Best SATA III SSD?

Thanks for the link. Has anyone use Crucial's data transfer kit? Is it worth it, or would a free application be better? Any suggestions?

 

I'm in the same boat (read whole thread), and not sure which way to go.
Was leaning toward C300 128GB for $199 (my budget $200-$225) before reading this thread, now unsure.

My usage, windows 7/inet/new games/games(using DOSbox).
Plan on doing 2GB ram drive for temp files to increase speed and reduce wear on SSD drive.

I'm not a heavy user, won't archive videos/music on the SSD drive planning on using ext. 3.0 usb hdd when available for mass storage (no second bay in laptop).

Laptop specs are in my signature (SATA III) and was wondering the following:

For my usage, which is the best SDD?
Do I need to even worry about number of writes before SSD failure?
If I don't move or delete files that often and use a ram drive for temp files is SSD failure even a worry?
Do you recommend I do the RAM drive thing?

Thanks for helping a huge newbie, will rep all who do help of course.

 

I'd recommend the vertex 3, but you'll find just as many supporting the c400 or 510; it doesn't really matter to be honest. The arguments for each against the others aren't very strong, ie they're all very similar.
A person in your position (with your usage) should never 'worry' about ssd failure.
If you have excessive ram then yeah, go for the ram drive thing.

 

As stated, with your usage, all of the above options will work very similarly and without a stop watch or benchmarks, you will not likely notice a difference between them. So just pick the one that best fits your budget.

 

Hey everyone

Should I buy the Intel 510 120GB for $270 on Newegg? It is usually $315.

Thanks

 

Good deal. Other option is Crucial M4 128GB for $249. Similar performance and a little bigger.

 

Is there a comparison between the two? At the moment I am just googling reviews on the two now.

Disregarding price and capacity what drive would be the best?

Thanks.

 

M4/C400 wins most light workload benchmarks on Anandtech, the intel 510 wins heavy load iirc.

Check out the Hardwareheaven review:
Crucial m4 256GB SSD (C400) Review - Install Times

 

It seems like the Intel is better but it suffers here:

Crucial m4 256GB SSD (C400) Review - Crystal DiskMark

Any ideas why?

 

Interesting article at Tom's Hardware:

Best SSDs For The Money: April 2011 : April Updates

"We understand that SSD prices don't make it easy to adopt the latest technology. Maybe that's why you aren't too keen on blowing a couple hundred dollars on solid-state storage, especially when you can spend the same amount and buy four 2 TB hard drives or a high-performance processor. That's why it's important to put things into perspective. Over the past five years, CPU performance has hit new and unforeseen heights, and they're spending increasing time waiting on data from storage. Hard drives simply can't keep up. This is what makes storage today's most glaring bottleneck. Overcoming it requires an SSD.



As a point of comparison, a file operation completes 85% faster on a low-end SSD than it does on a high-end hard drive, but there is only an 88% speed difference between a high-end hard drive and a high-end SSD. That why you shouldn't let benchmarks deter you from making the switch. You don't have to have the best SSD to get great performance relative to a HDD."

 

@ Dude55, I'd disregard all synthetic tests. Real world tests start at page 7/8.

The M4 wins most real world tests with a very small advantage, except file copying and video capturing.

 

I see. Any ideas why the M4 is only sold on Crucial or Provantage? (Provantage has it for like $230 but says it may take 3-4 weeks to deliver.)

 

It's a brand new drive. Superbiiz might have it too.

Micron C400 is the same product.

 

Thanks. It doesn't seem like it has been released yet though?

 

It's available
MTFDDAC128MAM-1J1 Micron 2.5 inch 128GB RealSSD C400 SATA3 Solid State Drive(MLC) - SSD Solid State Drives - SuperBiiz.com

 

I see. But the drive branded under the Crucial name isn't.

So you really think the C400 offers better real world performance than the Intel?

Thanks again

 

Crucial is available directly from Crucial.com

Light workloads C400 > Intel 510
Heavy workloads Intel 510 > C400

 

Where you have read that? According to Anandtech they are equal in light workload. M4 faster with read and 510 faster with write

The Crucial m4 (Micron C400) SSD Review - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

 

Just throwing in my two cents here. Any SSD you get will be a huge step up from a traditional HDD, and compared to that difference, the differences between SSD models is negligible. However, if you really care about the differences, here are some guidelines:
If you are a regular user (ie web browsing, document creation, some gaming) get the SSD with better random read write access speeds(Crucial m4 or Micron c400) .
If you do a lot of video transcoding and large file read writes, get the SSD with better sequential read write speeds(Intel 510).
The OCZ vertex 3 comes out ahead of both in almost every test, but many people have had bad experiences with OCZ reciently. To wrap it up, to me, being a regular user with only occasional need for huge sequential read writes, the c400 or m4 would be the best option.

 

Not a bad advice. Crucial is indeed a good choice

 

Reliability aside, I would prefer C400/M4/510 as all have noticeably higher seq. read/write which when called for would help.

Vertex 3 again being a SF means it can be very fast or very slow and why I would skip that. I focus more on the 'worst case' than the 'best case'.

 

For anyone interested or contemplating OCZ drives, this might be of interest. Found these links at another forum regarding OCZ the company:

OCZ Technology Plunges After Reports of CEO?s Criminal Record - Bloomberg

Bears Slam OCZ After Fraud Allegation - Seeking Alpha

 

Yeah, who cares...

