Best SSDs For The Money: April 2011

[JohnnyLucky]

Were any usage models used? Which ones were used? Were the operating systems tweaked for use with ssd's? Were the recommendations based on a clean install or based on a well used state?

The article mentioned synthetic benchmarks. I am not a fan of synthetic benchmarks. Was actual usage considered and validated?

 

[marraco]

This article is fantastic, and largely expected.

The “best XXX for the money” articles are one of the most useful articles on Tomshardware. I really thatnks you Andrew Ku and the rest of the team.

When somebody asks me what to buy, and I need to decide fast without much thinking, I rely on this series articles.

But there is an important omission on SSD; on GPUs, we get SLI/Crossfire considered, and I request that RAID 0 setups were also considered on this article.

Thanks, and keep doing good work.

 

[triculious]

nice article... loved the concept behind it

maybe we'll get a best RAM for the $ as well?

one thing though is prices... I'm seeing the RealSSD C300 for around 200 atm while it's listed on the article for 260 by the time the article was written

probably this market will be more volatile than that of cpus and graphic cards

also, where's the hierarchy chart? =P

anyways, it's a great idea to have this article and I'm looking forward to see how it evolves

 

[dylock]

@editor
Include the random 4K read/writes on this chart, as that differentiates cheap drives with high sequential read/writes against quality drives with slightly lower sequential read/writes.

 

[quovatis]

Would like to see RAID0 factored in here (like SLI is with the graphics card series).

 

[Krnt]

Where are my 120GB Mushkin Callisto SSDs for $200, I've never seen them here in Tom's Hardware...

 

[clonazepam]

If I switched over to SSDs for performance I'd do something like this to combat the smaller storage space.

I'd install apps/games (particularly games) to the drive. If I installed every title it'd take up 400gb+. I would decide on the top 5 or top 10 apps/games I'll be using. Those will stay on the drive. I'd install the rest as time permitted, and then rar the installation to a backup drive. Whenever I should want to call on one of those particular apps/games I'd simply make sure space was available and un-rar it back to the drive for use. If I'm getting bored of it, I'll shelve (rar) it back to storage until a later time. You would use the same technique when working with super-large professional graphics files. Everything is backed up to either a NAS or a raid 1 or an external 1-2tb drive.

The prices these days on 2tb+ external storage and NAS is such that I'd go large with those storage mediums, and go small less expensive SSD and then just micro-manage what it is storing at any given time.

I'm an obsessive/compulsive so if any of the above sounds weird thats why. I horde data likes its money lol

 

[ansar]

Hmm, I was expecting something similar to graphics and cpu monthly bests.

Best SSD $120 and under:

Best SSD $150 and under:

Best SSD $200 and under:

Best SSD $500 and under:

Beyond the point of reason.

 

[lordwyrd]

What about Samsungs 470 series SSDs?

 

[gm0n3y]

Great article. I'd love to pick one of these up but I'm still waiting for drives that are less than $1/GB. Prices just don't seem to be dropping as quickly as I thought they would. I still remember buying my 22" LCD for $525 and within a year and a half they were down in the $220 range.

 

[unknownmon5t3r]

Best SSDs for ~$400: More than 180 GB
OCZ Vertex 2 240gb
Price: $389.99 ($359.99 after Mail-in Rebate on Newegg)
$1.62 a GB ($1.50 after rebate)

 

[unknownmon5t3r]

[citation][nom]unknownmon5t3r[/nom]Best SSDs for ~$400: More than 180 GBOCZ Vertex 2 240gbPrice: $389.99 ($359.99 after Mail-in Rebate on Newegg)$1.62/GB ($1.50/GB after rebate)[/citation]

 

[3BRP]

I'm surprised I didn't see the A-Data Raid setup from your last system builder marathon! It's such a good price/performance that I'm thinking of ordering two soon.

 

[tntom]

Great Article Andrew!

As a point of comparison, a file operation completes 85% faster on a low-end SSD than it does on a high-end hard drive, but there is only an 88% speed difference between a high-end hard drive and a high-end SSD. That why you shouldn't let benchmarks deter you from making the switch. You don't have to have the best SSD to get great performance relative to a HDD.

Thanks for that brilliant statement and point of reason. I have always been worried that if I didn't get the fastest SSD I would not see the benefit.

 

[Bolas]

You need to add more price groups in the $500 plus range. $500 to $750, then $800 to $1200, then $1200+.

 

[linuxguile]

Why no mention of the 64Gb Micro Center G2 series SSD for $109?

 

[buzznut]

Wow another great comparison article! I hope this a monthly feature like the CPU ad Video cards. Keep it up! Those of us with SSD's know how valuable they, even at $2 a gig.

 

[acku]

[citation][nom]brad45654ewr[/nom]"a file operation completes 85% faster on a high-end SSD than it does on a high-end hard drive, but there is only an 88% speed difference between a high-end hard drive and a low-end SSD" - Does that mean low-end SSD's are faster than high-end SSDs? I think there is a typo somewhere.[/citation]

Feexed! Thanks for pointing that out.

[citation][nom]Bolas[/nom]You need to add more price groups in the $500 plus range. $500 to $750, then $800 to $1200, then $1200+.[/citation]
I dunno.... I'd argue that if you have more than 500 bucks then you're not likely to be on a budget. Can you give a good reason why we should include that price range? If you have more than $500 to spend on a SSD, it seems reasonable to assume that you're probably up to date with the latest information, right?

 

[truchonic]

i will like to buy a ssd but there are kinda expensive right now but for sure in 6 month gonna drop prices and maybe i can get a good one

 

[deadlockedworld]

Awesome. I have been waiting for this.

 

[kish20]

This is really good. Finally less ambiguity in the SSD market.
+1 for adding hierarchy chart and $/GB chart at the end.
Looking forward to next month's article!

 

[JackNaylorPE]

[citation][nom]ansar[/nom]Hmm, I was expecting something similar to graphics and cpu monthly bests. Best SSD $120 and under:Best SSD $150 and under:Best SSD $200 and under:Best SSD $500 and under:Beyond the point of reason.[/citation]

I think we got it ..... like the GFX articles of late the price points, or omissions thereof seem to be adjusted monthly and specifically to favor certain models and avoid letting certain models into a category. When will we see a GFX article where the best performance category maxes out at $250 ? Or a CPU / MoBo article that maxes out at the performance category at $250 ?

 

[hangfirew8]

I don't understand the C300 64GB comment: "If you don't want to buy a new motherboard to enable trailblazing 6 Gb/s speed, we highly recommend the C300."

Even the 64GB model has SATA III, and has awesome read performance on either SATA II or SATA III interfaces. I don't understand the need to limit the recommendation to SATA II motherboards.

 

[kevith]

Brilliant idea, have had good use of the CPU- and GFX-charts.

 

[IWC Member 23495867]

Awesome article! Thanks Toms for making hardware shopping easier. When can we see some best motherboard articles?