How to choose SSD by specs

Hello again, my new post, now about SSD

I was reading a bit on the forum about SSDs and notice that most of the people recommending Intel or Crucial, but i cant understand why, and how do u choose it guys?

im totally n00b in SSD and its going to be my 1st SSD ever.
as far as i see all SSD have 4 parameters:

1) Capacity
2) Read speed
3) Write speed
4) price

do i missing something? as for example here we have:

1. OCZ Agility 3 240GB
max. 500 MB/s write
max. 525 MB/s read
price 224,90 euro

and

2. Crucial m4 SSD 256GB
max. 260 MB/s write <---- Speed in twice lower for nearly the same price??!!
max. 500 MB/s read
price 210.90 euro

3. Intel 520 Series 240GB OEM-Edition
max. 520 MB/s write
max. 550 MB/s read
price: 289.9 euro <--- plus 60 euro for the same specs as OCZ

so how come Crucial and intel are the best if acording to the specs over price they are loosing?

i believe there should be some other point or parameter which im missing but have to take on consideration? what is it? and by which specs should i choose SSD? if read/write speed is not the most important?

Thnx in advance

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/65

^^^^^
THIS

plug in the model and compare hem side by side then decide for yourself how much u wanna spend for yourself...

Lower write speed = higher lifespan

There is a lot more to it.

read
write
random read
random write
all of the above with compressible data vs non-compressible data
controller/reliability
price
size

The agility 3 uses a sandforce controller, the least reliable controller. The M4 uses the marvell controller which has been very reliable. The intel uses an intel customized sandforce controller, it is new but should be more reliable.

The M4 doesn't do data compression so it will write all data at its advertised speed where the sandforce controller drives speed are with compressible data, use some non-compressible data and the speed drops a lot.

The Agility uses asynchronous nand which I believe has slower random speeds vs similar drives with synchronous nand.

Dermon hit it on the head...it's not a simple "compare max read/write". That's like comparing processors based only on frequency (because there's HT, cache, core count, architecture changes even).

Read about ssds on anandtech.com

You can get much more educated there. But some general guidance,
If you want low price checkout the agility 3 or muslin series drives. (but the sandforce in non intel drives has had some comptability issues)
Solid performance and great reliability the, crucial m4 is your drive
For best performance and reliability the intel 520 is our drive.

God the chart in that link is terrible. A 128GB drive has a better priceerformance ratio than a 600GB drive? Shocking!

Lower write speed = higher lifespan

Click to expand...

What now? How do you mean?

Don't forget that Sandforce drives, ie. Agility 3 and Intel 520, only shine with uncompressed data and that is why they like to use ATTO figures to show off their speed. When it comes to compressed data Sandforce drives suck big time and this is where the M4 beats them hands down. If you have to check specs have a look at both AS SSD and ATTO figures before coming to a conclusion.

neo668 said:

Don't forget that Sandforce drives, ie. Agility 3 and Intel 520, only shine with uncompressed data and that is why they like to use ATTO figures to show off their speed. When it comes to compressed data Sandforce drives suck big time and this is where the M4 beats them hands down. If you have to check specs have a look at both AS SSD and ATTO figures before coming to a conclusion.

Click to expand...

That's why I pay a lot of attention to Anandtech's SSD tests. A drive that performs best with compressible data is perfectly fine if most of your workload is compressible, and it often is. The Sandforce based drives are still top performers for general usage. That said, when I was in the market the reliability issues scared me off and I opted for an M4 instead.

but if i buying it for general purpose, as home PC, a bit of coding and game dev including 3D modeling and defo a lot of playing gaming

is there anything like "one shot = all kill" and compressed and uncompressed data and so on, is there any win-win unit in all directions?

as over there on the website looks like Cricial m4 256 is top 1 with score over 1k, so i assume it is the one who kill all with 1 shot? am i right?

i mean im very confused there so many test and if you go for example in detailed test 1 vs 1 lets say cruicial and vertex3 it seems like it is 50/50
some tests are realy good with cricial some tomes its sux complitly

so how come cruicial become top 1?

johan851 said:

What now? How do you mean?

Click to expand...

You see, if you can only write 1 byte to the hard drive per second, it will last for forever.

You see, if you can only write 1 byte to the hard drive per second, it will last for forever.

Click to expand...

I did guess that much.

as over there on the website looks like Cricial m4 256 is top 1 with score over 1k, so i assume it is the one who kill all with 1 shot? am i right?

i mean im very confused there so many test and if you go for example in detailed test 1 vs 1 lets say cruicial and vertex3 it seems like it is 50/50
some tests are realy good with cricial some tomes its sux complitly

Click to expand...

I'm not sure who we're shooting at and why we need to kill them. But you're right that the two are very close in performance. The Crucial is much more popular because the Sandforce controller caused lots of reliability issues.

Despite the performance hit SandForce takes for non-compressible data, it is STILL faster than the Marvell on its best day.

Also Marvell low density drives are poor performers. You absolutely must go 256GB if you intend to go Marvell, the 64 GBs are just too slow the 128 GBs are better but still not Sandforce competition.

I still say Agility 3 is the BEST price/performance drive out there. I do like the MArvell drives as well, but when it is my money being spent I would go SandForce.

my buddy just built an i7 rig with a 120gb agility 2, it SMOKES my vertex 2...