Best SSD for SATA II Notebooks?

Yeah something is off. I haven't seen any other review that confirms such scores.

 

There's a lot of SATA II drives in this review, in real world benchmarks:
OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD Review > Benchmarks: Real-World Applications - TechSpot Reviews

 

Grrr,no G2.. But it's a great, straight forward review..Thanks Phil

 

Just got my SSD(first sdd to own) for my G73SW, its the samsung 470 128gb. I've just about read everything I can, but just for the sake of it, these numbers are pretty good/normal right?

 

Here is what ssdreview got with their 128GB Samsung 470:


Your:

 

The write speeds are awesome..Congrats on ur new SSD..

 

Yes looks pretty good. Same as the 256GB I tested.

 

Awesome, thanks guys!

Yeah, i've done a few tweaks, but really, there isnt much of a difference before and after. I guess most of the important ones are mainly to drop the wear down on the drive.

Though, leaving the writecache on is certainly needed. I had turned it off, then started the test and it was immediately cut in half, so I just stopped the test since I didn't want to add unnecessary stress/wear.

Thanks Cloudfire and Phil for the pics to compare. And Phil, your post have been the most informative, I've learned a lot from them, so thanks for that too. :>

I was always the one to say SSDs are a waste, but I guess your mind can change once you have a good laptop and have the money for one. I'm loving it so far, programs install so quickly and unzipping things are definitely mindblowing fast for me.

I actually almost bought the Intel 320 120gb, but last minute saw the Samsung SSDs and how fast their writes were, so I took a gamble even though it was a pain to find any personal reviews for the 128gb model.

Edit, actually, here is the my very first benchmark with absolutely no tweaks.

 

Care to time startup/shutdown and anything else you can think of? This will give the readers here an idea of how benchmarks translate to real world testing as well as the actual real-world performance of the Samsung SSD..Installing/uninstalling programs, copy-pasting files..That sort of stuff..If you're up to it..It's cool if u just wanna play with it though..

 

Man it would have been fun to buy the new generation drives and compared them to the old ones: Vertex 2, Vertex 3, C300, M4, X25-M, 320, 510. And maybe throw in a few HDD 5400 RPM, 7200 RPM and even 10 000 RPM. And perhaps Hybrids.

Test them on a perfect rig, same system, and then hammer them with all sorts of real life tests. Booting up, shutting down, virus search, opening up single programs, multiple programs, how they perform in games, copying files etc etc.
The ultimate test! Then we could finally come to a conclusion instead of the "this review says this but there is another one that says that". Different setups with their rigs, different test bench. So much easier if 1 reviewer tested them all under identical conditions.
We could have a sticky and could refer to them it if someone denied that what we say is a fact.

Then whoever tested them could just sell them used on ebay or amazon after they are finished with the test so that they could get a lot of their money back.

 

Sure, I guess I could create a thread for it once I have all the benchmarks done(so we don't derail this thread too much), but I just did a few compared to my 750gb HDD.

Samsung 470

• bootup = 10.670
• Portal folder in steam(265mb): 25secs to rar, 5secs to unrar
• Quake 4 folder(4.16gb): 13min 12secs to rar, 1min 10secs to unrar

Seagate 750gb(7200rpm) 2.5" HDD

• bootup = 22.900
• Portal folder in steam(265mb): 27secs to rar, 5secs to unrar
• Quake 4 folder(4.16gb): 13min 32secs to rar, 2min 09secs to unrar

Its quite the interesting results so far, kinda expected faster rar times, but since the unrar for the Q4 file was almost 1min faster, I guess its strengths are unraring more so than raring.


@Cloudfire

Ha, yeah that would be pretty cool, if I were richer and had a desktop I'd seriously consider it. Benchmarking is kinda fun/relaxing even though I don't consider myself a hardcore bencher or anything. =P

 

Compressing is typically going to be more cpu limited not disk.

