Best Inexpensive 120 - 160 GB SSD?

I've mentioned SSDs in the past and there seem to be quite a few experts here with
excellent info. I'm looking to help a friend upgrade a laptop to SSD, SATA nothing
tricky. Want to keep it under $100, the lower the better and I came across the
SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE120BW 2.5" 120GB SATA III TLC for about $90 bucks
and the Kingston SSDNow V300 Series SV300S37A/120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III for
about $70 bucks.

I seem to recall that the Kingston V300 series got good reviews but I don't keep up
on these things and would appreciate and real world experience that people have
had.

Reliability is very important since I don't want them to have to repair it again and for
obvious reasons.

Thanks in advance!

 

I literally just posted this on the other website:

~Toughbook Talk~ Toughbook Discussion • View topic - Would someone buy a NEW 250GB Samsung 840 Evo SSD from me?

 

Rob... Give him time to reply and perhaps even others if they need it. If not... I'll take it as a last resort. So you know it is sold one way or the other!

BTW... That is the only brand I buy now... You will not find a better review anywhere!

 

I'm actually looking for more than one, I'll take this one for my own system, Thanks for the generous offer!

So the question still stands, the friend didn't want to spend anything on his old laptop
so, minimal cost is important. On the other hand, for $20 to be more reliable it is
probably worth it.

 

I seen the post on TBT and told Rob I would take it :thumbsup:

 

You can check out Newegg or Amazon... There are great deals on the Kingston 300 Series but they are starting to have issues I heard (and read)... The Samsung is the best out of the box SSD for the money! Yes.. The extra $20 - $40 extra is WELL worth it. When you finish loading W7/8 on it... Make sure you go to Les Tokar's site and follow his SSD tweaking guide. He will show you what is not needed in W7/8 so you can turn it off and speed up your system even more!

 

Blair... Just buy another caddy and one will magically appear!

 

I was too late but thanks for the offer!

I do recall that the older Kingstons had problems but had not heard anything about these,
so it seems the Samsung is the way to go. I would not get it just for the performance difference.

 

I wish Rick...never happen again.

 

I have been using the Kingston V300 series for 2 years, i always get the smallest drive available i.e. 60 GB. They perform flawlessly in the CF-30, CF-19, CF-C1's and I have NOT been dissatisfied. With Linux there is no need to optimize, etc.

 

The tips so far prompted me to dig more, and since there are about 500 user comments for both
drives on Newegg that is one place to look.
The Kingston has 4 stars vs. 5 for the Samsung. I see reports of the drive failing after 3 months,
8 months and a few more. One person reports this about performance:
"I'm not the only one either. Google this drive, all the reviews people give of this drive getting
good benchmarks are the 5.0.5 version of this drive. Everyone I've seen who has the new 5.0.6
version are all slow. I'm not sure if its the firmware or the fact that Kingston is taking advantage
of the early good reviews and just now using cheaper parts to save money."

Not going to buy the drive since this puts the company's credibility in the toilet. Make it a
new economy model and be up front about it.

On the other hand if it turned out to be a firmware bug and was possible to reflash it then it
might be a bargain if a person was going to buy several of them making it worth setting up to
do the flash. I'm not going to spend the time to do more research since I'll just buy the Samsung.

 

Samsungs have been good in my experience, nicely priced as well. I've been using Intel 320's on my system but they where expensive.
Samsung is a good solid choice.

 

I have a few Samsung drives and also a few Kingston HyperX drives and I have had no problems at all. The Kingston drive has been in my CF-53 since new (1 1/2 years).

Big problem with reviews is most buyers who have problems WILL leave a review BUT if it works great do you leave a review ?? They say 90% don't and I am guilty of that. I have bought over a dozen SSD'S on Newegg.com but never left a review because I never had a problem

 

The slow NAND chip bait-and-switch on the Kingston V300 series is old news now and it's angered plenty of folks. I was half expecting a class-action law suit over that.

 

Strangely enough... I am using a Kingston HyperX SSD in my personal CF-31 and it has run flawlessly for the past year+ since I installed it. I kept seeing better prices on the 300 series recently and have seen the complaints on them rise as the price is lowered. Not the older ones.... the newer ones. They supposedly switched their manufacturing process somehow... I don't recall exactly, but from what I have heard and read... You are taking a 50/50 chance on buying one. Samsung has 5 stars everywhere you look. A few asinine comments in some places but I will chock those up to people who don't have a clue anyway. You DO know that is about 90% of the non-Toughbook population don't you!?

 

If I were buying a drive of similar size (120GB) today, my choices would be:

SanDisk Extreme II SDSSDXP-120G-G25 2.5" 120GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - Newegg.com

Crucial MX100 CT128MX100SSD1 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - Newegg.com

With that being said, 240GB+ drives offer significantly better performance generally, and are not all that expensive anymore...

My $0.02 only...

 

The SanDisk Extreme II is priced at $65.00 shipped and $80.00 for the Crucial

or this one for $47.99 Manufacturer Recertified Corsair Force CSSD-F120GB2/RF2 2.5" 120GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) Manufactured Recertified - Newegg.com

 

I wouldn't touch a SandForce SSD with a 30-foot pole but to each their own...

 

Thanks for the input ajkula,
Do you know where I can look up what controller is used in different SSDs? I found a site in the
past but can't find it now.
Some of the SanDisk drives a few years back used SandForce but I see that the Extreme II does not.

Do you know what's used in the new SanDisk Ultra II, the SDSSDHII family?

 

What I normally do is Google a particular drive...although for the most common ones I could probably tell you off the top of my head whether they're SF-based or not.

Correct.

According to AnandTech, it's Marvel. But the NAND is TLC which is something I personally don't trust.

