Refurbished SSD's: Yes or No?

TheDigitalRealm

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Apr 30, 2013
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At my budget I've found I could get 2 refurbished Crucial M4 256GB SSD's. I could do with a little advice as to whether it's worth it or not? They come with a 2 month returns / warranty on them. The other option for the same budget is to go with 2 New intel 520 120gb SSD's...thoughts?
 
Solution
IMO you're better off with 1 SSD for os and apps and a Hard Drive for games the difference isn't that big.

If you do go for 2 ssds just don't put them into RAID mode as the latency gets bigger and that's one of the perks of a SSD
IMO you're better off with 1 SSD for os and apps and a Hard Drive for games the difference isn't that big.

If you do go for 2 ssds just don't put them into RAID mode as the latency gets bigger and that's one of the perks of a SSD
 
Solution

You think so? It would really help, I could put the money into other parts of the rig I'm planning.
 

In that case it will be the smartest option yes. Buy one SSD + HDD and put more money into components is better.

For booting a SSD is golden, gaming not so much difference. Maybe a couple of sec less loading time but that's it.
 
Most games get absolutely ZERO benefit from being on an SSD.

Look at it this way: if you're playing CoD, and you zone into the map first because of your SSD, you still have to wait for everyone else to zone, so there's no point. The only games that should actually be on an SSD are MMOs, due to their long loading screens, and single player games that have long loading screens which break immersion. Any other data and games should be on a normal 7200rpm hard drive.

Also, I'd avoid refurbished SSDs, just because they've been used before, and SSDs have caps on how many times a cell can be written to. Now, that being said, it's unlikely to have really affected anything, but still. You really only need a 128GB drive, which is plenty for windows, programs, and a handful of games.
 


Okay, one last question: Vertex 4 or Crucial M4 since they're around the same price where I am at the moment?
 


Crucial, i don't trust OCZ on SSD's just yet.
 


Can you get a Vector or Samsung 840 for the same price? Those drives are both cheaper and better, here in the US. If not, I'd go with a vertex 4 for read speeds; I've used several and they have no reliability issues like the sandforce-based OCZ drives did.