Best SSDs For The Money: August 2012 (Archive)

[adamovera]

Are you still holding off on an SSD upgrade? You may not need to. Vendors are cutting their prices yet again. If you're on a budget, drives under $200 sure are tempting. This may be a temporary phenomenon, though; retailers are in "back to school" mode.

Best SSDs For The Money: August 2012 : Read more

 

[adamovera]

Archived comments are found here: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2634957/ssds-money-august-2012.html

 

[CRamseyer]

I've already been called out on Twitter about the 850 EVO vs. Extreme PRO pricing. The 850 EVO 250GB is down to around $80 look around.

 

[TechyInAZ]

Seeing those prices reminds me of the days a few years ago when 120GB SSD's were $120 and the 480GB SSD's were $480. Now 2+ years later they are less than half that price.

 

[Frozen Fractal]

That's it? Just few scrolls? Okay. (no complaints on this though)

But, would've been better if 128GB or lower recommendations were listed. There's confusion (and I think more than 256GB & up) there too. And including steady state, degrade and recovery performance along with mixed workload charts would be a nice idea too imo.

 

[CRamseyer]

On the back end we are working on improvements to show more performance data. Everyone will be very happy with the new system once implemented.

 

[samuelspark]

How does the SM951 compare to to 850 EVO m.2 version?

 

[CRamseyer]

The 850 Pro is faster than the 850 EVO (even the m.2). In the article linked below you can see a comparison of the SM951 against the 850 Pro.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-sm951-nvme-versus-ahci-sata,4137.html

 

[Omkarjtg]

Umm, is there anything wrong with 128gb SSDs? Why aren't they mentioned here?

 

[geopirate]

Well 128gb SSDs are $80+ and are guaranteed to be slower than the $97 one listed here with 256gb. So, if you want to flush your money down the drain, don't expect them to support that....

 

[alan1476]

Hi: If the Samsung 850 Pro 1TB and the Sandisk Extreme Pro 960gb were the exact same price, would your recommendations change?

 

[Frozen Fractal]

I guess yes. Recommendation would then favour 850 Pro.

 

[CRamseyer]

Mine wouldn't. The Extreme PRO stays fast when I slam the drive editing 1080P 60FPS video (very large video files) and the 850 Pro can slow down. Larger capacity drives (512GB and 1TB class) has more room to absorb the writes but if your drives are nearly full the Extreme PRO is faster.

 

[cynic77]

Mine wouldn't.

You didn't consider Opal 2.0/IEEE-1667 compliant, hardware encryption capability. That's where the Extreme PRO fails for me. If you don't need or want encryption, fine. However, I think it was silly for SanDisk not to offer hardware encryption on this drive for those that want it. If you use an SSD as a boot drive (or for document storage), you definitely want it encrypted. This is especially true on a laptop, which is easily lost or stolen. Software encryption on HDDs was extremely slow, but using BitLocker in Windows 8.x eDrive mode, it's nearly instantaneous. As such, I'll take the 850 Pro, thanks!

 

[Omkarjtg]

Well 128gb SSDs are $80+ and are guaranteed to be slower than the $97 one listed here with 256gb. So, if you want to flush your money down the drain, don't expect them to support that....

I see, but that's not the case here in my country. The Samsung 840 EVO 120GB costs around $97, and the cheapest 250GB i.e Samsung 840 Series MZ-7TD250BW costs $198! That's double the price.

 

[danielocdh]

Why is kingston not included here? on all the comparisons I have seen kingston wins in performance.

 

[CRamseyer]

What Kingston drive wins in performance? Maybe you are reading sites that don't have access to Samsung SM951 products and they are show Predator against SATA products.

 

[DacianH]

The prices are down even with 40% for some SSDs compared to the presented ones. The article needs to be updated maybe?
Anyway, if you want to make a decision from a Budget point of view, make sure you check the prices on Amazon instead of in this article.

 

[fhorton50]

The 500mb EVO 850 were available on Ebay earlier today for $150

 

[BARAYANDSHOP]

This is wrong because you are comparing brands that are profitable to you Mygdaryd

 

[michlle]

does anyone know how the crucial series fare against those mentioned above?

 

[rjschmoe]

Anyone else rmemeber when we bought 360K DISKS because 128K MEMORY was expensive

 

[rjschmoe]

Anyone else remember when we bought 360K DISKS because 128K memory BOARD was expensive?

 

[somidiot]

Good news everyone! (Yes, I've been watching Futurama.) The 250 GB Evo drive mentioned can now be found for $100. 🙂