The BEST SSDs available

What are the best Solid State Drives available for mobile workstations (9.5mm)?


I have three categories:
First, the most fun one, what is the best SSD in terms of performance? (Regardless of price or total storage capacity, just performance.)

Second, what is the strongest performing SSD with high storage capabilities? (128GB+)

And lastly, probably most related to us all, what is the best SSD in overall capitalistic terms? (With price, storage, and performance in mind)


Let's get the ball rolling, SSDs are the way of the future! In the (un)likely event that this thread maintains itself for some time, please post which question(s) you are responding to, and as of what date (because people can't look at the post's information).

 

Well, I think:

1. Intel x25-E 64gb (SLC)

Highly optimised for windows environment. SLC version expecially is built to withstand workstation load.

2. Samsung 256gb (2nd gen MLC)

With modernately high capactiy, and reliablity, cant really go wrong.

3. OCZ Vertex 120gb

Good speed, great value relatively, and consistant firmware updates; the only set back is probably the performance in used state.

 

In my opinion the best one for overall package is the Intel X25-M 80GB/120GB. Very fast random writes and three year Intel warranty. I know there are other ones that have higher throughput, but from my own research fast random writes is where its at. No other brands even touch the Intel in terms of random writes from what I've read. You pay a little more for the Intel (~$300 for the 80GB version), but you get good warranty, bulletproof Intel reputation, and fast random writes.

 

Depends on your budget. If my budget were unlimited, I'd pick up one of these without hesitation:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227443

Otherwise I'd grab one of these (whichever is cheapest at time of purchase):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227395
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231256
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220389
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820609394

 

I'd go with intel M as well...

 

i had the x25-e 64gb and now i have the corsair 256gb, which is the samsung one renamed. the corsair seems alot faster. vista boots faster, and its 256gb vs 64gb.

 

delete, server coughed

 

Quicklite pretty much has it like I would.

1. Intel X-25E is the fastest consumer SSD, bar none, if you go purely by the numbers. Some reports however show the X-25M beats it in day to day desktop work (Boot times, program launches, etc), but that's mostly a function of the X-25E firmware being tuned to enterprise usage and IOPS. Toss up here, really.

2. There's a 256GB Corsair drive out that has a Samsung controller, it's currently the lowest price/GB "good" (non-JMicron) drive available at 256GB.

3. OCZ Vertex 120GB or G.SKill Falcon 128GB, essentially the same drive, and can be picked up for right around $310 if you look diligently enough and wait for a sale.

 

Why is the Patriot Torqx on newegg so insanely high?

 

Did you say fastest SSD?

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/ocz’s_new_ssd_abandons_sata

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ioDrive-Duo-Worlds-Fastest-SSD,7254.html

That is, if desktops count

 

Probably just because it's a new product using Indilinx MLC tech.

 

but it uses the same stuff as ocz($377), g.skill($339), and super talent($355). It doesn't seem logical to price it nearly $100.

 

Im running dual HDDs right now and want to eventually replace my primary with a SSD to run my OS and programs. Are there any solid performing 30 or 60 gb SSD on the market for $150? If its not significantly faster than a HDD I would rather keep waiting till i can get a reliable and fast 30-60 gb SSD for $100-$150.

 

30GB OCZ Vertex, or if you're lucky 64GB Samsung.

 

While the hardware is pretty much identical, the firmware is not.

OCZ has put in efforts to improve Vertex series, and Vertex tends to be slightly faster than the other rebrands as result.

 

My wish is for a 1/2 priced 256GB Corsair, and I'll finally pull the trigger

This seems to be the perfect drive. It's fast, reliable and stutter free, and has plenty of memory. But is it $700 good? no way!

 

True, but my point is that the patriot is unreasonably higher.

 

Why not think G.Skill as sighs of competition, more of a bargain; afterall, price will re-correct, but it takes time.

My wish is 1/4 priced P256, so i can RAID 0'em...

 

Super Talent has improved the firmware too. They supposedly have delayed release so that they could make their Indilinx drive more stable and faster than OCZ's. Testing wise, we'll have to see benchmarks though...

 

I plan to replace all my stuff with x25-m and x18-m 160GB versions. should be more than enough storage for me, and close to highest performance possible.

not really cheap, though.

i soon get the x18-m. then i can report if it beats my mtrons finally.

 

check the chart... http://www.storagesearch.com/ssd-fastest.html

700 MB/sec. and 550 MB/sec. that's nothing.

Texas Memory Systems RamSan-440, 4.5 GB/s random sustained external throughput
That is, if datacenters count
http://www.superssd.com/products/ramsan-440.htm

 

That's a great website, __-_-_-__, thanks for sharing.

 

Touché, my friend, touché.

 

I was just reading the article on Techreport. The degradation seems to be pretty shocking.

Is there any solution to it?

 

Windows 7 and latest firmware? It seems like TRIM is the solution.

 

That Techreport article is misleading in many ways, but regardless, since W7 will have TRIM it eliminates the problem.

 

A few weeks ago TechReport posted an SSD review where on their test system, a WD Scorpio beat out every SSD in boot times on XP (Including X-25M, X-25E, etc). If you notice, they tested on ICH7 with a Pentium 4 and 1GB RAM. That system has so, so many unforeseen bottlenecks that the entire tech community pretty much laughed in their faces. (See threads on XtremeSystems among other sites).

