SSD For a New Envy 17 - 3200

Looking for recommendations and tips on finding a deal on a 256GB SSD for my incoming Envy 17-3200. I've browsing this forum for a few days and it appears as though people are favoring either the SAMSUNG 830 or the Curcial M4.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the SANDISK Extreme 240GB?

Thanks
Lan

 

The Crucial or Samsung will serve you well. I have an Envy 17 3D-2100 and the Samsung 830 Series 256 GB SSD. The drive is unbelievable. Fast, reliable and worth every penny I spent on it. When I built my new desktop...I put the same drive as my boot drive. Can't speak any more highly of an SSD. Crucial is also very reliable. I would NOT recommend anything with Sandforce controller, for they have a long history of issues. Crucial uses Marvel and Samsung uses their own controller...

 

My past recommendations have been for the Crucial M4's, the Samsung 830's and the Intel 520's (at 240GB size and larger), depending on the thread (availability, location and $$$ at the time...).

I have heard good things about the Sandisk Extreme's too (about their benchmarked speeds - which means nothing to me...) but have not had the chance to evaluate one myself so far.

As I have mentioned almost two years ago - an SSD can be made to do almost anything (performance-wise); but what will vary is the power it consumes while doing so.

Assuming you want the fastest performing And longest lasting battery life for your new system, I would be looking at (balanced) power consumption too in my variables (and not simply 'best price').

With this in mind; Intel 520 Series have the best track record of any/all SSD's so far for notebook users (overall).

See:
AnandTech - Plextor M5S 256GB Review


I have not found any power consumption data for the Sandisk Extreme in a quick search, but I highly doubt that it will compare favourably to the Intel 520's (when all other parameters are considered...).

Looking at the link above; the Samsung 830 (as an example) is horribly power hungry (except when idle) and is a major reason to exclude it from consideration in my view (unless you really do use your (storage) sub-system at or near idle almost all of the time - definitely not the reason I buy SSD's for...).

As mentioned in another thread; the Intel (SSD's) are like the Hitachi's (HDD's) of old: the most balanced products available today and any price premium is (in my view) entirely justifiable for people that know how to put things in the proper perspective.

Sure, I'd like the Intel 520's cheaper ($$), but you do get what you pay for (almost always) and what you get is the best balance of SSD performance, reliability, price and the long promised SSD benefit of 'less power than a spinning HDD' (which is not a given with every SSD available, even today).

Hope this helps.

Good luck.

 

I'd go with the 830 (unless it is significantly more expensive than the M4). Crucial at least fixes issues with their SSDs, which is more than I can say about OCZ and SandForce based SSDs.

 

If one needs the capacity and is willing to take a chance on an Sandforce based drive from Intel, there's this killer deal: Intel 330 Series 240GB SATA Internal SSD for $137 + $4 s&h - SSDSC2CT240A3K5.

For me, it's a bit too bleeding edge as the drive's only been shipping for 3 months and I'm no fan of Sandforce.

 

cwerdna, that product is backordered and B&H show it as 'Price not yet available'.

So no chances to be taken... (I would have jumped on this given it's an Intel product).