The new SSD Thread (Benchmarks, Brands, News and Advice)

I value my time highly, and I use my laptop (only computer, or well, only workstation) ALOT.
60GB aint enough. Count the amount 3 operatingsystems will take away from the disc, and you cant have the same filesystem all over the disc with macos+win+linux.. so I will hafto split the disc.. its /Fail with 60GB; 120 minimum.

The win-partition is a "compatibility emergency" thing I keep, so I suppose you can really limit that to something around 6-7GB since win+office etc still takes space, even so, I dunno. 80GB perhaps.

And since I still havent seen SSD firsthand im not so positive, since im clueless about practical preformance increase.

Edit: Then again, im a geek by heart, so I cant let the SSD-train just pass throgh. Ive seen some example videos and seen some figures, so I still feel like a kid staring through the window of a candy store ;-)

 

just to say, win xp with office and other programs work very well on the 4gb ssd on the asus eee of my gf.. so you could (only for emergency) go even down to 3gb or so. it's a not-size-optimized default installation, just to inform

 

Uh, no.. that's not what I am admitting. :rolleyes2:

I guess you're experience must be the only right one.

Because it bothers you so much.

Actually it is because I have found that they are great drives for the money for typical desktop use. Though for people who want to spend more $$ or have "power" needs, I would say get something better. But that doesn't change the fact they are great drives for their segment.

 

Sounds like you should get a good SSD then... since you're a geek by heart and use your computer a lot. You could an HD for storage and put the OS and apps on the SSD.

 

Compiled a list of swedish prices for 128GB discs, realised I could post it here for "reference" or whatever, if someone from scandinavia is browsing the thread.

Ive removed some "seriously weird" netshops and just checked ones I know personally are real and trustworthy.

Edit: I observed one odd thing when checking around.. Why the hell are the intel 80GB discs priced at 450$ and above? Are they some form of super-SSDs? ;-) (I know they are a new model but cmon)

 

They would be great if everyone who pays that much (more than for an hdd with more storage) would get a "great drive for that segment". but most have issues with it. so it's more like russian roulette. the segment then is: spend money for something that may work, or not.

 

Actually, I would dispute that "fact." The OCZ Core drives are absolutely putrid. Yes, you may be able to minimize the issues by running a pair in RAID 0 or doing partition alignment or by using SteadyState, but as a plug-and-play OS drive (the use that the vast majority of consumers would use them for), the drives are simply unusable. Period.

 

I'm talking about the newer Solid series. I haven't tried the Core. The Solids are suppose to be better (from what I've seen and read).

 

Does anyone have any opinion on this disc?
Patriot Extreme Performance Warp SSD 2.5 SATA V.2 128GB

Its avalible for me for around 370$ with shipping which is definatley the best bang-for-the-buck, atleast gb/$.

How about it?

 

why? i nearly got the 128gb samsung for 200$ on ebay, and got another one for around 300$.. (and those are the rare 1.8" ones).

 

True, but why the heck would anyone do that?

@TidalWaveOne - those crappy cache-less JMicron-based SSD drives (not just made by OCZ) are simply slower than hard drives for most typical desktop usage scenarios - involving Windows Vista, Outlook, Internet Surfing... Heck, they even fail Windows Installation sometimes as it has been proven on many places.

Despite that, those drives are still much more expensive than hard drives (they are slower than!) - what kind of "segment" is that, now? For me, that segment can only be "Misleaded Customers" segment.

 

That looks like one hella' deal. Never heard of the vendor, but they seem to offer 30 day RMA refund w/15% restocking fee.

If I thought I could live with 64GB (and an SSD would survive my constant torrenting) I might pull the trigger.

 

NEVER HEARD OF THE VENDOR? it's a samsung. they are praised in here since around post one?

 

Definitely agreed. Don't try your luck on the Patriot; just get a Samsung

I think he was talking about the site that's selling them. I've never heard of them either...

 

I'm fine, then sorry..

