New SSD - Samsung, Intel or Crucial

[Samwood]

Im building a new system (specs at the bottom of the page) and cant decide which SSD to buy, im torn between:

1) Intel 330 120GB (£80)
2) Samsung 830 128GB (£80)
3) Crucial M4 128GB (£85)

Reviews suggest that the Intel is the most reliable, followed by the Samsung, then Crucial.
But for performance its Crucial first, then depending on the reviewer Intel and Samsung are around about the same point.

My questions are:
a) Will the performance difference actually be noticeable?
b) Is there a significant difference in the reliability?
c) Which would you recommend?

My budget is £90 for a 120/128GB drive. Could just push to about £120 for a 180GB, but only if there's a performance boost with the extra storage.

Thanks
Sam

New Build specs:
CPU: 3770k
Mobo: Asus P8Z77-V
RAM: 8GB Corsair Dominator 1600MHz
GPU: XFX HD 6950
SSD: ?????
RAID0 HDDs: 2x160GB Barracudas 7200.7 (game drive)
PSU: XFX 450W
Case: Corsair Carbide 300r
Cooler: CM Hyper 212 Evo
Paste: Arctic MX-4

[Phage]

2) Samsung 830
a) Probably not.
b) Some people still reporting rare BSODs with Sandforce. This hasn't occurred with the Intel though. Still makes me nervous though.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5508/i...-to-sandforce/
c) See (2)

Odd new build you have there.
Why a last-gen GPU in a new build ?
Why two small HDDs in RAID ? Speed would come from the SSD. I'd recommend a larger single disk 1Tb or so.
Small PSU too - I'd suggest >550w from a quality supplier.

[HalloweenJack]

samsung 830 currently £77 on amazon

go get it

[Samwood]

Thanks for the replies.

@HalloweenJack - yea I spotted the 830 on amazon (its £77.98), so its only £2 cheaper than on scan & I get free delivery with scan.

@Phage - So you would suggest the Samsung over the Intel even though the Intel hasn't had the same reported errors and is (probably) slightly faster?

As for your questions:
- The 6950 was only £135, where as a 7850 (providing similar performance) is £170+. So £ for £, the 6950 is about 15% better value.
- The 2x160GBs - I had 1 lying around and bought a second (reconditioned) for £15. There wont be any data that i'm worried about loosing on there, so £15 for the performance(RAID0, 320GB, 7,200RPM seagate barracudas) is a pretty good short-term solution. Im fullly expecting to upgrade it within 6 months. 1 or both of the drives will then probs go into a HTPC i'm planning to build.
To give me this level of storage on an SSD (320+120=440GB) Id need a 480-512GB SSD, which would cost close to £300. My solution will have cost me £95, 1/3rd of the cost which (for my usage) will provide about 90% of the performance.
- The XFX PSU is actually a Seasonic OEM. 34A on the +12V rail gives me all the power I need for now (single GPU and moderate-high OC). Will upgrade if I cross-fire the GPU, then the PSU will probs go into the HTPC. Plus it was only £36 and its 80+ bronze.

[Agent]

I
Reviews suggest that the Intel is the most reliable, followed by the Samsung, then Crucial.

I'd love to see some figures for this. It seems the usual Intel = reliable (which they are, to be fair) has kicked in on reviews, but without any imperial evidence, I really don't like applying it to things which store data.

On the other hand, the Crucial and Samsung have been out long enough to have actual RMA figures dotted around the web - both of which are very low.

I'd personally go for the Crucial or Sammy, not that I have anything against Intel (although I do despise Sandforce - but that's a separate issue entirely)

[Phage]

@Phage - So you would suggest the Samsung over the Intel even though the Intel hasn't had the same reported errors and is (probably) slightly faster?

As for your questions:
- The 6950 was only £135, where as a 7850 (providing similar performance) is £170+. So £ for £, the 6950 is about 15% better value.
- The 2x160GBs - I had 1 lying around and bought a second (reconditioned) for £15. There wont be any data that i'm worried about loosing on there, so £15 for the performance(RAID0, 320GB, 7,200RPM seagate barracudas) is a pretty good short-term solution. Im fullly expecting to upgrade it within 6 months. 1 or both of the drives will then probs go into a HTPC i'm planning to build.
To give me this level of storage on an SSD (320+120=440GB) Id need a 480-512GB SSD, which would cost close to £300. My solution will have cost me £95, 1/3rd of the cost which (for my usage) will provide about 90% of the performance.
- The XFX PSU is actually a Seasonic OEM. 34A on the +12V rail gives me all the power I need for now (single GPU and moderate-high OC). Will upgrade if I cross-fire the GPU, then the PSU will probs go into the HTPC. Plus it was only £36 and its 80+ bronze.

