I have a few questions about SSD's.

[Khaotik55]

Hello everyone.

I want to know whats the best SSD to get for cheapest. I have these two in mind, but will consider anything else.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220389
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233087

Do you think I should get one 120-128GB drive, or 2 smaller 60GB drives and put them in RAID?

IF... you think I should put 2 smaller drives in RAID, I'll need a controller for it, and I know nothing about RAID controllers, so what would be a good one that can handle speeds of 250-450 MB/s READ/WRITE that two SSD's would put out, and how much money would it cost? Thanks.

[SkiBum1207]

Personally I would go for a OCZ Vertex 120, they have amazing performance and have good support.

The Gskill Falcon 120 is identical to the Vertex 120, but doesnt have the support and the firmware updates that the OCZ has so take your pick (its also 100 dollars cheaper on newegg)

Its right around the price range so it would be good

As for Raid. It would be better performance, however SSDs can be finicky in raid and they cannot be in raid for firmware updates. For ease sake, i would stick with a single drive. ~230mb/s is honestly fast enough hahah

[Khaotik55]

Personally I would go for a OCZ Vertex 120, they have amazing performance and have good support.

The Gskill Falcon 120 is identical to the Vertex 120, but doesnt have the support and the firmware updates that the OCZ has so take your pick (its also 100 dollars cheaper on newegg)

Its right around the price range so it would be good

As for Raid. It would be better performance, however SSDs can be finicky in raid and they cannot be in raid for firmware updates. For ease sake, i would stick with a single drive. ~230mb/s is honestly fast enough hahah

All of the OCZ Vertex's are out of stock on Newegg, I could buy them somewhere else but I'd rather not. :S

Well, since I can't buy a Vertex now, I have another question.

Should I get a 120GB Vertex, or an 80GB Intel X25-M? All the benchmarks show the Intel winning over a lot if not all of the SSD's. I was also wondering about a G.Skill Falcon, but I can't find any place that's selling them, how come?

[SkiBum1207]

woah weird, i just ordered another vertex 3 days ago, well im sure the stock will be in soon.
as for the Gskill, Newegg must have dincontinued them because i ordered one from them a month ago haha I have no idea why though

If your going to get intel, DO NOT GET 1st GEN!!!! they will not support trim, which is extremly important. if you are to buy a intel ssd, wait 3 weeks or so til the 2nd gen comes out, they will support trim/win 7

[deathman20]

woah weird, i just ordered another vertex 3 days ago, well im sure the stock will be in soon.
as for the Gskill, Newegg must have dincontinued them because i ordered one from them a month ago haha I have no idea why though

If your going to get intel, DO NOT GET 1st GEN!!!! they will not support trim, which is extremly important. if you are to buy a intel ssd, wait 3 weeks or so til the 2nd gen comes out, they will support trim/win 7

Actually TRIM is suppose to be important but til we know how it works with the Intel Drives, G1 and G2 drives might preform similar. If you can wait til Win7 and TRIM gets released wait it out, otherwise Intel G2's, or OCZ's Vertex are the way to go IMO.

As for RAID. Personally I'd raid my drives. While 230MB/sec seems fast, so does 460MB/sec :) Depends what you want to do but for a firmware upgrade that I might do here and there unless its really a performance booster, I'll take them out of raid in bios to flash it and re-put it back into raid and if need be re-load the drive image.

[Evilsizer]

nothing wrong with agility drives! :)
http://www.ocforums.com/showpost.php?p=6208866&postcount=27

they use the same controller as vertex drives, just slower the nand flash. though you cant complain about the raid 0 results! :drool:

[aoch88]

Does the X-25M 2nd generation confirm to have TRIM support?

[Know Nuttin]

Does the X-25M 2nd generation confirm to have TRIM support?

Yes, it will, via firmware update Q4-09 (presumably when Win7 hits retail)

[Khaotik55]

I've been doing a lot of research and I personally think the Patriot Torqx is the way to go.

I've seen a lot of RAID controllers on newegg, and all of them say 3.0 GB/s. From my understanding that means 300MB/s, which makes no sense to me, because 3.0GB/s is 3072 MB/s.

ANYWAYS... when a raid controller boasts it's 3.0GB/s bandwidth, does that mean 300 MB/s on each SATA port, or only 300 MB/s throughout the entire card, because I've seen raid controllers that say 300 MB/s PER PORT also...

[Evilsizer]

I've been doing a lot of research and I personally think the Patriot Torqx is the way to go.

I've seen a lot of RAID controllers on newegg, and all of them say 3.0 GB/s. From my understanding that means 300MB/s, which makes no sense to me, because 3.0GB/s is 3072 MB/s.

ANYWAYS... when a raid controller boasts it's 3.0GB/s bandwidth, does that mean 300 MB/s on each SATA port, or only 300 MB/s throughout the entire card, because I've seen raid controllers that say 300 MB/s PER PORT also...
need to clear this up, it is 3.0 Gb/s, not GB. they are different in terms of speed, Gb is giga bits and GB is gige bytes. 3.0 Gb/s is 300MB/s, this article on wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA) should help clear things up.

yes it is 300MB/s per port, im using onboard raid on X58, check this out (http://www.ocforums.com/showpost.php?p=6208866&postcount=27).

