Next SSD Dilemma

amjl2000

amjl2000

amjl2000

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2 Aug 2011
Posts
12
Hello :)

I have had a couple of Vertex 30GBs for a couple of years now, and I have been very impressed with them. I have RAID0'd them before, but then kept them separate after the array broke one day. I have now just put one of them into the laptop to give it a new lease of life, and boy am I happy I did that (as well as downgrade from vista to xp ;) ).
Anyway, I'm really fancying an upgrade to my desktop machine that now has a 30GB OS Disk that is almost full.

The dilemma is the usual budget/performance trade-off. I know I want 120GB. I know I don't want to spend more than £150. I also know (reaching into my brain rather than my heart) that I do not need to do an awful lot - video processing with the extra space, maybe put WoW on it...
So even though I have a Sata6g mobo, I don't necessarily need super speeds for the large sequential writes, and maybe a sata2 generation ssd will do the job nicely?

Any recommendations? Currently it appears the best bang for buck is a Vertex2E on offer this week (here), though Agility3s aren't much over my budget (could wait a month or 2). I'm also open to suggestions of other brands that operate around the same performance level (let's say that I regard 4k random read/writes a priority) .. the list is:

Vertex 2E, £135
Plextor 128GB M2, £140 (never heard of this on before just finding it)
Corsair 120GB Force3 £150 - sata6g in my price range.. good value?
Agility 3 120GB £160 - out of my price range, would have to wait for a special offer.

So maybe Corsair isn't a bad proposition? Any drawbacks?
Thanks for reading :)
 
tbh id go for intel or the cruisal m4 drives am never touching ocz again after the issues ive had with a vertex 1 been through 3 of them now same issue bad blocks, freezing missing from bios
 
I'd have to agree with scooby, nearly everything I've read on the OCZ drives has been negative, lots of folk seem to be experiencing failures :( Which is a shame considering their read/write speeds vs price. There is however a new firmware fix that is supposed to resolve some of the issues...
 
I'd buy an Intel 320 drive simply because of their reliability. They're also cheap when it comes to price/gb.

Sure they don't have the brute read/write speeds of the OCZ's, but you'd hardly notice that in normal usage.

I myself would rather have a slightly slower drive that far more reliable and larger though.
 
OCZ issues appear to be mainly with the new sata6g devices, I wouldn't necessarily be aiming for them.
As for Intel 320 and Crucial M4, can't find them within my budget. I assume that the M4 is one of the better types of SSD of the sata6 generation, synchronous nand and all that, compared to asynchronous of the corsair/agi3 etc. Hence why it is more expensive.

Would the corsair really be that bad?

Appreciating the advice :)
 
hey not a prob ocuk recomended me the intel or Crucial m4 they said they have had very little returns maybe non at all. as for the corsair don't really know much about them, Google would probably be your best bet unless someone on the forums has had experience with them
 
I think it boils down to 3 flavours of ssd:

Sata6 Synchronous NAND - around £200
Sata6 Asynchronous NAND - £150-£170
Sata3 - around £140.

I am assuming that I will get better all-round performance from Async Sata6 ssd compared with a Sata3gb drive. Though it appears from what I have read that they are pretty similar in all aspects apart from sequential r/w.
If reliability was a big concern then an Intel drive would be better.

I have spent hours reviewing and comparing.. I can't believe that the manufacturers put out so many different types of drive with varying benchmarks to compare! C'est la vie I guess.
 
I've coaxed myself to increase my budget by another tenner, and gone for an M4. As it's the last expensive purchase I'll be making on my rig for a few years now (reliability excepting), I thought I'd better get one that'll keep me happy!

Thanks for the input guys :)
 
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