 

I just ordered the samsung 470 128gb for $198 at newegg. Will put it in my 3820TG this week. I like the speeds I see from the reviews so far and the power consumption is pretty low.

 

Ah, i see, fair enough then. I guess it is nice to see a pretty big boost in uncompressing though. I tend to download lots of files that are zipped/rar'd so this ssd will come in handy :>. Thanks for the tip!

Awesome, used a coupon I presume? Best I've seen it is $220 from Amazon, newegg and even circuitcity/tigerdirect/compusa.

Either way, I'm certainly enjoying it, I still have a HDD in the second bay, so I guess power consumption wont make that much of a difference, but yeah, I did read it has a pretty good idle power draw.

 

Really nice combo, i might go with the exact setup, im kinda wishing for a smaller laptop for airplane trips. Seems this samsung ssd are really good, hopping to see more of them, maybe a sata III before i upgrade my desktop.

 

My thoughts exactly.

 

Well if anyone has that kind of money/resources/time that would be great..Maybe Phil can do it.. It would make things a lot simpler..No more numbers, just pure real world testing with a timer..that would definitely be the ultimate benchmark..

I don't see why it would derail this thread at all since this is about the best drive on SATA 2, which can only be decided if we can get as much real world tests as possible.. Samsung 470 seems to be a real candidate for best drive too..

 

After reading the whole of this thread, I am still confused which would be the best SSD in the market today (SATA III, that is). Phil, can you provide a very brief summary on which comes top?

 

OCZ Vertex 3 comes out top, except for the people that work a lot with incompressible files and large file copies.

Have you read this review? It compares Vertex 3, Intel 510 and Crucial M4 in real world settings.

Other than that Anandtech is good to read.

 

SATA 3? I think there's a whole different thread tackling SATA 3 drives..But basically the Vertex 3, if you want something more reliable, go get a C300 or intel 510..I'd say C300 cause of the price though..IMO

 

There's an OCZ Agility 2 on sale here, would it be worth it to grab one over an intel G2? Price of the Agility 2 is slightly lower..

 

Read performance is about equal, write performance and multi task performance of the Agility 2 is better.

Agility 2 performs nearly identical to Vertex 2. See Techreport.

 

Didn't they also change the chips to 25nm without changing the label?

 

Yes if you buy Agility 2 now there's a good chance you'll get 25nm NAND.

 

I have been reading the post here and other sites and still am confused. I want to get a SSD for my alienware m17xR2 laptop to replace my 7200rpm 500gb harddrive. I can spend up to $450 and I want to get a 250gb harddrive to put in drive bay 2. I think I got SATA 2. What is one of the more reliable and decent speed SSD I can get for say $350 to no more than $450 price range. I really dont understand alot of these benchmarks and scores on the drives or what they mean. Can anyone offer my some advice?

ALso after I install this thing in drive bay 2, how do I copy the first hard drive over to the new SSD to make it my primary boot drive? Or do I just reinstall windows 7 and all my programs again? I know I sound a little dumb. But I went up to Frys Electronics today and looked at the SSD and I came away confused as to what to buy.

 

Kalvin, check out this review.

Crucial C300 and Samsung 470 are my personal preference.

When you install your SSD a clean install will give best performance.

 

Intel x25m 120GB.

out of curiosity, why not just move the 500GB to bay 2 ?

 

If you have 2 drive bays, I don't see why you have to spend $350-$450 for an SSD since 120GB would be more than enough for a boot drive and a couple of games..Those cost at a little over $200..But if you want a 256GB SSD then go for it..

Intel x25m G2 160GB might be a good choice, also check out samsung 470 and crucial C300..Get whichever is cheaper..

Use the 500GB drive as your second drive..keep all data there and just keep windows and games/programs in your SSD..

 

Thanks, I ended up getting a new Samsung 470 series 250 Gb SSD as my main drive. I ended up do a fresh install. It is working really great, and it is really fast.

