Looking to buy a SSD

MMMMMMMMMM · Dec 31, 2011

Hey guys I am looking to buy a SSD, I need help picking one out. I want to make use of the SSD caching on my board. My budget is around $150, I mainly just want my OS windows 7 on it. Is a 64gb SSD enough? Also whats the difference when it says SATA II or SATA III, the SATA III is faster? And whats MLC mean?

I'm thinking of one of these: (I think the first one is better?)

Crucial M4 CT064M4SSD2 2.5" 64GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148441

Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC064MAG-1G1 2.5" 64GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148357

Intel I5 2500k
Corsair H60
Asus P8Z68-V Pro/Gen3
16gb Corsair Vengeance 1600
Asus GTX 460
Corsair 600 watt
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB 7200
CM Storm Scout

diaz · Dec 31, 2011

64G is enough for Win7 with a few games, depending the games. Disable hibernation, system restore and reduce paging file to about 1G, which should keep the win7 install under 20G. One of my PC's has Win7 Pro on it and it only takes about 10G with the features I mentioned disabled.

Sata2 vs Sata3 = which interface they support. Usually a Sata3 drive will be backward compatible with a Sata2 motherboard. If you have a Sata3 motherboard, then get a Sata3 drive. If you have a Sata2 motherboard, then it doesn't matter which drive you get.

Personally I just ordered a Crucial M4 based on my own research. You can't go wrong with either though.

-D

Mjolnir · Dec 31, 2011

SSD caching? Yes sata III is faster especially with the new SSD's out.

The M4 is basically the revision of the C300. Very similar. They trade blows in performance; but the M4 is indeed the newer model.

Uh, you're not SSD caching if you use the SSD as the boot drive ^^. (An SSD as boot drive is still faster than SSD caching anyway.. In general). Yes 64GB is plenty. You can reduce your Win 7 install by removing hibernation, lowering the size of the page file to around 1GB. These two together could mean a good 5-10gb+.

For just Windows and say your basic applications; like office; any basic apps 64GB is fine. Just remember to install any games on a storage drive. They're far too large for a small SSD. (If you use steam; don't forget to install steam to the storage drive; otherwise it automatically installs games on the drive it's installed on; whilst you can fix this after the install; prevention is better than cure! ^^)

EDIT: Dammit Diaz; I was typing when you posted. We posted in the same minute and you basically said everything I said already -.-.

. (bar Sata info)

MMMMMMMMMM · Dec 31, 2011

Kk thx guys

diaz · Dec 31, 2011

Mjolnir said:
SSD caching? Yes sata III is faster especially with the new SSD's out.

The M4 is basically the revision of the C300. Very similar. They trade blows in performance; but the M4 is indeed the newer model.

Uh, you're not SSD caching if you use the SSD as the boot drive ^^. (An SSD as boot drive is still faster than SSD caching anyway.. In general). Yes 64GB is plenty. You can reduce your Win 7 install by removing hibernation, lowering the size of the page file to around 1GB. These two together could mean a good 5-10gb+.

For just Windows and say your basic applications; like office; any basic apps 64GB is fine. Just remember to install any games on a storage drive. They're far too large for a small SSD. (If you use steam; don't forget to install steam to the storage drive; otherwise it automatically installs games on the drive it's installed on; whilst you can fix this after the install; prevention is better than cure! ^^)

EDIT: Dammit Diaz; I was typing when you posted. We posted in the same minute and you basically said everything I said already -.-. . (bar Sata info)

Lol

Yeah definitely install steam folder elswhere..

On my PC i have Crisis Warhead and Crysis wars installed, along with some other software, im at 38G

thats on a 2 year old install, lots of stuff has been off and on too. Im installing fresh next week, so ill report back with some numbers.. Of course i wouldn't add anything else on a 64G drive.. Adding BF3 to this would increase to around 53G.. Works but tight..

Mjolnir · Dec 31, 2011

Generally, however, you're best off keeping as much room spare on an SSD as possible. I believe you're best to leave a minimum of 20% free? So it can do it's work efficiently (in terms of TRIM and what not), so as not to prevent degradation. But there's several ways to slim a Windows 7 install; so I wouldn't be too worried.

diaz · Dec 31, 2011

Mjolnir said:
Generally, however, you're best off keeping as much room spare on an SSD as possible. I believe you're best to leave a minimum of 20% free? So it can do it's work efficiently (in terms of TRIM and what not), so as not to prevent degradation. But there's several ways to slim a Windows 7 install; so I wouldn't be too worried.

Earthdog may chime in here, but I think the drive automatically partitions itself some headroom for that.. :shrug:

So like a 64G drive shows up as 59G for example.. But yeah it is good to keep some space on any hard drive anyways so you don't have to delete stuff every time you need space from that drive.

bldegle2 · Jan 1, 2012

ssd's do not like to get filled more than 70/75%, has to do with having enough room for cleaning....

I went the 120gb route, Vertex 3....

knock on wood, nary a problem, faster than a speeding bullet, well, close anyway...

laterzzzz....

