Any other reliable SSD brands besides Crucial, Intel and Samsung?

Hi,
I want to buy an SSD for my Asus K52F laptop and am looking at either a Crucial M4, Samsung 830 or Intel 330

As i only need 80GB including the OS, will be going for a 120-180GB SSD
But was told the more free space the faster it goes, would that apply to my usage,
e.g would having 60gb free be any slower than having 100-200gb free?

so besides the above mentioned SSD's are there any other brands/models which are cheaper in price but are stilll reputable and reliab le enough to buy?


Also, in the UK where is the best place/cheapest to buy an SSD from?
is online the way to go?
is hotukdeals the best place to check?

thank you

 

The other choices you have include: Sandisk, Kingston, Crucial's M500 (coming soon), Samsung 840 series, and the Intel 520 series.

The most reliable SSD I have used is the Samsung 830 series. However, I'm looking into the new M500's coming out because they're cheap, and crucial has a great track record.

 

Reliability order continues to be Intel 1st, followed by Crucial and Samsung.

Size wise go bigger. Meaning if you go 120GB, odds are you'll regret it as time goes by.

 

You could check out Plextor as well. Though I usually recommend Crucial/Plextor/Samsung since Intel's customer service has been slipping (based on my experience with them).

 

i see, as i only use the laptop for web browsing - 1 window with 10-15 tabs open at once, itunes playing music, watching movie files, MS word/excel, notepad, sometimes all together at once, is having 60gb free disk space sufficient for the ssd / os to run at optimal speed? or willl having an extra 100gb free space speed everything up significantly?


i already have an external 500gb hdd where i keep important rarely used data, so i will not ever need more than 80gb (inc OS) free room, I will use closer to 60gb inc OS.

Is there a preference between these brands?
do any offer more than 1years warranty as standard?

is the intel 520 better trhan the 330, based on light usage?

thanks

 

The 520 uses the same controller as the 330, and iirc the same NAND. So the difference is in the warranty term and perhaps slightly-tweaked firmware.

 

Aside from aforementioned drives, I've heard good things about the Corsair SSDs as well. Not very keen on the Plextors - outside that, I think agree the ones worth most consideration are Samsung, Crucial, Intel, and Corsair.

 

thanks i will check out corsair too,

when looking at these other brands like corsair, kingston, and sandisk what do i need to make sure of in the ssd specification so that it would work with my asus k52f?
just the fact its called an ssd and is 2.5"? or is there something it needs to be/have?

also, is it beter to check the read./write speeds and comparewhich is faster?
or does anyone here already know?

 

ok so the difference between the 330 and 520 seem trivial,

which would you and others choose, if both had the same warranty and price tag?

 

In that case, I'd get whichever I found first that was in stock. For the typical end user, there's no difference (aside from the drive capacity). Now, if you need a higher-capacity drive (and have the money for it), then the 520 is the only Intel drive that can provide.

And to answer your other question, any SSD will work with your laptop. SATA is a universal standard and 2.5" is the universal standard for laptop HDD size. Now, there are SSDs that are 9.5mm height (most common laptop HDD bay size) and there are those that are 7mm height (mainly for smaller laptops like Ultrabooks). However, you can always fit a 7mm drive into a 9.5mm bay using some sort of spacer (like cardboard, rubber, paper, etc.).

 

ok thanks,

how much free disk space is needed for the drive to run at full speed?
ive read you need 50% free space but also read you need 25%

also is it a noticeable speed difference from having 60gb free disk space and having 180gb free?

 

I can only relate my experience, I have 2 hard drives (80 Gig Intel SSD and 500 GIG HDD) For the SSD the entire useable area is partitioned so 74.5 GIG is useable. Win 7 plus a few apps take up less than 25 GIG. From date of purchase till today my system is very fast for tasks similar to what you listed. Every 4 months or so I run crystal mark and the results show no performance degredation. As I have learned from Tilleroftheearth having excess space unallocated maintains like new performance over time. But my personal results contradict this. Anyway if I was setting up a new system for myself I would leave no more than 25% unallocated and verify performance over time subjectively and objectively. Hope this helps, J
BTW my host writes over 2 years are less than 1 TB and from an earlier thread this seem to be faily limited usage.

 

so in say a 128gb sdd you would leave no more than 32gb (25%) free disk space?

wouldnt leaving such little free disk space slow everthing down?

thanks J

 

The extra space left on your drive just allows it to operate in a consistent manner over time. I think the general consensus for your average user on breakdown of freespace vs. performance is to leave 25%-30% free in one way or another. Again, there is no hard and fast rule on an exact percentage. Going over this number of % free won't necessarily affect you, but you should consider that % free as a starting point.

For more info...

