Looking at SSD's......need help.

I'm looking to get a ssd for my primary drive, and then use my stock hdd for storage. I have a Gateway FX P7805U with a 320gb 7,200rpm hdd. I am looking at either an OCZ Vertex 120gb ssd, Intel x25m 160gb ssd, and a Supertalent 128gb ssd. which brands are best, for performance and overall? I don't know much about the differences in brands. Would really appreciate some insight from those who know ssd's. Thanks.

 

Welcome to NBR! What do you use your notebook for? Do you care about battery life? Is there a minimum capacity you would like? What is your budget? There is no best product for everyone, but if we know the answers to those questions, we can help pick the best product for you.

 

My notebook it my only computer, so I use it for gaming (never on the battery), basic computing, photo stuff, etc.....pretty much a little of everything. Battery life is nice, but mainly at home on the charger. But I do use it on the battery whenever I go somewhere. I don't really know how much I need in the capacity. Thanks for the welcome. I have been reading on here for a little while, and finally signed up to start contributing.

 

Intel X25 (x58 would be a 5.8in drive, as just an FYI)

Which Supertalent drive?
If you mean the Supertalent Ultradrive then:
128gb Supertalent = 120GB Vertex, as they are basically the same as each other with just slightly different firmware

As to which to get... all three of them will make you very happy. I have the supertalent ultradrive and its amazing, but i wouldnt say its the best, as its about the same as the vertex or the intel.

A short rundown.
My Ultradrive has the fastest sequential reads/writes of any drive... due to firmware, this is great for moving things around and transfers of large files. The down side of this is my drive will suffer a pretty big preformance hit once the information gets fragmented inside of my drive (due to controller wear leveling)

The Vertex, while just a hair slower in sequential, tends to have a more stable firmware that will resist fragmentation for a bit longer... it will eventually suffer as well but it can delay it with its more stable firmware (i.e. the vertex is a bit more plug and play friendly to those that dont want to properly maintain a filesystem to keep peak preformance)

The Intel reads amazingly fast but doesnt write that fast. On the upside it will write 80MB/s whether its sequential or random... truely amazing. So while this drive gets fragmented you never really "suffer" due to it because your write speed is constant. You dont get 200MB/s writes that drop to 23MB/s for small random 4K blocks. The intel keeps 80MB/s the whole way through. IMO the intel is about the most plug ang play SSD that you will get currently. It doesnt set speed records for its writes, but it will be stable no matter what you do.

So really its up to you. I would recommend any of those 3 drives to someone looking for a SSD, its just according to your usage and habits and willingness to keep the drive in good condition.

 

Thank you! I have been reading the other thread, Intel x25 (thank you for correcting me on that) vs 8gb of ram. It has really made me want to invest in a good ssd. I like the Vertex or the Intel. I am leaning more towards the Intel. I was looking to add another 320gb hdd for a raid 0 set-up, but your posts Kamin have swayed me towards a ssd and then using the stocker for storage.

 

No worries mate thats what we're here for.

I was a disbeliever for a long time about SSD's THey were retardely expensive and didnt deliever the "numbers" that i would expect. But with the latest round of the Intel / Indilinix / Samsung thay are finally offering decent capacity and speeds that are near saturation on SATA2. But the biggest thing (and one i never took into consideration) is the access time. SSD's can typically start and finish an operation before a mechanical drive has even finished its .17ish ms access time. Thats freaking amazing

So yeah i'm a pretty big advocate of SSD's for preformance. I really do tank it up beside my X9000 as best upgrade EVER

 

Nice! My original plan to get the most out of my 7805 was cpu upgrade, second hdd and raid 0, WUXGA lcd, and better thermal paste as a start. My current plan is cpu upgrade (still on the fence as which to get, X9100, T9900, or P9700), ssd, WUXGA lcd, and ICD7. Just looking to make my 7805 the best it can be, one step at a time.

 

The Intel drive is likely to be much better supported, but the Patriot Torqx drive is backed by an overly generous 10 year warranty and has comparable performance.

 

Thanks! I haven't heard of or looked into the patriot drive. I am gonna look into it right now.

 

Also, the "X58" isn't an SSD, it's a motherboard chipset. There are only two Intel SSDs - the X18 and the X25 - for *now* at least.

 

yeah.....I meant the x25. Edited the first post.

