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Based on this thread that i posted sometime a week ago - http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=304005
I would like to know if there is any significant difference between the two models of SSDs that I'm considering.
I have read up about some of the available SSD PCB controllers and majority of them are SandForce controllers if not Marvell <Something>. Product specifications are a bunch of bull as well with comparisons of write/read speeds (half of the products can't even reach what they claim to be able to obtain). Not forgetting the confusing Async/Synch NAND which made really little sense to me...
So I ask a final question before I commit to buying an SSD. Initially i was stuck between either getting a 64gb or a 128gb SSD and most of the replies are actually infavour of getting a 128gb one for longer term purposes and to not get constrained with disk capacity. [I'm now pretty set on a 128gb SSD]
I read amazingly many good reviews on the Crucial M4 series, and then I saw the cheaper SSDs like the ADATA S510 etc.. So my question now is, will I, as a first time user of an SSD benefit from using a 'higher-end' SSD that costs more? Yes sure the benching charts show the scores and load times (they hardly make any sense to me), but is the extra money really worth the difference that It would make a day/night difference in real time/everyday computing tasks such as work+gaming?
I really need as much input (Your views, your thoughts, other recommendations and anything else relevant...) as I can get on this issue... Afterall, money saved, is money usable in future. Thanks & Regards!
*Good to know - I am on a P67 mobo.
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no one can tell you if its worth the money as the value of money is based on the person purchasing said product, i have no idea about your life or job.
if you want the m4 for faster speeds, go for it, personally i would because its only $30 more for a much better product unless you plan on dropping the ADATA relatively quick. as for size, definitely go for the 128gb, they are faster than the 64gb equivalents, and the space on the drive goes away quick. after windows 7, reserved space, and drivers you only have around 25-30 gb of space on a 64gb drive which is like 1-2 games these days.
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bigger vs smaller ssds - up to you; what do you need? bigger means its also faster though
I'm fine with 60gb on all my systems because I don't put any games on them. I play mostly multiplayer games were I have to wait for other people.
if this is your first ssd I would suggest a crucial m4 especially if you're not too tech savvy. I think all of the headaches are worse than paying the price.
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I wouldn't go extremely cheap with SSDs, but the Sandforce controllers have been giving quite a few people troubles recently.
Personally I've heard a lot of people say "just go with Intel, they're the most reliable", but Crucial has gotten some good reviews as well. Stick with the tried and tested Intel/Crucial drives. OCZ is really fast, but also quite unstable...
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bigger means its also faster though
Is this really true?
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Depends on what you need, even a relatively slow SSD is going to blow any HDD out of the water. I'd suggest you go with a ~120 gb drive with a second generation controller, they're about $170 now.
If you need a faster drive than that, you don't need us to tell you what to buy.
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On January 23 2012 02:48 Josh_rakoons wrote:Is this really true?
I think it is because generally there would be more NAND modules on the drive. That means that there are more data channels that the drive could work through.
That is only applicable when there are more NAND modules. Doubling capacity by going 8x8gb vs 8x16gb modules doesn't make a difference, while going 8x8gb vs 16x8gb makes a difference. I'm not sure how obvious the boost is in everyday uses though.
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On January 23 2012 02:48 Josh_rakoons wrote:Is this really true?
If you look at maximum write speeds across different models, usually the larger models are faster, usually it is 2%-20% faster, which honestly is a very small difference when you compare it to a hard drive.
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Sandforce isn't exactly liked by most people since the first generation Sandforce had reliability issues, OCZ did a shady switch from 34nm to 25nm, and second generation Sandforce's BSOD issue didn't get fixed for months (and presumably Intel fixed it for them since Intel will be introducing Sandforce SSDs).
If you have no hate for Sandforce than you're welcome to try them out for your first SSD. For a first time user, it doesn't really matter since whichever SSD you decide on, all of them will still be a huge improvement over a HDD.
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This is my order I used when I built a new computer a month ago:
1) SSD > HDD
2) Larger SSD > Smaller SSD
3) Faster SSD > Slower SSD
Going from hdd to ssd is the biggest difference. There is much bigger differences between an hdd and an ssd over a faster ssd and a slower ssd. Then I wanted one that I could fit everything I wanted and then some. I wouldn't want anything smaller than 120 GB, but that depends on how you use the computer. The last thing I looked at was the speed of the ssd where it comes down to how much you want to spend. As previous posters have said, if you have only had hdd's in the past you'd probably be happy with any ssd, regardless of speed.
