Going SSD, need suggestions

Crucial http://www.crucial.com/store/listmodule/SSD/~262144~/list.html I have the Crucial M4 64gb for my Netbook, and could not be happier.

I know some will not agree with me but I think the OCZ Agility 3 (or now the 4) drives would be a great place to start. I have two 120 Agility 3 drives in RAID 0 for my boot drive and couldn't be happier.

edit Here's a good deal

I have an OCZ drive that I could not get to work properly. I bought an intel sata 2 drive back when they first started dropping prices. Then I saw another deal for an OCZ sata 3 drive and dove in on that too a few months later.

Anyway, I tried to get my Windows 7 on that OCZ drive but it would randomly BSOD or shut down or restart (it was only doing one of those things but I can't remember exactly what the symptoms were at this point, whatever it was, it should not have happened)after being left on for over a day.

I sent it to OCZ they said they replicated my scenario on the same motherboard I had but could never find any issue. So instead of my OS drive I use that for a couple games now. Which I have quit playing at this point.

I'm going to give it another try with Windows 8 and see what happens. Whatever the case, I probably won't buy another OCZ drive.

My intel drive works like a charm, just not the fastest drive around being an older interface and specs.


As for a susgestion, I would stick with Intel and Samsung drives, personally. Amazon has a 40% off SSD thing going right now too. There's a Samsung 256g drive for around $200 in that list.
Edited by Yrd - 11/5/12 at 8:59pm

If it's your first SSD, just get the Samsung 830 and don't look back. While I haven't had any RMAs with any other make or model, it seems that Samsung's quality is above reproach when reading reviews (professional and customer). Also, I've just never experienced any quirks of any kind with Samsung. Intel is great as well, but they've had some issues with their SandForce drives. I've been riding the SSD wave for years, from the first JMicron controllers that had horrid lag, the glory days of the Intel X25-M (and X18-M), the multiple SandForce entries, and the Crucial M4. My favorite blend of speed, efficiency, and reliability is definitely the Samsung 830 line. It goes on sale a lot now that the 840 line is out. Best bang for the buck, IMO, is the Crucial M4 line as they have consistently low prices (512GB for $299 on sale a couple months ago!!). I haven't tried the new 840/840 Pro line yet, but Samsung actually managed to take a drive that was near perfect and improved it (if reviews are to be believed).

I'm trying to break my SSD addiction and have promised myself that I will not buy another SSD until I can buy a 1TB 2.5" drive for under $500. So yeah, I'll be waiting a while. I'm sure by then SATA Express will be available or some other native PCIe controller for massive bandwidth.

I second the Samsung 830. I see the 120GB on sale for $60/$70 all the time now that the 840s are out.

The 256GB version is usually on sale around $179-199 from Newegg and Microcenter. Sometimes lower with MIRs, but I hate MIRs.

Tom's Hardware Best SSDs For The Money: October 2012
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269.html

They need to update their pricing, since it is now out of date, since the story released.

I'm using a 128gig OCZ Vertex 4 and it's pretty awesome. Wicked fast.

I just put the Crucial M4 256 gig in my aging PC, and its like a brand new computer. Highly recommended upgrade.

You might want to wait for Black Friday or Cyber Monday deals, if you can.

Crucial, Smamsung, Intel. These three make their own stuff. Nobody else does. As such, everyone else has to cut corners somewhere in order to remain price competitive, or charge too much for a similar product. These three will give you the best bang for your dollar.

Specifically, the Crucial M4, Samsung 830, or Intel 330 are all great choices with Intel at the bottom of that list.

It's fine. In the same class as the ones I mentioned, perfectly acceptable quality, and $15 more than the M4. At that point, why not buy the cheaper one?

Economies of scale, yo.

Honestly, having been through a few SSD's now.....Intel or nothing if its a C drive. Any other brand for any other application, but installs for me its got to be Intel.

Oh and if you haven't asked yet:
1) NO - don't put your temp drives and other things on spinning platters...keep them on the SSD so you get max speed
2) YES - Make sure WINZIP and other such apps that use their own temp dir are using your SSD for those temp operations
3) All drives that are modern today will have TRIM functions and such built in now I think, so you shouldn't have any of the weirdo compatability issues that us early adopters did :P Ugh :P

Enjoy.

