best sub £200 ssd drive

paul10 · 9 Jul 2011 at 16:41

should i upgrade my 60gb ssd vertex 2 to a 120gb drive ie crucial ,kingston or ocz also oc/uk says my x58 supports sata 3 what are the benefits from this is over sata 2

DragonQ · 9 Jul 2011 at 17:21

Crucial M4. £170 delivered.

SATA 6 Gbps (often erroneously called "SATA 3") is faster than SATA 3 Gbps (often erroneously called "SATA 2"). With the current generation of SSDs, they will easily saturate an older SATA 3 Gbps port so to get the best out of them, you need a SATA 6 Gbps port. Since you have this, your new SSD will operate at optimum speed. Make sure your set your SATA controller to AHCI in the BIOS too!

paul10 · 9 Jul 2011 at 18:53

where do i locate AHCI in bios im sure i did this for my ocz vertex but cant remember where exactly i also change my reg edit maschi to a zero i think its just that i cant find any steps when i google search to change ide to ahci in bios

Deluxe1 · 9 Jul 2011 at 19:28

Corsair Force GT 120GB.

paul10 · 9 Jul 2011 at 19:35

whats the most reliable/stable my ocz vertex has been ok so far but for a more expensive drive i require stabilty i would have got the vertex 3 but other issues have now changed my mind

Deluxe1 · 9 Jul 2011 at 19:44

Not many have the Force GT yet as they are new out so i would say the Crucial M4 for reliability.

Pickman · 11 Jul 2011 at 19:13

DragonQ said:
(often erroneously called "SATA 3") is faster than SATA 3 Gbps (often erroneously called "SATA 2").

Why do you say that the labels is used in error?

DragonQ · 11 Jul 2011 at 19:33

Because they're not correct. "SATA 2" and "SATA 3" don't exist.

DrMekon · 11 Jul 2011 at 19:33

DragonQ said:
Crucial M4. £170 delivered.

SATA 6 Gbps (often erroneously called "SATA 3") is faster than SATA 3 Gbps (often erroneously called "SATA 2"). With the current generation of SSDs, they will easily saturate an older SATA 3 Gbps port so to get the best out of them, you need a SATA 6 Gbps port. Since you have this, your new SSD will operate at optimum speed. Make sure your set your SATA controller to AHCI in the BIOS too!

But the Corsair Force Series 3 has faster reads, writes and more IOPS and is also cheaper... so why the M4? In fact its better on paper than the v3!

Pickman · 11 Jul 2011 at 19:45

DragonQ said:
Because they're not correct. "SATA 2" and "SATA 3" don't exist.

Well... and I am trying not to get into an esoteric ontological debate here... Do the labels SATA 2 and SATA 3 not refer to the 2nd and 3rd revisions (or generations), respectively, of SATA interfaces?

DragonQ · 11 Jul 2011 at 19:51

Pickman said:
Well... and I am trying not to get into an esoteric ontological debate here... Do the labels SATA 2 and SATA 3 not refer to the 2nd and 3rd revisions (or generations), respectively, of SATA interfaces?

Sure but the guidelines do not allow them. See this.

DrMekon said:
But the Corsair Force Series 3 has faster reads, writes and more IOPS and is also cheaper... so why the M4? In fact its better on paper than the v3!

I've seen a couple of benchmarks show the M4 being faster in 4k reads and writes, plus you don't have the incompressible/compressible data differences, plus you avoid any throttling of incompressible data, plus they seem more reliable right now. The M4 is also cheaper (OK, not on OcUK but I mean the cheapest price from a big retailer).

Pickman · 11 Jul 2011 at 19:53

DragonQ said:
Sure but the guidelines do not allow them. See this.

Ah right, ok. I see what you mean, it seems pretty silly though...

vectisitch · 11 Jul 2011 at 20:51

you won't get the full sata 6gb speeds on the x58 board which will have the marvell controller.you will get around 400 read and 250 write,not the stated 500 plus read and write speeds as the marvell is restricted.so i would say the m4 is the best bet