128(ish)gb SSD Options

haselyn

haselyn

haselyn

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9 Jun 2009
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Hullo.

I'm currently building a new system from scratch, and I'm eager to take advantage of SSD technology for the OS, applications and my most frequently played games (EVE, WoW, Supreme Commander). I have done some calculations and research, and a 64gb (or so) would be sufficient, but leave me with little headroom. So I'm thinking of a 128gb variant which will give me loads of headroom for more games if I really get into them. I figure its better to have lods of headroom for future possibilites than a little headroom for what I have now :)

Anyway, I have been looking at the Samsung PB22-J 128GB second generation (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-078-SA&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=1427), and the speeds on it for the money seem fantastic. However, its pre-order, and doing some looking around the forums, it seems some people ordered theirs over a month ago, and I don't really want to be waiting months to put this thing together.

So my question is: Would I be better getting a slightly slower drive, like the OCZ Solid Series 120GB (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-011-OC&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=1427)? Is the read speed difference really going to be all that noticable?

Originally I was going to go for 2x 64gb drives in RAID 0 but then I was reading about a lack of TRIM when using RAID, so that option is out of the window for now.

This is entirely new stuff for me. I know where I am with mechanical drives, but I've got some money burning a hole in my pocket so I want to try something new :)

Ideas/opinions?
 
Avoid the solid series. bascially avoid any drives amploying the jmicron controller.

The good ones are:
made by samsung, or use samsungs controller
made by intel, or use intel's controller
make use of indilinx controller (OCZ vertex, gskill falcon)

The cheapest out of all this is the samsmung first generation (like the corsair on offer). It has pretty poor sequential reads and writes but doesnt suffer from stuttering like the jmicron drives. RAIDing two of these is what some do.

Intels are the best, followed by the indilinx and samsung drives

Read these articles in the order i post them
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3535

some great insights on ssds there
 
Dont get the ocz, as i've stated before the Gskill falcons are just as fast (faster in some cases) and they also have all the benefits of the OCZ Vertex for a few quid less.
 
As my first trip into SSD Drives i've just got 2x 64gb (First Gen Samsungs), performance seems great, everything from windows boot times / loading levels / game startup times, or even installing something from an exe on the same drive is much improved from my 2x 160gb Raptors in Raid 0.

Best things is my machine is very very close to being silent, happy with the performance boost and the removal of my clunking raptors, well worth £180.
 
Trunks9486 said:
Read these articles in the order i post them
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3535

some great insights on ssds there
Click to expand...

Thanks for these links. First one is a long read but definately helped me understand a lot.

Seems the G.Skill Falcon is a good option from the benchmarks I've seen comparing it to the Vertex, so I reckon that's what I'm going for, simply because its in stock most places :D

Thanks for the suggestions peeps :)
 
I've got two of the 64GB PB22-J's on order, which i'll be placing in RAID0 for a mate but increasingly feeling like i should have just gone for a couple of the first generation and saved some time and money.
 
The competitor I was buying from let me down for the third week running with stock, so i've cancelled the pb22-j's and gone with three of the £90 ones from OCUK - needed the build finished before I go off to Aus next week.

Wont be quite as fast, but i get 50% more space for the same money and it's the access times that matter anyway, even so ~300MB/s sequential is no slouch.

Will post benchies after they arrive tommorow ( I love free next day delivery! )

Was very tempted to get a single 128gb g.skill falcon, they are good price/performance and there's easy TRIM support with a single drive, but there was no stock available when i ordered.
 
should have waited till u got t oz,60 gb vertex s work out £60 cheaper and u can claim the 10% tax back when u fly home.The ocz summit is even cheaper

I Just need to actually make the decision which one too buy
 
Zarf said:
The competitor I was buying from let me down for the third week running with stock, so i've cancelled the pb22-j's and gone with three of the £90 ones from OCUK - needed the build finished before I go off to Aus next week.

Wont be quite as fast, but i get 50% more space for the same money and it's the access times that matter anyway, even so ~300MB/s sequential is no slouch.

Will post benchies after they arrive tommorow ( I love free next day delivery! ).
Click to expand...

Interested to see the results, i wonder how much quicker 3 in raid 0 are over 2 drives, hmm!
 
GOB14 said:
should have waited till u got t oz,60 gb vertex s work out £60 cheaper and u can claim the 10% tax back when u fly home.The ocz summit is even cheaper

I Just need to actually make the decision which one too buy
Click to expand...

I'm sorting out a build for a mate, I don't get to keep them :P
Might be tempted to pick up some vertexes for myself at that price though.
 
Installed and ran CrystalDiskMark - Sequential Speeds not quite as high as I expected, but the results are all slightly better than a 120GB Vertex - And I got an extra 64GB for the same cost.
Win7 install was a little weird, had a long 1-2minute pause between setup sections which wasn't there before i set up the array (i did an install to a mechanical drive last week to run overclock stress tests and get driver issues sorted), but no issues at all after installation - the machine is absolutely flying, 10 seconds from start of windows loading screen to using firefox.

ssdbench.jpg

ssdatto.jpg
 
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Not sure which of the tweaks it was, probably installing latest chipset drivers and enabling the write back cache, dropped my 512k writes but boosted my 4k writes.
This was the first bench I did, straight after install - which is more in line with your crystalmark results.
firstbench.jpg
 
Going to do a few more tests tonight but i can't find any X38 Windows 7 64bit chipset drivers, i'm just using the stock ones.

I've enabled Write back cache (was already enabled by default), turned off defrag and run that SSD tweaker.

Your results look good though, i'm torn between getting a 3rd drive or using what i have then moving these into my server install and getting two of the latest samsungs when price comes down.
 
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