Performance SSD 2012 choice

Hello, I am looking to upgrade to a performance hard drive, possibly a solid state drive this year and was wondering which is the best SSD drive currently on the market?

Is now a good time to purchase or should I wait towards the end of the year for a better model perhaps?

PS: my current WD scorpio drive is struggling with multiple firefox tabs.

Thanks

 

The top drives currently imo are the Intel 520 (speed, all intel SSD up to date were the reliable - and thats what you paid the high premium for, well see how they cope with sandforce, if you want well tested reliability go for the 510), Samsung 830 (whole drive made entirely by Samsung, good speeds, very reliable, its what OEMs use most), Crucial M4 (good performance for the cost, prooven reliable), Liteon/Plextor M3 (less known, but uses the same Marvell controller as Intel 510 and has nice speeds for the price).
There are others, but id definetely stay away from the drives with Sandforce controllers as theyve got a load of problems and a high failure rate.

 

Crucial M4 - very reliable. As for Intel, it will take same time before I can trust Sandforce controllers again...

 

I was under the impression that the Intel 320 series are reliable with fixed firmware.

 

320 is reliable but slow (compared to the above listed).

 

It really depends on what you're using the drive for. Some drives are better for random I/O. Still others are better for sustained transfers.

What do you use your computer for, and is reliability a must? (Silly question, I know, but if my drive fails it's no big deal.)

 

Indeed, feel the same way.

For me the current Intel 520 is all about speed. It's supposed to support the Clevo machines fairly well without any BSOD's that is, with the new fixed firmware.

The Samsung 830 is the best all rounder SSD and does everything very fair and square.

The Crucial M4 is very good indeed and recommended by almost everybody for a Clevo.

The OCZ Vertex 3 isn't recommended, because of it's instability and the amounts of BSOD's it causes (so I am told at least on the Clevo that is). But it's INSANELY fast!

This varies from person to person, but I would recommend the HyperX as it seems that it's the fastest and cheapest and the most reliable SSD there is right now (with the new fixed firmware that is). Based on my opinion

good luck

 

Take a look around at the SSD page:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol.../644283-looking-ssd-not-sure-where-start.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/solid-state-drives-ssds-flash-storage/642492-ssd-advice.html

Plenty to look at there.

 

I kind of agree with a post above, the Samsung 830 is IMO the best all around SSD out currently. Extremely fast, very reliable drive. With what is currently available its my first and only choice.

 

I second the Samsung 830 as the best overall SSD released thus far.

 

I just wanted to note, a couple of users above posted that "Sandforce" chip sets aren't reliable.. no that's not it at all most reviewers and tech sites are now reporting that its really up to the firmware and the maker.

Intel is using a Sanforce chipset in both there 510 and 520 series and the only reason the 520 was delayed was because the sandforce they were using had various problems, it was fixed with a firmware they were using and that was why it was released.

 

Just one correction, the 510 series was using a Marvell controller not a Sandforce, only the 520 series from Intel is Sandforce based.

 

I installed a 120gb Intel 320series SSD in my 8170 after carefully researching reliability. I came to the conclusion that the main reason the failure rate was so high was due to buggy firmware that screwed up the drive controller when an unexpected power loss or system crash occurred. According to the information I gathered, flashing the 320series drives to the latest firmware remedies this.

 

Crucial M4

 

I am pretty sure that OCZ has the BSOD issue licked... I now own 4 Vertex 3's (three of the 120GB and one 480GB). None of them have any issues with BSOD's or instabilities. In my NP8170, my average boot time is 8-9 seconds (with all services enabled). IMHO, you just can't beat the dollar to performance ratio of these drives (when compared to other SSD drives).

 

true, my OCZ VERTEX 3 is working perfectly ever since i bought it. It had 2.11 firmware when I got it and before i put my windows on it, i flashed it to 2.15 as stated in OCZ's site.

Im a happy owner.

 

Could you provide me with a date of when you guys bought the drives?
It's pretty clear that if you are lucky and you bought the OCZ drives in the early 2011, you would be pleased but that aside almost everyone on a Clevo has surely found several BSOD's. OCZ in the early 2011 and so on (Q2-Q3) without the needed fixed firmware that we've possibly got now, sucked a lot, almost everyone experienced crashed and drive failures.

