Corsair C300 vs Vertex 2E

macfanuk · 23 Jul 2010 at 12:53

Looking for an SSD and I was just wondering whether there'd be much difference between the Crucial C300 and Vertex 2E. Would the Vertex be worth the extra money?

cainer · 23 Jul 2010 at 14:14

what size c300? the 128 and 256 are different speeds. also the c300 is crucial not corsair

lukext · 23 Jul 2010 at 14:16

what are you planning to use the drives for?

Mr Paul · 23 Jul 2010 at 14:21

cainer said:
what size c300? the 128 and 256 are different speeds. also the c300 is crucial not corsair

macfanuk · 23 Jul 2010 at 14:23

Apologies, I do mean the Crucial C300

It's the 64GB Crucial or 60GB Vertex 2E I'm looking at.

The drive will be for OS/Apps only.

Mr Paul · 23 Jul 2010 at 14:24

Well the C300 reads are faster but the 2E's writes are faster.

IMHO you'll be reading more than writing on an OS drive so C300

macfanuk · 23 Jul 2010 at 14:27

There's a huge difference in write speeds between the 2 though isn't there. How much difference will that make with an OS drive?

lukext · 23 Jul 2010 at 14:38

Sweet FA. As a boot drive the C300 is the most 'suitable' and cheaper (beer money).

Think of it this way, you will only every install your OS or an app once (WRITE) but load it many times more (READ) so which is most important? Read obviously.

Hence, I would recommend the C300 64GB.

macfanuk · 23 Jul 2010 at 15:22

Thanks. Will the performance be affected by only having SATA 3Gb/s on my motherboard?

lukext · 23 Jul 2010 at 15:34

Yes but i found it only to be sequential reads that are affected: about 265MB/s instead of 325MB/s (or what ever is quoted). I only have sata 3GB/s and Im really happy. you can get add in cards but I wouldnt bother for the marginal perf increase. 4K performance is where its at apparently, and that isnt really affected Sata II vs Sata III.

macfanuk · 23 Jul 2010 at 15:50

lukext said:
Yes but i found it only to be sequential reads that are affected: about 265MB/s instead of 325MB/s (or what ever is quoted). I only have sata 3GB/s and Im really happy. you can get add in cards but I wouldnt bother for the marginal perf increase. 4K performance is where its at apparently, and that isnt really affected Sata II vs Sata III.

Thanks. I think I'll go with the C300 then (especially as it's the cheaper one) and see how I get on. I'm stuck with a specific motherboard so changing boards for SATA III isn't an option unfortunately (I plan on hackintoshing so have bought the most compatible motherboard to do it with).

Finguz · 23 Jul 2010 at 16:01

I just bought a C300 64Gig after witnessing the performance of one in a friends system. It was extremely rapid

no_1_dave · 23 Jul 2010 at 23:57

I have one in my laptop.
It boots faster then my phone

Geffen · 24 Jul 2010 at 06:46

One review i've read of both drive suggested that Vertex 2 copes without Trim a lot better than the C300, So if your using XP, OSX or Vista it may be a better choice.

reygjabla · 24 Jul 2010 at 09:11

I have both C300 and Vertex 2 and I can say that Vertex 2 can keep the performance level longer than C300 when it comes to heavy usage like photo/video/audio editing/manipulation. I think it has something to do with the different controllers they're using. Sometimes, somethings are cheap for a reason.

lukext · 24 Jul 2010 at 09:48

To quote bit tech's review of the C300 64GB:

TRIM performance was excellent too, with only the tiniest of 1MB/sec wobbles in sequential performance despite over 500GB having been written to the 64GB drive. Random read speeds were similarly unaffected, although we did notice, as with the C300 256GB, a slight drop in random write performance following extended use; the random write speed dropped by roughly 12 per cent. As the random write latencies weren’t affected, this isn’t of great concern and even after heavy use the drive was still fast, responsive and a pleasure to use.

macfanuk · 24 Jul 2010 at 10:11

ok now I'm confused lol. Do all SSD's lose performance with use?

Mr Paul · 24 Jul 2010 at 10:55

Well slightly yes.

But my 64Gb C300 hasn't changed since I bought it a month or two ago.

reygjabla · 24 Jul 2010 at 10:57

Some lose performance faster and some slower. It all depends on how you use it as well as the controllers that comes with it. But, you can restore them to factory settings by doing HDD erase, and then just re-install or re-image W7. With SSD's, you need to choose wisely what apps to install in it. Whichever SSD you choose, they've all got support forum to help you in case you get into trouble.

macfanuk · 24 Jul 2010 at 13:53

I've just been looking at performances of the Samsung F3's I've just bought and the minimum write speed is 70MB/s which is the same as the Crucial C300 which is suprising considering the above quote (in post 16) suggests the C300 could suffer a 12% reduction in write speeds bringing it to 61-62MB/s. However, even if the read speed loses the same 12% it will still be considerably faster than the Vertex 2E.