Fastest / Best SSD for $200ish ??? Vertex 3 ??

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Mfusick

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I have a 120gb vertex 2 now. Had it a while.. more than a year.

It works super great.

I am going to build a new PC on LGA2011 or LGA1155. Leaning towards the cheaper 1155 with a 2500k cpu.

I was thinking I would probably get a new SSD drive for the OS.

What should I get?
 
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If Benchmarks and bragging rights are your thing, Yes the SF22xx are what to get.
I dought you will really see any/much real life difference between the OCZ and Curcial M4, Samsung 830. Shaving a couple of seconds off boot time is only abiggy if you reboot 100 times a day. Clicking a link to a spradsheet, the program loads and the shread sheet loads befor I can drag a mouse to edit a cell. On the High end, I look more at reliability and the company - OCZ LOOSES on both counts.

High Sequencial performce has the LEAST effect on a OS = Program disk. Especially when the benchmark is run using data that is Highly compressable. it's the 4k random using compressed data that is important.

 
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Yeah, I have 2 Vertex 2 60GB in RAID-0 for the same length of time and they have been problem free.

Whatever manufacturer/model you decide to purchase make sure the firmware on the drive and on your motherboard BIOS is at the latest version just to be on the safe side.
 
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dont listen to these fools .. lol you want fast performance .. and for about 200ish price range right .. if you have a serial ata 6 ports .. then id go with 2 patriot pyro 60gb drives.. and put them in raid 0 .. you will get 1000 mb reads and 900ish writes .. and its based off the sandforce 2200 controler .. if you act soon you can get them from amazon 105 each but with a 25 dollar mail in rebate .. makes them 80 bucks each best deal on the net if you ask me..
 
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From a user performance point of view, any modern SSD will seem to perform the same; very well. Sunthetic benchmarks may show differences, but that is because they are pushing the drive to max rates and high queue lengths. Not what we normally do.

As to reliability, here are some collected statistics on return rates. Samsung was not included because of insufficient reports, but I think they are good too.
Intel and crucial are tops, followed by Corsair. OCZ did not do well.
http://www.behardware.com/articles/843-7/components-returns-rates-5.html
 
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I have no real complains about the Vertex II, Although I do not have the vertex II I do have one based on the same controller. I also bought 2 agility IIIs - and there was a considerable lag in OCZ/Sandforce in correcting the problems associated with the SF22xx based SSDs. In that time, and reading the mountain of post on OCZ's forum, I came to the conclusion, no matter how fast their drives might BENCKMARK, I will NOT buy from them!!!

As to Raid0, ALL of my systems based on HDDs dating back ti IDE have been Raid0. But I do not recommend Raid0 for SSDs. Yes You MAY see great Benchmarks, Come back in a Year and half and tell me that was a good choice. A companny that I'm well versed with has Had a Very high rate of returns on SSDs used inside TVs. I've also seen some posts that indicate they may not be suited for some tasks.

I have 8 SSD, one dating back to Intel's G1 and a G2, And no regrets except for the 3 Aliglity IIIs

 
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Hi mfusick!

Don't waste your money on sandforce based SSD's! they are not relible!😉

go for samsung 830 128GB or corsair performance pro 128GB!

sam uses their own tweaked arm triple core processor and corsair uses marvel's controller...! crucial m4 is also good but write performance is less than those!

choose is yours! if you like i can post some reviews! 😉
 
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If I was building a new machine and wanted a fast SSD I would pick a Crucial M4. I put a Samsung SSD in my laptop but a fast drive would probably be wasted in it.

Overall OCZ has had very bad reliability, Crucial has been very good. It is good that your previous OCZ drive has worked for you, lots of people have not been so lucky.

Newegg has this vertex 2 on their site:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227551

It has 523 reviews, 51% gave it 4 or 5 eggs. 40% gave it 1 or 2 eggs. Sounds like you are in the 51% group, if you buy another one what are the odds that you would still be in the 51% group?
 
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Since you mentioned Samsung......

If reliability and stability is a major concern, Samsung staged a major coup. Samsung was awarded contracts to supply Dell, Sony, Lenovo, Apple and other off the shelf brands with OEM versions of their 470 Series SATA 2 3Gb/s ssd's. Eventually the 470's were released for retail sale to consumers. There have been no major issues reported. The 470 has an absolutely stellar record.

Then Samsung released their 830 Series SATA 3 6Gb/s ssd's as successors to the 470. The first ones were OEM versions for Dell and the other off the shelf brands followed by release of retail versions for consumers. The ssd's are Samsung's own design with their own components and firmware. It looks like Samsung got it right again.

Here is a link the to ssd database:

http://www.johnnylucky.org/data-storage/ssd-database.html

Scroll down to the brands and models you are interested in and then click on the links to the technical reviews.
 
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I just loaded Windows 7 on my Samsung 830 and it only took 15min to install. After that....the system loads to the desktop in 30sec (estimate). Samsung 830 comes with a 3.5 tray also.

OP, listen to Johnny! :) Thanks Johnny!
 
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OK, just finished replacing my Agillity III with a samsung 830.
Also have Curcial M4

There is not a nickels worth of Difference between the M4 and the 830 in boot time nor program load. Boot time I can measure with a watch. The 830 I just timed, 12 Sec from start loading operating system to end of circle - Very similar to my M4. For reference simular configured Sata II (probably a few more start up apps) takes 35 Sec.

As for loading a program, there is not enough diff to notice - Can not tell 50 mSec from 60 mSec - Made up numbers click on a program and it is there LOL.