That doesn't make the drive bad, but gives them a reasonably bad rep that is. Although it is supposed to be all fixed now

 

I bought mine in November. Judging by its firmware, it might be one of the newer batches. I did a lot of research before buying, so I was prepared with the newest firmware of 2.15 and flashed it before installing my OS on it.

Like I said, the drive is absolutely lovely. Never had any problems so far, and its been 3 months already. Im gaming a lot, its in use regularly. This drive is exactly what I wanted for my laptop.

 

The 4 of mine were purchased throughout 2011... The one that is in my NP8170 was purchased in September 2011.

 

In the early days there were a lot of problems with the OCZ Vertex 2 SSD and OCZ Vertex 3 drives, but since last September or so, with the latest firmware update, these issues have all but disappeared.

We have also sold hundreds of Patriot Pyro SE and Wildfire SSD's with no real issues. The Wildfires use 3x NAND just like the OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS drives, so they are faster with more endurance.

The only remaining issue with the OCZ Vertex 3 is that you cannot update its firmware when it is your boot drive, rather you have to mount it as a secondary drive to update the firmware. The Patriot drives do not suffer from this issue.

 

Do you mean they have not disappeared or is that a typo?

 

No, I said what I meant. "...all but disappeared." means nothing is totally perfect, but now that the latest firmware is available we almost never see any issues with these SSD's.

 

I'm actually running an OCZ Vertex 3 in my desktop currently, purchased in November of 2011. It is running firmware rev. 2.15 and I have not had any issues with it to date. Runs my games just fine (World of Warcraft and Battlefield 3) and boots up every time. I guess time will tell if it has any issues though.

 

It's not just those OCZ drives... OCZ has had numerous complaints on many of their SSD models.

 

^^
Hehe...so does virtually every SSD out there.

Many people rave about the Samsung SSDs, and they too are good, but there aren't enough of them out there, and for a long enough period of time, to really make an intelligent decision on them yet.

 

That is true, but that's because there isn't enough people with a Samsung SSD. Rather sad if you ask me, I haven't seen, heard or read about one single complain regarding having a Samsung SSD, Samsung's rep is very good indeed and I guess they've got their top notch procs. working on their SSD

 

WHat are you talking about? There are a ton of Samsung SSD's out there, not just retail box, but OEM units in box builds as well. Both my 830's have worked flawlessly. No need to worry about updating or upgrading "firmware" with em either like all the other SSD's based on the SF or MV controllers either.

 

paladin44, you're in the business, so you might have more info in regards to what you see, but right or wrong, here was my "outside" assessment regarding problems in some SSDs - http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...g-ssd-not-sure-where-start-2.html#post8312115

With that said, I see the problem as two fold:

a) The number of problems in regards to SSDs should be based on percentages. From this and other forums, data suggests OCZ has had a larger number of problems than Crucial, Intel, and Samsung. Since Intel has the largest market share (I don't know where the others lie), they should have the largest number of complaints, but they do not. In fact OCZ seems to be 200% to 300% more.

b) Yes, there seem to be recorded problems, the problems differ in severity. In the case of Crucial / Samsung, there seem to be small freezes during operation. But in the case of OCZ, the problems seem to be related to drives that fail and need to be RMA/returned.

Also in regards to the problems all but disappearing, if it is with SandForce based SSDs, there is this problem in which it is documented that at the time of this article there are known problems in the SandForce controller's firmware for *some* people (but not all). And it looks like SandForce's hands are tied in trying to address them.

Now, I'm not standing 100% behind this post, as it is all based on observation in user group / news forums and reviews/articles. Sometimes real world experience is quite different.

 

Exactly my thoughts! Benchmarks from websites and so on are not reliable enough, we are, the consumers! That's why we have this freakin' forum to share experiences, thoughts etc. and from my point of view and many others, Samsung hasn't had 1 single problem on the other hand OCZ has a very broken reputation, although their "firmware" is supposed to solve the problems they had prior to this update.. it's all about experience and controller's. Those SandForce controller's have done nothing good (YET that is, haven't experienced or heard anything bad regarding the 520 just yet.. might be wrong)

Very nice post jclausis, well detailed, formulated and a lot of suitable points.

 

Speaking of Samsung, here's a great deal on Newegg ATM: Samsung 830 256GB for $335

Link for discount code

 

I'v got a samsung 830 256gb in my P150, and have had no problems as yet. I doubt you would notice a significant difference in speed between the high end ssds around now.
Supposedly SF ssds are particularly fast with compressible data. If your drive is encrypted or filled will incompressible stuff, then you will lose the advantage. That's part of the reason I went with samsung (as well as reliability).

