SSD Recommendation

Hi guys,

Need some advice on this one.
Just bought a second hand alineware r2 and it has an ocz vertex plus SSD 60GB as primary hdd.
Performance is not too bad but compared to my crucial m4 ssd in my clevo it's definitely slower.
In particular the slowness is apparent when booting up into windows with the window logo appearing. With the crucial it's at this point it enters windows welcome screen whilst with the ocz vertex plus it takes about another 5 second after logo forms to then boot up into welcome screen. Would this be attributed to ssd drive or sata 2 v 3 interface or cpu performance(My cpu is in my sig)?

I also did a benchmark on atto ssd benchmark and it showed the crucial m4 read/write somewhere max in the 533MB/s whereas the ocz reaches about 183MB/s max.
So would it be best for me to buy another crucial m4 drive or possibly the kingston hyper x 3k series or is there another drive available which offers bang for buck performance? I am more after performance(boot up time premium) than anything else at cheapest price as this will be small capacity and used strictly for O/S drive so capacity will be limited to 64GB or thereabouts and failure is not a real issue for me as I will have ocz for backup drive o/s.

Recommendations warmly welcome

 

try the samsung 840 or plextor m5pro, also I personally believe the boot up speed s strongly attached to the 4k read speed since boot up requires access to a large amount of small files, each program that comes with the OS installation represents at least 3-5 files to be read at boot time, might I also ask if the OS is clean installed or just comes second hand with bits and blobs loaded at boot time

 

840 pro, nothing less

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

So which of these two drives has the better 4k read speeds?
I am leaning to the samsung but I have heard Plextor very good too and can't say anything bad about my crucial m4 that has been very solid drive but this ocz is very (how can we say) crappy...? need something small and fast..

Perhaps some reviews with benchmarks/figures to seal the deal?

Edit based on this review
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269-2.html

3 contenders fit the bill for 64gb ssd
Adata XPG SX900
Kingston HyperX 3K
Samsung 840 only 128GB so it's out of equation.
Leaning towards Adata xpg sx900 at this stage.

Edit: Just bought the Adata XPG SX900 64GB version at a great price too. wooot
Should be amazing and another few positive reviews of it below..happy chappy
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/ADATA-XPG-SX900-256GB-SSD-Review/?page=1
http://www.overclockers.com/ADATA_SX900_128GB

The last review above is in particular very good as it compares it against my crucial m4 in ATTO and smashes it especially at 4k read speeds even though this review is a year or so old(perhaps older version)...

 

tran2 , just curious have you done a secure erase and fresh install of your OS prior to testing the AW with the OCZ? Also you are saying the AW is SATA II , correct?

 

Yes this is all correct.

The OCZ is slow to boot windows, but once in windows it flies along very nice. As I said above the crucial m4 on a clevo 2820xm sata III interface will boot up into windows once the logo appears it's fast. With the OCZ vertex plus in this alienware fresh install all drives cleared, partitioned and formatted, the logo appears and about 5 seconds or so later the screen enters windows startup, etc.

Even when I benchmark the ocz in ATTO it shows really low read/write speeds as mentioned in my first post. I recall crucial m4 does 550MB/s when i used atto. The OCZ in this machine i am typing on does about 183MB/s so it's really slow hence my need to update it. Anyway once the Adata XPG SX900 arrives I will let everyone know how it goes. I will be heading overseas soon as well so I won't probably install this drive until Sept' when I will be back.

 

The order of 'performance' for an SSD goes like this:

O/S (Win 8 easily faster than Win 7, for example...)

CPU (SNB, IB, or Haswell based platform with a quad core highly recommended)

RAM (With an IB i3 3217 or higher: 8GB minimum - 16GB recommended of the fastest Sodimms you can afford)

SATAIII (minimum for 'now' - in the future NGFF and higher will be 'required' for fastest performance of the SSD installed)

SATAII (This 'step down' definitely feels slower vs. SATAIII)

Size of SSD (pre Crucial M500 series: minimum 240/256GB (Intel 520 Series, SanDisk Extreme and 512GB Crucial M4's, for example)

After M500 series: minimum 480/512GB and larger (both size 'recommendations' are to ensure optimum nand chip interleaving, fully populated controller channels and enough spare area (~30% via OP'ing) and free space (~25%) to ensure usable 2013 results with Windows 8 x64 Pro...

Lastly; the specific SSD brand/model/controller/nand combination you choose.


As you can see: the SATAII interface of your system is really a kick to the knees of your expected performance.

While your choice of a small capacity SSD also contributes to much less than optimal performance too - especially after a sustained real world load (depending on your specific workload: it could be days, weeks or months before you notice that the performance has once again 'tanked').


While I agree that OCZ Vertex drives are slow - I would not expect to see other drives perform any differently in the same kind of limited/small capacity and crippled SATAII interface conditions either (especially in a sustained, over time scenario).

Curious to see your results in September!


Good luck.

 

Ok received the drive.
Did a clone of the OCZ very simple stuff.

Now onto the details.
I have improved windows boot time by about 7 seconds which is significant with the adata ssd drive.
Also ATTO scores fully maximize the SATA 2(max-300mb/s) port at 283MB/s read/write speeds compared with 183/67 MB/s before with OCZ drive.

Verdict: 10/10
:hi2::thumbsup::hi2:

Use it with fancycache app and the system just flies.

 

Thanks for the update. Glad it worked out so well.

Just a note about fancycache: no doubt that it improves benchmark 'scores' and some increase in responsiveness is also noticeable too. However, it can also kill your O/S installation with certain options and specific tasks. Beware.


Take care.

 

Thnx mate.
yeah I noticed at first fancycache did improve raw transfer speed on ssd and the hdd but after I did a 3dmark11 run I noticed my physics score has gone down.
Uninstalled it and voila cpu/physics score back up again.

I guess the euphemism is there with a name like fancycache there is nothing fancy really about it.

 

I have played with many 'caching' software over the years and one thing I've learned:

If it is not incorporated at the O/S or hardware level - it is only worth considering in very specific use cases.


Certainly not how I use and expect any of my systems to perform: as multi-purpose general computing devices.



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