As such, that review is essentially worthless as well. They had such wild, out of left field numbers before, these numbers can't be trusted either.

 

wow.....

 

techreport is a total joke.
storagesearch is really great but it lacks some reviews and benchmarks.

THIS: http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/2747/g_skill_falcon_fm_25s2s_128gbf1_solid_state_disk/index.html
is a very good review. a serious one with lot's of real life results. enjoy.

 

This being a notebook forum, you can't forget to factor power usage into your decision. Which of these "best" choices uses the least power, active and idle? My G.Skill Titan definitely runs hot; I'll probably replace it with a newer single-controller drive when prices come down a little more.

 

I still go there, just only for tech-news.

 

It doesn't make much difference. if a notebook consumes about 40watts (at best) 1 or 2 watts difference in a hdd or ssd won't make much difference.

I used to go there. no I go somewhere else

 

But if a notebook consumes 20W or less, then 1-2W can easily be a 10% difference.

 

Agreed. I believe an average notebook on battery discharges at about 19-26W on the most agressive battery settings of course this depends on the type of hardware, LCD brightness and performance, so a 1-2W difference would be significant.

 

For my own reference, I made a small list of SSD specs and current prices from NewEgg.

Code:

Model           Size    Price   Per GB  Active  Idle    R/W MB/sec
Corsair P256    256GB   699.00  2.73    1.5W    0.15W   220/200
OCZ Vertex      250GB   749.00  2.99    2W      0.5W    250/160
OCZ Summit      250GB   899.00  3.59    2W      0.5W    220/200
G.Skill Titan   256GB   619.00  2.41    3-4.5   1.4W    200/160
G.Skill Falcon  256GB   609.00  2.37    2W      0.5W    230/190
Intel X25-M     160GB   619.00  3.86    1.7W    .06W    250/70

The Titan is just for sake of comparison (since I already own one) and isn't even available on NewEgg at the moment. I recall that I only paid $525 for it, so prices have gone up in the past few months.

I think the Corsair is the winner here, for overall performance, performance/watt, and overall value. The Intel power specs above need some explanation; the published specs are 0.15W active and 0.06W idle. However, that's a special "low power" idle mode, and not the typical powered-on-ready-to-accept-commands idle mode. Also, I have no idea what the 0.15W refers to since the benchmark sites like Toms Hardware clearly measured 1.7W in their own review. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Intel-x25-m-SSD,2012-12.html (They must be spec'ing this the same way they spec "TDP" for their CPUs, sigh...)

Let's see, just to boil things down even further, we could naively add the read and write sequential speeds, divide by active power, and get perf/watt. (I know, sequential performance isn't everything, but this is just to get a rough idea.) Then divide that by price/GB, to get total "value":

Code:

Model           Perf/Watt   Value
Corsair P256    280         102.56
OCZ Vertex      205          68.56
OCZ Summit      210          58.49
G.Skill Titan   120          49.79
G.Skill Falcon  210          88.60
Intel X25-M     188          48.70

That makes it pretty embarrassing for me, my Titan is almost as wasteful as the Intel. Oh well. I guess another useful metric might be random writes/watts to get a better feel of "performance per watt" but it'll take longer to find comparable numbers for that. Looks like Indilinx still has some work to do to catch up to Samsung...

 

Presumably dedicated to 1.8/2.5" SATA SSDs, but anyone like myself interested in 1.8" ZIF SSDs that may stumble across it may find the following useful:

Current crop of 1.8" ZIF SSDs

 

Very nice comparison highlandsun...I would like to see the Corsair and Summit go up head to head in some benchmarks!

Both are using the samsung controllers...should be interesting to see the results after testing both in the same system.

 

Thanks. I expect the Corsair and Summit will come out pretty even, so it will just come down to price.

By the way, as another reference point, here are figures for a Seagate 7200.3 320GB drive:

price 69.99, price/GB .218, active power 3.0W, idle 1.0W, R/W 70/70.
Perf/watt 46.66, value 214.06.

The SSDs dwarf the HDD in terms of sheer performance, but when you factor in performance vs price, you see there's still a huge gap, the HDD blows away all the SSDs. And yet, if SSDs dropped in price by just about another factor of 2, the HDD *value* advantage would be gone.

 

It's a nice comparison, but judging hard drive performance by maximum read/write is a bit limited. If you factor in acces time the price/performance will look entirely different.

 

Yeah thats the problem with SSD, the sequential read/write numbers can be so misleading. Intel looks like a dupe in the write tests but in real life use its faster than just about all of them due to its random write speeds and random seek times.

Factor in the other stuff as well, brand customer service, firmware update releases, warranty, controller used, etc etc and before you know it there is too much to break down to really compare them easily.

SSD is one of those things that if you take your eye off of it for even a week your out of the loop.

 

Yeah Tom's Hardware takes: 50% Throughput - 25% PCMark - 25% I/O as a measure for performance. Intel comes out on top.

Here's their list:
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-flash-ssd-charts/Desktop-Performance,938.html