Which SSD is best for reduced load times?

Hi guys, sorry for my newbness with regards to SSD's but I find it all a little confusing. I'm in the market for an SSD to go with a new notebook. I really only want it for increased load times of things such as games, applications and for a smoother/quicker Windows 7. I will only be storing my O/S, some games and apps on the SSD everything else on a mechanical drive. The problem is I don't have a clue as to which SSD is going to be the fastest for game load times.

I've been having a look at benchmarking etc and can't decipher between the meanings. If someone could explain to me what each term means, for example what do sequential speeds mean, and random accesses? And which are better/used for load times of games for instance.

Vertex 3 is out of the question due to reliability issues, so it is between the Intel 510 250gb and Crucial M4 256gb that my dilemma lies, the Intel has higher Sequential Read speeds and the intel has higher Random accesses. Which one will improve the speed in which games load?

Also does Football Manager 2011 rely mostly on a good SSD/HDD to run quicker or is it the CPU that determines this?

Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks guys!!

 

Any of those is fine. I don't think you will notice a meaningful difference in between in terms of game loading (3.15 sec vs. 3.27 sec kind of thing).


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Try to ask Phil and see if you can get some inside information about his tests recently

 

Thanks for the input guys, but Phil? I don't know that guy . Hopefully he will post in this thread ^^. So you're saying i wont notice much difference then? Can someone please explained the meaning of Random 4k then please and their function. As in some tests the M4 256gb i twice as fast as the 510 250gb in 4k random access tests. Whats does this mean? Lol. It's too confusing

 

AFAIK sequential performances means reading/writing blocks of data that are consecutive in the memory cells while random performances means reading/writing blocks of data that are spread at different locations. Basically if you're interested in fast load time for games, then you most probably want a drive with high sequential read perfs because when you load a game you read data for that game and those were written consecutively on the disk. On the other hand, if you want an overall snappy system you'd be more interested in random read/write performances (especially small files hence 4K) as you want fast startup for different applications, documents or internet files and all these might be spread randomly on the cells. Please correct if I'm wrong.

It seems that Intel 510 is slightly faster in sequential read/write while the M4 is faster for random performances by a good margin ( http://www.anandtech.com/show/4253/the-crucial-m4-micron-c400-ssd-review/3). On paper the M4 appears more attractive but I'm concerned about its reliability (seems that it needs a registry fix to work properly and I also don't know how it would behave in the long run). But as others have said, who would care if the differences between the drives is 0.2 sec? IMHO all SATA III should fullfill your need if your laptop is sandybridge. You should first consider things such as reliability and price/capacity. If the Crucial is reliable, it'll probably be a better overall drive than the Intel 510, even if the sequential perfs are a tad slower.

 

Thanks for the reply kilou! Well I managed to get a 510 for about the same price as an M4 so a great deal . I'm just wondering now whether I should sell the 510 and go with the M4, I wouldn't be losing anything, infact maybe gaining that extra "snappiness".

I heard alot of good things about Intel's SSD reliability but haven't heard anything really about crucial's so im not sure, well at least they are more reliable than OCZ's Vertex range.

Does anyone actually know at what percent should i stop filling an SSD in order for it to preform at it's best or near best? So for example should i be filling an SSD to only 80% of it's capacity or should it be less? Thanks for all the help so far guys

 

Crucial m4 256GB SSD (C400) Review - Load Times

 

^^ That confirms my proposition: M4 and 510 are identical in load times. The difference should be in fractions of a sec.


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Lol thanks Phil, I see your point, exactly the same load times

 

Exactly so it wouldn't actually matter which i went for, as load times are my main priority. It's just the random 4k that gets me as the M4 is still double the 510, that will surely make a difference, but can't really find areal world test of this.

 

Ok, it is like this:
510 and M4 are equal in light workload. 510 scores better with heavy workload. All these tests are done by anandtech with their workbench, read about it here.

They are pretty much equally fast in terms of real world tests. Intel 510 have no problems with LPM, where you have to do some registry tweak with the M4 to avoid freeze. This result in around 5% more power consumption. Both are not getting the performance they should due to some problems with Chipset 5 and 6. Garbage collection is better on the 510. If that mirrors in real world performance, I have no idea. M4 is much faster in 4ks more queue depths, although I don`t think anyone will notice that because QD is usually very low in normal tasks. Probably why you see them equally fast in the HardwareHeaven review. M4 and 510 use the same bloody controller, Marvell 9174. Micron writes the firmware for M4, Intel writes the firmware for 510. They both use the same NAND flash from IMFT. M4 is a bit cheaper than 510. 510 use a bit more watt when idling (0.3 W more) and use 1.5W more in certain tasks, while they use equally much in other.

 

M4 uses 25 nanometers cells while 510 has 34 nanometers. From what I read 34nm is supposed to be better for drive longevity... If both were the same price I'd go Intel personally. We may expect better perfs from both drives with new firmwares probably.

 

That is true and a very good point.

 

Yeah thanks i just finished reading Anand's reviews for 510 and M4. Very informative and it explains it well. I'm going to go with the Intel 510 I think mainly due to the reliability factor. Thanks for all the help folks!