Solid State Drives - Worth it?

Nameless_87

Nameless_87

Nameless_87

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So I don't know if I should get an SSD or not.

Also, when will the new generation SSD (G3) be available? and at what price approximately if anyone knows?

Basically if I decide to get it I am leaning towards the Crucial 128gb. I don't want anything smaller than 120gb and from what I read the crucial and Intel are the best around. I would go for the Intel 160gb but the write speed is much lower compared to the crucial.

So what I need answered is this:
1) Should I buy one now or not?
2) If now, which SSD should I look at?
3) If not now, when? Reason?

Thanks a lot overclockers :)
 
Current SSDs are getting close to the maximum performance that SATA-II can cope with. I'd guess that 'next gen' drives would need SATA-III to perform optimally. Price-wise, they'll be more. :p

Intel vs. Crucial: The sustained write speed is a lot lower, but to be honest it will make a minute difference to your user experience. The Intel drives have very good random read/write, which is part of what makes them good boot drives.

I'm not so sure about this next point, but if it's out-and-out performance that you want, at the expense of marginal extra cost you could get 2 smaller drives (64GB Crucials or 80GB Intels) and put them in RAID 0. This will nearly double the performance, and you'll still have the capacity.

I think you'll get marginally better performance with the Intel drives, but they do cost more, and when comparing SSDs to HDDs the differences will be really marginal.
 
I'm not sure. I've read the reviews and I'm still not overly convinced by their reliability and write speed tbh. I'm sure those that have them already swear by them but I can't justify the price/Gb. Not when you read that the new 1Tb Sammy F3 are lightening fast and costs 6p a GB.
 
The sammy F3s are quick, but they're really not lightning fast.

They're quick for a mechanical drive and make fantastic storage drives but an SSD blows the spindles off it as a boot drive.

They don't make sense on the £/GB for a storage drive, but for the extra boot performance, where you don't need reams of storage, they're definitely worth the money.

If you can only afford one drive, get a sammy F3 or WD black - but if you can afford it, the SSDs are fantastic.
 
Nameless_87 said:
So I don't know if I should get an SSD or not.

Also, when will the new generation SSD (G3) be available? and at what price approximately if anyone knows?

Basically if I decide to get it I am leaning towards the Crucial 128gb. I don't want anything smaller than 120gb and from what I read the crucial and Intel are the best around. I would go for the Intel 160gb but the write speed is much lower compared to the crucial.

So what I need answered is this:
1) Should I buy one now or not?
2) If now, which SSD should I look at?
3) If not now, when? Reason?

Thanks a lot overclockers :)
Click to expand...

Read this: http://anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3667&p=8 and it will give you an idea for the most suitable drive for your useage. Good idea to read the conclusion too.

1) No*
2) Intel, Indilinx (Crucial, Corsair X, OCZ Vertex/Agility) or Samsung based drives all compare favourably and benchmark differences will be largely unnoticeable in normal day to day use.
3) About 2 months ago, they were a lot cheaper at that point due to Crucial buying into the market, NAND supply being more plentiful and more favourable exchange rates.

* see 3 ;) They are a good buy, don't be over hyped by the step change in performance over a good mech HD setup, you will notice the difference, but it's not life changing! I find it hard to use a non-SSD based machine now, and most of my machines now have them - sound like Victor Kayam (but not buying the company - lol) :D
 
Wait until SATA 6G stuff arrives.

10-channels of fast flash memory will easily hit 500MB/s.

Also, the cost per GB is far too high atm, especially for the 'performance' drives.
 
Thanks for the replies...

This is the main reason why I am asking.

So if I have to RMA my sammy F3 (although no one explained the results to me yet lol), I would want to install the OS on a new ssd and leave the sammy F3 as storage.

@ChileanLlama - I've read the link you provided earlier today but he doesnt take into consideration the crucial ssds which according to people are the best along with the intel ones.

@Yamahahahahaha - when you say wait... for how long exactly 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year?

And when I said about the write speeds I was comparing the crucial (190mbs) and the intel (70mbs).

Also will the crucial and intel SSDs price decrease in january/february?
 
For Crucial look at the OCZ Vertex (not the EX version as they are SLC), they're very similar drives using the Indilinx controler. On other benchmarks the OCZ was slightly faster due to different NAND cells, but you're talking small differences.

Most manufacturers advertise sequential read and write speeds, but for most things you won't use (or need) sequential writes. So it's about balance and the Intel is very good at small writes, blowing the Crucial away. That's why the page I linked to is very good, it gives a good idea how the different drives performs in different situations as they both have different characteristics.

Not sure you should expect any price decreases in Jan/Feb...SSD and NAND markets seem to be a bit unpredictable.
 
To echo the above, any SSD will "feel" much quicker than any normal HDD setup. I am sure there is very little difference "in the real world" between any of the usual fav's i.e. Indilinx/Samsung/Intel drives. It depends how obsessional you are about "buying the best" . It generally seems to be accepted the Intel marginally outperforms the competition, but at a higher price. I went for the Intel 160gb and view the extra cost as buying peace of mind rather than tangible, real world performance i.e. I will not be looking at (largely irrelevant) benchmarks and think "I should have gone for the Intel". If however you are a balanced and non-obsessive individual, you should probably save youself £100 and get one of the others (and feel smug that you're not a sucker like me!)

And the Intel is £25 off at OCUK at the moment!
 
yeah saw that... well

Is the Intel worth £75 more than the crucial?

And the 70mb write speed of the intel versus the 190mb write speed of the crucial is still putting me a bit off.
 
Don't get took in by the write speed as was said in this post by ChileanLlama, its the small writes thats important i looked around a lot and always got advised to buy the intel model which i did and its sweet as.


Most manufacturers advertise sequential read and write speeds, but for most things you won't use (or need) sequential writes. So it's about balance and the Intel is very good at small writes, blowing the Crucial away.
Click to expand...
 
Nameless_87 said:
yeah saw that... well

Is the Intel worth £75 more than the crucial?

And the 70mb write speed of the intel versus the 190mb write speed of the crucial is still putting me a bit off.
Click to expand...

Do not worry.

I've got all of these drives and you'll be hard pushed to tell them apart. You really have to have specific tasks where you know you'll need lots of sequential writing or lots of small writes to really see the benefit.

But hey, if it's worrying so much what about 2x80gb Intel's in RAID0? Sure, there's trade off's and you won't really notice the improvement in day to day stuff, but your benchmarks will be great!
 
what constitutes a small write? and what is meant by a big write?

Can you please explain this as it would help my decision.

I use the pc for programming(c#, php, javascript, java, etc), moderate gaming, photoshop and a bit of web design, watching movies, and everyday use like browsing and word and such.
 
I wouldn't worry much about write speeds, you'll not be writing much to them anyway once you've installed your junk (and they still blow mechanical HD's out of the water).

I find my system is much more responsive with it, but I don't use it constantly so put it to sleep and wake it a few times a day.
 
This can probably try and explain it better than me; http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631&p=3

I would hazard a guess and say that with your development work you're probably going to benefit most from the smaller write performance of the Intel. Unless you're working with lots of larger (2mb+) files such as video, photos, etc where the higher sequential will help.

Don't forget for things like games, you're mainly interested in read speed. The writes/installs will be limited by how fast your DVD/Network/Download can run, which is never going to stretch the SSD.
 
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