 

What is the best SSD for SATA II at the moment?
Vertex 2?
intel 320?
samsung?
or other please list

 

Consider the Crucial C300, it may be last-generation but it works fine on SATA-II and if necessary it works on future SATA-III upgrades. The current generation SSDs are really more suited for the newer SATA-III interface.

 

I would choose Samsung 470.
Now sure how many people now that, but 470 Series uses fifth generation Samsung controller.

 

I would pick a Crucial C300. It's a fast stable SSD with 34nm NAND.

 

Define best... for notebooks, IMO the Samsung 470 is best since performance isn't noticeably slower than most of the other top SSDs while having a very low power consumption.

 

Intel 320 Series 160GB or larger.

5 Year Intel Warranty.

Known/proven Intel controller (basically same G2 controller from 2 yrs ago with built-in features 'enabled' in the 320).

Real world performance too close to the 'top' SSD's to be dismissed offhand.

You're not really comparing benchmarks, right? (Benchmarks: yawn).


A storage medium/device must first and foremost be reliable. Intel is the hands down winner in this department.

The 'performance' advantage is simply moving to SSD vs. HDD.

No doubt there are (currently) faster SSD's available (and I can 'feel' the speed difference, trust me) but, if you are relying on your storage solution to be as productive and with as little downtime as possible, then Intel 320 Series drives (160GB or larger) offer the most complete SSD package currently available.

 

+1 for intel. but actually because of the benchmarks, too.

reliability can be fixed with backup. but still, intel is a great ssd that delivers. very "balanced", they are.

 

I wouldn't pick Intel 320. Random performance is lower than Crucial C300, even lower than X25m.
Intel SSD 320 (300GB) Review

5 year warranty is nice but I'd rather have 34nm NAND: it's faster and lasts longer.

I haven't been counting failures on Newegg lately but someone mentioned in the other thread that Intel 320 isn't doing very well.

 

Yeah, benchmarks.

No, in benchmarks it sucks (I'll be the first to admit it). But in real world, it is the first Intel drive that performs (overall) better than a HDD and not much worse (if at all) than any other SSD.

Reliabilty cannot be fixed with a backup. How does that help you when you need to reinstall the O/S (and programs!) and the drive doesn't even show up in the BIOS of your system?

 

I'm not talking about benchmarks, I'm talking about real world performance.

If it was my money it would be going to something faster. If I'd want something cheap and reliable I'd get a second hand X25m.

And for people looking for max. reliability: the hard failure record of both C300 and Samsung 470 is better than Intel X25m and 320.

I wouldn't recommend the C300 for reliability though because of the LPM issues. That leaves Samsung 470 for the ultimate reliability. It's faster than Intel 320 and X25m too.

5 year warranty on the Intel 320 sounds great but it doesn't cover wearing the drive out. And on a sidenote, who wants to be using SATA II drives in >3 years time.

As you can tell I'm not getting excited over the 320. Maybe some real life experience with it will change that. I'm expecting one next week.

 

Phil,

You're joking right? Even in the link you provided - there is barely an average difference of a second between the 470 and the 320. lol...

Second hand X25M? Reliable? Depends (conclusion: probably not when you need it to be). Performance that is slower overall than a HDD? Recommended? Lol...

There is no hard failure records anywhere - just hints that Intel is still very much superior to all others.

The people who will be using SATA2 drives in 3 years time will be the ones with SATA2 systems that are still functional and do not require upgrading, 'just because'.

 

I'm not expecting that the Intel fans here will agree with my opinion. That would be pretty foolish.

For more objective opinions on Intel 320 I recommend people to read Tomshardware, Anandtech and Techreport:

The general consensus is: this would have been a great drive if it was released two years ago.

Yeah if you ignore the hints where Samsung 470 and Crucial C300 come out more reliable:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...tomer-reviews-current-ssds-who-will-help.html

But let's forget the reliability discussion. Crucial, Intel and Samsung all make reliable SSDs. It's Sandforce and Indilinx that have problems in the reliability area.

