Low cost SSD

[scaryjim]

OK, here's one to get your teeth into boys and girls

I'm upgrading an *old* laptop for a friend. I've already bumped the memory up to the max 2GB, and after some discussions with them about longevity and reuse etc. we've agreed to a 120/128GB SSD as a good way to give the old laptop a bump of speed in a way that would also be transferable to a new laptop down the line (probably after Christmas).

Max budget is £60. No, that is not, in any way, flexible.

Current contenders are:

Crucial V4 (Phison controller)
Kingston V200 (JMicron controller)
OCZ Solid (Sandforce controller)
Sandisk 128GB (unknown controller!) - n.b. not the Sandisk Extreme, which is sf-based.

So, three things really:

1) Anyone know what controller the Sandisk uses? My google-fu is weak, I've not been able to find out.
2) Which of those 4 should I go for, or which should I avoid like the plague (expecting the OCZ to get slated )
3) Have I missed any other options for less than £60.

I'll say again, £60 is an absolute maximum. Please do not suggest the Sammy 830 or Crucial M4, unless you can provide a shopping link for them at less than £60 delivered. Yes, they're great SSDs, but they're out of budget for this one!

[DanceswithUnix]

The one red flag here is: what sort of laptop will it be going into after Christmas?

I imagine a lappy that is limited to 2GB of ram isn't going to be limited by the performance of a cheap SSD, but if you *know* it is going to be re-purposed to a fast machine then I can see the 20K IO/sec of something like an OCZ Solid might make you wonder if it was the right choice, then you replace it and have wasted the original £55.

[scaryjim]

I think it's reasonable to assume that it won't be going into a high end laptop later - more likely to be a Pentium, low-end Trinity or even Brazos. I reckon even a cheapish SSD will still be useful repurposed into that class of laptop It's only going to be used for internet and office type applications even if she does get a new laptop...

It's quite a funny one actually, the lass the laptop is for is also considering putting money towards her blokes new desktop around Christmas, which she might also me sharing with him ... I keep talking to them separately about computers, and can't help thinking that they need to sit down together and work out what their actual total budgets are

[dav532000]

Cheapest I could find - http://www.ebuyer.com/279400-verbati...edium=products

[technodean]

My opinion is that they are all a risk right now. I don't think anybody has a 100% reliable product. take for example my M4, been upgrading & downgrading the firmware so much its unbelievable. first I upgraded the original because of the known 5000 hour issue. Then I upgraded again but after a months use it played hide and seek where it would go to sleep and not wake up. i.e put you pc in sleep mode and then return out of sleep and crash. the pc thinks you have disconnected the hd. had to revert back and now im on the new firmware but this isn't 100%, it pauses for 5-10 seconds during the windows loading screen, not all the time thou. . Gets worse if you have a mac as one firmware works for one model won't work for another. I do have the v200 and not had a problem but as I use it as my gaming drive I wouldn't know if there were any issues with an os installed.

[DanceswithUnix]

Well in the wife's laptop I went for a 240GB Vertex 3 drive for 135 quid. Was a toss up between that and the 120GB version at the time, but I could see her possibly filling the 120GB model so I took a deep breath and stumped up the extra.

It's a super drive, in an old i5 laptop probably quicker than really necessary. Thing is the other drives in the price range were old models which not only meant lower performance but also gave me doubts about firmware update availability and generally how much effort would go into supporting old models in a fast moving part of the market.

[HalloweenJack]

got to say my M4 has been teh best SSD i`ve ever had - flashed the 000F firmware and never looked back - truely awesome

[scaryjim]

I'm certainly leaning towards the Crucial V4 at the minute - it's the most expensive of the options I'm looking at, but it looks like Crucial have every intention of ensuring it has good support and it's pretty much designed for my purposes

[HalloweenJack]

they need to lower the price though

[technodean]

got to say my M4 has been teh best SSD i`ve ever had - flashed the 000F firmware and never looked back - truely awesome

Yeah it is a great drive, i have 2, I am running 010 at the moment, and apart from the pause during the windows boot. i.e where the logo pulses, it just stops for 5 secs or so, no hd activity light on the case and then the hd light flashes back to life, windows finishes loading its fine. But the problem a few of us were having with 009f is this http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-St...ue/td-p/107408 . as you can see from there forum what works for one person doesn't work for another. http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-St...s-SSD/bd-p/ssd

[scaryjim]

they need to lower the price though

On what, the M4? Or the V4? I think they're both probably about right for the current market, although I'd hope SSD prices continue to drop gradually over the next couple of years...

[c12038]

OK, here's one to get your teeth into boys and girls

I'm upgrading an *old* laptop for a friend. I've already bumped the memory up to the max 2GB, and after some discussions with them about longevity and reuse etc. we've agreed to a 120/128GB SSD as a good way to give the old laptop a bump of speed in a way that would also be transferable to a new laptop down the line (probably after Christmas).

Max budget is £60. No, that is not, in any way, flexible.

Current contenders are:

Crucial V4 (Phison controller)
Kingston V200 (JMicron controller)
OCZ Solid (Sandforce controller)
Sandisk 128GB (unknown controller!) - n.b. not the Sandisk Extreme, which is sf-based.

So, three things really:

1) Anyone know what controller the Sandisk uses? My google-fu is weak, I've not been able to find out.
2) Which of those 4 should I go for, or which should I avoid like the plague (expecting the OCZ to get slated )
3) Have I missed any other options for less than £60.

I'll say again, £60 is an absolute maximum. Please do not suggest the Sammy 830 or Crucial M4, unless you can provide a shopping link for them at less than £60 delivered. Yes, they're great SSDs, but they're out of budget for this one!

What chipset does the Laptop have as many SSD's are funny when it comes to chipsets especially 945 and 965 intels and some like via and older AMD one too

[cerebral744]

if you can add a little extra go for something like the agility 3 or the m4 at a push

[MadHocus]

If you find a good 120 for £60 give a shout. I've found ocz but I'm hearing bad things.

[drakioned]

If you find a good 120 for £60 give a shout. I've found ocz but I'm hearing bad things.

Here's one.

120gb Vertex 2E for £52 @ Novatech. (I can't post links yet)

I really try not to recommend OCZ in general due to their business practices, but for under £60, that is a viable contender (so long as you don't mind giving money to OCZ).

[Steph~]

I am considering the Verbatim 128GB SATA-II 2.5 inch Solid State Drive (Internal) 47478 for just £48.95 @ CCL Online. I don't think you can get it cheaper at the moment.

For reviews search STARTPAGE(dot)COM for "verbatim 128 ssd review"