 

For what it is worth, forums are only a very small microcosm of the entire market...all you have to do is look at the numbers here and at other forums and compare them to the 100's of thousands + of drives out there.

Also, for what it is worth when considering percentages, our sales reflect Patriot is #1, OCZ #2, Samsung #3 and Intel #4. OCZ was #1 before Patriot hit the market.

If indeed Intel has the largest market share it is because of their share of the Enterprise sized corporate market. Most small, medium and emerging companies don't pay the premium for the Intel name.

 

Thanks for the informed decisions guys...I'm looking toward making my own purchase sometime at the $1/GB mark...

 

This thread is the perfect example of why I chose the Samsung 830. You will find countless threads with people arguing and debating fw issues and BSOD's with SSD's featuring the SF or MV controller, or some type of issue to get it to perform reliably. BUt with the Samsung SSD's you just never really run into these issues. And in all the benchmarks it always performs in the top handful on all aspects of performance(and you would never be able to tell the difference in performance from any of the top SSD's in terms of overall speed), but what sets it apart is the solid as a rock reliability and stability. You buy, you install and then you forget about it. And thats what you want out of your storage drive. Want a fast up to date drive at a reasonable price with no reliability/stability issues, then grab an 830.

 

Agreed. Hopefully that come through in my post as well. Forums and reviews are not necessarily what happens out "in the wild" with real world experience.

But, only by gathering all this data, can the consumer make a truly informed decision. Thanks sharing!

 

It seems Samsung 830 wins for peace of mind (it has a 5 rating after 123 reviews on amazon.de):
http://www.amazon.de/Samsung-MZ-7PC...sr_1_1_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Does anybody know if there are negative aspects of Intel 520 and Kingston HyperX (with latest firmware) such that these may not be chosen over Samsung 830?

 

Intel 520, first google search: "Intel 520 crash" and this came up: Intel 520 Series 120G SSD random BSOD's - please help

Kingston HyperX, there is no need to look into that, they have a unsolved past, but regardless of that both the Intel 520 and HyperX is supposed to be running fluently on the Clevo thanks to the recent firmware upgrade

There has never been a BSOD on the Samsung 830, and if there were, it would be thanks to the bad RAM or MOBO.

 

I am planning to use my SSD choice with D901C starting from scratch in order to avoid any 4K misalignment issues due to cloning.
The Intel 520 SSD crash seems to have been resolved most probably after turning off LPM via registry.
Would you say that those firmware fixes solved most of the problems with any Clevo?

 

Just an observation.
If you look at the performance data in Anandtech latest evaluation (Feb 6-th) it is easy to get confused since the hierarchy changes depending of the specific tests.
However, if you focus just on Intel 520 240GB and Kingston HyperX 240GB, with only one exception (4KB Random Read / 4K Aligned), they are shoulder to shoulder which may be an indication that they share almost the same controller firmware.
Therefore, it remains to decide between these two SSD's based on the price (HyperX) vs. warranty (Intel 520).

 

That's because they share the same controller indeed the SF-2281 controller.

As AnandTech states @ AnandTech - Intel SSD 520 Review: Cherryville Brings Reliability to SandForce

I would personally go for the HyperX. The Intel 520 seems a little overhyped, especially when you consider that besides the obvious that Intel was able to identify and fix a bug in the SF-2281 firmware without SandForce actually knowing it existed at any possible point, which is my thought (at some degree). But on the other hand.. I would presume that besides the slight (custom?) firmware advantage that the Intel 520 has, the HyperX is supposed to have the same amount of fixes (again to some degree) which is supposed to have fixed all of the prior problems

IMHO Intel 520 isn't worth paying premium for, I expected better speeds.. but I went home disappointing of course, if you've got the money, then it's a whole different story.

EDIT: Don't forget that there is probably a reason that most Clevo resellers advice to buy the Intel 520 versus the HyperX.
(if that's because Intel has bribed Clevo or not I have no clue about.. but I thought it was worth mentioning)

 

No, no bribe, but Sager does use Intel SSD's exclusively and has for years.

 

Ah cool. Then I guess that those two have got a quite good business transaction going on

 

Well, for one thing it is a lot easier to just offer one brand of SSD, and if you are only going to offer one brand it might be a good idea to make it Intel...