I just always buy from american shops when I want to get ssd's. and no, I haven't heard of any of those, as I'm from switzerland and don't actually have any way to control what's going on over there.

But till now it always worked great.. I have good luck

 

Yeah, never heard of the vendor, Geeks.com.

No probs w/the Sammy!

 

Heh...NP, misunderstandings happen all-the-time in e-media, especially multi-national fora.

 

I'm from Canada and I've heard of geeks.com

 

well, i've heard of geeks, and of .com.. so i have the feeling i know geeks.com .. but i guess not..

 

Funny, my OCZ Solids are much faster than the HDs they replaced. I guess my OCZ Solids must be special.

 

As we stated, it has to do with luck. And as such, we can't support the ocz products, in general.

It may be that your needs are special (a.k.a. very low ), or happen to fit to your ssd perfectly. but there are enough that have problems with it, and the out of the box experience with the drives is very low (as you still have to apply tweaks.. you pay more and still have to tweak?).

but nice for you that it works.

 

Im not exactly thrilled about shopping for SSDs on ebay...
I prefer a normal vendor, less scam-factor, and if you get problems after a while you know who to contact.

Getting SSDs for half retailprice sounds abit weird though.

 

My needs on the notebooks I installed them in are not great (I'd consider the use "moderate"). That's probably why they work well. I would not buy one for my main system (unless perhaps I bought 2 to use with a good RAID controller). I consider the use on my main system to be "heavy" or "power user".

However, I think you overstate the difficulties people have with them. You are probably confusing them with the bad rap of the Core drives. If you look at the reviews on Newegg and Amazon, you will find that the vast majority of people are happy with the OCZ Solid drives, as well as some similar G.SKILL drives, like this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231220

 

You can get the 128GB Samsung MLC from Newegg. You just have to buy it as a re-brand. The price isn't bad either...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233075&Tpk=corsair 128GB

You can also buy the 64GB Samsung SLC from Newegg. You just have to buy it as a re-brand. I wouldn't recommend it as the prices are simply ridiculous...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227295&Tpk=ocz 64gb
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231187

You can ALSO buy the 32GB Samsung SLC from Newegg. You just have to buy it as a re-brand. The prices are similarly ridiculous and I'm not gonna bother with the links...

 

there are no "normal vendors" in switzerland anyways. except for 2x the price of your normal vendors, or 4x the price of ebay.. so the chance to get crap on ebay is according to my experience 1:4, so the losses are much lower than buying at full price (and having to wait months till the stuff is awailable here at all).

 

I could, but newegg dont ship to Europe do they?
I took a quick check yesterday, and it didnt seem like they did..

 

I dunno why so many people think eBay is so bad. I rebuild and resell old Dell Latitudes on the side, just for kicks, and I buy everything from eBay. Out of maybe fifty purchases, I'd say I get one or two "duds". Out of those one or two duds, one or two are usually resolved in my favor through Paypal, albeit through what can be a lengthy process.

Honestly just make sure you read the descriptions carefully, buy something with some sort of warranty (or a guarantee that it will work), and pay through Paypal. I think it's really hard to go wrong...

 

I'm sometimes to dump to get it right but yes, i trust ebay as much as any online reseller in switzerland and outside of switzerland. it's always a hope-for-the-best thing. I had fights with shops in switzerland as I had with stuff from all over the world.. ebay is no worse than ordinary shops. Just more fun

 

Gosh, I must be the only net fogie here. While I have not been purchasing from geeks.com regularly they have been around forever! Anyone ever surfed the original onsale.com? They were big in selling computer parts through onsale. That would have been, oh, about 12-13 years ago around 1996/1997. Despite their juvenile looking site, the folks have been around forever. However, I recall their service to be draconian. If they sold you something, it would be pretty hard to return it.

Looks like they get a C:

http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Computer_Geeks_1

Edit: The same drive was $479 on geeks.com a while back:

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache...G5MPP-0VA&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl=us&lr=lang_en

 

I thought the price was possibly a typo, but hey, it drops into the shopping cart and proceeds to checkout at the $199 USD price.

