(Not over performance!!!) OCZ Vertex 3 Vs Samsung 830 Vs Crucial M4

Hello, I am considering adding a SSD to my maind HDD... (and thank you for helping me with my laptop, too!!!)

My laptop is Sager NP8170.

I know that there is not much NOTICEABLE difference for performance between OCZ Vertex 3, Samsung 830, and Crucial M4.

However... Now there is price difference!!! By just simply looking at Amazon.com or Tigerdirect.com

Vertex 3 and M4 are about $30 to $50 cheaper than 830 (Vertex 3 & M4 right now are $150).

I personally preferred Samsung 830 for its reliability... but now my decision changes since other two products are 30% cheaper than 830...

Nevertheless, I am still afraid of Vertex 3's freezing or (weak reliability) even though their website says through updates, it is fine now... Does this sound accurate?

Also, I heard from my friends that if CPU (mine is laptop i7-2960) and ram (DDR3 1333) overclock, the Vertex 3 is likely going to get frozen... Is this true?

I am pretty sure, my dear Forum Friends (and Experts lol) would ask "then, why don't buy Crucial M4 since Samsung 830 is expensive for you and OCZ Vertex 3 is unreliable?

Well... Honestly, I never heard of Crucial M4 (IN KOREA, I am KOREAN... Sorry T^T). So I don't know anything about reliability of Crucial M4 except it does not use Sandi (like Vertex 3).

Please, Help ME!!! and have a great weekend (Cheer ).

P.S. I should not mention rival's website but if you see

Tom's Hardware's SSD Hierarchy Chart : Best SSDs For The Money: December 2011

They make as if there is dramatic difference between companies and SSD's size... Is difference this dramatic?? (make me buy 240G or reconsider Samsung @_@)

 

You shouldn't have any issues with Sandforce drives. They used to have a freezing problem with the current chipset, but the newest firmware seems to have eliminated it. Size shouldn't matter either. I run 60 and 120GB drives at home on quite a few machines without issue. You just might also need a second storage drive if you have an SSD that small.

I can't help you with the OC, because I've never heard of that issue specifically.

 

To my knowledge and from personal experience, the OCZ Vertex 3 is a decent SSD. There were some problems in the beginning with them but as far as I can tell everything has been resolved through firmware updates. Mine has been running reliably since Nov. 1, 2011 in my desktop computer.
The only problem I have with it is that if I need to update the firmware, it has to be set as a secondary drive.

You may want to consider the Crucial M4 as it seems to have a higher rating on newegg.com and more reviews.

If you really are feeling up to spending the extra cash and you feel it may be worth it, you can try going with the Samsung SSD.

I'm honestly not sure how the Samsung or Crucial firmware updates work with those drives though.

 

The M4 has been around for a little, so it's got a decent amount of the bugs worked out. they're definitely more reliable than OCZ.

I love my M4 btw Updating firmware is painless. I create a bootable usb drive and run it. takes like 30 secs. Non destructive, but you should probably make back ups regardless of how reliable a drive is..

 

I'm not saying Vertex 3 is unreliable, but Vertex 2 failed on me, and I hear a lot of bad things about OCZ's quality. M4 is a decent choice. If you can get it for cheaper than 830 then go for it.

 

HIGHLY sceptical...

 

IIRC, it is hard to find crucial in Asia. They tend to go adata/ocz and other SF drives. Did you check the availability and pricing in korea?

The main drawback for small SSD is
1. theoretically shorter lifespan (2 long to explain/remember but in the end it usually doesnt matter)
2. sequential write (which is not that important anyways).

People had shown that 128GB M4 is performing near to 256GB.