Even if a SF22xx benchmarks faster - You would tell which had which SSD between to identical systems in real life usage, one with the M4 (or 830) and a SF22xx based SSD

So the choice between M4 and 830 becomes (1) cost M4 generally 30 to 40 bucks cheaper, depends on which one is on sale. (2) Problems (only real source is forums and reviews at newegg and finally (3) Reliability - The 830 gets great marks here, This is different than reviews that state DOA. How many fail after 3 Monthes /1 year / 3 years. Unfornately they have not been out (SATA III) long enought for a real user evaluation. I now have 10 SSDs from 7 diff manuf - Not one failure.

Bottom line M4 or 830, I'd have a hard time saying 830 or M4 - You will ENJOY either.
 
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Last week there were published reports the Crucial m4 has developed a second problem. Crucial acknowledged the problem. Probably minor and easy to fix. Looks like Crucial will have a firmware update in about a week.

http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State-Drives-SSD/BSOD-Crucial-M4/td-p/79098

EDIT - Crucial just released an update to fix the problem:

http://www.storagereview.com/crucial_m4_0309_firmware_update_5200_hour_bug_released

Here's the link to the Crucial firmware update page:

http://www.crucial.com/support/firmware.aspx

Retired Chief - The blink of an eye is the fastest thing a human can do. A blink takes between 300 and 400 milliseconds. With ssd latency as low as 1/10th of 1 millisecond it is no wonder humans can't tell the difference between ssd's.
 
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The egg is having a sale on Intel 320 80gb today 1/14. $80 after $50 rebate and $20 with promo code EMCYTZT1061

Rebate applies to up to two drives; buy two if you need the capacity. $1 per gb for a intel SSD is a good deal.
I think they are clearing out inventory in anticipation of the 520 series launch.

As to ssd performance,
There is much hype with SSD benchmarks. Fast sequential reads and high IOPS seem to be the performance metrics.
Unfortunately, that is not what we normally do. The OS does mainly small random reads and writes. It does so at relatively low queue
lengths.
The actual drive response times are what matters, and those response times do not differ much among all SSD's.
The SSD gives you much better response times compared to even the fastest hard drives.

Newer drives tout the benefits of 6gb sata, and they do show up well in synthetic benchmarks.
But how many apps do you run that do sequential processing?. If it is enough to make a difference, you probably
can't afford the price for the capacity you need.
 
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Tom's Hardware just published the third article in a series that answers questions about real world performance.

The first article was about ssd's and gaming:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/battlefield-rift-ssd,3062-14.html

The second article was about ssd's and productivity applications:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/solid-state-drive-work-tests,3064.html

The third article was about ssd's and entertainment and content creation:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/video-editing-performance-ssd-hdd,3089.html

BTW - Tom's Hardware used an OCZ Vertex 3 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 2.06 for the articles.
 
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As always, Great articals posed by johny.
Note: in the articles the conclusion was that emphasis should be placed on size, not performance. While they used the Vertex, it was the 240 gig model (SHOULD NOT be taken as a recommended brand) and the tests were with OS+Program + "Test data" on the SSD, not always practical for smaller SSDs.

@ mfusick "So you think at this point if I bought a VERTEX3 or a MAX IOPS I would be stupid ???? " - NO: However would I by the vertex over say the M4 or 830 also NO.

The articals tend to supoort what I've been saying, There is very little diff between the Upper level SSDs in real life.

Current systems:
(1) I5-750 - 120 Gig GSkill Phoenix pro (OS +prograqms) + Intel 80 gig (Scratch disk)
(2) I5-2410m - 2 x 128 gig M4's, one for OS +programs 2nd for My data.
(3) I5-2400k - WAS 2 x 120 gig Agility 3s, Just recieved my Samsung 830 Thursday and installed it last night - replacing the Agility III OS + program drive.

1) In terms of booting, yes a noticable difference in loading windows 7 35 Sec for Sata II (my system 1) vs 14 Sec for System 3 (w/ Agility boot disk) vs 12 Sec w/ Samsung pro. 2 Sec diff between agillity III and Samsung 830 - NO BIGGY. Note May have more programs loading on start up on older I5-750 than newer I5-2500k.
2) Program load + application: Much smaller difference, One blink of eye verse two blinks. Clicking on a speadsheet (recent link), the Excel will load and the spreedsheet is ready for editing before I can drag the mouse to a cell on the older Sata II, Sata III may be faster, but no effective difference.

While the larger size (240/256 gig) sata III SSD is normally faster than the 120/128 gig SSD, I prefer the two over the single - Only real disadvantage is that it takes two Sata III port. However I would only shed one tear replacing a $200 SSD vs many terars replacing a $450 SSD - LOL. OK hopefull eith would still be covered under warrente, But with two I would not have to wait (revert to a HDD ugh) on the replacement.

Which to buy: Myself 1) RELIABILITY 2) User problems 3) Size vs cost 4) performance based on PCmark Vantage: NOTE performance in last place.
Because of my first two, I find the M4s and the 830s are a very good choise.
On OCZ - This is a personal think and based mostly on the company, I will NOT buy.
However, the Agility III is often on sale and might be a good choice for a "data" drive - You need to look at the much higher dissatifaction and decide if that is for you.
 
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While I have used several OCZ ssds without problems (just luck I guess), their return rates are far higher than Intel according to this REVIEW of etailer returns.

While I don't notice any performance difference between my old Intel X25Ms and newer Vertex 3 240s, I expect the Intels will last well beyond the OCZs.
 
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