Aside from OCZ, I'm assuming that all the "well known" SSD manufacturers make good drives. Thus, the key issue, aside from price, is the controller chip. So for current generation SSDs (e.g. including both Samsung 830 and 840), which controllers are preferred and which should be avoided.
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Which SSD controller chips are preferred?
- Thread starter x509
- Start date
Avoid Sandforce. The best consumer SSD controllers right now are from Samsung (eg., 840 Pro) and Marvell (eg., Plextor M5P). The LAMD may be good, depending on your workload (it excels at heavy writes, but is a bit slow on certain types of reads).
Intel's new controller in the S3700 looks interesting, but right now it is only used in expensive enterprise SSDs.
Intel's new controller in the S3700 looks interesting, but right now it is only used in expensive enterprise SSDs.
Thank you. This is good info, info I can "operate on." I was going through some back issues of CPU (I think), and most of the SSDs were Sandforce-based. Same with the various SSDs on NewEgg.
The only thing that keeps me from "embracing" Samsung is that I have had three bad experiences with Samsung with post-sales support, and no good ones.
x509
I like Marvel and Indilinx seems okay. Sandforce gave me heartburn a while ago but now they seem to really be getting far better. I would give them a shot now days but I do not like the fact they are not good at random i/o on uncompressed data.
I would give highest ratings to Marvell though as they are very stable and fast.
I would give highest ratings to Marvell though as they are very stable and fast.
- Joined
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I agree, haven't found anything wrong yet =) The crucial M4 is also a good'n.
There aren't any controllers that I know of in the current generation that should be avoided. It's always hard to tell the life expectancy of a new product.
Sandforce hate is unjustified fear mongoring unless someone here can actually back it up with some current facts on the current sandforce controllers.
I'd work out if you need better sequential reads/writes or random ones for what you want to use it for then pick the drive which is the best price for specs.
mnitetrain
Weaksauce
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Jury is still out on Sand Force, haven't installed it yet.
DeathPrincess
Fully [H]
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It depends on which Sandforce chip. There are some that are good and some that have issues. I think the SF-1200/2000 (though I think I had a drive with a SF-1200, which never had any issues) or something were the ones that had the wake issues, which later models like the SF-2281 didn't have.
These days it is firmware tweaks and companies before controllers, and going with well debugged rather than newest products.
Intel has done great things with Sandforce in 330 drives. These appear to be among the most reliable consumer SSDs.
Samsung who does their own controller which has been very reliable in the 830, is having many problems with their new 840 Pro SSDs.
Intel has done great things with Sandforce in 330 drives. These appear to be among the most reliable consumer SSDs.
Samsung who does their own controller which has been very reliable in the 830, is having many problems with their new 840 Pro SSDs.
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- Feb 1, 2005
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- 31,342
So did I. No problems here. Crucial drive isn't the fastest drive around anymore, but it's still plenty fast for my uses.
I am liking my corsair Neutron so far.
it is a newer revision then the one reviewed by hardocp.
here are some stats from it.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1752459
it is a newer revision then the one reviewed by hardocp.
here are some stats from it.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1752459
Well consider yourself fortunate then. I've had problems with all 3 Crucial M4s I've bought. The first one Bricked it's self for no apparent reason randomly one day and had to be RMAed. The next two M4s I got came with the 009 Firmware, and they both suffered from a major firmware bug where they drop out of windows after a certain number of hours of use. It was a biatch updating them too. The Windows updater didn't work. Had to burn a Boot CD, use an external DVD drive for it, and change my Sata mode to IDE, then back to AHCI which triggered Windows to be activated again, then Microsoft gave me tons of crap over the phone accusing me of possibly not having a legit windows license. So, consider yourself lucky but some M4 drives have major freaking issues.
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2004
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- 5,020
0 issues with 3 Crucial M4 128GB models
0 issues with 1 Samsung 830 128GB model
All updated to the latest firmware.
0 issues with 1 Samsung 830 128GB model
All updated to the latest firmware.
My point is that you shouldn't have to update the firmware on the SSD. The manufacture is supposed to have done that already for you. I've never once had to update the firmware on my cd-rom drive or hard drive, why should I have to do it on every Crucial SSD? They should just be ready to use out of the box.
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Technology changes fast especially in the SSD world. CD rom drives and hard drives are old news that are based on 20+ year old mechanical technology.
Should be obvious and acceptable that a SSD needs a firmware update now and then.
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- Feb 3, 2008
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- 7,308
And I've purchased 10+ M4's both for personal use and customers rigs, and had absolutely zero issues.
So consider your unfortunate perhaps.
You really think it's obvious to be expected to apply mandatory firmware updates to any SSD you buy? Do you realize there are computers and laptops now that are sold with SSDs? You really expect your grandmother who buys a new laptop to be expected to have to flash her SSD firmware? That poor old Grammy is going to have to learn how to adjust bios settings on her own? I've seen several people who don't know much about computers, break their systems by snooping around in their bios trying to fix something. You may think this is acceptable but I say it's crazy. I expect this from OCZ but not from a company like Crucial that has an otherwise high reliability record for their products.
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I agree with Zoda that companies should be shipping appropriate firmware with their products. That being said I also think you're just highly unfortunate with your experiences. I'm running 2 OCZ drives, a Kingston, and 2 Intel's without any issues whatsoever.