AnandTech | SanDisk Releases Ultra II SSD: Bringing More TLC NAND to the Market

Having been a *very* early adopter of the technology in question, I refrain from buying inexpensive SSDs and/or the ones introducing "breakthrough" approaches.

If I sound cynical, that's because I am.

Having seen one too many gone "poof" I'm not left with too many choices in the matter.

My advice - FWIW - would be to purchase a well-tested, mature SSD. Even if it costs a bit more than the new ones...

Happy shopping.

 

That all makes sense and I almost just bought the Ultra II 240 GB that is on sale at Newegg but
have always had an opinion similar to yours - let someone else be the tester for the new tech so
I switched to the one you suggested.
They also have the SanDisk Ultra Plus SDSSDHP-128G-G25 2.5" 128GB for $54 which is
closer to what my friend wants to pay, any known problems with it?

 

If you read the reviews on NewEgg, you'll see that quite a few people have complained about these drives just dropping dead within a year.

Sure, $54 is less than $0.50/GB, but can you put a dollar value on irretrievable data loss?

I've learned the hard way that there is no such figure...

I'd pass...but it's not my decision to make.

My $0.02 only...

 

I don't think it will matter which one you get, they all have there flaws. The old OCZ SSD's had very bad reviews and they ended up bankrupt. (Toshiba bought them) I told everyone not to buy them but I bought two 120GB @ $35.00 each , just could not help myself at that price and they are still going strong over a year later. It all comes down who you talk to...one guy will say stay away and the other will say go for it. So what does your gut say.... :yes:

 

True. How well-know is another matter.

OCZ made some excellent SSD before they started implementing SandForce controllers which - along with a couple of other shenanigans - is what brought them to their knees.

I'd venture a guess that there are a few drives that most users who deploy significant number of these on a regular basis will agree upon, though...

My $0.02 only...

 

I did read a lot of comments on SanDisks there but didn't notice the ones that you mention,
there are so many different models. I do usually read the bad reviews not sure how I missed
those. Maybe the decent star rating threw me off. I'm going to avoid it, not worth the trouble.
Starting to think I should just go with Samsung but the order is in for SanDisk.

 

You will drive yourself crazy reading reviews. This isn't rocket science.... Get a Samsung.

 

Right, I knew that when I started the thread that Samsung was the best. I was looking for an as
good solution at a lower price since I'd not read reviews for a long time. As I said above the order
is in for the SanDisk, at least it is not Sandforce based.

 

While I'm personally not crazy about most Samsung drives, people are generally happy with them so I suspect you'd be as well.

For this particular drive, 16% of the users gave it one egg which is as low as it gets, with complaints that would make me question its longevity.

FTR, you can click on number of eggs the particular products has received in reviews and read those only...be it 1, 5 or anything in between.

Don't get me wrong: I like newer SanDisk drives. Just queasy about this particular one...

Good luck.

 

Got the Sandisk Extreme II 120 GB and installed it in a Dell with a Dell Windows 7 32 bit install
disk, everything went fine and the BIOS has been set to AHCI since it was shipped new.
This review says that it should do about 550 MB/sec best case on reads - red line in first chart:
AnandTech | SanDisk Extreme II Review (480GB, 240GB, 120GB)

I am getting 282 MB/sec best case running the same benchmark.
Any suggestions? Not sure if it might be a setting in the benchmark.
EDIT: Just remembered, Laptop is SATA II which maxes out at 300 MB/sec, I'll take 282 that seems
about right.

 

Buy a Toughbook and get rid of the Dell

Dell is a four letter word in this forum....

 

I'm loosing track of how many CF-51s I have, and I have another on the way, a MK3LL!
The dell is a friends that I'm fixing. I have owned quite a few Dells and they are not bad.

 

"Dell is a four letter word in this forum...."
as i say : "oh hell , it's a dell" .

to add to what a couple of others here have said ... even though the OP has already committed .
i am a firm believer in the samsung ssds ... they are a good value for the money .
a short while back they released an "upline" flavor of their popular "EVO" line .
the performance specs are improved over the others in the "old" line .
while not anything to write home to mom about , it is an improvement nonetheless .

i have installed many of those EVO ssds ... with good results .
one that comes to mind is a friend's HP business laptop that had a failed HD ...
i dropped in an EVO , loaded W7 and the HP drivers ... it has been running 5-6 and sometimes 7 days a week , 8-12 hours per day for almost two years ...
with no hint of a problem .

 

Good to hear that the SAmsungs are reliable as well as fast these days. I'm going to
use them as my first choice and if the Sandisk works out, then use them in very
economical situations. We should probably be looking at the smaller block transfer
speeds in deciding on a drive in situations like this were the top bandwidth is limited
by the Sata II interface.

 

So this thread seems to have gone from 'best inexpensive ssd' to 'what ssd do you recommend'.
In my Toughbooks I use Intel, nothing else, other that 1/8" Samsung ssds in my CF-29MK4. Might not be the cheapest or the quickest, but they are very dependable. I have been using a couple of X25 Intel ssds for over 5 yrs with no problems. The ssds have moved through about 12-15 different units over the years. One is showing about 3% wear. Besides the X25s, I have 320, 335 and 530 series Intel ssds. Zero problems with any of them. To me, dependability trumps cost, or speed, every time. My $0.02

 

Thanks for your input. Reliability and minimal design bugs are also very high on my list.

 

Toughbooks have the SATA speed limited anyway. So buying the fastest would be a waste of money.

 

Here are my test results for the SanDisk Extreme II 120GB with a fresh install of Win7 32 bit in a Dell
Inspiron 1545, 2 GHz processor, 4GB RAM, max throughput limited by the SATA II interface:

(these won't inline for some reason, do people prefer thumbnails?)