 Terabytes of writes, and is still rated as having 100% of it's useful life remaining.

This might be worth a read:

Components returns rates (6) (page 7: SSDs) - BeHardware

It's info on return rates of various SSD brands from a large Internet retailer.

Click to expand...

Hey bud, I assume you are basing your "No to OCZ" comment from previous generations of the Vertex? I understand they had a fair few issues.

I bought the latest generation Vertex 4 after reading many many reviews on it, It appears not a bad thing has been said about them or the Everest 2 controller.

I have to say its been a rock solid drive for me so far and if anyone asked me about it then I would recommend it, the performance on them is awesome in benchmarks and reality, I have not heard any reports of failures yet, I must admit I have not really looked since I bought mine but so far they appear to be very reliable.

Just thought I would put a word in about them anyway as I think they have improved with the new controller and perhaps not everyone knows.

I'm a Crucial fan and own 4 of them but just ordered a OCZ 120gb Vertex III for $59.99 delivered just for shits and giggles.

indeed it was the vertex 2 which had firmware issues they resolved this for the vertex 3 and made that better for the vertex 4.

it stands to reason that the technology is maturing, hence why i waited so long before taking the plunge to change.

I mean i have a sort of hatred for kingston due to some old ram modules i had nearly 5 years ago, i switched to ocz modules at the time (ocz reaper series) and they are still working fine in a spare system to this day, but in reality i have nothing against kingston i'm sure they make excellent quality hardware i'd still sooner avoid them though.

buddy of mine picked up the crucial m4, which i kinda like. has some solid reviews and no real complaints which is either to good to be true or is actually right xd. but either way the specs of that drive are in the region of what i'm looking for anyway.

500mb + read/write with decent life expectancy i should probably clarify that i'm cool with 5 years tops here as i expect the tech to mature massivly in that time and i'll more than likely replace it after 2-3 years anyway.

gazz9496 said:

buddy of mine picked up the crucial m4, which i kinda like. has some solid reviews and no real complaints which is either to good to be true or is actually right xd. but either way the specs of that drive are in the region of what i'm looking for anyway.

500mb + read/write with decent life expectancy i should probably clarify that i'm cool with 5 years tops here as i expect the tech to mature massivly in that time and i'll more than likely replace it after 2-3 years anyway.

Click to expand...

I have a Crucial M4 too, it's been a fantastic drive, can't fault it. When I bought the Vertex 4 I kept the M4 but now use it purely for Origin games i.e BF3

just checking up on the vertex 4, has some rather good reviews and reports are that it is a very strong contender to the intel ssd's which are suppose to be very good as well.

gazz9496 said:

an ssd that has a 20 year life expectancy if it performs worse than a basic mechanical drive...would be kinda pointless, i'm interested in a good balance between the two, oddly those are the two things with ssd's that contradict each other as higher performance means higher writes meaning lower life span...go figure.

Click to expand...

An SSD that performed like a mechanical is defective for whatever reason and should be returned. It can happen with any brand.

I've never seen anything that implied the "life span" and "too many writes" was an issue for current generation drives used in the typical user profile--not in a corporate server where writes might be many times higher than in a home situation.

There is a thread on this site about another site that torture tested SSDs with constant writing. The result showed that the drives remained functional for a VERY high number of writes, well beyond anyone's expectations. I don't have the link, but it was from one of the better known hardware sites.

If I were buying tomorrow I'd probably go Samsung, but only because they are getting a lot of good online reports lately.

Don't rule out the Samsung, can't speak from experience but it also is a strong contender. In my heart of hearts I'm still most found of my Crucial's as it was "love at first write and read" !

I've had a 120 Gb OCZ Vertex III for over a year now and had no problems what so ever. I also have 120 Gb Corsair and Kingston SSDs, which have performed very nicely as well. I haven't really noticed any differences in performance between the 3, although the OCZ does get the best benchmark scores.

If you look through this section of the forum, you will see the same question asked several times. I have a Samsung, and I will always recommend a Samsung. Reliability.....nobody, including Intel, has a more reliable consumer SSD. When I built my new rig this summer, I started out with the Intel 520 SSD, the one with the Intel modded Sandforce controller. Went tits up after 1 day. RMA'd it and got a brand new one.....same result, tits up in 1 day. Ordered a Samsung and haven't had problem one with it for almost 5 months. I just cannot in good faith recommend Intel anymore, at least not the 520 series, and I will probably never buy a Sandforce drive again. Not saying there aren't any good ones, I'm just saying I have shit luck with them.

I would also recommend the Plextor line, either the M3 Pro or brand new M5 Pro. Both use Marvell controllers and I've never heard anything about Marvells not being reliable. Plus, Plextor has awesome firmware for their drives. I would expect the M5 Pro to be THE drive to beat as far as performance, and I would also bet that they will be as reliable as the Samsung 830.......although it is purely speculation.

The OCZ Vertex 4 is a hot drive right now. New controller, very competitive price and outstanding performance. Let me tell you about why people shy away from OCZ.......yes, in the beginning they had some problems. It was very damaging, but one reason is because they sold a shit ton of SSD's. Naturally, they are going to have higher failure rate than a company that sells 1/4 the drives. They have a new controller now though, and I believe those problems are in the past.

The others that round out my list would be the Crucial M4 and the new Corsair Neutron GTX. There are a lot of M4 owners and I don't hear them complaining about anything. The Corsair Neutron GTX is a newer drive, with a new LAMD controller. Numbers on paper are really good and Corsair usually doesn't make junk hardware.

There you go, that is not an expert opinion, nor is it definitive. I'm sure other people on here have drives I didn't list that work perfectly fine......let them chime in. This is just a few drives that I could recommend, with a little bit of info as to why.

Samsung or Intel is my recommendation. I don't like anything with a Sandforce controller, for whatever reason they seem to have more failures and problems. So, I simply stay away from them.

Got a bunch of Intel's at work and 2 at home and they have been flawless. We have started to moving to Samsung 830's at work and haven't had any problems.

The Intel 330 and 520 series SSD's are using Sandforce controllers......The other Intel drives are flawless, especially the X25-M series, because it used Intel's own controller.

linnemeyerhere said:

I'm a Crucial fan and own 4 of them but just ordered a OCZ 120gb Vertex III for $59.99 delivered just for shits and giggles.

Click to expand...

I have had that same OCZ for about two months and I am very happy with it. It is lightning fast and not a moments problem. The Vertex 4 is out so the Vertex 3's are going dirt cheap. Keep your eyes open for a deal.

When I saw the price for the 120 OCZ Vertex III I couldn't believe my eye's then after clicking through on another site I found a nice Kingston Hyper X 120 for the same but plus sales tax and no rebate.

The torture test mentioned earlier is quite long, but a real eye opener for people who think SSD are fragile.

SSD Write Endurance 25nm Vs 34nm - Page 56