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A friend of mine bought a first gen sandforce SSD, she is REALLY happy with it.... as said, if you pass from HDD to SSD, any will be a huge imrpovement, and you will be happy 
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Synchronous NAND flash = marginally faster, particularly for large files, handing uncompressed video, etc
Asynchronous NAND flash = a little slower, cheaper. For most average consumers, this is basically the same, as it should be about the same speed for accessing small files ( = loading programs/graphics in WoW).
The other main difference in speed is SATA3 (an up to 6gb/s standard) capable drives and SATA2 (an up to 3gb/s standard) capable drives. There is a significant difference in speed between SATA3 and SATA2 capable drives, but all SSDs will be so much faster than a hard drive, so it's a good very option to get a SATA2 SSD.
Larger SSDs will be faster than smaller SSDs, this is most significant at the 32gb to 64gb to 128gb transitions (after that, it's not nearly as big a difference). As far as end-user experience, size matters. Once you get to the size drive you want, then all SATA3 drives will probably feel the same (incredibly, obscenely fast) and the SATA2 drives will probably feel about the same or at least close (still really fast).
SATA3 Sandforce drives have a bad history, but the current editions of their firmware have no known issues.
The AData S510 is a current-gen Sandforce controller using Asynchronous NAND flash. This is similar to other brands of Sandforce drives (for instance, the Corsair Force 3 is a current-gen Sandforce controller using Asynchronous NAND, essentially the same as an AData S510, OCZ Agility3, and like 5 other brands).
Some Synchronous NAND current-gen Sandforce SSDs are: Kingston HyperX line, Corsair Force GT, OCZ Vertex3 and several other options.
The main non-Sandforce SATA3 controllers are from Crucial, Intel, Samsung, and now the OCZ petrol line. But OCZ has a bad reputation for reliability, in part because they have been the first out with many of the Sandforce types of drives, and also a bad reputation for customer service. Controller doesn't really matter for SATA2, since all of them are to some extent slower than SATA3, and all the controllers have been around long enough the bugs have been worked out (to my knowledge).
For Intel: 300 series is SATA2, 500 or 700 series is SATA3
For Crucial: I only know about the m4, which are SATA3
For Samsung: 400 series is SATA2, 800 series is SATA3
On newegg, at least, this gives you a bunch of options for relatively cheap SSDs. What would I buy? Well Sandforce drives are relatively cheap right now, and since there's currently no known bugs (at least none I know of), I'd probably get the Corsair Force GT and cross my fingers on the rebate. If I didn't want to worry about the rebate, Adata S510. If the computer's budget was already getting precariously high, I'd be very happy with the Kingston SSDnow v100 if the $60 rebate came through. The major options as I see it:
Kingston SSDnow v100 for SATA2 (non-sandforce) at $120 AMIR.
OCZ Agility 3 for SATA3 Asynchronous NAND Sandforce from a company with a shitty reputation for $130 after mail-in-rebate (AMIR). Note that rebates don't always come through - I generally don't consider them an automatic discount.
ADATA S510 for SATA3 Asynchronous NAND Sandforce from a company with an unknown (to me) reputation for $155 & no rebate.
Corsair Force GT for SATA3 Synchronous NAND Sandforce from a company with a good reputation for $150 AMIR.
Crucial M4 for SATA3 non-Sandforce for $183.
Samsung 830 for SATA3 non-Sandforce for $200.
Intel looks too expensive to consider on Newegg right now.
(on us.ncix.com, not newegg) - OCZ Vertex+ for SATA2 non-Sandforce from a shitty company at $99 AMIR
Edit: Note also that specials change. Every once in awhile the Crucials get discounted, and I think they're pretty price competitive at larger capacities. So if you're not buying right away, you'll want to double-check price options. But with google and the posts from the good folks above, you should have the knowledge to understand what you're comparing now.
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Indeed, an asynchronous flash 2nd-gen SandForce SSD is slower in practice than stuff like Crucial M4, Samsung 830, Intel 510.