You can see some of Intels' recommendations posted in this thread - http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...rage/705477-840-pro-speeds-3.html#post9060914

Also, see an IBM study (see page 11) in the link of my post here where 77% unallocated was providing max WRITE performance - http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...rage/705477-840-pro-speeds-3.html#post9062280

Finally some more "spare area" info here - AnandTech - Exploring the Relationship Between Spare Area and Performance Consistency in Modern SSDs

FWIW, here are some benchmarks of my C300. The benches are about two years apart. Notice the 1st one was with 73GBand and now I'm at 156GB. I haven't noticed a difference day in and day out, and the benching shows my drive hasn't skipped a beat in that area either. In fact, the new Intel RST drivers may have sped things up in some areas.



HTH

 

I have my SSDs partitioned all the way like JOSEA and I have no problems with performance. I have about 40GB free on each drive.

 

Thanks for the detailed info jclausius,

i didnt realise you could have a HDD and an SSD in one laptop,
but wouldnt everything run faster if you just used the SSD?

Or do people have both and just use a small SSD for the OS = 30 GB?
I do wonder why companies sell tiny SSD's like 64GB ones

 

My laptop is capable of holding 4 HDDs. So it is capable of holding any number of configurations. In my case, I use the single SSD for the OS and any files I need for critical access.

The other two drives which are RAID-1 are larger (500GB) drives in which I use to store tens to hundreds of GB files. I couldn't fit a 125GB file along with the OS and apps installed on the C300. However, those drives are Momentus XT hybrids, which still offer pretty good read performance on files I need to read over and over again.

 

i see, so am i right in thinking in order for the laptop to run at its fastest speed, i just need an ssd big enough for the OS = 30-50GB, and then i can leave the standard 320gb hdd in the laptop to hold all my files?

would there be a difference in performance/speed if i just had 1 bigger, say 256gb ssd, instead of a 64gb ssd as well as a 320gb hdd?
- i guess it would be a lot cheaper to buy a 64gb ssd and a 320gb hdd, instead of 380GB SSD

how do i find out if my ASUS K52F has the space to hold and SSD and HDD at the same time?

 

This is for a very similar model_ - Add harddrive to Asus K52JC - Short answer is you have remove the optical (DVD) Drive and get a caddy then place it in the optical bay to hold the 2nd hard drive. Then you will need to get an external DVD drive assuming you still have need for it.

 

thanks for the link,
i dont feel comfortable removing the dvd drive, but i guess it cant be too hard and i never use it anymore


is it common for people to buy smaller 64gb sdd for the OS and still keep their HDD for data/files?

would doing things this way instead of buying a bigger size ssd affect the speed/performance at all?
or would using a 256gb ssd make everything run faster?

 

Small-capacity SSDs run slightly slower than the same model, larger-capacity SSD, but this performance difference is objectively marginal, and subjectively non-existent. And it's common to use a small SSD for OS/programs and a big HDD for files and whatnot; you get the best of both worlds. Cheap, mass mechanical storage as well as quick boots and fast loading of programs.

 

thanks
As i use such little hard disk space = 30-50gb files, 30gb OS, and only use a few programs = itunes, web browsing, video playback (vlc media player)
avg anti-virus, MS word/excel
... i think it would be a waste to buy a TB HDD or even a 300GB HDD due to my light usage/memory needed
so maybe say a 180gb ssd is best for me

on a random note, is there a way to set the dvd drive so it doesn't open when you press the button?
as due to its location whenever i pick the laptop up i knock the dvd drive button which springs open the trap, which is very annoying,

is there a way to disable the button without completely removing the dvd drive

 

180 sounds perfect for your setup! Open device manager - DVD/CD .. drives - right click and disable it. - If you need to use it enable it first.

 

i just bought a Corsair Force GT Series 180GB and it will be here tomorrow!

before it arrives i want to prepare for what needs to be done,

so what is the procedure for installing an ssd?
do i just remove the hdd in my laptop and replace it with the ssd?

i remember reading about installation software/brackets, which has confused me a bit
i thought it was a simple plug in and turn on job?

any tips please

- i ve already backed up my files = 50gb, on an external hdd and have the win7 ultimate disc to install onto the ssd

 

...bump.....

 

If your HDD comes with some sort of bracket or rails, it's a good idea to install them on the SSD. But besides that, installing a SSD is pretty straightforward. Just swap out the HDD for SSD, then install OS.

 

I dont buy crucial ssd`s any more, i had constant bsod`s after resuming from sleep, i did a ssd wipe and a number of clean installs, but i could not fix the problem, i replaced it with an samsung 830 and i had no problems at all, so only samsung or intel for me from now on.

oh, year i had a corsair ssd that did the same bsod after resuming from sleep, do both crucial and corsair both compress the data, when the samsung 830 does not, i wonder if this was the problem????

John.

 

What Crucial SSD were you using? Neither the C300 nor the M4 controllers do any compression.

 

It was an Crucial M4 128GB , so it does not do any compression, i wonder why it was bsoding, i had the latest firmware , it was on an Samsung ivy bridge notebook, and as i said the Corsair F60 was doing the same, but the Samsung 830 was fine.

John.

 

Sorry, couldn't answer you that one. Could be related to power mgt and resuming from sleep on the M4. Having the C300, I never put my lappy to sleep -> I just power on/off as the 13s boot time doesn't really bother me.