EarthDog · Jan 1, 2012

Some drives have built in space that isnt available for data (not techincally in another partition though only in that its not available to use) to help this issue out. I am not certain which ones are which though. I think like the old Vertex2 110GB's were 120GB drives with an extra 10GB of space for this reason (under partitioning).

That said, I certainly wouldnt get a 100GB drive and only fill it up to 70GB, just several GB is plenty in most cases I would imagine.

Mr Alpha · Jan 1, 2012

I am not aware of any SSD that doesn't have at least a couple of GB of spare space. Typically drives have maybe 7% spare space. An SSD will thus work even if you fill it up full. But SSDs tend to slow down somewhat as they fill up, especially is they start reaching the upper end, so one can make a performance argument for leaving some extra space free but it is by no means necessary.

On the other hand leaving free space on C: for temp data and such is necessary for Windows and programs to function properly.

bmwbaxter · Jan 1, 2012

ocz synapse

a 64gb ssd with 128gb of memory but 64gb is dedicated for Garbage collection and the like.

comes in at $129 after mail in rebate.

EDIT: this is more just info for drives with robust extra storage.

Nittenti · Jan 1, 2012

EarthDog said:
Some drives have built in space that isnt available for data (not techincally in another partition though only in that its not available to use) to help this issue out. I am not certain which ones are which though. I think like the old Vertex2 110GB's were 120GB drives with an extra 10GB of space for this reason (under partitioning).

That said, I certainly wouldnt get a 100GB drive and only fill it up to 70GB, just several GB is plenty in most cases I would imagine.

It's called the OP (Over Provisioning) area and is used by the Garbage Collector

Even thoug the manufacturer wont admit it, a lot of users say that extending the OP area makes their SSD's faster.

Extending OP area is done by only using 85-90% of the SSD's capacity

McMoose · Jan 1, 2012

Is there any other good SSD's out there other than Crucial... because Im not really confident in buying SSDs after my This died.. I was told to get it from these forums although i just happened to be unlucky but, after second one came back DOA i wanna get a new one.

and All i see is Crucial being mentioned because its price/performance and somewhat reliable. But who else out there is just as good yet faster reading write?... Because my budget isn't that low i got money for a good company(not that Crucial is bad), High GB ssd but i don't feel confident in choosing it myself... Anything I've bought from newegg or whatever site it may be was from help from OCer's community and really value everyones opinion here but I'd rather have better than Crucial.

= / I was looking at Kingston and Cosair Force but.. I'd rather be suggested where to go cuz i've not been lead in a wrong direction here. But ya budget is around 4... sorry to post here btw.. i'd rather not waste room making another thread about someone looking for help to buy somethin heh.. Thanks

Mjolnir · Jan 1, 2012

^Crucial or Intel. End.

Knufire · Jan 1, 2012

Why yours died probably wasn't OCZs fault, it was instability issues with the Sandforce controller that's used in a majority of SSDs in the market. Crucial, Samsung, and Intel don't use them, which is why they've seemed more reliable. However, the issues were reportedly mostly fixed in recent firmware updates.

IMO, I'd go with a Vertex 3, DOA rates have seem to fallen back to normal recently.

Corsair I believed has also released a new series of SSDs based on the Marvall controller (the Force series are Sandforce drives).

diaz · Jan 1, 2012

McMoose said:
Is there any other good SSD's out there other than Crucial... because Im not really confident in buying SSDs after my This died.. I was told to get it from these forums although i just happened to be unlucky but, after second one came back DOA i wanna get a new one.

and All i see is Crucial being mentioned because its price/performance and somewhat reliable. But who else out there is just as good yet faster reading write?... Because my budget isn't that low i got money for a good company(not that Crucial is bad), High GB ssd but i don't feel confident in choosing it myself... Anything I've bought from newegg or whatever site it may be was from help from OCer's community and really value everyones opinion here but I'd rather have better than Crucial.

= / I was looking at Kingston and Cosair Force but.. I'd rather be suggested where to go cuz i've not been lead in a wrong direction here. But ya budget is around 4... sorry to post here btw.. i'd rather not waste room making another thread about someone looking for help to buy somethin heh.. Thanks

You always have a slight risk of issues with an SSD, as mentionned in several threads here. You definitely got very unlucky with your SSD problems.. Maybe if two drives went bad, you probable have some settings you forgot to change, or that you didn't know about?

Corsair Force GT, Kingston Hyper X and Vertex 3 have all been looking better lately based on the new firmware fix on the sandforce controller.

Just buy the new generation of Sandforce SSD's, or pretty much any MLC based SSD.

-D

Nittenti · Jan 1, 2012

Crucial M4, Samsung 830 and the new Corsair Performnce Pro all use the Marvell controller and all seems very stable and reliable. Corsair being the fastest atm

Intel 510 also very stable, but propably the most expensive

Dermen · Jan 1, 2012

Samsung 830 doesn't use a Marvell controller, it uses a Samsung controller. The Intel 510, Crucial M4, and Corsair Performance Pro all use the Marvell controller. Intel 320 uses an Intel controller but has much lower sequential numbers and is only sataii.

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