[Khaotik55]

need to clear this up, it is 3.0 Gb/s, not GB. they are different in terms of speed, Gb is giga bits and GB is gige bytes. 3.0 Gb/s is 300MB/s, this article on wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA) should help clear things up.

yes it is 300MB/s per port, im using onboard raid on X58, check this out (http://www.ocforums.com/showpost.php?p=6208866&postcount=27).

Totally forgot about that, just like internet Megabit/Megabyte.

Now onto raid controllers, what type of raid controller should I get for RAID 0 with two SSD's. I need it to be able to achieve at least 400 mb/s. (And that should be possible since each port does 300 MB/s, and SSDS only hit like 250 read max at this point in time.)

I would like it to be under 220$. I find them to be quite expensive when you can just get a 200$ motherboard that has it built in...

[Evilsizer]

Totally forgot about that, just like internet Megabit/Megabyte.

Now onto raid controllers, what type of raid controller should I get for RAID 0 with two SSD's. I need it to be able to achieve at least 400 mb/s. (And that should be possible since each port does 300 MB/s, and SSDS only hit like 250 read max at this point in time.)

I would like it to be under 220$. I find them to be quite expensive when you can just get a 200$ motherboard that has it built in...
IMO this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115063
) is about the best you can get for $200.

[Khaotik55]

IMO this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115063
) is about the best you can get for $200.


I know nothing about this stuff, but I really don't have a budget to buy an expensive RAID controller, I just need an EXTREMELY simple raid controller that supports RAID 0, and can do 300MB/S Per port.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132008&cm_re=raid_controller-_-16-132-008-_-Product

Would that work? Or would it be limited to the bandwidth of the PCI Express x1?

[Evilsizer]

I know nothing about this stuff, but I really don't have a budget to buy an expensive RAID controller, I just need an EXTREMELY simple raid controller that supports RAID 0, and can do 300MB/S Per port.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132008&cm_re=raid_controller-_-16-132-008-_-Product

Would that work? Or would it be limited to the bandwidth of the PCI Express x1?
a PCIE x1 slot has only 250MB/s transfer speed, that is including both directions. to get what your after you need something like the card i linked to.

raid cards are not really that hard to setup. they have a bios you get into just like the motherboard to set them up. only difference is with XP or Vista, possibly win7. you need to at the start of the os install, make sure the raid drivers get used.

what motherboard do you have btw?

[Khaotik55]

a PCIE x1 slot has only 250MB/s transfer speed, that is including both directions. to get what your after you need something like the card i linked to.

raid cards are not really that hard to setup. they have a bios you get into just like the motherboard to set them up. only difference is with XP or Vista, possibly win7. you need to at the start of the os install, make sure the raid drivers get used.

what motherboard do you have btw?

An old socket 775, P45 ASRock w/ no RAID Controller. DDR2 Memory, etc.

I need to upgrade my motherboard+cpu+ram, that way all my stuff will be going faster, and I won't have to worry about this RAID Card BS because the new one will have it built in. :beer:

Also, I heard it's a pain in the ass to update firmware for the solid state drives while they are in RAID 0, don't you need to take them out of it to do something like that? I have no idea how to do that stuff.

I mean I can build a PC, and I'm pretty advanced at using windows etc. I'm sure I could figure it out, it would just be a pain.

Oh and just fyi, I use Windows 7.

[Evilsizer]

well first off which drives did you get? from what i have read, if you break a raid array you have to start from scratch,same with updating firmware on them.

[Khaotik55]

well first off which drives did you get? from what i have read, if you break a raid array you have to start from scratch,same with updating firmware on them.

I didn't get anything yet, I'm trying to figure out what I'm gonna do. I'm low budget here so I'll probably just end up with 1 SSD. If I'm going to go down that road I'll probably pick up a Patriot Torqx.

It would be really helpful if someone posted a benchmark comparing a Torqx to the Torqx M28, I can't find one. I would get an Intel 80GB, but I want fast write speeds for big files also.

Thanks for all your help Evilsizer.

[Evilsizer]

I didn't get anything yet, I'm trying to figure out what I'm gonna do. I'm low budget here so I'll probably just end up with 1 SSD. If I'm going to go down that road I'll probably pick up a Patriot Torqx.

well the Torqx is the same drive as the OCZ Vertex and Cruical M225. now you could call the OCZ Agility the same drive as well but it uses slightly slower nand flash.


It would be really helpful if someone posted a benchmark comparing a Torqx to the Torqx M28, I can't find one. I would get an Intel 80GB, but I want fast write speeds for big files also.

no need to look at comparing those two. the M28 has 128mb of cache which means, the only controller to use/need that much is the samsung. the Indilinx with only 64mb of cache is a better controller. there is nothing really wrong with samsung's other then when the cache gets full, it stutters. i havent found any post or review say Indilinx has that issue. which leads me to believe the Indilinx is a more efficient controller with the cache it has.

after using my Agility's, i dont think you would be disappointed with getting one. also consider the Cruical M225 drives, they are Indilinx as well. Super Talent ME line is another Indilinx based drive. from what im seeing so far, all the Corsair SSD's appear to be Samsung based.


Thanks for all your help Evilsizer.
NP!! :soda: