SSD for P150HM

Hi everyone,
I'm trying to choose between OCZ Agility 3 240Gb (311€) or OCZ Vertex 3 MAXIOPS 120Gb (250€).
Considering the prices/quality i'm more inclined to the Agility 3 240Gb, but it loses by a lot in "incompressible sequential read", compared to others working on SATA 3.

Comparison:
AnandTech - Bench - SSD

So I have a few questions:
- Does anyone have it (Vertex 3 or Agility 3 240Gb) on P150HM? Any issues?
- Working normally (no benchmarks), does the "incompressible sequential read" makes such a huge difference?

Thank you,
Best Regards to all

 

Don't get OCZ. A lot of people have said that they have cleaned their act up, but personally I don't trust them.

Go for Intel or Crucial. I have a 128GB Crucial M4 in my system.

Mr. Mysterious

 

+1 to Mr M. Intel or Crucial.

 

Yes there are a lot of choices for SSD's. Clevo and Sager recommend the Intel series of SSD's.
_

 

I would avoid the Vertex 3 as they've had significant issues with the newer Clevo machines.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/601231-compatability-ocz-vertex-3-ssd-sager-np8150.html

I'd highly recommend the Intel or Crucial as they've been reported as having decent reliability and performance (Intel being the standard recommendation).

EDIT: Also, to answer your question about incompressible sequential read- it's only useful if you're moving massive files that can't be broken up, such as RAW video, etc. For day to day stuff, the random read and random write speeds are the most important metrics.

 

Crucial m4 if you must get an SSD now, Intel if you can wait another month or so (for the 520 series)

 

Catan's right, wait to get the Intel. Never had any problems with mine, even though I'm going for a hdd on my new laptop, and its always been quicker than my friend who has a Vortex. Not only that but his has been replaced (due to the issue Malibal is referencing) and is planning on selling it. To re-affirm, Intel makes a great product.

 

I will continue the trend by recommending another drive besides the OCZ drives. Anything with the Sandforce controller isn't recommended on a Sager. The new Intel drives are actually going to use Sandforce controllers, just a heads up.

 

Thank you for the advice and for answering my question, I thought the same which is why I'm considering Agility 3 240Gb, more space and great performance.

Btw, a new update for OCZ SSD's came up:
AnandTech - SandForce Identifies Firmware Bug Causing BSOD Issue, Fix Available Today
Will it fix the issues reported on your link? Anyone tried it yet?

Thank you,
Best Regards to All

 

I agree with everyone above regarding the Crucial M4 as one of the best drives currently. You catch that on sale (via SlickDeals.net) and you've got a great drive at a great price.

I myself went with the Kingston HyperX SSD. It looked better to me bench-wise and I think it was that the Intel memory in it was good for 5000 R/W cycles instead 3000, like on a lot of other drives. (Theoretically though even a 3000 R/W drive should clearly last beyond the typical period you would ever use it).

LINK: Newegg.com - kingston hyperx ssd


It was a SandForce drive, and yeah, there's some risk, but that article you found shows two things: The biggest problem with SF Drives might have just been fixed, and if not, they definitely are working on improving the technology.

If you can tolerate the potential for a problem, you can get a great bang for the buck on an OCZ drive. I've wondered lately if their prices are so low due to time moving on, or issues with the drives causing consumer hesitation.

If it just NEEDS to work, Intel or Crucial M4 are your current best bets. And I like the price and performance of the Crucial M4.

 

No no they are not, Intel will not be using the sandforce controller, their performance targets are the SF-22XX series performance numbers, but it won't be sandforce based.

 

Looks like the huge deals at Overstock are done, I now see the Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 is cheaper at NewEgg. It's $205 or $230 on the Canadian site, depending on whether you want to transfer kit.

 

I have a mySN/Schenker P501 (=P150HM) for over a month now, running with a Vertex 3 240GB. Never had any problems. Firmware is 2.11.

 

I too have a Schenker P501 (Clevo P501HM), for which I bought a Vertex 3 Max IOPS 120 GB in July. I did experience reduced performance due to stuttering and blue screens on wake from standby. After applying a firmware update to version 2.09 and the LPM registry fix, all issues were eliminated. However, judging by the crowds at the OCZ forums, not everyone was as lucky. The latest firmware update (2.15) looks promising, but it's only two days old and the first results regarding the issues it addresses should appear in a week or so.

Bottom line, these OCZ SSDs *should* be okay now, but if you want to stay on the safe side, you might want to wait a bit and check out the above mentioned alternatives.

By the way, MeNtAl_DaRkNeSs, what country are you in? Here in Germany, these two SSDs (Agility 3 and Vertex 3 MI) are cheaper by 50€ than the prices you mention.

 

HI,
I'm from Portugal, and here unfortunately the prices are high...

