Thinking about an SSD again

I've noticed that the prices of SSDs have gone down a lot in the past few months. I was originally going to get some RAM, but after Newegg jacked the prices up on DDR3, i decided i'd go glance at some SSDs and got caught lol

I've got about $150 to spend. I need at LEAST 30gig, but it's going to be mainly an OS drive, and i'll put maybe one or two games onto it. Everything else would go onto my current matrix RAID.

I've seen the OCZ vertex series, and i've heard good things about them, but there's also a Kingston SSDNow! drive that comes with the bracket and everything for a little less, but it appears to be a bit slower. Can anyone here point me in the right direction?

I would recommend the Vertex. Reason why is because the kingston has no kind of TRIM or Garbage Collection. The vertex will be much easier to keep at peak performance. Not to mention Vertex is faster then the cheaper kingstons.

Okay, that'll be the one that i get
I've read that there are some things that need to be done to it to ensure it stays at peak performance... anyone know what all these things are so i don't have to dig through OCZ's forums? lol

Anyone?

Keep at least 25% of the drive free.
Ensure you have TRIM enabled firmware when you get it, and ensure that TRIM is enabled through the OS.
Align the partitions when installing the OS. By default, they should come with a partition already aligned.
Don't run benchmarks on it all day.
Disable Indexing and auto-defrag.

That's about all I've done on mine.

How do i enable TRIM?
And what's it mean to align partitions?

CompuTamer said:

How do i enable TRIM?
And what's it mean to align partitions?

Click to expand...

TRIM should be enabled automatically in Windows 7. Also there won't be any problems with partition alignment if you're using Windows 7.

I wouldn't completely write off the Kingston drive though. The sequential write speeds aren't nearly as good as the Vertex, but random read/write speeds are much better. Disk utilities have added support for SSDs, so TRIM isn't a must have (although you'll have to do manual maintenance). According to the Anandtech review, the Kingston drives should eventually get TRIM support, but I have no idea when or if the firmware is user flashable. Also you'll get an extra 10 gigs of space.

One advantage the OCZ drive will have is if you decide to add another later for a RAID setup, you can flash to the garbage collection firmware. That works independent of the OS and will still keep the SSD optimized in a RAID array.

TheGame240 said:

I wouldn't completely write off the Kingston drive though. The sequential write speeds aren't nearly as good as the Vertex, but random read/write speeds are much better. Disk utilities have added support for SSDs, so TRIM isn't a must have (although you'll have to do manual maintenance). According to the Anandtech review, the Kingston drives should eventually get TRIM support, but I have no idea when or if the firmware is user flashable. Also you'll get an extra 10 gigs of space.

Click to expand...

Only the Intel-Based can have TRIM (SSDNow E/M series), and even then, I believe that Kingston will have to be the one to release the firmware as the Intel flasher won't flash the Kingston drives.

Space isn't too much of an issue. I have 750gig between the other drives the way they're set up right now. I'm just planning on putting my OS and one or two of my most played games on the SSD

TheGame240 said:

TRIM should be enabled automatically in Windows 7. Also there won't be any problems with partition alignment if you're using Windows 7.

I wouldn't completely write off the Kingston drive though. The sequential write speeds aren't nearly as good as the Vertex, but random read/write speeds are much better. Disk utilities have added support for SSDs, so TRIM isn't a must have (although you'll have to do manual maintenance). According to the Anandtech review, the Kingston drives should eventually get TRIM support, but I have no idea when or if the firmware is user flashable. Also you'll get an extra 10 gigs of space.

One advantage the OCZ drive will have is if you decide to add another later for a RAID setup, you can flash to the garbage collection firmware. That works independent of the OS and will still keep the SSD optimized in a RAID array.

Click to expand...

I'd need it to be automatic :/ I'll be one of those people that forgets to run it, and have their SSD die in a two or three years.

Most of your questions would be answered by a forum search, this has been discussed several times now.

Good luck

Know Nuttin said:

Only the Intel-Based can have TRIM (SSDNow E/M series), and even then, I believe that Kingston will have to be the one to release the firmware as the Intel flasher won't flash the Kingston drives.

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The 40GB V series use the Intel controller like the E/M series with half the channels in use. I can't comment on when/if TRIM support will be enabled on those drives or even if current models will be flashable if newer firmware becomes available. I just thought it was something the OP should look into since, other than TRIM support, there's no compelling reason to spend the same amount on a drive that's 25% smaller and lags behind in random read/write speeds. Sequential writes are unimpressive, but honestly after the initial install of applications most of the drive activity is going to be random reads/writes and sequential reads which the Kingston excels at.

CompuTamer said:

Space isn't too much of an issue. I have 750gig between the other drives the way they're set up right now. I'm just planning on putting my OS and one or two of my most played games on the SSD

Click to expand...

As long as you're comfortable with 30GB then go with it. I'm currently at 23GB on my Agility with W7, Dreamweaver, NOD32, Office, Photoshop, Winrar and Nero installed. Although 8GB of that is the swap file. So you could probably get by with 30GB. Not sure how performance drops on Indilinx drives as they fill up, but that's something to check on.

CompuTamer said:

I'd need it to be automatic :/ I'll be one of those people that forgets to run it, and have their SSD die in a two or three years.

Click to expand...

Then you have the option of going with automatic scheduling of the disk utilities or the OCZ drive. You won't have to worry about the drive dying, just performance slowing. Honestly anything outside of the Intel drives involve some sort of compromise. Either sacrificing TRIM and sequential writes with the Kingston or sacrificing random read/write speeds and 10% less space with the OCZ. Don't think I have anything against the OCZ drives at all. I ended up going with a 120GB Agility drive when newegg had them on sale a few weeks back. Of course I was kicking myself the entire time for not jumping on the 160GB Intel drive when newegg had them for $415.