 

From my research the sweet spot is a SSD with 120-128GB. They are not theoretically as fast as the 256GB ones but the 60-64GB drives are expected to be the slowest (nearly 1/2 IOPS of the 120-128GB versions).
You should also consider the "cheap" Kingston HyperX 120GB: it is virtually as fast as Intel 520 120GB with ONLY one benchmark exception (4KB random reads / 4K aligned).
AnandTech - Intel SSD 520 Review: Cherryville Brings Reliability to SandForce

 

Have the 240gb Hyper X on P170HM3 and never had the slightest problem.
Knocks on wood

 

I would personally prefer the OCZ or the Samsung. The M4 isn't worth mentioning in this comparison

 

Personally I think for the extra money the Samsung 830 is still the way to go. BOth of mine have worked flawlessly, the performance is in the top grouping and they seem to have the best feedback out of all of them with the fewest complaints and issues.

 

I haven't tried the Samsung but I have been using the 128GB M4 for over 4 months and it performs fantastic!

My only recommendation will be to uninstall the Intel-Rapid technology manager, it kinda mess up with the performance, once you dont have it installed the drive performs like a 256GB SSD and everything I've thrown at it has run 100% stable! (everything from Videgames, Drivers, Software of any kind).

I have hear some terrible stories about the stability and reliability SF-Vertex SSDs so I try to stay away from them at least for now

 

Have you benched with and without the Intel RST? I really haven't noticed any difference, but would love some insight on this app.....

 

It's highly recommended to use the RST drivers. I've seen performance jumps of 10-20% on the slower SSD's I run in my own machines. (Plus a WEI jump from 5.9 to 6.5, but that's never a great metric for comparison).

 

I'm curious as to ask why the M4 isn't worth mentioning? From the reviews I have seen, it seems to be quite a nice SSD.

Could you please enlighten us on your reasoning if it was personal experience or an article you found?

The only reason I mentioned anything with OCZ Vertex 3 is because I'm actually running one.
Samsung and Crucial are great only based on reviews I have read so far.

I may be the proud owner of a Samsung SSD in a couple of weeks, just so I have both to compare on performance and reliability in real world.

 

Mmmhh I did not saw any real differences on the benchmarks, its just my impression of the overall performance of the SSD with and without the manager.

However I did realized the change on the Windows experience index my score on the primary hard drive (the M4) went from 7.6 to 7.9 when I removed that.

I know these are not pretty representative but:



I really wonder what makes the difference... (my machine specs are on my signature).

 

Let me be clear that this is strictly based on my own opinion

The OCZ Vertex 3 (which runs with SandForce) is in my mind a well functioning and overall amazing SSD, with it's firmware now fixed and supposed to be work flawlessly on the Clevo's makes me happy, therefore it's automatically ranked higher in my SSD tier list.

Now the Crucial M4 (which runs with Marvell) has been at my friends place for quite some time, sadly it has crashed several times. Thus happening made me sad and I've read some sad experiences where the drive stuttered and so on, but that is supposed to be fixed. Besides that the M4 just hasn't got the better speeds (although most of the public won't notice a difference).

On the other hand the Samsung 830, is a custom made Samsung controller, that is flawless. FLAWLESS. Haven't found or heard about any kind of problem with that SSD, they've even got their own cloning app that includes, amazes me. And the speeds exceed the M4's but are limited upon the Vertex 3.

I hope you understand my point of view, I guess my twisted mind draws this weird conclusion

 

running m4 on my 150hm but even wit hthe latest firmware i had freezes. i had to disable lpm

 

Vertex 3 over here. Never had any crashes. Wonderful drive.

Before installing it on the primary drive bay, I updated the firmware from 2.11 to 2.15 however. I did my homework well before buying the drive, so I updated the firmware to avoid any problems

And Im one happy owner!

 

I think in real world use all the latest Sata III SSD HD's are fast, but people on the forums start to nitpick the benchmarks, and the potential firmware bugs gets amplified too. When it comes down to it, ANY Sata III SSD HD is gonna be a night and day difference over a traditional platter drive. Which is why I looked for an SSD with the least amount of complaints on the forum boards.....which led me to the Samsung 830. The best HD is one you don't have to think about when all is said and done.

 

I highly agree. I just wouldn't take the chance with the other drives tbh. I guess the Samsung 830 is the only way to go if you want something 100% secure.

 

The nice thing about the Samsung, is that the entire drive it designed and built IN HOUSE. No sourcing out for components or controllers, which I think is one reason why they are so reliable. THe older Samsung 470 has a superb track record as well and this seems to be the same for the 830 so far. Both of mine have run without a single glitch or hiccup. Been very, very happy with them.

 

No love for the Intel 520?

Edit: Oh wait, I realized that the comparison excludes the intel :/

 

Oh no no, don't misunderstand, I just wanted a reason posted. Again, I have never owned a Crucial M4 so I kind of left out any real comments on it. I also have been going off of what I have seen in newegg.com review and user comments.

Believe me, I understand that if you or someone close like your friend has had a bad experience with their drive, then it does lend to why you would prefer to stay away from a particular brand.

I just wanted to know more of why you weren't fond of Crucial is all, now we have the answer.

 

I would totally agree on that comment ntrain. In a perfect world I would I would love to never have to worry about another firmware update ever again.
Maybe in time these manufacturers will be able to do just that but in the mean time I guess this is the price we pay for being "early adapters".

I have plans on installing a Samsung 830 SSD into my wife's desktop soon. That should make her happy going from a standard HDD to an SSD. She won't have to worry about running late to Dragon Soul raids anymore.

 

Haha it's way too expensive to be compared between these, not to talk about way too fast!

 

Prices for Intel 520 120GB seem to have been lowered on Amazon Germany & UK, probably to accelerate its adoption.

 

Seems like the Intel 520 480gb price is currently on par with the 512gb Samsung 830 (799.99) on newegg

 

Assuming that you want speed over perfect stability, I would choose the 520. But keep in mind, the Samsung 830 is flawless, which makes it golden!

 

Nice comments. I'm about to get a 15" laptop myself, and I want to have an SSD as main drive. Do any of you guys have hands-on experience with size? I am thinking of getting a 120-128 gb one, and I am leaning either towards the samsung 830, the OCZ vertex 3 and the intel 520. The prices on the 240-256gb ones are all a bit more than double. Are they worth getting? I say this because I have read some people say that they are actually faster than the lower capacity ones... How fast? Is it really worth paying those extra obamas and getting a larger one?

 

Basically you can search up the reviews and comparisons on Google.
Indeed yes the 120-128 GB SSD is the perfect placement IMO. You can easily have a external drive with all of your files or replace the ODD with another drive to your question regarding the 120-128 GB being slower than the 240-256 GB ones, well technically you are correct they are. Some of them are that is.

Yes the 256 would be faster as fat as Benchmarks go, but most would not see the difference in day-to-day usage, they are mostly slower in the "Sequential Write" performance, nothing you really use from day to day (or at least it's what I can imagine you wont use)

 

You won't notice the speed the difference unless you benchmark or transfer a lot of large files between drives. IMO 128GB is more than sufficient for the majority of users who want to store only their OS and programs/games on it. Out of the choices, I'd definitely go for the Samsung 830. All drives, including HDDs get occasional FW updates. It's not something you need to think about though and shouldn't dissuade you, unless like when the Vertex first came out and was plagued by issues (to a subset of users).

 

This man has it all sorted out couldn't agree harder!
And just for the record: AnandTech - The Samsung SSD 830 Review

 

I've used 60 to 250GB drives in my machines. The speed difference is primarily in the generation and model of SSD and pretty much nonexistent in relation to size. Get the size that works best for you and buy the best rated speed you can afford.

Sent from my LG-C900 using Board Express

 

Thanks for the information. I know it can be searched in google and, as I stated, I read that some people said the larger capacity drives were indeed faster. What I was asking is what you answered - opinion on it. I'm all set for the 128gb samsung drive, it seems like the best choice for games. Thanks again