Best SATA III SSD?

PCMark Vantage isn't a very good alternative to real world benchmarks.

The C300 is a Crucial product, not OCZ.

I'm pretty sure the C300 on SATA III will beat the 320 in real world performance.

 

ooops im sorry. You are right. Crucial not OCZ. Still would pick Intel though. Well tomshardware tested the C300 with SATA 3. It scored almost identical with Intel 320 in the tests they performed.
Real world performance? I don`t know.

 

I ignore the tests done by Tomshardware, it's too synthetic.

Anandtech is a bit better:
The Intel SSD 320 Review: 25nm G3 is Finally Here - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News


PS. Crucial is owned by Micron, Micron and Intel make the NANDs together. Intel's 510 uses a Marvell controller, just like the C300 does.

 

Funny how you linked me to the light workload where C300 scored a little better, but the page before that they did the heavy workload and 320 was better here.

The anandtech review confirms my beliefs. Just read the whole review. C300 and 320 switch places throughout all the tests.

 

Just ignore all the synthetic tests. These are actual real world test: Intel's 320 Series solid-state drive - The Tech Report - Page 6

There's no doubt about it. The C300 on SATA 6Gbps is much faster than the 320...

 

Stop ignoring whatever don`t fit your view on Crucial drives. You found 1 review that gave a different opinion than 3 other reviews. Great. I don`t trust that review at all because according to them the C300 is faster than M4 in "real world tests".
I rather trust anandtech and tomshardware. I could be wrong though.

"In contrast, the SSD 320 performs close to the last-gen of OCZ's SandForce-based drives."

 

Tomshardware and Anandtech only use synthetic test setups. If you want to rely on synthetic results I can't really help that.

I rely on real world tests. Sites like Hardwareheaven and Techreport use real world tests. In real world performance there's no SATA II drive beating the SATA III C300.

 

Here is another review with real world tests. Like i said: Just about equal
Intel SSD 320 (300GB) Review - A Review of the Intel SSD 320 (300GB)

 

That's a very good real world review. But it's done on a SATA II controller.

When you put the C300 on a SATA III controller it will beat the 320 quite easily in normal notebook usage.

 

Sigh. Fine, they tested it with SATA 2.
Still i trust anandtech and tomshardware (which tested C300 on SATA 3)

 

Great new article and benchmarks on Tom's Hardware: Crucial m4 And Intel SSD 320: The Other SSD Competitors : The Other 2011 Competitors

 

nevermind.

 

bleh makes my 510 look kinda lame.. but, an ssd is an ssd. i'm sure i'll still be super happy once i actually get my hands on it

 

Yeah, those numbers look pretty off to me. Is anyone else showing the m4 being 14% faster overall than the Vertex 3, and 60% faster than the 510?

 

No.

PCMark Vanatge doesn't cut it anymore. It's synthetic and was written for Vista.

PC Mark 7 should be available soon but I doubt it's any better.

 

This thread started off with this:

Keep holding your breath... they're getting closer...

Make sure you're reading that right. If there are other drives in a RAID array on the same controller, the SSD will get the TRIM commands. BUT, if the SSD is actually PART of an array, it will still not get the TRIM commands... yet Sadly, even the newest 10.1.0.1008 drivers still don't have it. Come on Intel! We're not asking for it on RAID 5 or anything crazy... just little old RAID 0!

 

Just got a new Dell XPS 15, it has Sata III capability, would you recommend the crucial c300 or the intel 320? The c300 is certainly faster, but I've read about its recent stuttering problem, for which there is a fix but the fact crucial still hasn't released a firmware fix worries me. Intel is rock solid reliable, but it will cost more and perform worse. Also, the newegg reviews for the c300 aren't spectacular. So I'm really torn between which one to get. Any advice?

 

C300 has a good reputation. It's not without reason that Intel is now using Marvell controllers.

I'm not fully up to date with the stuttering problem that some people refer to.

I'd go with C300 personally. If you want max. reliability search for a good deal on a 160GB Intel x25m.

 

Why does everyone overlook the OCZ Vertex 3 as a kick a$$ contender? I have read all of these reviews and it looks like one of the fastest drives at present.

Besides the fact that it does not seem to be available presently ...