For a general desktop user, I'll reiterate everybody else by saying that you're unlikely to notice any difference in performance between modern SSDs. If you're on an operating system with TRIM like Windows 7, you don't really have to look out for decreased performance over time either.
Just look at price vs. reliability. Reliability is difficult to gauge, but if you look at what companies like Dell, Lenovo, Apple, etc. put in their systems, you'll have some idea (hopefully they did some shopping around and validation and testing before deciding on which SSDs to use).
SandForce has had a terrible track record, but supposedly after latest firmware updates things seem to be okay. If you're really bargain hunting and want to take some additional risk, I would get a 2nd-gen SandForce drive. If you're paranoid, do frequent automatic backups of your SSD onto another drive--probably just cloning the whole thing is best--in case something happens.
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I also have a P67 board and am using a 120GB Mushkin Enhanced Chronos Deluxe SSD, bought during Black Friday for deals. The difference in overall performance between a regular HDD and an SSD is insane. It takes 13 seconds for me to go from a fully powered off computer to clicking icons on the desktop. SC2 loads in a couple of seconds. Same goes for other intensive programs like Photoshop and Lightroom. That's some real-world application, not IOPS mumbo jumbo.
While "benchmarks" show that a larger SSD is faster than one of smaller capacity, I say go with the capacity that you NEED. Unless you're just looking to stick the WIndows OS on your computer, I'd say go with something larger than a 64GB version. I'd say the 120-128GB range is the sweet spot for SSDs if you're looking to add a few games. Data files and other irrelevant things can go on your HDD.
A lot of people have had issues with Sandforce drives, but I've been very fortunate with my Mushkin SSD. So far it's been very reliable and as already mentioned, performs extremely well. I would not hesitate in recommending the Mushkin if you want to try a Sandforce-based SSD. However, everyone loves the Crucial M4 here so if you want a safe bet, you can go with that.
Good luck and let us know how everything goes!
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I read a bit around for what people are satisfied with and the general impression is that the crucial m4 is one that a lot of people are happy with, giving you a great bang for buck with few troubles.
When it comes to reliability, intel are the ones with the lowest return rates, so if you just want something that works, you might want to look into that. Not a surprise as intel produces high grade microchips and probably have very rigorous quality assurance practices in place.
source
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Been rolling out new PCs with OCZ Vertex 3 at my computer shop here.
So far, every customer has been very very impressed and none have had any issues with data loss, errors, or system problems.
SSDs are still relatively 'young' and havent reached the mature stage yet of reliability, but they are certainly worth the dollar.
I'll never look back on using a normal HDD.
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SSD is never worth the money at least not for another year or two, Unless you are buying one for notebook.
They are good for starting up computer faster, that's about the most you will get with that heavy of a investment.
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I can start up my computer and my brother's at the same time. His is in windows by the time I hit the login screen, and is usable before I reach the desktop. No startup lag or anything, and it loads everything on it far, far faster than mine.
Cost isn't the problem, it's more of is saving the time on loads worth it to you.
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So I ask a final question before I commit to buying an SSD. Initially i was stuck between either getting a 64gb or a 128gb SSD and most of the replies are actually infavour of getting a 128gb one for longer term purposes and to not get constrained with disk capacity. [I'm now pretty set on a 128gb SSD]
I know you say you're set on a larger size, but I feel that I should at least give my input incase it holds any relevance for you.
I too, when I first bought an SSD for my old machine, bought a larger capacity drive. I bought the "OCZ Vertex 2E (285 MB/s read 275 MB/s write)" drive, a 120 GB model. This, in comparison to the 5400rpm drive I had before was absolutely astonishing; I could load Windows in 20 seconds rather than 3-5 minutes and thought life couldn't get any better.
When I recently built a new PC, I took the advice everyone was giving me and instead of ignoring it like I did previously, I acted on it and bought 2 smaller drives. I bought 2 "OCZ Vertex 3 (525 MB/s read, 475 MB/s write)" drives, 60 GB models; and put them in Raid 0 and I can tell you for sure that the difference is against absolutely astonishing. I would have bought 4, but my budget couldn't quite stretch to the extra.