Best Regards to all

 

i am currently going through my first experience with ssd and alienware m18x laptop.

do NOT get anything with sanforce controllers or marvel controllers. only get toshiba and samsung controllers. toshiba and samsung were / are hard drive manufactures, the other guys were only memory until now.

-sanforce; ocz vertex 3 sata III would not even install OS, would freeze up.

-marvell; crucial m4 256gb sata III, installed fine and appeared to be working perfectly but experienced a hang during a windows shut-down process and another isntability in the form of a bsod while computer was sitting idle.

-toshiba; kingston ssdnow v100 sata II, worked fine.

-samsung; samsung ssd 470 sata II, i currently have this sine it was cheaper than kingston for the 256gb version. it is working fine so far. only my first day with this drive but i am assuming there wont be any issues.

the pattern here is that the sata III drives simply do not work or are unstable.

the point is that all drives i tested (besides the ocz since it would fail to install the OS) are equally fast in boot times. i think the samsung is actually the fastest boot and the crucial m4 was the slowest. the speed differences really are like only a second or so. the OS and over 100 processes pretty much boot up isntantly after the windows logo screen passes.

 

So it seems like getting an intel Sata II would be the most reliable choice?

 

Make sure you start right with the intel chip fixed drivers with any drive / ssd, any version above .30 is good.
File name:
INF_allOS_9.2.2.1034_PV.exe

MLC or SLC ?? does make a difference on some machines and drivers....

Samsung if you don't mind the SATAIII less than perfect speeds but want to still be using your ssd in 5 years without issues and all your data still there.
Samsung has the auto tweak Samsung ssd magician tool for optimal performance on your laptop / desktop that no other ssd has.
This also does the firmware without issues for you.

This is and was my main concerns and I frequently mess around with solder and embedded cpu's / other mods on mobile phones and on latest i7 apple mac book pro's motherboards.

All depends on do you every 7 days reinstall winxp/win7 if yes then you have proper backups / NAS and any SSD would work and you have extra 2.5" hard drives should it fail + a cloned copy of your runnign system for quick restore.

Intel builds cpu's not graphics cards, ??? Intel ssd's ??? can't comment.

Would you trust a hair dresser doing open heart surgery on you or would you trust a hart surgeon with 14 years training, internships and experience to give you hart surgery.

Same goes for data, loosing it and who makes your ssd. Choose wisely.

 

I am waiting for the new Intel/Samsung drives to come out + black Friday deals. If you can hold off a little over a month, you may find some interesting deals. My plan at least (Already received my HD Caddy 2 days ago)

 

I'm watching for the next big sale on the S4 - looking recently I've seen previous sales where the 128Gb version on sale for $170 Canadian. Getting a high performance SSD anywhere in the $1 to $1.30/GB is pretty good stuff.

 

I purchases an OCZ Vertex 3 240GB Max IOPS and put it in my SAGER 8150 and moved the 750GB drive it came with to the optical bay.

The latest 2.15 BIOS was already on the drive.

I have had ZERO problems. Not one freeze or any thing else. Installation of Fedora 16 x64 went without a single issue.

 

It has been 10 days since install.

 

Nice, Tks for the feedback!
I have an OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS 120Gb on mySata 3 for almost 1 month, and on my optical bay an OCZ Agility 3 240Gb for more than 2 months!
Both without any issues

Best Regards to all

 

another newb question..

i own a p150hm. it is equipped with a crucial m4 120gb ssd. i've been pondering the idea of replacing the default caddy with an optical bay so i might make use of the original 500gb hdd the laptop came with.

just one question: how would i install windows7 if i removed the cd drive in favor of an optical one? would i need an external caddy of some sort? how would it work?

 

you could download the windows 7 installer found here
http://forum.notebookreview.com/windows-os-software/428068-legal-windows-7-download-links-just-like-vista-before.html

It's legal btw since you'd need to enter your activation key anyways.

then you can create a bootable usb flash disk win 7 installer. by following the guide here Microsoft Store Online

 

If you have a windows 7 installation on your hard drive (e.g. iso file) you can easily create a bootable USB flash and install windows 7 from it, here is a quick HowTo guide (I followed these steps and it worked perfectly):

Install Windows 7 from USB flash My Experience 101

 

I have OCZ Vertex 3 MAX 240GB on p170 for almost 3 months. no problems, great performance. firmware 2.15 as mentioned before. highly recommend

 

In addition to what the others have said, if you just want to re-use the optical drive you can make it an external. Just look for a 12.7mm external optical enclosure (they're usually cheap) and slide your old disk drive in. That way you can use your optical media (and it's good on any machine that way).

 

Is this a good SSD? I need the capacity as this is my only computer so I have a lot of mp3's and pictures.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167059

Oh and I have P151hm1.

 

That is a good SSD but its SATA II. You should really get SATA III drive to take advantage of the SATA III speeds your computer is capable of. If you value storage room more then speed the Intel 320 you have linked is still a nice drive, but SATA III drives get you about double the read/write times.

