Which SSD to buy?

by Krosan • 26 Apr 2010, 09:45 • Journals
I'm sick and tired of having 5 HDD's spinning like crazy in my new anti-noise case. It's like a freaking vacuum-cleaner. So I wanna make the step to SSD, but don't know which one has the best price-value. Intel, Corsair, or some more exotic brand? I've got a budget between 0 and 200 (maybe even a bit more) euro, and I'd like to be able to put my Win7 and all my programs on it, so about 70 to 80GB should do (the more the merrier, but I like to keep it fast too of course).

Cheers
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sQinN 26 Apr 2010, 10:52
ask zenix :)) he knows much about this
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w1Za 26 Apr 2010, 10:54
Intel X25-M G2 Postville 80GB 190€
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an1mal 26 Apr 2010, 10:57
search for benchmarks and find the ones with the highest and most consistent speeds (consistency is a big issue).
I guess Intel has the best benchmarks so far but it has been a while since I checked news on these SSD's.. imo the price is still way too high and the capacity too low.
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Krosan 26 Apr 2010, 11:03
Perhaps a RAM drive then?
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an1mal 26 Apr 2010, 11:18
sounds like something new to me :P... a RAM drive? isn't a SSD basically that?
I'm gonna google this now.
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Krosan 26 Apr 2010, 11:21
RAM disk to be more exact :P
cfr. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAM_disk
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an1mal 26 Apr 2010, 11:28
because the storage is actually in RAM, it is volatile memory, which means it will be lost when the computer powers off.
So any data you would want to physically store for a next reboot you will still have to write to a HDD or an SSD as far as I understand.
So it might be good for some faster data access but in the end you will have to write anything you really want to store.(so still the noise and the HDD's)
Also this can only be a secondary drive which means you will still have to boot from an HDD aswell.
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Krosan 26 Apr 2010, 11:38
Right but some of them (to my understanding) have a battery on board, keeping it non-volatile for a limited period of time (maybe days, or weeks?).
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an1mal 26 Apr 2010, 11:23
Sounds good but I see some compatibility issues.. as SSD's are an accepted piece of hardware(lots of support) and as I can't find any system requirements for these RAM drives. (as you noticed I didn't even know about the exsistence of these drives before you mentioned them)
Might be a good alternative but I know too little to be a good judge.
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kEEJi 26 Apr 2010, 11:16
These are good:
http://www.ocztechnology.com/

Btw, boot time with a SSD and Windows 7 is fantastic, and more with Snow Leopard ;DD
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Krosan 26 Apr 2010, 11:20
Yeah, read about the Vertex, but it seems that it's still very expensive... Anandtech is telling me to wait until Q4 of this year for prices to go down, but I don't think I can :(
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kEEJi 26 Apr 2010, 11:24
It's expansive yes, and i advice you to wait few months to have a good SSD which does not break in any weeks ;D

Btw you can buy a little SDD to enjoy boot time and install your OS on.
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Burneddi 26 Apr 2010, 11:57
Enjoy having a broken SSD if you're thinking of using it to store everyday files etc. Just install Windows on it and everything else on a normal HDD.
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Krosan 26 Apr 2010, 12:06
I'm not planning on using it for mass storage, that would be insane. But I'd like to put my OS *and* my programs on it, so I don't have to access my HDD's all the time when using apps.
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Suyodhana 26 Apr 2010, 12:18
Could you maybe if you can find the time, give me a warning level of 99?
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zenix 26 Apr 2010, 12:12
No problem with doing that either. I even know some guys who use big databases on consumer SSD's. Just too see how long they work, and they are allready online for few months. They dont have the life span from HDD yet. But when you use them in RAID 5 for example you can just swap them pretty easy. And the performance boost for something like that is huge. And you should allways make backups anyway.
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zenix 26 Apr 2010, 12:10
I got intel g2 80gb. Works great, win 7 boots in 6-7 seconds. It makes you feel you got a new pc.
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HuLk1 26 Apr 2010, 12:57
Would you mind do a video recording when you boot win7 on 7 sec? :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5LkX3xejJ4 more like 20-25
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zenix 26 Apr 2010, 13:16
Its after my raid array/ssd are ready to boot. And than to login screen. Thats the booting procedure. As you can see he logged in straight away. That takes few more seconds, and he wasnt counting from the boot procedure but he was allready counting from verifying DMI pool data. But you need to have clean windows, install for it. To reach it and newer firmware is also helpfull, i can see now after half year using this install. Its slower now, more like 10 seconds. But first 2 months it was like that. I think if i reinstall again or use my old image it will be fast again.
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Burneddi 26 Apr 2010, 15:44
Windows does that. I had some 30-40 second boot with regular SATA drives, and then several months later the boot takes at least twice that (I'd guess).

All sorts of useless daemons and such probably cause it.
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zenix 26 Apr 2010, 18:49
Its just the register. Mostly.
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ETNiES 26 Apr 2010, 12:33
Been looking at these myself lately a lot of new drives have came out recently, the only thing my pc is missing really.
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nakato 26 Apr 2010, 12:40
take the pretty one!
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duumed 26 Apr 2010, 13:33
some reviews here, should help a bit: http://anandtech.com/tag/storage
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Krosan 26 Apr 2010, 13:53
oh cool, thanks
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