I ask because I wonder if I am missing some important factor, it there a problem with the Vertex 3 that I am not aware of?

 

I agree Vertex 3 is the fastest SSD at the moment. Only downside is rather high power consumption.

If OCZ gets the quality levels right this time it should be a winner.

First customers in the Netherlands already got their Vertex 3.

 

so you havent read anything about ocz's reliability in those reviews?

thats the primary reason why most arent jumping on the vertex 3; the fact that ocz are a bunch of shysters.

 

Not just in those reviews. If you go to OCZ's support forum(for SF, mainly the vertex 2 line), you can still find NEW 'my drive suddenly disappeared' support help every day even as of now.

I need to see a reputable tier 1 vendor to use SF drive before I would consider one(Intel/Dell/HP would be a first sign of it).

 

We also have to wait if the production final revision of Vertex 3 is the same performance as previewed pieces.

I am also disappointed of Intel's both 320 and 510 drives, at least based on tests available at this time.

 

I guess all of the reviews I have read are done by professional reviewers basically doing various benchmarks.

I did not realize that the unit was as new as it must be. I do recall seeing some bad reliability reviews of the Vertex 2 models.

How close are we to having a group of viable high performance 3rd generation drives to choose from?

I am in no real hurry but I want to reconfigure a new AW M17x R3 with a fast primary SSD and a large data drive as secondary.

Also, Phil, thanks for the info regarding power consumption, it does seem a bit out of line with the other contenders, 1.7W idle?? What the heck? The others are in the range of a few dozen milliwatts at idle.

It seems like the Intel 510 series of drives are solid performers and I have read that they are reliable as well. These are pricey, but they are also available NOW ...

Thanks for all of the input guys, I am trying to catch up on schooling re:SSD before I make a purchase.

 

If they use a fast CPU(in order to achieve the performance), that is understandable.

There is always a price to pay for performance. The bulk of the energy consumption of an SSD at idle is the CPU + cache(if there is). The NAND itself use nothing(almost anyway).

 

haha seriosly. Why are you guys talking about power consumption? The SSDs draw 1-4 Watt. It does have absolutely no impact what so ever. Vertex 3 draw 4 watt. A CPU today draw 25-35-45 W. GPUs 15-100W in notebooks. How many seconds per charge can you actually save with 320 compared to Vertex 3?

 

againt, it is about usage pattern. My notebook has a power profile of about 10-13W/h for my typical usage(that was with a HDD). An idle power of 1.7W vs 0.1W means a lot to me.

By switching to my x25m, I gauged about 15-20% longer time between recharge(if it is on battery).

 

Ok i guess it matters if you have one of them fancy Atom processors or maybe ULV CPUs? And maybe paired with IGP or the weakest GPU there is. Still don`t understand how you got 1.6 W = 15% better battery life though...

BTW i think it is interesting that Vertex 3 use just as much power in idle as 320 does in active mode

 

I was just giving an example(ballpark), not the actual figure.

You pay for the performance. A 5000l engine's milleage would be very different from a 1500l when you are driving in the city where there is a red light on every two blocks.

 

Yeah no way in hell you get so much improvement by 1.5W...

Too bad that you only drive on the highway very rarely and are forced to drive in 3rd gear with that Vertex along with the other cars at 40 MPH most of the time...
Expensive gas

 

You do realize even a normal voltage CPU with TDP of 35W is less than 1/10 of that right... Most 13-17" notebooks idle between 5-20W, so yes, 1W less power from one SSD to another or to a HDD, can be fairly significant (easily 5-20%).

 

Yeah, that was my only real point, seemed like the Vertex 3 was just a much higher power usage device as compared to the others.

I am not at all concerned with power savings for battery usage or anything, although for some, as chimpanzee mentions, it may be a concern.

You are right as compared to the drive it will replace, it is still much lower.

 

No matter what brand's support forum you'll visit, there will be problems.

For example the Intel forums, some examples from the first page:
"ssd dissapeared from bios"
"Newly installed SSD 310 not recognised "
"80G2 SSD stopped working"
"SSD 510 compatibility problems with Macbook Pro "
"SSD damaged after 1day ?"

And as far I know the 'my drive suddenly disappeared' issue has mainly been resolved by newer firmware. A lo of people post problems on forums before updating their firmware.

