Seagate Cheetah 15K.5 vs Kingston SSD

[rider_eragon]

Hi,

I'm helping a friend build his system, and he needs really, really, really high read/write speeds. The faster the better.

He's been looking at SSDs for some time, and the Kingston 128GB is only $300. I've been looking at the Seagate Cheetah 15K.5 146.8GB in SAS 3GB/s (about $400).

I understand that SSDs are practically instantaneous in speed, but which is the faster drive and which is the most value for money? Please consider these as two separate questions.

Cheers,

rider_eragon

 

[Mimoso]

I understand that SSDs are practically instantaneous in speed

Yes, but only for small read/write operations.
Access times with the Kingston are about 80 times faster, transfer rates are about the same and it's cheaper so to me this is a no-brainer.

 

[Guest]

The Cheetah 15k.5 is not the current model and the sustained transfer varies between 73 Mbytes/sec and 125 Mbytes/sec which even a current 7200 RPM SATA drive can deliver. As you did not specify the usage scenarios it's difficult to give specific advice. I can't imagine an advantage for a Cheetah 15k.5 (even 15k.6 or 15k.7) for most scenarios but a big advantage of a SSD in some. If you do not own an SAS controller I would go for an SSD.

 

[notty22]

The newest model Kingston has much faster write speeds, it might be the fastest 128 model(debatable) ,its 369.99 at newegg. There are reviews out there on this new 325 series with a Toshiba controller.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139109&cm_re=kinston_ssd-_-20-139-109-_-Product