SSD noob,need help choosing a drive

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StewieTheGreat

Gawd
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Apr 12, 2010
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I am a complete noob when it comes to SSD's and have no idea what to look for when it comes to buying one.

I want a drive to use for games,mainly steam games,I was thinking 80GB or bigger and have around $150 to spend.I just want something that has a bit more oomph than my current drive when it comes to loading games.

I was looking at a few drives but don't know how to decide.

Here are a few I was looking at,are any of these drives even worth considering?

kingston 96GB v+100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139638

corsair force 80GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233161

ocz vertex plus 120GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227739

like I said I know nearly nothing about SSD's so any suggestions would be appreciated.
 
I will only recommend the Crucial M4 series or Intel 510 series as neither one of them are based on the Sandforce controller, which has known issues in the past with causing BSODs in Windows and not performing like they should.

So I would either get the 64GB Crucial M4 at ~$100 or add a little to your budget and get the 128GB version for ~$200.
 
Agree with Skillz, although I'd add the Intel 320 to the list as you don't lose much being limited to SATA 3GB. I'd choose the M4 first, then the 320, then the 510.
 
+1 to M4.. i have 3 of them, all from different batches updated to 0009 firmware. not a single issue so far. crucial has also been improving performance by quite a bit in their latest firmware revisions (0002 -> 0009 boosting by 20%~ i believe), could it get even better? time will tell..
 
Agree with the rest.

Intel 510 or M4.

I own an Intel G2, 510, and M4, and no complaints yet :D
 
benches show huge numeric differences between various drives, but to be honest for real life use I can't even tell the difference between my original Vertex 60 and brand new M4 128GB. agreed with the above recs - the reliability matters more than the benchmark numbers since pretty much all current and last gen SSD's feel damn fast unless they have a serious firmware problem or some other source of stuttering.

i actually collect and test SSD's and controllers as a hobby, and the only "bad" two drives I've had were the original Kingston V-series one stutters, and a 1.8" IDE early gen Super Talent one that's slow even in a netbook. I have almost every major released SSD series from the last 5 years for comparison on multiple platforms. (Vertex 1, Vertex 2, Solid 3, Crucial C300/M4, Samsung 470, Intel G2 all "feel" very similar).

As far as reliability I think Samsung might deserve a plug too, not as popular but some storage sites claim good reliability numbers.
 
I have read many comparisons that included the sand force 2281 based drives, both asynchronous and sync. While the BSODs have been noted and complaints are present, is this a bug that occurs in all sandforce drives?
 
Go with the M4, its a safe bet, and with fw 0009 is one of the top performers atm, also one of the cheapest sata III ssds.
 
After reviewing all the information, I went with a 256GB Crucial M4. The need for reliability outweighed my desire for an ADATA s511 or to RAID0 a pair of 128GBs.
 
Noetic said:
After reviewing all the information, I went with a 256GB Crucial M4. The need for reliability outweighed my desire for an ADATA s511 or to RAID0 a pair of 128GBs.
Click to expand...
Remember to flash it to 0009 before installing the os on it, i just bought one also and came with 0002.
 
Darkamek said:
Stupid question but how can you tell what version it is?
Click to expand...

If you hook it up as an extra drive in Windows then......

1) Click on the Start menu
2) Open Control panel> System> Hardware
3) Select device manager
4) Expand disk drives
5) Right click on the drive and select properties
6) Select details tab > select 'hardware lds' from the drop down menu and the firmware version will be displayed

Or just grab the 0009 firmware bootable cd ISO, burn it and run it, if it needs it, it'll update, if not, it won't.

http://www.crucial.com/support/firmware.aspx

Enjoy the speed boost. I'm still loving my Intel G2 to death.
 
Darkamek said:
Stupid question but how can you tell what version it is?
Click to expand...
Limahl method would be the best to be sure, but if you want something faster or dont have another machine avialable, you can just look into the sticker on the ssd :D

m4firmwaresticker.png
 
lawrence131 said:
benches show huge numeric differences between various drives, but to be honest for real life use I can't even tell the difference between my original Vertex 60 and brand new M4 128GB.
Click to expand...

I can tell when my Vertex 2 is slowing down. UAC prompts are a little slower. I have to reboot often to boot into WinPE and booting back into Windows takes longer. My Win7 HDD installation was solid for an entire year without slowing down with more abuse.
 