 

Okay, let me try to understand this: if it was released two years ago it would be a great drive, but the drive that was released two years ago is the better option now? Logic is off?

Counting newegg reviews for two yrs (I'm only interested in the controller here - basically the exact same hardware between G2 and G3) vs. a few months is not exactly comparing apples to apples, right?

 

I'm not saying the X25m it's the 'better' option. I'm saying the Intel X25m opens applications faster because of better random read performance. And 34nm NAND lasts longer than 25nm NAND. So for people who want maximum performance it would be strange to pick Intel 320.

Crucial C300, M4, Intel 510 and Samsung 470 are the better options if you're looking for performance. Even the Crucial M4 is hardly more expensive than the Intel 320.

So, on SATA II, my perfomance pick: Crucial M4.
My reliability (and performance pick): Samsung 470.
My budget pick could be Intel 320 or Intel X25m IF the price is significantly lower than those.

 

In and of itself I agree 34nm nand is superior in durability. However, that is not the only thing that determines an SSD drive's life. I trust Intel to worry about the little details like this.

Maximum performance is no different in the SSD world than it was in the HDD world: your maximum performance was given by the drive that stayed running the longest and gave you very good/excellent 'raw' performance too.

A single re-install is enough to negate any speed increases an SSD 'solution' might provide (to some people) for some 'undetermined' amount of time.

So, while it may seem strange to pick the 320 series to you - considering that the sequentials are greatly improved (up to 100% improved) and the real world performance delta is a non issue (seconds! and they trade 'wins' depending on what you're timing - for example the 320 is better at multi-tasking which is a very noticeable deficiet in the G2 imo), it is still the best overall choice for a SATA2 system today.

 

hahaha. tiller-bollocks at work


other than that, longevity of the intels should never be a problem. they announce them for one fifth of the time they think it'll last themselves. do i have to cram up that paper again? somewhere on intel.com it is.

 

Hello,
I'm looking for "the ultimate SSD-choice" for my Asus G51Jx.
120-130Gb would be satisfying. This is a SATA-II notebook, with only one slot for a HDD/SSD.
The most important task for a SSD in this notebook, will be fighting with HD video editing. No gaming.
This notebook has no BIOS alternative for booting from USB, only HDD/SSD, optical unit, or Atheros Boot Agent.
So which SSD will be my ultimate?

 

Actually I don't find it strange. Each SSD has it's pros and it cons.

Intel 320 is a nice middle of the road performer with (probably) good reliability and the longest warranty. The way it's looking right now it's a hassle free drive that just works. People looking for that should definitely consider it, if the price is right.

Crucial M4 128GB would be my pick.

 

Hello,
I'm looking for a SATA2 drive for my Dell Vostro 3300 - since I got an external drive for storage I'm simply looking for a 40GB+ drive with both reliability and performance combined as well as possible. So far I've heard good about Samsung 470 series and Crucial m4 series, but there aren't really much reviews out there that would test the 64GB models, but rather the "high-capacity" models are being benchmarked. Perhaps I should push out a bit more and get a Intel 320 80GB? Or have you guys got any completely different suggestions? : )

 

For SATA II It seems the best average performers that are most probably the most reliable are the Intel 320 and Samsung 470. The C300 is also in their league but an older generation.

The C300 as a result therefore is now available at great prices even in 256GB flavour!

Personally I am torn between these 3 but am moving towards the newer drives particularly the Intel as it has a great name for reliability! I think at the right prices the Intel 320 300GB could be a killer drive boasting seq writes higher than the smaller capacities..

 

At the place where I'm checking the prices from C300 series is completely depleted, m4 64GB goes for 115€, Intel 320 40GB is 116€, Intel 320 80GB (note sure about that one, but the product code is - SSDSA2CW080G310) 155€, Samsung 470 64GB 137€.

As I understand Intel is good for reliability but which of these drives is best performance wise (bang for the buck) on SATA2?