 

Not sure which would benefit more 8gb ram or 6gb ram with 2gb ram drive. Any opinions?
Trying to determine this info based on SSD choice so I hope it is relevant to this forum.

 

I see. Thanks

Yeah I would say I do not deal with huge files. I just do regular computer stuff, play games, listen to music, watch videos, edit photos....

So I guess the best choice is the Micron C400.

Any ideas if any news drives will be out within the next month or two?

 

There is nothing official, this was almost the full 3rd generation, Intel did had a replacement for their X25e line program for Q2 2011, but with the 320s delayed almost six months.... i would expect the same goes there, but this are going to be really expensive. From other companies.... i would expect something from samsung in sata III but nothing official, maybe toward ends of the year, i dont think we will see anything new for some time.

 

the replacment for x25E is not for desktop/laptop users. The NAND are specifically tuned for server usage(i.e. lots of write but retention period is unimportant).

 

I might be wrong, but i feel that intel has to release a 700 series to follow their core i = 3/5/7 to the SSD series 300/500/700. Weather its a server grade not meant for consumers who knows, but there is a new sneak peak from the desktop in anantech that has line at the end that makes me wonder.....

Anandtech Additional Details on Sandy Bridge-E Processors, X79, and LGA2011

 

There shouldn't be any more Atom CPUs in the future. The new netbooks will be called "Saltwell"...well that's their codename anyways.

ETA 2012. Definitely saving up for it

But I don't want to get off topic >_< I'm going to wait until prices get down to about... $1.1/GB

Mr. Mysterious

 

the rumour is it is going to be a SF based line.

But x25E successor is an entirely different thing. x25E is not a 'better/faster' line than x25M, it is for different market.

 

For light workloads I blended in Hardwareheaven's results.

Actually those are the results I trust most because their benchmarks are 100% real world.

 

A bit of waiting and bam:

Newegg.com - Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

$228. I'll get this drive and let everyone know how it is. I'll do my own Crucial M4 review along with Alienware M17x R3 Review.

 

Cool, looking forward to it.

 

That link says $259, how did you get it priced at $228? Or did it ALREADY raise in price?

 

Looks like it's gone up - I saw it at $228 yesterday too

 

Yeah unfortunately I did not snag it yesterday, I was going to get it today and saw it went up $30. I'm gonna wait up to a week and watch the prices.

 

I saw at $244 at Superbiiz, $249 at Crucial inculding shipping.

 

Yeah but Crucial charges me tax, $15.62. So that comes out to like $265, same price as Newegg. Superbiiz is out of stock. So I gotta keep waiting. I am surprised like nobody has this for sale...no major etailers.

 

Newegg has them, Provantage has them etc.

PS. Micron C400 = Crucial M4, same product.

 

I know, it is rebranded. Point is, the cheapest price is at Provantage for $238, but it says:

"This item is marked SPECIAL ORDER. Please be aware that special order items can take as long as 3 to 4 weeks to be delivered."

So there is no point in ordering from anywhere now. Now that the drive is $265 elsewhere, it gives me time to wait and rethink things.

 

How is newegg and provantage with their returns as compaired to amazon (I understand it isn't avail here yet)? Free return 30 day (no restocking fee) and return shipping?

 

I don't see as much negative comments on the Vertex 3 as compared to the Vertex 2 drives in newegg. Could this mean there aren't as many failing units? Or is this mainly due to the drive being new and probably due to the fewer number of buyers? Thinking Vertex 3 but I don't wanna get it if the drive fails as often as the Vertex 2.

 

You're not looking hard enough then.

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...tomer-reviews-current-ssds-who-will-help.html


and,

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/7450910-post54.html

 

The 240GB doesn't look good, the 120GB looks better. The one star rating there are mainly from people feeling cheated about the MAXIOPS versions.

 

Yeah 120 GB have good ratings so far. How can a bigger drive have much more failures? It is the same controller and the same type of NAND right? I just don`t get it.

 

So is this a pissing match lol Have we come to any conclusions or top options?

Here is what I came up with after 6 hours of reading.

Consider this:
M4 at $464 / 256gb = $1.81 per GB
Intel 510 at $598 / 250gb = $2.39 per GB
Vertex 3 $530 / 240gb = $2.21 per GB
C300 $474 / 256gb = $1.85 per GB
Samsung 470 (great drive for SATA II) $468 / 256gb = $1.83 per GB

you tell me, which one looks like the best deal

If you look at the torture test it really appears that the M4 is the best bang for the buck. You get more space, 256gb, good trim support/performance, and you get great real world performance for everyday/gaming use. I wouldn't get sucked up too much in the fact that the Vertex 3 and the Intel 510 are higher results. In my opinion you would barely see a difference between the M4 performance there and the Vertex3/Intel 510.



I think I am going to order the M4 512GB edition today for $912, but I'm still going to think about it for a few hours.

 

I got the M4 256GB from JR.com

Also did you get my PM I sent the other day??

 

I'm getting pissed. Everyday JR adds 1 day to the estimated ship date. It is supposed to start shipping 5/12 instead of 5/10 now...I can't fully use the M17x if I can't even get my hard drive here on time, this is BS.

 

Go order it from Amazon! They just put it up in stock at $453 shipped

 

Anand reviewed the Vertex 3 240GB production version. Power consumption improved.

OCZ Vertex 3 (240GB) Review - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News