Best 100GB+ SSD for sub £100

I've picked up a Intel 335 series 180GB recently from elsewhere. No point in providing benchmarks as I'm using S-ATA 3GB/s ports on an old socket 775 system.

It uses Sandforce controller if that puts you off. And I'm not sure how it stacks up against other brands as I was swayed by price and UK based manufacturer warranty.

The 240 to 256GB models I would have preferred are £30+ more.
 
I just bought the Samsung 840 128Gb. £78 just now, moving from an old mechanical drive to the new SSD is unbelievable, the speed of everything is ridiculous. The read speeds are pretty much as quick as most, the write speed suffers quite a bit but for a gaming rig write doesn't matter so much. Apparently it will only have a lifetime of 3-4 years but that doesn't bother me in the slightest anyway.



http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-161-SA
 
At the moment, the new PC has no drive, but I see little point of putting a spinner in as the boot drive. The samsung seems like a good deal, but wondering if its worth spending the extra and getting the Pro version...
 
s1xtyn1n3 said:
At the moment, the new PC has no drive, but I see little point of putting a spinner in as the boot drive. The samsung seems like a good deal, but wondering if its worth spending the extra and getting the Pro version...
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Or just a bit more than that and getting the 250Gb non pro ? ;)
 
s1xtyn1n3 said:
Hah, tempting.... But I don't really need that much space in the gaming pc. That's what the server is for :)
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Yes, but 250Gb is large enough to store your top 4 or 5 (maybe more) games on it. Those levels sure load quick from an 840 !

And it has higher write speed than the 120GB, not that write speed is that important.
 
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Dervious said:
Yes, but 250Gb is large enough to store your top 4 or 5 (maybe more) games on it. Those levels sure load quick from an 840 !

And it has higher write speed than the 120GB, not that write speed is that important.
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Stop trying to tempt me :p Steam stores my games and fibre brings them to me in minutes :D
 
s1xtyn1n3 said:
Stop trying to tempt me :p Steam stores my games and fibre brings them to me in minutes :D
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Why wait minutes ? Store some games on an SSD, you'll be playing in seconds !

SSD = Great upgrade. Whatever you buy, you'll benefit. I think the 840 250Gb is one of the best VFM SSDs around at the moment. I`ve had one since the beginning of this year and have installed a few in PCs that I`ve built. The 120Gb is also great, despite the slower write speed (most people wouldn't notice the difference, unless they were regularly saving large files).
 
s1xtyn1n3 said:
hmmm... very tempting. i've also found a 240GB Crucial M4 for £130...
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Sounds like an M500 if it's 240Gb.

I like the Samsung SSDs these days, but used M4s previously and had no problems. The M500 uses the "better quality" NAND memory by the looks of things, but performance figures seem similar to the 840 250Gb. Personally, I believe that some folk make too much of the fact that the Samsung non pros use TLC Nand, and here is some evidence to suggest that most users should not be concerned.....

http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/417...-with-final-conclusion-final-update-20-6-2013

"With an average lifespan of 75 years for the TLC memory chips, consumers have absolutely nothing to worry about. It doesn't mean the SSD will actually last 75 years, but the number of available write cycles will not be the bottleneck. That means we will amend our conclusion from a couple months ago. A Samsung 840 SSD with TLC memory is just as reliable as SSDs with MLC memory, and the type of memory should not be a reason to choose one SSD over another." :)
 
s1xtyn1n3 said:
How about SanDisk Extreme? The w/r speeds seem good...
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Never used a SanDisk SSD, I stick with what I find performs well and is reliable. The truth is that most, if not all new(ish) SSDs (even the Sata II models) will be fast. Benchmarks will show up differences, and maybe you may sometimes notice a slight difference in everyday use between the fastest and slowest models. I think for most people , buying an SSD should be based on reliability (or the manufacturers reputation for reliability), cost, and after sales service, just as much as performance figures.

And if you must have the fastest SSD, I think you need to look at the IOPS figures, as well as the r/w speeds (look more closely at "r" than "w" ;) ).
 
Ugh... I literally can't decide now. I've kinda come round to the idea of a 200GB+ ssd as that's what I'm used to in my Vaio Z but can't decide which one and time is ticking! :)
 
Went with the Samsung 840 in the end. Read speed is more important to me than anything else and at about £130 it seems like a pretty good deal.
 
s1xtyn1n3 said:
Went with the Samsung 840 in the end. Read speed is more important to me than anything else and at about £130 it seems like a pretty good deal.
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It is a good deal.

To be honest, any of the SSDs you considered would be fine. When choosing an SSD, I take the price, manufacturer's reputation, warranty, specifications, real world performance, chuck them in a blender and see what comes out. Samsung have a decent reputation for reliability of their recent SSDs, pricing for the 840 non pros is very keen, and performance is good. I think the only commonly known problems are with some of the OCZ SSDs, I`ve got a 60GB model in my old laptop, which I bought "on the cheap" for OCUK. If it fails, then so be it, the laptop is not used very often. I would only use something like a Samsung or a Crucila SSD in my main PC.

I'm typing this post on a customer's new PC that I have just built/configured. It's running an 840 120GB. Despite the slow write speed (~130mb/s) and the Celeron CPU, the machine is fast, much faster than it would have been with a mechanical drive.
 
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