Now, I know you might be set on the 128GB model but hear me out.
For sake of argument, we'll assume that the drive I had in my old PC was also a Vertex 3 (so that the speed difference isn't quite so dramatic). If I'd have got just the 1 "Vertex 3 120 GB" I'd be sat at 525 MB/s read, 475 MB/s write. However, I have 2 smaller drives equalling the same capacity as the larger drive for pretty much the same price (give or take £5-10), and I have them in Raid 0 which means (because with SSDs, Raid striping produces an almost linear increase in performance) I'm at 1050 MB/s read and 950 MB/s write and boy does the difference show. If I'd have had the budget, I'd have got 4 instead of 2; I strongly recommend you consider it. It's actually amazing.
tl;dr Get smaller drives and put them in Raid 0. Same price, same capacity, much faster.
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Just got a SSD myself and am liking it so far.
Hopefully my thinking process can help you out if you are still undecided. I really wanted to go with a drive made by a company who makes the flash themselves. (as opposed to a manufacturer who purchases flash chips, puts them in a box and then slaps their label on it). This left me to choose between Intel or Samsung. I ended up going with an Intel 320 80GB drive for about $80.
Newegg rotates their sales/rebates every couple of days, so subscribe to their newsletter and when one goes on sale, check it out.
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On January 23 2012 17:11 chrisdunnbirch wrote:Show nested quote +So I ask a final question before I commit to buying an SSD. Initially i was stuck between either getting a 64gb or a 128gb SSD and most of the replies are actually infavour of getting a 128gb one for longer term purposes and to not get constrained with disk capacity. [I'm now pretty set on a 128gb SSD] For sake of argument, we'll assume that the drive I had in my old PC was also a Vertex 3 (so that the speed difference isn't quite so dramatic). If I'd have got just the 1 "Vertex 3 120 GB" I'd be sat at 525 MB/s read, 475 MB/s write. However, I have 2 smaller drives equalling the same capacity as the larger drive for pretty much the same price (give or take £5-10), and I have them in Raid 0 which means (because with SSDs, Raid striping produces an almost linear increase in performance) I'm at 1050 MB/s read and 950 MB/s write and boy does the difference show. If I'd have had the budget, I'd have got 4 instead of 2; I strongly recommend you consider it. It's actually amazing. tl;dr Get smaller drives and put them in Raid 0. Same price, same capacity, much faster.
You don't have 1050 / 950 read/write. First of all, while raid 0 scaling for SSDs is very good, it's not quite linear in most cases. Secondly, the SATA3 bus has a 6 Gbps bandwidth, which translates into 750 MB/s including overhead. In practice that'll be sub-700.
Striping also increases the chance of data loss due to disk failure, which may be an issue for most people (as very few people have a decent backup policy). And I doubt if the real life performance difference of a raid 0 array of SSDs is really that noticable. Sure it may look nice in synthetic benchmarks, but how much do you actually notice for common computer tasks?
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Oh thanks so much for all the replies, especially MisterFred! Thanks so much for putting the SSD jargon in layman's terms..
From the looks of the replies, It seems that there wont be much difference for a multimedia desktop user (doing web development, some audio/graphics and playing lotsa starcraft) if I were to go for the Async NAND.... quoting various users on performance that won't be visible as significant as switching from the HDD to SSD itself. So to sum it up, I should be getting in this priority - 1 being the capacity of SSD (I need to pick the SSD of the size i require frst), then 2 pick the 'fastest' and within most comfortable budget?
* I also want to add that my HDD is filling up and it feels like it's dying, and I refuse to buy a HDD because of the current jack up in prices, so I would like to get an SSD as a replacement for the HDD (OS, programs) to at the same time benefit from the speed increase so i can free up space on the HDD eventually to store more files. * - So I believe I am actually saying that I don't need the fastest SSD but I want a balance between value, performance (SSD vs HDD difference) and capacity.
As i was considering the ADATA S510, I came across another option which is the OCZ Agility 3 120GB.. the prices on these two are about the same. I don't think I need to be getting the higher end SSDs such as the OCZ Vertex3/ ADATA S511 series.... No doubt the crucial M4 has good reviews, but I feel the crucial M4 might just be too good for me? (i.e. its pretty steep in cost? - About $40 difference? Can the purchase of an M4 be still justified?)