I'm not saying OCZ is as reliable as Intel though, because in my opinion they're not.

 

Of course there is. Intel public said that their measured failure rate is about 0.25-0.6%, rather than 0%. It is the matter of frequency and what is behind it. That is why I adviced people to go through them(both on these support forums and newegg etc.) and examine the reason to gauge. Rather than just take whoever's advice on who is more reliable. Personally, I simply would ignore any lines like 'I have X x25m/vertex 2 and all are working perfectly'. Those are IMO useless information to me.

 

I assume you heard about it
Les taux de pannes des composants (page 6: Disques durs & SSD) - HardWare.fr
not much info about the sample size anyway

and these comments in this article as well
Intel: "Of the 1 million units of X25-M SSDs shipped so far, Intel has seen a total annual return rate of about 0.7 percent, and a total annual failure rate of about 0.4 percent"
http://www.crn.com/news/storage/229...;jsessionid=Q66d6fxFVIAHCcHRBYiLNQ**.ecappj03

 

that french site has been discussed in length here. Interestingly their figure of Intel is quite close to Intel's published figure.

 

According to Intel the new 25 nm SSDs should have even better reliability.
I guess we will have to wait and see about that...

 

I went ahead and pre-ordered an OCZ 240GB Vertex 3 at Amazon. I hope it works out for me in my yet to be received AW M17x-R3.

I read some great reviews about this drive (pre-release beta hardware), I hope the production models perform as well or better and they prove to be reliable as well. We'll see ...

 

Marginally better.

 

Yeah i bet

 

It's available (in stock) on Computer4share.com

Computers4SURE -

I just grabbed one 120GB Vertex 3. I'll give OCZ a try since they seem to be serious about SSDs. I bet they have learned something after the recent issue.

 

I wouldn't bet on it. You can search many forums and see that they've had several previous issues with false advertising. Fool me once shame on you...

 

Well, they have not fooled me once, so I am willing to give it a shot. All preliminary reviews show the Vertex 3 smokes everything.

Thanks Torai, I think I'll hold off and get it through Amazon. They have the MOST liberal return policy as well so if sgogeta4 is right, I'll be able to return it as defective and get my money back. I have dealt with them for years on issues like this and I am confident that if I get a series of bad drives, or if they do not live up to the claims, Amazon will make it right.

 

Anand tweeted that theres a big difference in performance between the 120 and 240gb Vertex 3...

http://twitter.com/anandshimpi/status/55135637690519552

 

That's interesting, I am looking forward to another update on the topic ...

 

There's quite a difference between any 120GB vs 240GB. Or 128GB vs. the 256GB version.
Same goes for C300, Intel 510 or X25m.

These differences mainly show up in multi tasking benchmark scenario's like Anand and Storagereview use. In real life it doesn't show so easy.

 

Review is out, Anandtech's The OCZ Vertex 3 Review (120GB)

Spoiler

This is going to be a pretty frustrating conclusion to write. I'm still waiting for the final, shipping 240GB Vertex 3 to arrive before passing judgement on it but from what I've seen thus far it looks like that may be the drive to get if you're torn between the two. I feel like if you're going to be working with a lot of incompressible data (e.g. pictures, movies) on your drive then you'll want to either go for the 240GB version or perhaps consider a more traditional controller. The performance impact the 120GB sees when working with incompressible data just puts it below what I would consider the next-generation performance threshold.

The bigger question is how does the 120GB Vertex 3 stack up against similar capacity drives from the competition? Unfortunately with only a 300GB Intel SSD 320, a 250GB Intel SSD 510 and a 256GB Crucial m4 on hand it's really tough to tell. I suspect that the drive will still come out on top given that the rest incur a performance penalty as well when going to smaller capacities, but I don't know that the performance drop is proportional across all of the controllers. I hate to say it but you may want to wait a few more weeks for us to get some of these smaller capacity drives in house before making a decision there.

 

That is a truly great review. Since I am doing mostly pictures, probably Intel 510 would be a better option for me. Also probably more reliable.

 

After reading Anand's review of the OCZ Vertex 3 128gb ssd, what amazed me more than any of the results from the benchmark was how shady OCZ is as a company.

 

yeh and the funny part is that a lot of people still dont seem to care and are ordering vertex 3 just because of performance.