128gb ssd

sid_nag17

Distinguished
Feb 23, 2009
268
0
18,780
Hi,

I have a few questions

1. I am planning to buy a 128gb ssd as my boot drive. So only OS and programs and game save files, nothing else, will store all my data on HDD. I need help on deciding which brand to get. I heard that the Samsung, corsair and ocz agility 4 are good but no idea on which one to get. Plus I do not want to spend more than 85 Pounds as I am quite short on cash.

2. My motherboard supports sata 2, so will it be better if I get a pci-e sata 3 card to plug on my ssd? I have a pci-e x16 slot free.

My System Specs are:

Amd Phenom II 940 @ 3.8Ghz
Gigabyte - 790GP - UD4H (790GX CHIPSET) MOTHERBOARD
AMD HD 7870 GPU
1TB 7200 rpm Hitachi HDD
Corsair VX550 power supply

I need to get it asap so your help is much appreciated. Thanks.
 
No problem with my Crucial M4 128GB nor my Intel 330 180GB (330 180gb sometimes come to 110-120$ if you wanna check that)

Samsung 840 are about the same specs as the M4 and 840 pro are more comparing to really high-end drive, however it depends on your budget and i don't know if you're still on SATA2... If yes, M4 or 840 (non-pro) is already too fast for the SATA2 so don't buy a faster drive, you'll throw your cash...

PS: i paid 99$ USD for the 330 180gb on Black Friday so if that's not really urging, wait a litlle and check rebate ^^
 
Nowadays, I think every PC should include an SSD period. They’re waaaaaaaaay faster and they draw less energy, but unfortunately they do cost a significant amount more than a traditional hard drive.

Those who have some extra budget laying around, I’d definitely suggest going with a 128GB Samsung 840 Pro or 128GB Crucial m4 in combination with a 1TB hard drive. This will allow for plenty of hard drive space for storage while OS and application files may be placed on the SSD for that extra top notch performance.
 
Thanks guys very insightful, but i noticed that the samsung 840 has low write speeds compared to its competitors. And will buying a pci-e sata3 card help in getting better speeds from my sata 2 motherboard?
 
Yeah, SATA3 is double the bandwith and ssd can use it, however it's not really noticeable in real-life, more in benchmark and anyway, you'll be a lot happier with an SSD even on SATA2 interface...

840 and M4 have low write speed but fantastic read speed and IOPS (input output operations per second) so write is already a lot faster than a HDD and IOPS are about the same vs High-end (not top of the line but affordable high-end) so you'll not really notice any difference except if you always write on the ssd (you only have 128gb so you install windows, once it's installed, you're not writng, you're only reading out of it so that doesn't matter as soon as you already have installed what you need (installation process is longer but still a lot faster than on a HDD)
 
@ spawnkiller - makes sense of what you said, read speeds wont be as important after windows in installed.
I wanted to know which is more important the 4k read or write speeds?

I read in one site that Synchronous NAND is better than Asynchronous is that true?

Lastly what are the technologies which are important such as TRIM, Aes support etc?





and I have gone through some deals and short-listed a few

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/240gb-mushkin-chronos-2-5-sata-6gb-s-sata-iii-solid-state-drive-119-99-delivery-1479557

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/ocz-128gb-agility-4-sata-iii-ssd-ebuyer-72-99-1476067

http://www.ebuyer.com/363436-kingston-120gb-hyperx-3k-ssd-sh103s3-120g

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009LI7C5I/ref=nosim/?tag=hotukdeals-21

The ocz vector and the corsair gt look good as well, dont know which one to get as i need to buy a sata 3 pci-e card as well and want to keep everything within 100 pounds.

 




840-Series SSDs are definitely good, though their 128GB versions have some latency issues... Therefore if you can afford it, get the OCZ Vector- fastest SSD on the market:)
 

Sorry if it was so long, i was away from last Friday to now...

Both NAND technology are good (Asynchronous is only a tad slower) but it depends more on the controller and the number of flash cell used than the model of the flash itself...

TRIM is for long term operation (it keep the SSD in it's optimal working condition by always leveling the usage on all cells (and on spare cells if the case in certain SSD))
AES is an Encryption standard (AES stands for Advance Encryption Standard) so it's more secure if you have it but it's not really that important as it's only needed if you have confidential data or if you don't want your data availlable for all people that can stole your laptop/desktop (but they still needs to have the drive in working condition in their hand to find any data on it... so it's only important in thieves cases or TOP SECRET company work, etc...)

Between the 4 you've listed, i would choose in this order: Kingston HyperX 3K, Samsung 840, Mushkin Chronos (even if it's 240gb vs 128gb) and i wouldn't even consider buying an OCZ drive except the "Vector" model but it's not a cheap model... (heard some bad things about OCZ drives in the past but the new Vector is OK)
 

hmm... as far as benches show, the new vector isn't just OK, it's the single best SSD on the market...
And OCZ's previous vertex 4 is pretty damn good as well
 

I was thinking OK about the product reliability and stability, not actual speed of it as the Vector destroy everything for sure ^^
 

Oh.. My bad. It should be pretty reliable though :)
 
I have a Asus U3S6 pci-e sata controller for my Dell Precision 670 computer. The best I can do for this computer because it does not support SATA II at all. Stuck with SATA I. It is running a Crucial M4 64GB SSD; Win-7 score is 7.9 for the SSD.

If your native SATA II motherboard is capable of RAID-0, then that is what I'll suggest. My high-end i5-3570k computer is currently running a RAID-0 with 2 Samsung 830 128GB SSD & it boots in 7 seconds! Has been reliable for 6 months now; not a single issue with these SSD.