 

Using a $1000 SSD to store mp3s and pictures is not an efficient way to spend that dough. You'd be much better served getting a normal-sized SSD and buying a large 750GB+ HDD for storage. That or buy a single 750GB Momentus XT hybrid.

 

@qwilled: I still use my DVD drive on the laptop and I don't like having to deal with an external hard drive. I use external only for making backups.

@Hutsady: Hey! I bought my laptop from you. Do you have any recommendations?

 

We always recommend the Intel 510 series. They make a 250GB SSD which is the biggest in the 510 series right now. People have mentioned good performance with the Crucial M4 drives and recently the OCZ Vertex 3 have been doing good with the latest firmware. The OCZ have had mixed reviews in the past though. I think the best think you could do is get a SATA III drive like the Intel 510 250GB and use and external for your files, or remove your optical drive if you dont use it much and put a 750GB HDD in there.

But as you mentioned you still use the optical drive and dont want the external.

That really only leaves you an option for a big SSD in the primary which right now will have to be SATA II which is still going to be much snappier then an HDD

 

Since you do still use an optical drive another thing you can consider is an SATA III drive in the primary, 750GB HDD in the optical bay drive, external USB DVD/CD drive which can be had for $20-30. That will give you the speed, storage and optical drive, but a downfall of having to take the USB drive around with you. That configuration will be faster and cost less then a 600GB SSD

 

Hutsady, are the Samsung 830 Series drives ok to use on the np8130?

 

I can't see why not, as long as they fit the form factor (2.5") and connection type (SATA). It looks like they do, so it should work out just great.

 

Haven't heard any feed back on the Samsung SSD. The use 3-Core MCX Controller, instead of Sandforce or Marvell which you typically find. You can try to see but if you havent ordered the SSD yet I'd go with Intel 510 series.

 

Yes this is quite odd, how come no one has tried the Samsung drives just yet?

I'm pretty sure everyone saw this viral Samsung SSD video:
Samsung SSD Awesomeness - YouTube

Oh well, I might be interested in buying one of those.. Can't really decide between M4, Intel 510 or Samsung?

 

A question.

NB P150.
If I have S3 SSD already on the HDD place, is there any point to buy Sata3 Momentus XT 750GB (8GB SSD) for place of ODD?
Isn't it just Sata2 there? If yes, then Standard Sata2 HDD will be enough for it max potential, right?

 

There's actually two reasons not to do that. First as you mentioned the ODD bay is SATA II so putting in a SATA III drive isn't going to benefit. Secondly the hybrid drives are good for loading up Windows faster and starting your commonly used programs faster. If plan on using it just for storage the 8GB SSD wont help out, you'll get just as good speeds with a standard 7200rpm drive.

 

Actually, I was planning to have these 8GB SSD plus let's say 150Gb to give for separate disk for STEAM games, and rest to cut for storage disk.
But now, since Sata3 will not work there, mean no point in doing so, so will save money and will buy standard Sata2 hdd.
Thnx.

 

Has anyone else noticed severe vibrations from a HDD placed into the hard drive caddy location? I moved the 500GB drive that came with the laptop to the caddy location and placed a SSD in the Sata3 slot, I'm about to buy another 128GB SSD and forget the 500GB HDD altogether because the vibrations are that bad, the drive eventually goes to sleep and its perfect but various things (even when not accessing it) wake it up (like installing an ew program), rather have the DVD drive at this point because the vibrations are that noticable.

 

With vibrations that loud you might want to check everything is secure tightly, including the bezel. Even go as far as taking out the drive and hooking it up into a desktop (if available) to see if the drive might be failing.

 

Ok thanks Hutsady I will try that, it was fine in its original location but being right under my right hand it is really noticable, if I touchthe left side of the pad I can barely feel it but when using the laptop for work my right hand is constantly buzzin. Ill check it out tomorrow and report back.

 

That Samsung SSD is on sale at Newegg right now. $190 after code EMCNJHN42, pretty good for the latest darling of the SSD scene.

I bought a 256GB Plextor M3 yesterday for $300 shipped from Newegg. Supposedly uses a slightly updated version of the Marvell controller the Crucial M4 uses. Big selling point for me was the 5-year warranty - when I get a new laptop, I want the option of taking this drive with me, and knowing it will be around for 5 years is awesome. Plus, the price per GB is better than I've seen on Crucial, Samsung, or certainly Intel drives.

 

I noticed vibrations when I pulled the hd from my main bay and put it into the optical bay...but they decreased when I reinstalled with the plastic sleeve with the little rubber feet.

 

Do you mind if I ask what you'll be using the computer for; gaming, school, or productivity?

 

Good idea, I'll take the plastic sleeve off the SSD and place that with the optical bay drive instead, its either that or sell the 500GB and put that money towards another 128GB ssd.