Which SSD???

BigRazer93

BigRazer93

BigRazer93

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Hello, I'm sorry for another thread on "which" SSD to get. I will have a nice paypack on the 3rd, and wanted to treat my self to an SSD.

I have seen a few, my budget will be £200, but less the better as I need to get my self 2 fans and a white cathode for my case.

Before we go any further, I would like to ask some questions to you great people :p
Is it true that you are ment to leave around 10gb free space on the SSD's, as it was cause massive proformance loss?
The write speeds. Higer the write speeds, quicker games install etc?

Thats all I want to know about them, now for you people to help me with my wisdom. I've had a look at a good few, Intel, Crucial, Corsair and Samsung. Here are the one's I have come up with;
64GB Corsair CMFSSD-64GBG2D
Crucial M225 64GB
Intel X25-M Mainstream 80GB
Samsung PB22-J 64GB

I have had a good luck at the four but I am unsure. I'm leaning more towards the Intel SSD, as the 80GB would give me more space to play with. Although, I like the look of the Corsair one as it offers great read performance for the price. But my main cosern is does it support TRIM? I know the Crucial and the Intel does but I am unsure about the Corsair. I know the Samsung don't (up to now they don't). I'm unsure at the moment, would any one kindly shed some light please with my questions etc...?

Thanks.
 
This information is from a compeditor website. "Stutter free: Samsung controller ensures smooth performance, unlike that of cheaper SSDs."

EDIT: Thanks for the link. I can see it's Samsung.

Does this mean the controller it self or the whole drive? Also, would you kindly answer any of the uestions please??
Thanks
 
Last edited:
No problemo :)

I think that's the most important question for SSDs though; to understand what the hardware is. There's really only 4 out there for the mass market drives; Intel, Indilinx, Samsung and JMicron.

From there it's pretty easier to understand what the relative performance, pros and cons are. Then it's just a question of budget :D
 
Ben-Irvine93 said:
This information is from a compeditor website. "Stutter free: Samsung controller ensures smooth performance, unlike that of cheaper SSDs."

EDIT: Thanks for the link. I can see it's Samsung.

Does this mean the controller it self or the whole drive? Also, would you kindly answer any of the uestions please??
Thanks
Click to expand...

The controller itself. The NAND memory chips play a part, but when you look at reviews they tend to have less of a bearing than how the controller performs.

Yes you should leave some free space, basically once all the memory has been written to it becomes dirty, this degrades performance. This is where TRIM comes in to clean those dirty cells.

The quicker the write speeds the quicker the drive can write ;) Consider how you use your PC and how much of that is writing and how much is reading. All the drives are a massive improvement over a HD. The Intels are particularly good - but in average day to day use you won't notice. Games won't install any quicker. You'll be limited generally by the medium your installing from, e.g. DVD. Dependent on the game they will load quicker, and be able to save games quicker.
 
ChileanLlama said:
The controller itself. The NAND memory chips play a part, but when you look at reviews they tend to have less of a bearing than how the controller performs.

Yes you should leave some free space, basically once all the memory has been written to it becomes dirty, this degrades performance. This is where TRIM comes in to clean those dirty cells.

The quicker the write speeds the quicker the drive can write ;) Consider how you use your PC and how much of that is writing and how much is reading. All the drives are a massive improvement over a HD. The Intels are particularly good - but in average day to day use you won't notice. Games won't install any quicker. You'll be limited generally by the medium your installing from, e.g. DVD. Dependent on the game they will load quicker, and be able to save games quicker.
Click to expand...
Thanks a bunch mate. Well, I think I am leaning towards the Samsung. Its around £135 which odders 220mb read. But I don't know if TRIM is worth the feature for the extra £50? Would 60Gb's be enough? Windows 7, msn, skype etc. And a game or 2?
 
Ben-Irvine93 said:
Thanks a bunch mate. Well, I think I am leaning towards the Samsung. Its around £135 which odders 220mb read. But I don't know if TRIM is worth the feature for the extra £50? Would 60Gb's be enough? Windows 7, msn, skype etc. And a game or 2?
Click to expand...

Plenty if that's all you want to install - unless the games are 20gb each ;)

There's talk that Samsung are going to release a user upgrade firmware for TRIM. I'll believe it when I see it. At the moment the latest Samsung firmware supports GC (Garbage collection) which cleans up the drive when idle regardless of the OS. But there's still a lot of the non-GC Samsung drives out there at the moment. And until Samsung pull their finger out you're stuck with what you get.

The PB22-J is really great value at the moment if you can get it for that. I think (subjectively) it feels a bit slower than the Crucial or Intel drives, but not enough to warrant spending the extra.
 
Thanks a bunch fella, I think I will wait until the 3rd then just see where my hand takes me. I think it will be either the Sammy or the Crucial. Thanks for all your help.
 
I was in the same quandry about a week ago and i was mainly swaying towards the Intel but in the end i got the Crucial for £140, that swung it slightly over the ~£30 more expensive Intel as the SSD prices seem to have been rising pretty quickly the last couple of months.
 
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