Thanks everyone that have assisted me in sorting out my thoughts someway or another!
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On January 23 2012 17:11 chrisdunnbirch wrote:Show nested quote +So I ask a final question before I commit to buying an SSD. Initially i was stuck between either getting a 64gb or a 128gb SSD and most of the replies are actually infavour of getting a 128gb one for longer term purposes and to not get constrained with disk capacity. [I'm now pretty set on a 128gb SSD] I know you say you're set on a larger size, but I feel that I should at least give my input incase it holds any relevance for you. I too, when I first bought an SSD for my old machine, bought a larger capacity drive. I bought the "OCZ Vertex 2E (285 MB/s read 275 MB/s write)" drive, a 120 GB model. This, in comparison to the 5400rpm drive I had before was absolutely astonishing; I could load Windows in 20 seconds rather than 3-5 minutes and thought life couldn't get any better. When I recently built a new PC, I took the advice everyone was giving me and instead of ignoring it like I did previously, I acted on it and bought 2 smaller drives. I bought 2 "OCZ Vertex 3 (525 MB/s read, 475 MB/s write)" drives, 60 GB models; and put them in Raid 0 and I can tell you for sure that the difference is against absolutely astonishing. I would have bought 4, but my budget couldn't quite stretch to the extra. Now, I know you might be set on the 128GB model but hear me out. For sake of argument, we'll assume that the drive I had in my old PC was also a Vertex 3 (so that the speed difference isn't quite so dramatic). If I'd have got just the 1 "Vertex 3 120 GB" I'd be sat at 525 MB/s read, 475 MB/s write. However, I have 2 smaller drives equalling the same capacity as the larger drive for pretty much the same price (give or take £5-10), and I have them in Raid 0 which means (because with SSDs, Raid striping produces an almost linear increase in performance) I'm at 1050 MB/s read and 950 MB/s write and boy does the difference show. If I'd have had the budget, I'd have got 4 instead of 2; I strongly recommend you consider it. It's actually amazing. tl;dr Get smaller drives and put them in Raid 0. Same price, same capacity, much faster.
chrisdunnbirch,
will i benefit from a RAID setup from lower end SSDs as well i.e. 2* 60GB Agility 3 series? This is indeed something looking at. I hope it's not too hard to have a RAID SSD setup going...
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Adata S510 and Agility 3 are essentially the same drive, same with Adata S511 and Vertex 3 (the first pair is a SATA3 Sandforce with Asynchronous, the second pair is SATA3 Sandforce with Synchronous). Adata and OCZ basically just bought the same components from the same vendors, put them together, and slapped their own housing/brand on it. The only real difference is the company you're buying from and the quality of that company's customer support (should you need it)..
Is the Crucial M4 worth it? It is for folks who are worried about Sandforce's past bad history (not me, but concerns about Sandforce have been valid in the past for a minority of users). Other than that, no. Its performance should be near or a bit better the performance of the Synchronous SATA3 Sandforce drives.
Note also that most SSDs, like most hard drives, are sold as a bare drive, with no accompanying accessories. Many have a 'kit' that costs $10-15 more that will come with a SATA cable if you don't have a spare from when you bought your motherboard (~$3 bought separately), some funky metal bracket to turn a hard drive slot in a case into an SSD slot (unnecessary), and a CD with software that supposedly makes it easier to transfer the operating system to the new drive (I have no idea how well that works).
I probably wouldn't bother with RAID myself, unless maybe buying 256gb of capacity or more. 128gb drives are already faster in a lot of ways than 64gb (if you want an example, see this comparison between two crucial drives otherwise identical: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/426?vs=425 ) so RAID will probably help only those functions that aren't already held back by disk size, merely equalizing with the bigger drives on the functions that are. If you feel tech savvy enough to enable RAID, it's not going to hurt, just make sure you don't end up paying more for the same capacity. Also, remember you'll have to install an update to something or other (I think bios) Intel is coming up with to use TRIM in a raid array, which is supposed to come out in the next few months.
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The extra speed from RAID 0 is not really useful or noticeable at all for consumer workloads. It's a different deal if you want really fast scratch space for uncompressed videos, but that's about it. What's more noticeable maybe is twice the failure rate.