Edit: My WD 3200BEKT (320G 7200R) just arrived today, but I'm going to bookmark the Sammy from Geeks.com, for-the-hey-of-it.

 

Can't we all just get along?

 

Yes, we can!

 

Yes, sitecharts, please tone down your language. You've already bypassed the filter at least once, and as much as I agree with you, your pot shots (sorry, for lack of a better term) at TidalWaveOne are uncalled for. Don't make me give you an infraction

 

/kick sitecharts.com #thenewssdthread: relax and take a break
/ban sitecharts.com

 

Back on topic. I love the performance of Outlook on my 128GB 2nd Gen SSD in my E4200. It opens up instantly! So far I have experienced none of the stuttering issues that I experienced on my Gen 1 Sammy SLC in my XPS M1330. I have three PSTs that are about 1GB each. So far so good! Fingers crossed.

 

Dude, I think you have some issues.

 

Does anyone think the speed increase of the X25-E over the Vertex 30GB is worth it for everyday use, like browsing, email, DVD burning, etc.?

 

Where do i enter the coupon if i'm paying with paypal??? if i can get 10%off i'm getting one tonight!!!

 

Doubtful, but wait for some more reviews of the Vertex to come along before pulling the trigger.

 

nm. WOOT!!!

 

Before we know the real speed of Vertex it is hard to say.

But from my experience - X25-E is definitely not worth moving from Samsung SLC and for most uses even from Samsung MLC...

So, if OCZ managed to be at least as fast as Samsung 128GB Gen-1 MLC, I think for most cases of desktop usage X25-E is just an overkill.

Despite that, I'll keep my X25-E

 

Can't wait to see your impressions & results.

 

We'll see how this experiance goes then, i may just get a second and RAID em'... TAKE THAT, 120gb VERTEX! and intel.... =) +rep for heavyharmonies!

 

Welcome to the Samsung 64GB SLC club

I'm tempted to pick up a second one myself, but I think I'll stick with my Samsung 64GB MLC for now. It's hard to resell stuff these days, and I'd like to see how the MLC fares in the longer run. Besides, if Indilinx SLC drives come out, I'm sure the prices will drop even further. Hopefully.

 

Darn:

- I've got 54GB actual, of an 80GB Vista x86 partition.
- 18GB actual, of a 40GB W7 beta x64 partition
- 20GB partition dedicated to an Ubuntu Linux install

And only one HDD compartment in this lappy!

I know I can shrink those down, maybe, but man, I'm struggling to figure out a way to *feel* comfortable with a 64GB SSD, and it just ain't happening.

 

... and I was debating between 32GB and 64GB. Sell the Samsung and buy a 32GB Mtron; + $100. Keep the Samsung and get an extra 32GB; - $100. I've got 20GB filled right now, and I don't think I've gone above 40GB In retrospect, 32GB would probably be a little small, though

 

Yeah, I find 64GB to be the most acceptable size for Vista, at least. However, I believe you can do a very workable install with XP in 32GB.

 

I got a quick question about the MTBF

When manufacture claim Mean time between failures (MTBF)"1,000,000 hours", is that assuming the average user write about 20 GB a day? I just want to know if the whole MTBF claim includes write cycles.

Thanks You in Advance.

 

I would be able to make do with 64GB, most likely, on a single OS drive (Vista, for example).

But I really enjoy playing around with alternative OSs, and don't want to have to immediately move torrent files off-machine since I watch my movies on my lappy.

I kinda' feel the same way about storage as RAM: I know I can get by with 1GB of RAM, if really req'd, and 2GB is reasonably comfortable, too-a-point. But I am fully content and comfortable with 4GB and a 64b OS, 'cuz RAM is now never a thought that even enters my mind (been there before with limited RAM).

It just that SSDs are so...so...compelling!