I've told many people that the SSD is the single most 'tangible" change in computers since the onset of 3D accelerated graphics, particularly if you are already on a desktop...laptops don't always show the gains because the rest of their sub-systems are so damned slow :P
ENJOY!

"I've told many people that the SSD is the single most 'tangible" change in computers since the onset of 3D accelerated graphics"

I'd argue that you are forgetting about when we shifted to dual-core CPUs, and by extension, Hyperthreading. That brought a very tangible smoothness to the PC's moment-to-moment operation.

Stryker - It's been a week. You're still hemming and hawing over this? SSDs are pretty similar. Looking at comparisons everything modern pretty much comes within 10% of each other, with no single drive obviously superior to others in performance. Each drive does some things better than others, all have a strong point and a weak point. In day to day use though? You'll never notice the difference being the poorly perceptive humans that we are.

This page is a great comparison of the current models. Anand is a pimp. http://www.anandtech.com/show/5817/the-intel-ssd-330-review-60gb-120gb-180gb/4

You'll notice that any of the reputable models on offer bounce all over the place from being top-end at something, middling here and there, to bottom-end at other things. You'll also notice that everything is grouped pretty tightly together in a bundle of "way faster than a platter drive, and not far enough from each other to matter". Again, Samsung, Crucial, Intel. Pick a modern drive based on size and price. Whichever one you get really doesn't matter and won't ever be noticeably different from the others in daily use.

I picked a Crucial M4. It seems to be middling in just about every measurement, is made by the company that sells it, and was in the cheaper group. What's the difference between the Samsung 830 and the Intel 520? $40 and 16GB, in the wrong direction.

I recommend the Samsung 830, I've had mine a few weeks. I've also used OCZ and had trouble with the first one, an Agility but no trouble with the second, a Vertex 3. The Samsung 830 was so inexpensive, $155 for 256 GB, I couldn't resist it. The switch from a mechanical boot drive to a SSD was the biggest improvement I've made to my computer.

here is a great website for all things SSD
They also have a very knowledgeable forum
Check it out

http://thessdreview.com/

I'm on the same page with SSDs. Processors are fast and multi-core now, you can buy a boatload of fast RAM for cheap (I have 16GB), BUT those damn mechanical drives just weren't keeping up and this is from someone running Raptors and Velociraptors for YEARS just to make a dent in times. Hell, the whole reason I run a ton of RAM is to keep me off the hard drive as much as possible. Now with SSD's it's incredible. Quantum leap forward around a bottleneck which was becoming more and more obvious.

For the record, I'm an Intel guy for a C drive too. Failure and return rates on others can be high and unless you are a kid with all the time in the world, or have a barebones dedicated gaming only machine, a blown C drive is a huge PITA and not worth some theoretical benchmark advantage (modern SSD is already light speed so I care more about reliability at this point). Current setup is an Intel 510 at 6gb/s 128GB system and another Intel 330 at 3gb/s for some games (thanks to a friend - so cost me nothing otherwise I'd prioritize reasonable reliability with cost/GB). Storage is on a 3TB mechanical.

Performance. The 830 essentially crushes the 520.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/530?vs=532

The 520 uses the same controller (Sandforce) found in the Vertex line, so it has wildly inconsistent data throughput which affect its overall performance. The problems stem mostly from slow performance when dealing with incompressible files. The Sandforce controller uses a compression algorithm to boost its write speed, so when it encounters files that can't be compressed further (certain system files, videos, images, music, etc.) then its performance stalls.

I don't want you to think I'm treating Intel unfairly - I own some Intel SSDs and love them. If you're coming from a mechanical disk drive, either one will be a REVELATION in responsiveness, but in absolute terms the Samsung is just better. I generally only look at Anand's custom light and heavy workload benchmarks - time to complete. His benchmarks use a series of real-world applications and measure throughput and time to complete tasks. The Samsung 830 is 2-3x faster in those tests. The gap widens even more if you look at the Samsung 840 Pro...

Don't sweat it too much. The best graphic to show the difference between SSDs and mechanical HDDs is from Tom's Hardware. Blue dots represent SSDs, red dots represent HDDs. There's just no competition.

The Vertex 4 with its new firmware update and 830 are generally comparable as is the 840 - slight edge to the Samsung, but not enough to matter. The thing about benchmarks is that they can never perfectly capture the way two different people will use the device. Some of the deals on Vertex drives are too good to pass up...