Need help in picking SSD (Vertex4, Samsung830, Intel330, Force3, or HyperX)

I've been considering the five manufacturers/brands I mentioned above. the most expensive one in my place would be the hyperX followed by the samsung830. the price difference was around $50 more. then the other 3 has almost equal prices (around $180). all of them are 120/128gb.

so which do you guys think i should chose? in terms of value/reliability/drawbacks and best compatibility with my r3 stock a08 bios.

thanks!

 

Vertex 4 is your best bet, the firmware isn't finalized yet and when it is it should be capable of 600mbps read speed. The indilinx controller is supposedly much more reliable than sand force.

 

Chose a drive that is not a Sandforce controller based SSD and you'll be in good shape. Buying something before the firmware is finalized can carry some risks and not normally advisable. However, Indilinx works well enough now that it not such a big risk.

 

Safe bet is samsung 830 and crucial m4

 

My crucial m4 has been rock solid and plenty fast. You might wanna take a look at them.

 

i have a pair of m4 in raid 0 and they rock!

here's the screen shot of hd tune pro benchmark if you are interested

IBMMANIA >> ??/??? - ??? ?? ??? & HD Tune ???? ?? (M17xR4)

 

If your computer supports sata2 go with the m4, if it supports sata3 go with any other sata3 ssd available. The m4 write speeds are just terrible, lowest I have seen.

 

Samsung 830 for sure !!!
here are deals which u can take advantage of !

http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/742...l-ssd-128gb-mz7pc128bww-118-256gb-mz7pc256bww

Solid State Drives: 128GB Samsung 830 Series SSD $110, 120GB Corsair Force Series GT SSD $110 after $30 rebate, 240GB OCZ Agility 3 SSD + 32GB Onyx Series SSD $158.50 after $20 rebate + Free Shipping - Newegg Deals, Coupons and Promos

 

As far as I know, the M4 is SATA 3. Sure there are faster drives but the M4 is no slouch.

 

The vertex might be fast but OCZ has a pretty shady track record with their SSDs, to me it just is not worth the risk. Samsung and Intel are solid and reliable. Crucial is very popular and stable with the M4 right now. Buy the cheapest / GB of those 3 IMO.

 

Using an m4 on a sata3 machine is a waste, obviously it is a sata3 ssd.

 

It's not a waste seeing as the M4 has over 500mb read speeds and the higher capacities have higher than 300mb write.

 

See most benchmarks, M4 smokes most of the current ssd's out there.
yes there are faster drive but in general the M4 is all round best choice.
so is the Samsung 830.

 

I just ordered a Samsung 830 in the last few days (even though I'm running with an R2) mostly due to the reliability issue concerning controllers. That and my Samsung PM800 has been very good to me for almost 2 years.

Anandtech are really good when it comes to reviewing SSDs, and their bench "app" is more than a little useful for comparing all sorts of benchmarks across loads of different models and manufacturers;

AnandTech - Bench - SSD

EDIT:- The 830 seems to compare quite favourably to the M4 y'know!

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/532?vs=355

 

The PM830 is dynamite. Can't go wrong there.

 

I know Crucial wasn't on your original list, but I have to echo the others here who have recommended it. Not a waste and runs some of the higher r/w speeds I've seen. Add to that they are a direct manufacturer of memory, (Micron), which most brands can't claim, and their limited lifetime warranty which is covered in any country. And very fast shipping too.

I have been buying from them for business & personal, for 8 yrs. I have only ever needed to RMA a product twice in all of that time. They have never given me any trouble in making a return & replacement either. Always very professional and responsive, in my experience.

If not Crucial though, I would also say the Samsung.

 

Yes, I agree... Crucial memory and SSD are rock solid products. I have been buying Crucial products for about 15 years and I have never had a single problem with them.

 

Mr fox i agree! Ram and ssd are solid stuff!
With corsair had much issues with the force 2 drives.. But again powered by sandforce..
Bsod hell and sleep issues with force 2 drives.
Never touched a corsair force/ sandforce ssd after that again..

 

Obviously I am somewhat biased, but the Samsung 830 Series (aka PM830 issued by Dell) are great drives. I have x2 256gb in Raid0 and they ROCK!

