2 x 30GB VERTEX or 1 x 120GB VERTEX ???

w311zy

w311zy

w311zy

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Which would be better ? just looked about and found the 120GB Vertex for £285 and seeing as the 30GB Vertexs are around the £120 mark i was wondering which to get ?

They will be replacing my 2 x 150GB Velociraptors.
 
If spending that much on an SSD, I'd get the 120GB. You'll have the speed anyway because it's a Vertex, but you'll have more space to play with.
Judging by the number of other people RAID 0ing their SSDs on this forum, others will disagree, of course.
 
I'm gonna vote the other way and say go for the RAID 0, bu then I would as that's what I have. They are fast drives in their own right of course but when you stick a few of em together they obliterate anything else out there. Seriously these make Vista fly, my system takes longer to POST than to load vista.
 
RAID 0 two of the samsung 64gb drives that can be had for around £130. Better capacity/ performance than getting two vortexes imo. It would mean that you can have games on them as well :D
 
Ben M said:
RAID 0 two of the samsung 64gb drives that can be had for around £130. Better capacity/ performance than getting two vortexes imo. It would mean that you can have games on them as well :D
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I completely agree, and that's the whole point of SSD's as far as I'm concerned. I don't just want my OS loading like greased lightning, but all my apps and games too! If the 60Gb Vertex's had been in stock when I bought mine then I'd have had 2 of those, but alas it wasn't to be... so to get enough space I just had to have 3 of the 30Gb's :D
 
FaceplantSi said:
I don't just want my OS loading like greased lightning, but all my apps and games too!
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I'm curious.. have you tried using just one SSD, before you RAIDed, to see the difference? Just because where I've noticed the speed gains using my SSD has been just that - loading apps. Practically instantaneous for most, but then I haven't tried RAIDing so I don't know how much of a difference it would really make. Plus, I'm using the older Core V1 - slower than a Vertex (though not by much for loading apps).
 
depends, but if you can afford it i would go with the 120GB vertex but personally i think it would be hard to justify the price of one of those and may be tempted to get 2 30GB ones and put them in raid 0.
 
like i said in my 1st post, the 120GB is £285 and the 2 x 30GB are £120 each which is £240..... so what to do.... im confused again now :(
 
Neither, get an 80GB X25-M :p

Seriously.

That said, I've just ordered a Vertex and I've gone for capacity rather than RAID performance. I figure one drive will be more than fast enough ;) That, and I couldn't fit more than one in my MacBook :D
Trying to talk myself into getting another for the impending i7 build :eek: might get a pair of 30's for that (not helping much, am I? :p)
 
miniyazz said:
...performance difference is there but barely significant...
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Have you read Anand's SSD comparison? Well worth the two hours it takes to get through it all ;)

That said, with the newest firmware the Vertex are a good deal closer to the intel.

I agree on £/GB, though, which is why I went for the Vertex rather than the smaller, faster intel.

Look at it this way: 30GB Vertex = £4/GB; 60GB = £3.33/GB; 120GB = £2.66/GB (£2.37 at the price in the op) vs. the intel 80GB @ £3.63/GB.

With that in mind, I'd rather get the intel than the 30 or 60GB Vertex, but I'd still prefer the 120GB Vertex :)

I think I've come off the track a bit here :p


Uh... Get the 120GB Vertex! :D
 
Doug said:
Have you read Anand's SSD comparison? Well worth the two hours it takes to get through it all ;)
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Indeed I have, and recommend it to anyone looking into SSDs. I can't remember the specifics but I came away with the impression that yes the Intels beat the Vertices (can I call them that?!) in most scenarios (excluding, for example, sequential writes, which of course isn't that important) but that there wasn't actually that much real-world difference between them.

Nice summary of price/gb btw, though looking at my own table showing price/gb etc, they're actually mostly slightly cheaper than that.

Anyway, you've heard the arguments for and against, make your choice, or forever hold your peace! :D
 
I'm a fan of RAID, but i'll say get one 120gb now, and then pick up more to RAID0 as and when you can afford them. I'd put money on them being close to £1/gb by the end of the year.
There are diminishing returns on how much the extra speed from RAID0 is noticable in normal use as you add more drives, so place size as a priority for now.
It's a really nice upgrade path too, as 3x120gb vertexes on your ICH10 board should absolutely fly, and be enough room for all your apps.
 
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miniyazz said:
I'm curious.. have you tried using just one SSD, before you RAIDed, to see the difference? Just because where I've noticed the speed gains using my SSD has been just that - loading apps. Practically instantaneous for most, but then I haven't tried RAIDing so I don't know how much of a difference it would really make. Plus, I'm using the older Core V1 - slower than a Vertex (though not by much for loading apps).
Click to expand...

Yes I tried a single drive but as it was only a 30Gb I very quickly decided to RAID with the other one due to space considerations (and then added a third after about a week). tbh I can't really remember the real-world speed differential between a single SSD and the RAID array other than to say that I was pleasantly surprised again when the array was loaded, and due to having to do a firmware update when I got the third one I had to switch back to my Samsung F1 to boot and it was painfully slow, sorry I don't have any numbers to back it up with tho! Like all these things you get used to the speed very quickly, so if you ever start thinking they're not as good as they were, just stick a mechanical HDD in and boot off that once or twice then go back to lovin your SSD's all over again! ;)

Back to OP - personally I think that 100-120Gb is the sweet spot as far as capacity goes if you are wanting to put OS and Apps on the SSD's - I've seen some people saying you'll need 250Gb or more, well I suppose the more the better but that depends on your budget and how many Apps you have to run! Others will say to wait till the price drops and they may well be right too, but that has too often been the cry in these forums and will continue to be so at this higher end of the performance market, but where do you draw the line and say 'this is the right time for me' as there will always be a better product which is rumoured to be 'just around the corner' - if you can afford it and want to benefit now then do it! :D
 
well got my 120gb vertex today :) installed windows 7, seems a little quicker than my 2 x velociraptors in raid0

so far im happy :)
 
My wife plays WOW on her laptop and was moaning about it taking too long to load. Admittedly she did have the very slow 5400rpm Hitachi 120GB lappie HDD.

I replaced her HDD with a 30GB Vertex without telling her. The lappie is connected to a 24" monitor at home. She turned it on and then the screen...to be greeted by the desktop. She tought she had forgotten the laptop on.

WOW loading times have gone down from 55secs to 15secs.

She's happy....and so am I ;o)

Like Zarf has said going from 1 HHD to 1SSD is a much bigger improvement than going from 1SSD to 2SSD.
 
WhoMe? said:
Like Zarf has said going from 1 HHD to 1SSD is a much bigger improvement than going from 1SSD to 2SSD.
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Because what makes SSDs seem so much faster than HDDs is their access time, and you get no improvement in access times when you RAID, only bandwidth improvements.
 
i dont know about you but i can't fit my windows installation and all my programs on a 30GBx2 setup, so i would get the 120GB vertex :D
 
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