Best SSD for M17x??

Firstly, i know that maybe i should post this in the hardware category....I wanted to get fellow M17x owners views on the subject. I would really appreciate fellow M17 owners to contribute as I would like to know of your experiences with SSD's and which you may find better or worse, so its kinda generic to M17 owners....

Im considering getting one (or two if budget will allow) SSD's to upgrade on my existing ones.

Have done a little research on the subject and read about the problems of SSD's on NBR.

Being new to this kind of tech, I wanted to ask for your best advice. Currently I am considering a few possibles which include the following:

Intel X25-M (120gb or maybe 160gb)
OCZ Vertex Turbo 120gb
Standard OCZ Vertex 120gb

Maybe I would go for a smaller capacity in Raid, but again, not sure of the additional benefits/drawbacks apart from lack of storage (but I have a 500gb external for stuff) - I want enough space for the OS obviously, maybe a few games, photos etc..not huge volumes.....thats why im thinking of a raid setup of maybe 320gb max...i feel that with my external 500gb, that would give me plenty and the system itself with loaded games etc would run like greased lightening....

My initial questions would be:

Is either Intel or OCZ better? - if so, why.

Does capacity of the drive affect performance - ie. does a 160gb perform better than a 80gb ssd (i know that the fuller the drive is, the less performance you will get from it afaik)

Would anyone have any other suggestions apart from the two i mentioned above?

How easy is it to swap existing drives? - I presume its a case of just opening up, swapping out, booting, reloading an OS and job done....but thats my novice outlook...could be wrong!

Any advice welcomed.

PS. atm, im strongly tempted by x2 160 X25-m's in raid fwiw....

 

can you wait third generation of SSD are around the corner maybe feb or march

OCZ has speed
Intel has reliability


both have 3 yr warranty i believe

ummmm.....i have OCZ but if someone gave me intel i would not complain. Samsung is decent as well that comes with alienware stock and has bang for buck factor. I sold a brand new 256gb samsung ssd 220/200 speed for $385. OCZ would be close to $500 and same as intel. OCZ is like 280/270 speed and i think intel is 250/100. Keep in mind OCZ advertises speeds using uncompressed data and will internally compress data to increase transfer speed. In real world data is a mix of compressed and uncompressed. Honestly stick with intel and you will be happy with speed and reliability. Still leaps and bounds faster than traditional. Try to stay away from kinston since they are extremely value oriented. Corsair FORCE series is good stuff too using sandforce controllers like OCZ and G.skill pro as well is same as OCZ. Adata uses alot of intel SSD. Get the gist of it alot of stuff is rebranded SSD. Focus on price, reliability and speed but do not worry about speed since 4k is what is truly important and intel is AWESOME....i am out

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170584422426

 

Cheers - especially love the link .... hats off to ya for that one! - read here on NBR that the stock Dell SSD's have problems...a quick read of some of that huge thread led me to believe that ...dunno if thats across the SSD market as a whole but heard lots of people complaining about read/write 4k speeds....

I want reliability more so than maybe "a tad" faster approach.....if there isnt much between them, and Intel are more reliable, I would go for that.

Any one know of much performance between OCZ turbo and non-turbo....read a bit but seemed like the performance increase was kinda negligable..

 

4k speeds blow on a m17x and only way to make them half way decent is a raid setup and a dual 256gb SSD raid 0 even samsung would be a rocking setup but until alienware and intel release some sort of patch 4k speeds will be low no matter what drive you get. Same drive in a desktop will be a lot faster and have no issues related to m17x. You can do little tweaks here and there to bring up the speed but it will not be as fast as a SSD with a better chipset.

 

I am happy with mt OCZ Vertex 2

 

Im running a 320GB Intel X25-M RAID setup. It's pretty awesome, but the problem is that there is no TRIM for a raid setup. So that can be a drawback. I just create an image of my drive setup, secure erase and reimage. But I havn't had the need to do so yet. I also replaced the optical drive with a 750GB HDD, and will soon convert that over to a 1TB HDD. Might be an option to consider if you don't use your optical drive much. Below are the benchmarks of my setup. You mentioned Intel RAID 0, so I thought I'd post some benches of just that





If you decide to go this route, Below are the links where I purchased my external enclosure for the blu-ray burner I removed, as well as a bezel, to give it a clean look.

External enclosure for removed optical drive:
USB External Enclosure For SATA Laptop DVD Drive Burner - eBay (item 110511352514 end time Nov-19-10 08:07:41 PST).

Slot loading Bezel:
Slot Loading Optical Drive Bezel Panasonic/Mata - MRC-0089 - Mac Recycling

 

They rock eh! Liked the 120 GB for my M11x-R1 so much so I ordered a 60GB boot/fast game drive for my M17x-R2...

@DR650SE - those are some pretty sick numbers!

 

A few more things have come to light recently concerning SSD's....DR650E pointed out that two SSD's in a raid array wont support TRIM....

How does this impact performance - is it better to have one SSD with TRIM than two in raid without TRIM?

Im pretty clueless when it comes to the in and outs of SSD's - obviously am aware of the benefits of using one (or two) but want to make sure I get the very best for my setup....if thats one SSD, so be it....

Also, have read about the G3 drives from Intel.....anyone know of when they are gonna be released? - read a few articles and one from Anandtech about them...seems like they may be cheaper and better (but not by much)....

Im prepared to wait to get the better option - or to see G2 prices drop....

Being in the UK means that regardless of when I buy, I know that Im gonna end up paying through the nose....kinda like close to around $800-900 usd for x2 160gb X25-m's

 

I thought the sandforce controllers didnt have a trim issue with raid. I cant find it now, but I swear the giant r2 raid thread had ppl saying raid and trim was ok.

 

Trim is built into most newer generation drives and continuously cleans up and restores performance of SSD and is built into Windows 7. Mac does not support Trim and for mac guys and people using RAID you need SANDFORCE drives for keeping performance at 95-100%. Sandforce drives use Garbage collection to mimick TRIM for Operating systems or Raid setup that do not take advantage of TRIM.


To trigger GC one must put the computer to sleep and wait 1 min and let it resume but stay on the windows login screen and leave it that way overnight and it will do the GC,

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/527710-m17x-raid-0-ssd.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/6795828-post11.html

If you can afford it get a single large SSD so you do not have to worry about Trim/GC since intel does not support GC only trim. If you want raid go with OCZ or wait to see if gen 3 has trim raid support.

If you do get intel and in a raid setup once you notice major major slow downs you can secure erase the drive and reload your backup or do a clean install and you will have all your speed back. I honestly think people make a big deal with RAID and TRIM/GC and i have been using it for quite some time and no issues....i have major issues if i swap to a computer with a mechanical drive

 

These are the things i need to get ironed out.... read this: http://www.overclock.net/raid-controllers-software/677311-ssd-drives-raid-0-trim-support.html - well confusing stuff....though the gist of it seems to be that indeed raid is not supported if you have two ssd's......someone even says one ssd with trim is better than 2 without.....

 

i say go for it. ssd..atleast a 160gb or 256.
dun need raid. u complicate yourself...what are u gonna do with the 2 500gb...sacrifice ur optical drive so u can have raid 0 ssd, raid 0 hhd (estata + optical drive)
raid all around...its up to u dude

 

im just after finding out which is the best setup thats all....ssd's in raid or not...one ssd and one of my existing mechanicals with the ssd running with TRIM as then dont in raid....