Abula said:
Remember to flash it to 0009 before installing the os on it, i just bought one also and came with 0002.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the reminder. Indeed, it is that update that brings this drive to the top of the list.
 
Going to get one of these tomorrow after my 2nd OCZ Agility 3 went tits-up.
 
Instead of starting a new thread I'll just ask it here.

I placed my SSD on Sata port 3 since port 1 and 2 are 6.0gb. I put the sata in IDE mode. The dvd drive is in the first boot order. I can't get the computer to reconize the cd I burnt of the file from Crucial, it does however recognize the win7 boot disk. Is there a special way you need to make a bootable iso cd?
 
There shouldn't be anything special you need to do. You may be able to choose the boot device during POST without going to the BIOS to set the boot device order. That's what I usually do. I have my SSD as the first boot device, but sometimes I have to boot WinPE. I press F10 and at the end of POST I'm presented with a boot device list.
 
Darkamek said:
Instead of starting a new thread I'll just ask it here.

I placed my SSD on Sata port 3 since port 1 and 2 are 6.0gb. I put the sata in IDE mode. The dvd drive is in the first boot order. I can't get the computer to reconize the cd I burnt of the file from Crucial, it does however recognize the win7 boot disk. Is there a special way you need to make a bootable iso cd?
Click to expand...

Is the file from Crucial actually a bootable ISO? I can't remember. If not, you can use YUMI to make a bootable USB stick and put whatever ISO you want on it. That's how I upgraded mine.

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/
 
Darkamek said:
Instead of starting a new thread I'll just ask it here.

I placed my SSD on Sata port 3 since port 1 and 2 are 6.0gb. I put the sata in IDE mode. The dvd drive is in the first boot order. I can't get the computer to reconize the cd I burnt of the file from Crucial, it does however recognize the win7 boot disk. Is there a special way you need to make a bootable iso cd?
Click to expand...

Yes, there actually does need to be something slightly special done. Choosing the defaults in some CD creating applications will just write the ISO as a regular file onto a disc. You need to look for an option to "burn disc image" or "create CD from a disc image" or other such language. Other things I've run into with some disc creating applications is the burn speed being too fast when set to auto mode. For small ISO's, I set the burn speed to 1x and it always makes a good disc on the first try. None of this applies if you're using the built in Windows 7 ISO creator.

If you want to skip burning discs altogether and your motherboard BIOS supports booting to USB... AND you have a compatible USB stick capable of being booted from, I've used Microsofts ISO creation tool referenced in this article for some ISO's.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com...sing-the-windows-7-usb-dvd-download-tool.aspx
Download link:
http://images2.store.microsoft.com/prod/clustera/framework/w7udt/1.0/en-us/Windows7-USB-DVD-tool.exe
and use this tool more often than Microsofts:
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
Selecting "Diskimage" lets you use pretty much any ole bootable ISO.
 
vr. said:
Yes, there actually does need to be something slightly special done. Choosing the defaults in some CD creating applications will just write the ISO as a regular file onto a disc. You need to look for an option to "burn disc image" or "create CD from a disc image" or other such language. Other things I've run into with some disc creating applications is the burn speed being too fast when set to auto mode. For small ISO's, I set the burn speed to 1x and it always makes a good disc on the first try. None of this applies if you're using the built in Windows 7 ISO creator.

If you want to skip burning discs altogether and your motherboard BIOS supports booting to USB... AND you have a compatible USB stick capable of being booted from, I've used Microsofts ISO creation tool referenced in this article for some ISO's.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com...sing-the-windows-7-usb-dvd-download-tool.aspx
Download link:
http://images2.store.microsoft.com/prod/clustera/framework/w7udt/1.0/en-us/Windows7-USB-DVD-tool.exe
and use this tool more often than Microsofts:
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
Selecting "Diskimage" lets you use pretty much any ole bootable ISO.
Click to expand...

Can you explain how to do it with Win7 ?

I need to update my firmware, and as a less than 1 year user of Win7 (99% oSX now) I haven't done that before. But have a win7 workstation ready to go :D

Thanks
-Todd
 
I did nothing special except burn the ISO from the Crucial website with Imgburn.
 
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