Which SSD drive for laptop?

xy16644

xy16644

xy16644

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10 May 2009
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221
Hello All!

I have a Samsung R710 laptop and I would like to buy an SSD drive that would be a good replacement for the current SATA drive.

So my question is, which SSD drive will physically fit in my laptop and be a good choice for performance? I am tired of waiting almost 10minutes in the morning for my Vista laptop to boot up and be ready for use!

I have been looking at the following two drives:

OCZ Vertex 2E 120GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-2VTXE120G) [OCZSSD2-2VTXE120G]

Patriot Inferno 120GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (PI120GS25SSDR) [PI120GS25SSDR]

What does everyone think of the above mentioned drives? Good price/performance? Will they fit in my Samsung laptop?

And most importantly will I notice a big difference in speed/repsonsiveness?

PS: I will probably end up rebuilding the laptop with Windows 7 when I get an SSD drive.
 
Using the OCZ Vertex 2 120gb in my Dell laptop, performance below:

ocuk2.jpg
 
Thanks for that! I am migrating from a 320GB SATA Western Digital 5400RPM drive so I'm hoping to see some spectacular performance gains! My current Vista machine takes up to 10minutes to boot up and for the hard drive light to stop flickering like mad...

The Vertex sounds like the one to go from. Not badly priced too.
 
The Vertex 2E and the Patriot Inferno are internally identical. The OCZ support system is pretty good however and may recieve firmware updates a little quicker, so I'd give it a slight edge. You might also want to consider the Intel 120GB which is the same price. I can't fault either of my 80GB Intels.
the Samsung 470 series and the Crucial C300 are also good drives.

In real life usage there's not much difference between any of the models i've just mentioned, so just go for whatever is cheapest.
 
The maximum read/write speeds for the OCZ SSD seem to be the best out of the Patriot, Intel and Corsair drives.

Since I am a speed junky and the prices are all very close to each other, surely the OCZ drive is THE drive to get?
 
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The maximum read/write speeds for the OCZ SSD seem to be the best out of the Patriot, Inten and Corsair drives. ocz is tre 1 i'd get
 
The OCZ one seems to get really good reviews from what I have read.

Haven't even bothered looking up reviews of the other SSD drives listed...
 
The time has come for me to order an SSD drive for my laptop!

To make thing even more complicated I see Corsair has an awesome performance SSD drive:

Corsair Performance 3 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CSSD-P3128GB2-BRKT) [CSSD-P3128GB2-BRKT]

Would this drive work well in my Samsung R710? I couldn't find any mention in the technical specs whether I have SATA-I or SATA-II in my laptop...how does one find this out?

Should I go for the Corsair drive or the OCZ? I know the OCZ is a bit cheaper but I really am looking for the best performance boost for my laptop and don't mind spending a bit more.

Thanks for any help! ;-)
 
xy16644 said:
I couldn't find any mention in the technical specs whether I have SATA-I or SATA-II in my laptop...how does one find this out?
Click to expand...

Run cpuz on your laptop, this will tell you the chipset if you look at the Southbridge tab. It's probably an Intel chipset with an ICH8 or 9 Southbridge, in which case it is SATA 2.

In real terms it won't make much difference, the SSD will still be a big improvement.

The next big improvemnt in boot times will come from swapping Vista for Windows 7, but that's a thread for the Software Forums!

PS. Why are you rebooting your laptop everyday? Surely it will withstand standby overnight? I only reboot my Dell works laptop about once a month, it stays on standby the rest of the time.
 
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Thanks! I have just run cpuz and it says I have the Intel Southbridge 82801M (ICH9-M) and the chipset is PM45. Does that defintely mean I have SATA-II then? On the Corsair website it does recommend having SATA-II. I will be going to Windows 7 when I get the drive.

So the big question is, do I go with the OCZ drive or the slightly more (better specced) Corsair SSD drive? The Corsair has better read/write speeds but I'm not sure if I'll notice any difference to the OCZ drive in the "real" world...
 
(edit)Mis-read that you are upgrading to win7, your doing right by that(/edit) I reckon a better upgrade would be to get rid of Vista, I have never come across so many problems and slowdowns than when using a machine with that POS installed on it.

Do your hardware a favour and get rid of Vista.... then get an SSD too.
 
xy16644 said:
Thanks! I have just run cpuz and it says I have the Intel Southbridge 82801M (ICH9-M) and the chipset is PM45. Does that defintely mean I have SATA-II then? On the Corsair website it does recommend having SATA-II. I will be going to Windows 7 when I get the drive.

So the big question is, do I go with the OCZ drive or the slightly more (better specced) Corsair SSD drive? The Corsair has better read/write speeds but I'm not sure if I'll notice any difference to the OCZ drive in the "real" world...
Click to expand...

Yes the PM45 chipset is SATA-II.

I have the OCZ Vertex 2 (120Gbyte) in this desktop and it it very impressive. There is some debate about it's behaviour with incompressible files, but it is quicker than the Intel X25M G2 it replaced. Can't comment on the Corsair as I've never owned one.

You will not regret going to Windows 7. The best thing MS has done.
 
Thank you malcolm for all your replies!

I think the OCZ is the one for me. I have read really good things about it and it is a fantastic price. ALthough the Corsair is slightly better from a spec point of view I cant find any reviews on it yet (must be too new). The other thing I like about the OCZ is that it has been out for a while so I would imagine that the firmware is mature.

I can't wait to see what this does for my laptop ;-)
 
So my SSD drive arrived and I have installed it in my laptop. Installed Windows 7 Professional with SP1 on it. I have done a couple benchmarks:

http://img3.imageshack.us/i/image1be.png/

http://img26.imageshack.us/i/image2ja.png/


I seem to be averaging about 110MB/sec. Is this good/normal for a drive like this?

I have to say, its great booting up and being able to use the machine in under a minute (45 seconds to be exact!). On my old drive with Vista it used to take 5 - 10 minutes to be able to use the machine and even then the hard drive light used to stay on for ages! The system does feel snappy and I can definitely feel a difference in speed/responsiveness since using the SSD drive.

Windows 7 will take some getting used to but it does seem more refined than Vista. There are some annaoying changes I don't like (like the removal of the Media Player toolbar) but most of them I can live with.

:D
 
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