SSD Narrowed to 3, Help?

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Denamian

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 14, 2005
Messages
198
Hello all,

I'm starting a new computer build.

I have been waiting in the wings to pick up a SSD to use as my main drive for a while now. I feel that the prices are getting to an acceptable level for my budget and needs. I've been reading up some and have my choices narrowed down to three. I will lay out my candidates, and my own thoughts so far... if some of you could take a few minutes to read and comment, I would really appreciate some additional opinions!

===

At the outset of the current gen of SSD I was planning to go with the Force Series 3 120gb. I like Corsair products in general, I heard good things about their previous force SSDs, and the Force 3 are being touted as the best yet.

The posted specs are amazing (Sustained sequential read up to 550 MB/s [SATA 3], sustained sequential write up to 510 MB/s [SATA 3], and Random Write 4K: 85,000 IOPS :eek: :eek:) and when I saw the base price of $235 my first thought was: "too good to be true." Unfortunately this may have proven to be true, as the units are now on recall. However, I see that Newegg is currently offering the piece for $180. This really got my attention, but I am a little confused; is this the new/certified part, or is Newegg trying to pawn off the old units? (The latter seems unlike Newegg.)

===

My next inclination was to look at the Vertex 3 120gb. It's more expensive than I was hoping to go, but with the reliability of the Corsair in doubt, it seemed like the next logical choice. It's down to $270 right now, which is stomach-able... but I was really trying to set a budget ceiling of $250. Other than some lingering doubts about OCZ after their quality control issues with the Vertex 2 parts, this one looks pretty solid (Max Read: up to 550 MB/s [SATA 3], Max Write: up to 500 MB/s [SATA 3], and 4KB Random Write: 60,000 IOPS).

===

After almost resigning myself to the higher price of the Vertex 3, I took another look at the Agility 3. The price is significantly less than the Vertex 3 (Currently $210 on Newegg), and from what I have read so far, it appears to be a fairly solid unit. The only difference in the provided specs is -10,000IOPS for the random write. Obviously that would make a difference... but how much?

===

Both in terms of personal preference, and at face value; the Corsair still seems to be the best choice... highest specs (after they hopefully resolve the issue), AND currently the lowest price. But I can't find much info on the current state of the recall/new/replacement units.

Could anyone throw some information and/or opinions my way?

Thanks a ton!
 
I think any Sandforce drive is a bad choice right now, and OCZ in particular is a company to avoid.

I'd go with an Intel 320, which is currently the most reliable and compatible SSD you can buy. It won't top the benchmark charts, but the performance is decent, and unless you have unusual usage patterns, you probably will not notice any difference in performance between it and a Sandforce 2XXX series SSD.
 
Newegg took down the Force Series 3 120GB listing when Corsair issued the recall and the ones shipping now from Newegg are the new updated ones that should have fixed the issues. You can check the latest Newegg reviews to see that users are already getting the new fixed ones.

I actually just posted a deal for this drive in the Hot Deals section after seeing it over at SlickDeals. If you got the e-mail or even if you didn't you can try the 10% off code that I posted which brings the drive down to $158.99 after rebate. I ordered one to replace my Intel X25-M 80GB and hoping to see a solid performance increase.
 
I had seen the price reduction, but I didn't get the e-mail, as I haven't bought anything from the egg in a few months. If it's the revised drive, I might be very interested though. Hmm, decisions decisions.

**Edit** DURRR, I bought a Corsair PSU from them yesterday. Maybe I just missed it in my in-box.
 
You might want to revise your selection. You basically have 3 identical drives with various firmwares on your list and they all are having problems. Like John4200 says. I would go with none of these. Intel or Micron/Crucial are the only high speed drives at the moment.
 
How is the Intel high speed? I looked at them early on, but the Intel 320 Series is listing

Sustained Sequential Read Up to 270 MB/s
Sustained Sequential Write Up to 130 MB/s
Up to 38,000 IOPS random 4 KB reads; up to 14,000 IOPS random 4 KB writes

I mean, it's not terrible... but for $240, it seems a bit underwhelming. Is there something I am missing?
 
Intel 510, Crucial M4, Crucial C300 are all based on the same Marvell controller.
The 320 is a SATA 2 drive.

