• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Budget and entry level SSDs (Oct 2012)?

V

V4oLDbOY

Gawd
Joined
Feb 3, 2008
Messages
739
I've been using a 1.5 TB system for two years now and honestly dont really have many complaints.

But I've become increasingly interested in making the jump to an SSD, mainly for the OS and the current games I am playing. Everything else I could care less how slow they run as my PC is mainly a gaming PC first and a work PC second.

My budget for this would be fairly low and as such I would only be interested in 30-90 gb SSDs at the moment.

So what are considered the best entry level SSDs on the market as of Oct 2012? I've done some searching and found a lot of conflicting advice, which is to be expected with tech products. But I trust opinions on here more than on other forums.

I am curious as to the increase in real world perform I might see if I make the jump to one of the more budget/entry level SSDs available. Keep in mind I am budget conscious and just because it is recommended to get a larger SSD, I cannot do this at the moment. If I did see a noticeable increase in performance with a cheaper SSD I would consider a bigger leap in price for the future, but not for my first SSD.

If its impossible to get a moderate leap in performance with a budget SSD at the moment I will instead spend my money on a larger standard HDD.
 
Spend the $80 and get yourself a 128GB Samsung 830. Due to the nature of how SSD's work, smaller SSD's (while still faster in random IO than HDD's) can be significantly slower than 128GB (and larger) SSD drives.
 
Even a budget SSD will be a huge jump in performance, but I really wouldn't' recommend skimping and getting a poor quality or too small SSD. If you are going to do it, go ahead and do it right and get a 128GB drive. The Samsung 830 is an excellent choice, and you can get it for $90 at Amazon right now. I would get that.
 
Yep, either 830 or crucial m4. Both are reliable and pretty fast, and not much more than the cheap POS.
 
Since you are budget conscious like me I would suggest a caching drive. I got the OCZ Synapse and am satisfied with it. All the benefits of an SSD without having to manage your files.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/OCZ/Synapse_60_GB/1.html

TechPowerUp gave the Synapse (and caching drives in general) a 9.5 out of 10, and this is when the drive used to cost ~$150. Now you can get it for $40 after rebate, that's how much I got mine for from Newegg.

Here is one more review, look at what they say about the drive in the conclusion.

http://www.storagereview.com/ocz_synapse_cache_ssd_review
OCZ set out to broaden their SSD caching options with the Synapse SSD and boy did they deliver. Paired up with the included Dataplex software and a user's own high capacity hard drive, the end results are just plain sick, fly, da bomb, pimp, baller - use whatever slang you like, the result is the same, the Synapse absolutely delivers on all fronts. When paired with a 7200 RPM 2TB hard drive in our tests, the benchmarks show the proof; the Synapse Cache SSD hangs at near parity with the highest performing single SSD we've seen, the Vertex 3 Max IOPS, over the span of a 2TB hard drive.

In fact, the Synapse was really only shown up by its cousin, the RevoDrive Hybrid. The Hybrid has the benefit of the PCIe interface though and dual SandForce controllers, so being beaten by such a device isn't exactly a knock. Considering that the Synapse is essentially an over-provisioned Agility 3 with intelligent adaptive caching software the results are nothing short of amazing. And perhaps the best part is, the hard drive behind the Synapse doesn't really matter all that much in terms of the overall performance
Click to expand...

EDIT one last thing you don't have to get the Synapse, any caching drive with Dataplex caching software will be roughly equal in terms of performance. The Crucial Adrenaline, Corsair Accelerator, and Mushkin Catalyst are all good choices, though they each have their own strengths and weaknesses.
 
Last edited:
As others have said, get the Samsung 830 128GB from Amazon or Newegg for $90 shipped. You won't find a better SSD deal that won't require a rebate.
 
OK, about the response I was anticipating.

The issue is I dont have $90 to spend on an SSD when I'm unsure if the performance increase is worth it to me personally. That's why I wanted to spend maybe $30-$50 on a small SSD, try it out as an OS/game drive for a while to see if I did want to upgrade to a larger/better on in the future.

If I knew I wanted an SSD as my main drive for the future, yeah I'd probably try and get a 256gb.
 
Coming from a mechanical HDD, you are going to see a noticeable increase in performance. Just save your money and get a decent SSD.
 
V4oLDbOY said:
OK, about the response I was anticipating.

The issue is I dont have $90 to spend on an SSD when I'm unsure if the performance increase is worth it to me personally. That's why I wanted to spend maybe $30-$50 on a small SSD, try it out as an OS/game drive for a while to see if I did want to upgrade to a larger/better on in the future.
Click to expand...
At that low of a price point, you're better off not getting a SSD as many of the SSDs in that $30 to $50 price range are of low quality, low performance, and have a piss-poor GB per cents ratio. Trust us, there's a huge difference in quality and performance between a $50 SSD and a $90 SSD like that Samsung 830 128GB. You may balk at the $90 price but you won't once you realize that the Samsung 830 128GB was $110 to $120 roughly 2 months ago. So take advantage of that price drop and grab the Samung 830 128GB.
 
you will notice the difference for sure, I have a samsung 830 and its excellent.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top