Yep. Sandforce requires compressible data for those speeds. The Sammy and the Crucial will achieve their speeds with all data, irrespective.
The 7850 is smaller, quieter and uses less power.
Fair enough on the HDDs. Nice to see people re-cycling ! But the transfer speeds of the SSD will still be much faster than even your RAID, so your comparison is mathematically correct but not equivalent for performance.
XFX=Seasonic eh ? Good to know. Thanks.

[HalloweenJack]

amazong has a 256GB samsung 830 for £145 btw

and scan has the same drive for £150 with the crucial M4 coming in at £155 for same capacity

[dangel]

Samsung 830 - not even a difficult choice!

Would I touch a sandforce controller again?

No. No thank you, it made my PC's power-on button like a game of Russian roulette..

[Samwood]

Ok thanks. Samsung it is then!

@Agent - I havent found a Samsung vs Intel vs Crucial comparison. My assertion that the Crucial was the fastest followed by Intel then Samsung is based on a handfull (well must be close to 20) of reviews & benchmarks i've read.

@Phage - Thanks for clarifying. Yea I read that about the 7850 but (even after calculating the extra electric cost) the 6950 is still beter VFM (for my use at least). I know i'll never be hitting the 500mb/s SSD speeds with my RAID setup (might get 200mb/s) and the latencies will be much higher, but still for £15, even if it fails after 6 months I wont be too fussed.
XFX=Seasonic. Saw a few forum posts where a few people had come to that conclusion, haven't seen a press release or official review state that tho. But the XFX name is good enough for me to part with my cash.

Thanks for everyone help. Sam

[Agent]

Even if you can put them in some sort of order, the difference between the Sammy and the Crucial is negligible. It's commonly accepted that a user wouldn't be able to separate them in use

Neither is a bad buy.

[Samwood]

Yea I actually watched a video yesterday that was saying something similar, i.e. that the speed difference between most of the current gen SSDs is close to nothing. There's probs a little difference between some, but this only really applies to people that are either 1) professionals who require fast-as-possible storage (with no cost restraints), and 2) the benchmark crazed enthusiasts.
So it really comes down to reliability. The Intel & M4 tend to be higher rated on review sights, but the 830 is the forums weapon of choice... I'll go with the masses on this one.


Video mentioned above ("SSD shootout!"): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKte_vdE3Ow

[Bluecube]

A small aside to the speed discussion. I've got an SSD (can't for life of me remember the brand) running on SATA 2 and it boots up into OSX on my Hackintosh in about 20 seconds from a cold start. Given that SATA 3 is substantially faster, so long as the SSD you buy supports it, the difference between brands has to be negigible and noticeable only with artificial benchmarks. Just my 2p worth...

[chrestomanci]

I don't know about the Samsung, but one advantage Intel has over crucial is that it reports its wear via SMART.

I recently set up a couple of servers at work each with 6x 480 gb SSD in raid 0. I contacted crucial, and asks them how to interpret the SMART numbers to get the wear, and just got some meaningless blather about average mtbf. Intel on the other hand document in detail what all the SMART fields mean, so it is easy to get early warning of most sorts of problems.

[Samwood]

@chrestimanci - Yea I agree, Intel have most of the bases covered as far as reliability. Only problem is the sandforce controller, change that & Intel would have got my money... but instead it went to Samsung. Oh & s*** 6 x 480gbs in RAID0 thats gonna be insanely fast!

@Bluecube - Yea Sata III give increase the roof on the maximum read/writes. but a few reviews/posts i've read have suggested that this doesnt make a huge difference to everyday use - i.e. 4k random read/writes etc are not limited by the 3Gb/s SataII connection - these benchmarks are a better representation of the 'real' performance you'll get.

[xhtml]

Presumably you're aware that some people are experiencing freezes with the M4 SSDs?

[xhtml]

When using the latest firmware (rev 000F).