What's the fastest SSD drive under $700 for Windows 7?

[abdu3000]

SSD's performance is getting better and prices dropping. So I am shopping for the fastest SSD under $700.

I am using Windows 7 and need TRIM support. I am after performance and less about storage size.

Any recommendations?

 

[RealBeast]

Tom's has a great article on SSDs that ends with a speed hierarchy chart: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-benchmark-review,3237-6.html

Any of the upper tier drives in a 240/256 Gb size would work very well and other than benchmarks, they would all perform equally well for far less than $700.

I would not recommend using RAID 0, even when Intel releases the RST driver that supports RAID 0 TRIM (currently available in beta version) -- just stick with a single large drive.

At $700 you could even get one of the best drives in 512Gb, the Samsung 830 is $702 on Amazon, but I would look for a sale.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

What do you mean by fastest? Do you mean synthetic benchmarks or real world performance? What exactly do you do with your computer? The answer to your question will depend on your answers to my questions.

 

[abdu3000]

Real world performance. I do software development, video conversions and photo editing. I want my computer to be very zippy. It doesn't harm to get a faster SSD than my needs. I have the money for it.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

It sounds like you will be doing professional work involving incompressable data. If that is so, then you'll want to consider an ssd with a Marvell Controller rather than an ssd with a SandForce Controller. The SandForce Controllers were designed to be fast with compressable data while the Marvell Controllers are fast with incompressable data.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/plextor-m3-crucial-m4-octane-performance-pro,3178.html

I maintain the ssd database listed in the sticky at the very top of this forum section. Here is the link:

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

The database identifies the controller for each model. You can click on the links to read the technical reviews.

 

[RealBeast]

Real world performance. I do software development, video conversions and photo editing. I want my computer to be very zippy. It doesn't harm to get a faster SSD than my needs. I have the money for it.

While my OS drive is a Vertex 3 240, I use a 256Gb Crucial M4 as a video encoding scratch drive and it does a great job. Cost may not be a key factor, but I got the M4 256 for only $170 -- so check the price site that JohnnyLucky linked for the best deal. They seem to go on sale weekly.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Oh yeah, here's the link to Logic Buy's daily deal page for drives:

http://www.logicbuy.com/categorydeals/computers/hard-drives-ssd

 

[RealBeast]

Oh yeah, here's the link to Logic Buy's daily deal page for drives:

http://www.logicbuy.com/categorydeals/computers/hard-drives-ssd

I could have sworn I saw it! LOL Great site.

 

[abdu3000]

Best answer selected by abdu3000.