The 510 is
Write Up to 210 MB/s (SATA 6Gb/s)
Read Up to 450 MB/s (SATA 6Gb/s)

Random 4 KB Reads: Up to 20,000 IOPS; Writes: Up to 8,000 IOPS

Need to be careful with these numbers because queue depth matters.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4202/the-intel-ssd-510-review/8
 
Denamian said:
Is there something I am missing?
Click to expand...

Probably. The perceived speed of an SSD in most common usage scenarios does not depend on huge sequential speeds or even huge 4K-64 speeds. There are some applications where those things might matter (writing large files in video editing, running a heavily-loaded DB server, etc.), but they are rare and you would know if that was the case for you.

For most people, if the sequential speeds are decent, and the 4K QD=1 speeds are good, then the SSD will seem fine. Without running benchmarks, most people would not be able to tell the difference if you swapped their SSD between an Intel 320 and a Sandforce 2XXX.

But if you still want an SSD with very high sequential speeds, then as was already mentioned in this thread, the Intel 510 is a good choice. Also, the Crucial m4.
 
True enough, I just looked at the 320 because it was suggested above. I looked right over the SATAII because I assumed people were linking SATAIII parts (since all 3 of my links were). My apologies.

Both of the crucial offerings are interesting... the price is also rather high, but I am a little confused as to why their write speeds are so low. Even the Anand reviews put them well below 200. Wouldn't this be a bit of a bottleneck?

I realize that the queue depth does matter, and even though their max speeds aren't sky-high I know that the 510 is one of the better-performers in real-world situations. Still, it is breaking the bank right now (maxing out the budget even after rebate). Is it really $100 (40%) better than the Corsair (after the firmware fix)?
 
john4200 said:
There are some applications where those things might matter (writing large files in video editing, running a heavily-loaded DB server, etc.), but they are rare and you would know if that was the case for you.
Click to expand...

It's certainly not a decision-maker or breaker... but I am looking into picking up a 1080P (60P) camcorder in the next year or so (I realize a SSD of this size wouldn't do much for storage for something like that; I already have a 2TB USB 3.0 external) - and for editing that size of video I would certainly not mind having the write speed.
 
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they are all expensive no matter how you spin it. unless you get a used one or some strange deal, the savings between even very different drives is very limited...

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/263

start at the top and pick the first one you can afford. the only other suggestion I have is check ebay for used already-sold prices. you can measure which brand depreciates more, and if one depreciates a lot more, skip that. without doing that research, I don't know if going intel is a safer bet or not.
 
Thank you bAMtan2, I hadn't seen that link before. The benchmark comparisons are really helpful!

I also appreciate the other inputs on the OCZ parts. I was kind of tentative about them going into this, but it's good to have outside opinions.

The only reason I am even still considering the Force 3 (120 SATA3) still is because it can be had for only $160 right now on Newegg, almost a whole $100 less than the Intel 510 (120 SATA 3). If it wasn't for the recent recall fiasco I would be all over that in a heartbeat... but to the best of my knowledge there aren't any post-recall benchmarks out for the revised parts yet.

The chart you linked really puts the 510 at the top for the 120GB parts that he tested - which is useful to know in terms of real-world testing and not just raw numbers. I just wish he had an updated Force 3 in that chart; If it was a something like a 20% drop in performance for a ~40% drop in price, that would be a pretty sweet spot for me.

I don't suppose there's any way for me to request that Anand add it to the list? ^.^
 
The SSD market at this stage seem to be repeating itself constantly:
The big companies come up with good reliable drives. (Intel/Micron/Toshiba/Samsung)
The smaller ones (Jmicron, Indilinx, OCZ, Sandforce) try to take a share of the market by going after the enthusiasts promising best performance sometimes using some tricks (Sandforce compression comes to mind) but don't have the means to test their products thoroughly before launch. They treat their customers as beta testers. Who knows how long it will take before OCZ and Sandforce figure things out. I was an early adopter and had the Jmicron stuttering problem, Indilinx disappearing drive problem, the Sandforce 1xxx performance drop and failing drives and now the 25nm fiasco. I think I have learned my lesson and I am staying away from these guys. By the time they fix their stuff the big players already have a better drive to offer.
 
Why not the Crucial m4? They are a lot cheaper than any of the ones you mentioned earlier, besides the corsair one, but I would rather wait on the corsair force series 3 gt.
 
I hear what you're saying, and it's part of what's making it so hard for me, lol.

I normally shoot for the quality first, but the price discrepancy here is so great that I find myself compelled to explore the opportunities.