OCZ's Vertex 4 looks tempting as it is actually not a sandforce based drive....also new firmware suggest improved performance by up to 21% on their advertised speeds.

M4 - again another rock solid non-sandforce drive, Crucial just keep churning out good drives at good prices....

As others have said, Sandforce based drives can be pretty much hit or miss whereas non-sandforce drives tend to be more stable.

 

Vertex is a great ssd compared to what I have used before. I own 4 ssd's a 120&240 gb vertex 3 a 120gb patriot pyro se and I have a 256gb vertex 4 on the way. The vertex drives have never given me a problem, even defrag booted on one by accident and it's still going strong. To be honest for the price, vertex and sand force seem to work pretty well together, never gotten a bsod or drive failure at all. Also the patriot gets warm when in use the vertexes don't, as far as price and reliability go vertex is a winner in my book.

 

Your anecdotal evidence is just that. It is no secret that OCZ has had alot of trouble with reliability in their SSDs and they as a company have pulled some very shady moves including swapping out nand to lower performance nand and keeping the same model name. This drive could be fine but I would not go near an OCZ without at least 6 months of solid reviews on sites like newegg and amazon and even then I would be expecting low price. There have been tons of deals on OCZ drives other the past year or 2 trying to get people to buy these unreliable drives.

Just for comparison alot of the OCZ drives on newegg have 20 - 40% 1 star reviews where as the crucial M4s have 4 - 6% 1 star reviews.

 

Yes but how many of those negative OCZ reviews are because the owner didn't understand the need to update the firmware?
I've read a lot of the reviews on the OCZ Vertex 3 drives and most of those were related to failure to update the firmware.

I'm actually running an OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SSD in my desktop computer and it has been running flawlessly since the day I got it. That is with the v2.15 firmware update.

the problem with a lot of these owners of SSDs is that they fail to remember that they all require firmware updates periodically, some more than others.

That said, any of them would be fine to use. I'm personally using an OCZ Vertex 3 and I also happen to have a Samsung 830 128GB SSD in my wife's machine and both work fine.

 

Most users are not very tech savvy. A drive should work regardless of firmware. The fact that you need to upgrade things to work properly shows how ocz had not done significant testing before releasing products.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

Are you saying companies like Windows, Apple, Asus, Asrock, Gigabyte, EA or Crucial all do not significantly test their products? Because I've had far more updates for any one of their products compared to the simple FW upgrade of an OCZ drive.

The main reason there was so much coverage of the OCZ failures was because they have so many customers. Proportionally, failure rates of SandForce drivers are all pretty much the same.

Also to those basing their info on Amazon customer reviews, you have to understand that a majority of people who have fully working devices tend not to talk about it. Most of those who experience failures will ask and complain because they need to and only a handful of all the happy customers will declare it plainly because they don't need to. Therefore for a product that has had a fair few failures, the ratings are stacked against them.

I know no one here can produce any more than purely anecdotal evidence but from what I have been seeing and I try and keep up to date with the storage scene, most SandForce issues have been fixed with recent firmware upgrades.

 

I went with the Kingston HyperX (240GB), partially because the Vertex4's weren't out yet and Dell was out of the Samsungs. But I gotta say I'm very satisfied with the HyperX. Installed it February, everything runs crazy fast compared to the Seagate I had in before. The only BSOD I got was 2 weeks ago from my GPU overheating. Other than that, no lockups, no freezes or crashes. I never really put my m17x to sleep, but the few times I have it had no problems waking up. I guess the choice is yours. If the issues with Sandforce are too great to ignore, then go with the Vertex4. Samsung and Kingston SSDs have been out longer and some of the bugs have been worked out of their firmwares. Just stay away from Intels. My buddy put two into his m18x and had to return them within a week. Apparently Intels don't work well with the excessive heat the Alienware laptops generate.

 

i was not able to check this thread because of err..my finals in school. but i was overwhelmed with your replies guys! thanks a bunch!

i can see that the majority dislikes the sandforce ones, even the intel 330. so i think i'd look for some cheap m4 or 830s available here in my place (i'm in the PH btw. and it's realy hard to find 'cheap' non-sandforce ssds here)

again, thanks a lot!!