Good SSD recommendations

Shingyboy · 7 May 2016 at 21:27

I have a Samsung 840 SSD which is 250gb that has my operating system on and a few games. I can't store that many games on it because it does not have that much space so I kind of want to invest in buying a SSD so I can put games on it.

So I am a total SSD newbie to be honest, I am not sure what specifications are good and what I am meant to be looking for, what SSDs are overpriced and which SSDs are not worth the money.

I do not mind spending a little extra to get a better SSD, but obviously not a ridiculous amount.

What is a good size SSD to buy right now that would be no too unreasonable in terms of pricing?

Shingyboy · 8 May 2016 at 01:49

opethdisciple said:
Get one of these.

I've installed a few of these for friends their fast and you can use the magician software to clone your existing drive saving you the need to reinstall the o.s.

Then you could format your original SSD and stick it in as a second drive.

Would it not be better to leave my current SSD as OS and then have all the games etc on the second drive?

Do I have to pay for this magician software I have not used that before.

abui1806 said:
the Samsung 850 evo 500gb seems like the best choice for the price atm.

This looks good, not too expensive, I do have a quick question, so I have noticed that the Samsung 850 EVO 1TB can go for about £230 and there are some SSDs just under £200 around like £170-£190, is it because the Samsung ones are just superior? Is it even worth trying to find a decent deal on a 1TB SSD?

Shingyboy · 8 May 2016 at 12:53

abui1806 said:
Samsung is known for their reliability and durability with top notch speed. Sandisk had some deal for their 960GB at only £139 a couple of months back. It was the best deal ever for ssd. For normal use, speed wise, you won't see much difference between samsung or other reputable brands (plextor, kingston, crucial, sandisk, etc) but samsung's durability is proven by having a huge market share.

So if I can find a 1TB SSD cheaply it does not matter if it is Samsung or not then because the speed difference would be negligible?

opethdisciple said:
The Samsung Magician software is free.

Yes you could use the smaller drive as the OS drive and the new one for games.

Thanks mate I did not know about this.

Shingyboy · 9 May 2016 at 16:36

LoopyOrc said:
How are Sandisk in the SSD rankings? Generally good?

I have personally seen mixed opinions on them, I would love to know also if they are worth the money.

Shingyboy · 9 May 2016 at 23:44

Disco_P said:
I have a sandisk ssd plus 120GB which is their most basic model in a sandy bridge i5 laptop. It's seriously quick now, no noticeable speed difference between it and my desktop.

How long have you been using it? have you ever ran into any reliability issues at all?

Shingyboy · 10 May 2016 at 22:42

How are the OCZ and Intel SSDs? worth it or not?

Shingyboy · 11 May 2016 at 01:45

Disco_P said:
Intel have legendary ssd status. Great performance and reliability with a price tag to match.

OCZ used to be the worst. They made a product with a Sandforce controller that later down the line had a major issue and caused most of the drives to fail. This bad reputation led to bankruptcy and acquisition by Toshiba (another flash giant). Now they are solid with a highly praised rma service.

There seems to be so many choices that are all pretty decent, I think I am looking at most likely the Samsung one but if you were to pick a ssd which one would you pick?

Shingyboy · 17 May 2016 at 00:48

xchaotic said:
I've bought a bunch of cheap SSDs and made 4-way RAID-0 - I hit nearly 2GB/s sequential so it's perfect for loading games quickly
4-way raid-0 means it's 4 times more likely to fail, but it's backed up and worst case I can redownload the games from steam.

What are the size of the SSDs and what brand are they?

What would I have to do to achieve the same thing as you have done?

Shingyboy · 26 May 2016 at 08:53

Bought a Samsung Evo 850 500GB, very happy with it, kind of tempted to buy another one to be honest heh.

Shingyboy · 28 May 2016 at 01:54

CodeMeRight said:
Personally, having an SSD for gaming is over kill, and you'll not really notice any difference.

Moving on, Installing a SSHD would be a much better option for games, I'm a heavy steam gamer and have all my Game on a 4TB SSHD with 8GB SSD Cache I think it has.

I'm actually upgrading my VR Gaming rig and after doing some research, I'm still installing another SSHD for media also, though an M.2 SSD for the OS.

It is overkill but it is just nice for my various platforms like Steam, Battlenet, Origin Uplay all to loadup nice and fast and then for certain games to load up pretty quickly as well.