(prob. FAQ) difference between SSD's w/ same controller?

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MrWizard6600

Supreme [H]ardness
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Jan 15, 2006
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First off, If I buy today I get $20 off the Falcon from NCIX, so if I get a positive reply I'll be buying it later today. I'll give this thread a bump in the reasonable morning and then I'll check it one more time when I'm in store.

Firstly I'm under the impression that there should be minimal performance difference between within the SSD series across different sizes, correct?

In regards to the title, I'm wondering what the difference between the OCZ Vertex, Patriot TorqX and Gskill Falcon SSDs are. They all use the same Indilinx “Barefoot” IDX110 controller. I understand they probably have different physical storage chips, but from what I can tell that makes a very minimal performance difference. Is that accurate?

In the reviews I've read the Falcon is usually a touch slower then the other drives I'm comparing it too, but then OCZ's Vertex drive gained a substantial performance bump from a firmware patch. Can I expect the Falcon to receive the same?

Anyways, I've got 16 tabs open related to SSDs and I'm kinda tired of doing research, so basically I'm asking for an [H] bailout (and possibly the creation of an SSD FAQ).

Thanks for any help.

edit: actually here's two reviews which sum up what I'm referring to:
Driver Heven has the UltraDrive edging out the Falcon by 5% on average:
http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=799&pageid=16
But the newer Hardware Canucks round-up has the two performing identically:
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru.../19384-patriot-torqx-128gb-ssd-review-14.html
 
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They are almost identical. There may be a difference in the quality of the actual flash chips used, but there really isn't a lot of documented info out there on this. Differences inside of 5% I would say are within the margin of error. I know G.Skill offers the latest firmware (1571) just like OCZ (and if you really want to you can just put the OCZ firmware on any of the drives anyways).
 
i dont know if Gskill fixed this, but flashing a Gskill will loose you all your data, while OCZ you can flash and the data will not be erased. So there are some differences in the approaches even though the drives are the same ones.
 
I am pretty sure you can just follow the OCZ instructions on the G.Skill drive, and you can flash it without loosing data too.
 
There are no differences between different brands. They use same PCB layout, same controller, same RAM cache chip, same flash memory modules. The performance is same when same firmware is used.

@Megalomaniac - not true, it's just the firmware revision, that's all. Each and every version so far even from OCZ required a destructive firmware flash. It's just the latest firmware (1571, or at OCZ 1.1) which allows future flashing without destroying data. The only difference in firmware are :
1) device ID
2) device name
 
At NCIX you can price match anything upto 19% off and they will automatically let it discount, 20%+ and it requires an employee price check.
 
Canadacomputers.Com have the vertex drives for a very good price
 
Ok well at the time of purchase I was a little worried, however after reading the below user manuel my nerves were calmed.

Untitled-1-1.jpg


thank god my motherborad has a fix-all-your-problems connector.

Anyways I've got windows 7 installed, I've gotta move some data around and format some drives but once I'm done all that I'll give you a full report.
 
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