Looking for a high performance 240GB SSD

My new laptop is arriving Wednesday and I'm having trouble deciding on a 240GB drive.

This a business laptop, so I'll be using MS Office mostly (Outlook, Visio, Project, Sharepoint) but I also do a lot of media processing on the side (24bit Audio, Photos, HD Video)and some casual gaming.

I've landed on the following three:

Corsair F240 - $609 @ NE
OCZ Vertex 2 - $629 after rebate @ NE
OWC MEP - $629 @ OWC

From the reviews I've read, all three drives perform similarly. With each performing better in certain benchmarks.

I'm looking for the drive that will have the best real world performance, based on my usage, but also want to go with a company that will offer the best support for future firmware upgrades.

On a side note, I'll also be purchasing RAM so I'd prefer to order both the same company to save on shipping, which puts OWC out.

All input is appreciated.

 

i suggest the 256GB Crucial C300.. best SSD ever and now the price is also great.. crucial is selling it for $400.

 

I'd go for for Corsair. It's faster than Vertex 2 with the latest firmware. ( source)

In US it's $649 and with SATA II I'd prefer a Sandforce based SSD.

 

I looked at the C300, but as Phil said, it's not the best with SATA II. That's why I'm leaning towards Sandforce based drives.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

 

Thanks for the link Phil, that's actually the review that peaked my interest in the OWC.

The F240 is better than the Vertex 2 in the real world benchmarks, but gets edged out in most of the synthetic benchmarks. I'm more concerned with real world performance so I'll more than likely go with the F240.

Do you know if there's a performance difference between the 120 and 240GB versions?

 

I thought there is. More channels.

I'm not sure though. Maybe you can find it on Corsair.com

 

As much as I like to keep up on ssd's I havent read about sandforce controlers untill today. Although just yesterday I learnt a little bit about IOPS,4k and some other stuff. I do know SLC and MLC stuff, in SLC drives the electrons move in a different pattern then in MLC drives and also SLC have a better life cycle or more hours of use upon failure. If I was you I would wait till the G3 drivers become available from intel.

 

SLC NAND technology has proven to be reliable and is much more expensive than MLC NAND technology, especially since the capacity is double (or soon to be triple) of SLC per chip. Also, Intel is going to be using eMLC and not SLC in their new E series SSDs, which isn't a good thing for enterprises.

 

Thanks for all your input!

I've decided to hold off on a SSD for now, and stick with my 500GB Momentus XT instead. I still plan on upgrading in the future but I'm going to wait until the G3 drives start trickling out.

I'm interested to see what performance improvements the G3's will have over the G2's and if they'll help drive the G2 prices down.

 

you can get a C300 for $500 on ebay and i heard crucial was selling a few for $400 last week but basically its cheaper and performance wise its not that bad... although not best its the best buy and performance.