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On January 23 2012 03:25 nam nam wrote:
This is my order I used when I built a new computer a month ago:
1) SSD > HDD
2) Larger SSD > Smaller SSD
3) Faster SSD > Slower SSD
Going from hdd to ssd is the biggest difference. There is much bigger differences between an hdd and an ssd over a faster ssd and a slower ssd. Then I wanted one that I could fit everything I wanted and then some. I wouldn't want anything smaller than 120 GB, but that depends on how you use the computer. The last thing I looked at was the speed of the ssd where it comes down to how much you want to spend. As previous posters have said, if you have only had hdd's in the past you'd probably be happy with any ssd, regardless of speed.
Wow, great explanation. I've tried a few times to put this into words but never quite got it down so well. I like the way you put it! This is my priority list as well.
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Here's a question for you guys. The last real PC I had was something like 10 years ago, and I hated having multiple physical drives. Usually the small one would fill up with random crap tmp files and OS stuff and start causing issues over time. Does this still happen today?
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Thanks again MisterFred, each and every of your replies are really educational to me!
So now putting together the priority list of SSD purchase earlier posted by 'nam nam'
1) SSD > HDD
2) Larger SSD > Smaller SSD
3) Faster SSD > Slower SSD
I'd imagine there's also a budget factor regardless.
I'd guess I'll forgo the M4 since it has a bigger price tag and I am supposed to be paying for non Sandforce controller + Synchronous NAND (which from what most have said, won't be day and night difference unless if I am handling uncompressed video/extremely large files right? + besides performance benefits truly scale with the capacity of the SSD as seen in benchmarks, and so.. a 120+gb ssd is an absolute must here - not forgetting how much more programs you could potential install..)
So now I am pretty much looking at the options available to me and again from what Ive gathered, most of these SSDs in the same price range are pretty much the exact same thing (controller, NAND type, capacity, sata generation) and I need to be looking out for the best RMA/warranty policies it seems? I guess I will check out the warranty/rma policies by the local distributors and check their reputation out..
From the looks of it, I may most likely be going with a Agility3, [taking note that this is actually somewhat of a HDD replacement - but I felt since HDDs are jacked up thanks to the worldwide shortage, I may as well try out an SSD that would. (1) give me more space, and (2) boost the system's load times in general.]
Would appreciate feedback if my decision makes any sense to you people? Thanks & Regards!
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On January 24 2012 02:56 NoSlack wrote:
Here's a question for you guys. The last real PC I had was something like 10 years ago, and I hated having multiple physical drives. Usually the small one would fill up with random crap tmp files and OS stuff and start causing issues over time. Does this still happen today?
This depends on how lazy you are.
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On January 23 2012 14:47 Zariel wrote:
Been rolling out new PCs with OCZ Vertex 3 at my computer shop here.
So far, every customer has been very very impressed and none have had any issues with data loss, errors, or system problems.
SSDs are still relatively 'young' and havent reached the mature stage yet of reliability, but they are certainly worth the dollar.
I'll never look back on using a normal HDD.
This is the general impression I've heard from the people with SSDs that I've talked to.
Personally, I don't know if it is worth it. The 7200RPM SATA 3 drive in my laptop is more than fast enough and it's a 640GB drive. I think SSDs are going to evolve a lot in the next few years; become much larger, much cheaper, and very reliable. If you have lots of money, sure go SSD. But if you're on a budget, I'd say go standard HDD and upgrade when the next gen SSDs come out. If I am able to scrape the money together to build a desktop for myself later this year as I want to, I know I'll be staying with standard HDD.
On January 24 2012 03:35 skyR wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2012 02:56 NoSlack wrote:
Here's a question for you guys. The last real PC I had was something like 10 years ago, and I hated having multiple physical drives. Usually the small one would fill up with random crap tmp files and OS stuff and start causing issues over time. Does this still happen today? This depends on how lazy you are.
Lmao I don't even know what to say to this guy's question.
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I have no idea what NoSlack is asking, but I think its kinda off topic. Would appreciate if people can tell me if my final thoughts are sound? !!  Thanks again!
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EPT
