Help me choose an SSD

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Crispy002

[H]ard|Gawd
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Sep 3, 2008
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I'm planning to get an ssd soon, and am looking for some help in choosing one. The ones I've been looking at so far include the Intel X-25M, the Gskill Phoenix Pro 80/120, and the Corsair F120. From my research on the forum here the Crucial C300 series seems to be a popular option as well.

My questions are as follows:
1. Is the sandforce controller really any better than the Marvell?

2. Are there still a large amount of firmware issues with non-intel drives?

3. As someone who does not and likely will not have SATA 6GB/s for awhile, does the C300 offer any significant advantage over the other drives except SATA 6GB/s support?

4. Is there a noticeable performance difference going from raid 0 mechanical drives to a single ssd? Benchmarks suggest I would have the same read/writes but much faster access times.
 
I have intel X-25M 80g, and its super fast, i have not had any problems with it at all, but since i got a 80g intel and the 120gb are the same price, i am going to take back my 80g and get the 120gb so i have more space,

my personal answer would be intel would be best, yeah it cost more but i think its worth the money
 
1. No.

2. No

3.Actually the C300 is faster on SATA II then SATA III so yes the disk is great for SATA III but even alot better on SATA II, Intel controlers > Marvel.

4.Depends what disks? and yes for acces time and 4K read/write much faster.

I just bought an C300 and i'm absolutely blown away buy its performance! you can chek my benchmarks here.
 
psyside said:
3.Actually the C300 is faster on SATA II then SATA III so yes the disk is great for SATA III but even alot better on SATA II, Intel controlers > Marvel.
here.
Click to expand...

Doesn't seem right that it could run faster on SATA II than SATA III. Also, you said Intel > Marvell but the C300 uses a Marvell controller.

Does anyone else have some input?
 
I meant Intel sata ports, let alone the controller. But anyway, think what you want not in mood to go in depth with ignorant users.
 
psyside said:
I meant Intel sata ports, let alone the controller. But anyway, think what you want not in mood to go in depth with ignorant users.
Click to expand...

Ahh I see what you meant now. You were talking about the motherboard's SATA ports, where I was talking about the ssd controller. Like I said in the OP I don't have SATA III support and since I'm running an i7 (sig rig) I'm running on Intel's sata controller.

From the additional research I've been doing while awaiting responses I've come to find that most people think the sandforce drives are sometimes faster than non-sandforce drives depending on the compressibility of the data, whereas the non-sandforce drives maintain the same speeds regardless of the compressibility of the data. The general conclusion I've come to is that there is little, if any, noticeable difference between sandforce and non-sandforce controlled SSDs.
 
Correct, you did you homework fine.

If you get an 60GB model the Vertex 2 is also great, here the C300 (64GB lack a bit) because of its low write performance.

If you get 128/256GB then the C300 is the disk to beat.
 
I'd go with a 120GB Intel X25-M, or for slightly higher performance, a 128GB Crucial C300.
 
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