Don't mistake what I've been saying though, I'm definitely listening to you guys' opinions, and appreciate them all. It's all going toward helping me make a decision.

I hadn't even really considered the 510 previously, and it's pretty much at the top of my list now... so keep the thoughts flowing if anyone else has any more. It's much appreciated!
 
bandit390 said:
Why not the Crucial m4? They are a lot cheaper than any of the ones you mentioned earlier, besides the corsair one, but I would rather wait on the corsair force series 3 gt.
Click to expand...

I am concerned with the write speed... it seems like a bit of a bottleneck in heavy-load situations.
 
Oh and by the way just so you know, I currently run a Vertex 2 in my macbook pro, 4 C300 (soon to be 8) as my boot drive on my desktop, a vertex (turbo) as my temp file drive and 2 Kingston(Toshiba) in raid as my media storage, a Samsung in my wifes laptop, an X25-M G2 in my work computer... As you can see I have owned or tested almost all of them. I have no particular bias...

The M4 is a good drive but again there is a reason why the Intel and OCZ higher end drives still use 34nm NAND... The M4 is a 25nm tweak of the C300. The write speed tends to scale with drive size with the Marvell controllers because more NAND chips=more channels which can write in parallel.
 
So why is this Intel 510 series $400?

From the specs i found here, it only gets 20,000 IOPS...so what gives?
 
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Specs are provided at different queue depth by different manufacturers. Read the reviews.
 
Rafale said:
The SSD market at this stage seem to be repeating itself constantly:
The big companies come up with good reliable drives. (Intel/Micron/Toshiba/Samsung)
The smaller ones (Jmicron, Indilinx, OCZ, Sandforce) try to take a share of the market by going after the enthusiasts promising best performance sometimes using some tricks (Sandforce compression comes to mind) but don't have the means to test their products thoroughly before launch. They treat their customers as beta testers.
Click to expand...

Hrm...the award for the worst SSD support would have to go to Micron, which released a broken, stuttering C300 in 2010 and didn't bother to fix it until 2011, coincidentally at roughly the same time they released the C400. Though Intel tried hard with the X25-E, an expensive drive that borked your data, prompting speculation that Intel would be exiting the enterprise market for SSDs permanently. Then there was the Samsung goldilocks garbage collector - first too little GC, then too much, then just right, none of which helped their existing customers because Samsung didn't bother to provide official support for end-user firmware updates in their controller.

I'd also say Intel's failure to work with other drive manufacturers after they fixed their controller for the G1 but let it remain broken for most other hotplug devices deserves honorable mention. As does their internally inconsistent and impossible to implement AHCI.

ISandforce has had its share of problems. OTOH, features in their G1 controller like striping and encryption are just starting to show up in G3 drives elsewhere. Until recently, they were also the only company with decent offerings in both the consumer and enterprise MLC markets, which IMHO says a lot.

Who knows how long it will take before OCZ and Sandforce figure things out.
Click to expand...
It'll be faster than Micron's C300 fix, I'll wager =)
 
Rafale said:
Intel 510, Crucial M4, Crucial C300 are all based on the same Marvell controller.
The 320 is a SATA 2 drive.

The 510 is
Write Up to 210 MB/s (SATA 6Gb/s)
Read Up to 450 MB/s (SATA 6Gb/s)

Random 4 KB Reads: Up to 20,000 IOPS; Writes: Up to 8,000 IOPS

Need to be careful with these numbers because queue depth matters.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4202/the-intel-ssd-510-review/8
Click to expand...

I have the Intel 510 120gb drive as my boot drive, and its very fast.

I can totally endorse this as one to buy.
 
I think too many folks get wrapped up in this write speed and that many IOPs and blah blah blah when it comes to SSDs.

Sequential operations are only going to be appreciated if you move a lot of large files often. For my dev laptop boot drive I'm using a AData (rebranded Intel G2) that only benchmarks for write speed at ~70MB/s, which is significantly under what my shortstroked WD 750gb/7200rpm drive it replaced, yet I have not for one second ever regretted going to the SSD.

Also, a lot of folks get too wrapped up in Sata III vs. II and again, I don't see a point to this if you aren't stripping SSDs.

Identify the size you need, then grab the best deal on Intel 510, 320, Crucial c300 or M4 (keep in mind that the Intel 320 has a 5yr warranty). If you are going to use an SSD on a non-trim supported OS, like XP, get an Intel for the toolkit.

It is as simple as that. My two cents.
 
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