 

Report from a Vertex 60gb user - you will be very very happy with your SSD purchase, even more so than your planned CPU upgrade. Seriously. I upgraded a 6860 to a 2.5gzh cpu and said "Nice! This thing's really fast now!". Then I put in an SSD and said "OMGZORS this thing SCREAMS!".

And it does. Across the board, everything I do on the computer just got about 3x faster, whereas the CPU sped things up maybe 25% by the feel of it, and only really made a difference in games. The reason is that applications don't just load from the HD, they hit the HD for data and other application files all the time (esp. MS apps, they are total HD thrashers compared to other programs). So the SSD actually speeds that up an amazing amount too, and suddenly it's like your comp has left the bumpy back roads and hit the highway.

So you will like your SSD a LOT. Please do yourself a favor and plan to go with Windows 7 though, as the TRIM command is how an SSD automatically "defrags" itself, and W7 supports it natively. If you don't, you'll have to periodically do the TRIM manually using software.

Best of luck!

 

Has anyone noticed all the SuperTalent drives are missing from NewEgg. I was thinking of getting a 256GB as they are under 600 now but they haven't had them. I loaded all of the SuperTalent drives and evey one of them was AutoNotify...........

 

The Crucial SSD drives are well rounded in all areas from what I've been reading.

 

I was wanting to do the same thing, but the only ones they have is the masterdrive (i dont care for those) I think they are updating the UltraDrives to include TRIM support due to Win7, so hopefully in a week they should have a new stock of shiney nice 256GB drives

 

Hopefully so, $600 for a drive will hurt but the call just seems to be getting louder and louder. I need to get those voices out of my head once and for all..........

 

there pretty good i got the m225 64gb one, its pretty darn good, it has a good constant right speed and the read speed is quite steady, says on the box up to 200mb read, and 150 write, through my tests the read is only about 160, havent managed to get it to go much higher, but the write speed depending on the file is usually pretty high.

id say there good reliable and have a 5 year warranty for a cheap price, in my book everyone wins, its a great deal

 

probably it is a dumb question, but i am just wondering, approximately how much decent brand ssd of 80-120gb will cost during the period of 2010 may-july? I bought my 7811 in mid august of 2008 @ bestbuy, now it has 2 vertical dead pixel lines in the screen, also one usb is out, and one of the lock buttons for battery is broken, so one side of the battery is kind of loose.

I do have bb 2 year warranty, and i am planning to go to united states in 2010 summer for vacation and i am gonna get my 7811 fixed and i will probably do some upgrades...
1) ssd as main drive for apps, games and etc.
2) 500gb 7200rpm second drive for storage. probably by the time i go to states, there will be 1tb 7200 available or pretty close to 1tb.
3) i was thinking about 8gb ram, but i dont do no video editing or stuff of that nature, so 4 gb is enough for my likings.
4) cpu t9900.

OR i have this idea... and wondering what you guys think about..... so is this possible.......

recently i moved back to europe, and few days before moving, i went local bb to buy someting, and i saw this guy working at geek squad. We graduated same year from high school. Now, do geeksquad have a power to actually give a new laptop, let say give me a newer gateway series laptop if mine is messed up badly? Or maybe, do some kind of exchange if i pay some money... kind of trade in? I know i should of ask him about it, but i didnt. So, just wondering maybe someone of you know if deal like that is possible?

Thanks a lot in advance

 

Zarra right now a 60 gig drive costs $200 ish and 80 gig from intel costs about $250-280 these are the best right now in terms of performance.

Crappier 128 gig ones can be had for the low 200s but you most likely don't want any of those. Your going to spend around $350-$400 for a decent performer. I'm going to get one of the crappy 128 gig ones for a games drive on my pc. But thats it. I wouldn't use it for anything else and even then its just for on par speed but less power useage , noise and heat.

If you don't want to spend alot of money , see if you have an open pci-e slot on that laptop and if one of these guys will work

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N=2010150636 1421548207&name=Mini PCIe (PATA)

I'd really only use it as an os drive , however it will bring up your performance and your battery life . Then upgrade your other drive to a faster 7200 rpm drive with more cache.

 

Search for the Samsung 256GB from Dell. It's $480 last time I checked. If you're lucky, you might be able to use a coupon on it too.

 

Searched and found this thread, sick deal and a rep for you! Now the voices have turned to screams in my head..........

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/954524