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SSD Recomendation Requested

T

The_Engineer

Gawd
Joined
Mar 20, 2005
Messages
665
I am building a machine for a co-worker of mine and am convinced that the SSD market has matured enough and the real-world benefits are convincing enough to have him spend the money for an SSD. I do notice there seems to be a lot of competition in this space though and want to make a good decision for him.

I was planning on having him pick up the "Tried-And-True" X-25M 80GB for $199.99 from newegg but wanted to hear any other feedback the good hardforum folks might have first.

  • The most important factors are reliability, budget, speed, and capacity in that order.
  • I am not looking for the "absolute fastest" drive
  • 80GB capacity is sufficient. Smaller might be troubling though would consider 64GB
  • The budget is pretty sternly set near the $200 price point.
  • The drive will be used mainly for windows, MS Office, and AutoCad work as well as other mundane tasks such as PDF's, e-mails etc.
Thanks for any and all input here!
 
I think you are right, the X25-M 80GB is the way to go. In most cases, I think the Intel SSDs are the best choice. Reliable, good performance, and decent prices.
 
The X25 is a good choice. A lot of the other SSD's out there seem to have tradeoff's in either sequential throughput or poor access time for certain patterns of more random reads.

Check the Hot Deals forum for a good deal on the Intel X25M right now. Best Buy has it at 199 and there is a 10% off coupon. And on top of that you get a $30 Best Buy gift card with the purchase too.
 
Definitely the X25-M would be my first choice, sure the write speeds are a bit low when compared to offerings from the other guys, but in terms of sheer reliability and robustness the Intel is simply unbeatable. Plus if something ever DOES go wrong you know that Intel has your back.

About the only other drives I would consider would be OCZ, they seem to have their act together and their drives are quite fast and fairly reliable. In fact most of them have a stated MTBF that's 1.5 to 2X longer than that of the Intel.

The other guys all have good speeds but reliability seems to be mediocre at best. I would definitely advice staying away from Corsair at this point. Their lineup is so overly complicated it's ridiculous and virtually ALL of their SSD lineup is plagued with weird issues - look around and you'll see that tons of people have had problems with their SSDs flaking out (there in the BIOS one day, gone the next). I love Corsair for their PSUs and desktop memory but they need to re-assess their SSD front.
 
I have the Intel 80GB & OCZ Vertex 2 drives.

They're both the same but different.

Faster read speeds make the Intel seem snappier but the OCZ drives have much better write & RAR speeds.

I've had 3 bad Intel drives and no bad OCZ drives.

You pay your money and choose what fits your specific situation. ;)
 
Running an Intel 80GB in my laptop and an Intel 160GB in my main PC.

I wouldn't trade em for anything.

Overall, Intel has a solid track record and great overall performance that's hard to beat.
 
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