What cheap SSD?

[kalniel]

I think you're giving an almost zealous anti-SF position here Cat. They really aren't that bad - a few enthusiasts have found problems with them, but these aren't enterprise class drives and the number of problems is tiny compared to the number of drives in existence. In real world usage, they are the fastest drives around for the money at the moment. See the comprehensive Anandtech reviews.

Now if you don't have a normal real world usage then you need to carefully look at what your requirements are. Even with compressible data the new SF drives are among the fastest out there, but if you have a very very high compressed write usage then they might not be suitable - but you'd already know that and be using an enterprise class SLC based SSD.

If you're worried about it then consider the previous generation SF drives, like the Corsair force 60gb, Vertex 2E etc. These chips have mature and reliable firmware.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I think you're giving an almost zealous anti-SF position here Cat. They really aren't that bad - a few enthusiasts have found problems with them, but these aren't enterprise class drives and the number of problems is tiny compared to the number of drives in existence. In real world usage, they are the fastest drives around for the money at the moment. See the comprehensive Anandtech reviews.

Now if you don't have a normal real world usage then you need to carefully look at what your requirements are. Even with compressible data the new SF drives are among the fastest out there, but if you have a very very high compressed write usage then they might not be suitable - but you'd already know that and be using an enterprise class SLC based SSD.

If you're worried about it then consider the previous generation SF drives, like the Corsair force 60gb, Vertex 2E etc. These chips have mature and reliable firmware.

A recall is a big deal though. The whole line of OCZ and Corsair SF2281 drives with asynchronous flash have had issues even going back to June and July. QC seems to be terrible. The same goes with OCZ switching on DuraClass too which they use to hype up life(which also means much lower performance after a few years) . This is not the first time there have been issues with someSandForce drives either but the SF2281 seems to have issues affecting nearly every drive its on through multiple implementations.

If they don't have any major problems for the next three to four months I may change my view of them. I am not here to play beta tester for SandForce so I am not going to recommend their newer stuff at all. Intel have not fared better with the 320 series which also has problems(total data loss due to power cycle glitch). The M4 seems to have the least problems of all the recent drive although they are not perfect either. Long term reliability is also a more important factor than outright speed.

On top of this things like videos,images and music are pretty common pieces of data. Like I said the Agility,Solid and Force 3 and made to look good in synthetic benchmarks as opposed to real life situations. Something like the Force 3 GT which use synchronous NAND registers far better performance.

It is also the mis-selling of the NAND type they use. Look at the HardOCP article to see how big a performance difference there is between two seemingly similar drives. Companies like Adata and Kingston are much clearer about the NAND types they use with their drives.

[kalniel]

And Anandtech found that there was little to no real world difference between synchronous and asynchronous.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4604/t...sds-compared/6

Our Storage Bench suite groups performers according to die count/drive capacity. The 240GB drives are faster than the 120GB counterparts. There's also not much of a difference between the drives with synchronous vs. asynchronous NAND.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4604/t...sds-compared/7

Now stick them on Sata 2 and there's going to be even less (no) difference.

SandForce based drives continue to offer the best performance out of anything on the market today, not just in peak performance but in performance over time. For systems without TRIM support (e.g. Macs without the TRIM enabler) the hallmark SandForce resiliency is even more important. Unfortunately the unresolved BSOD issue makes all of these drives a risk if you don't know for sure that your system won't be affected.

Anand believes, and I'd take his word frankly, that SF drives stay performing better over time (reslilency), so I take issue with your repeated claims that duraclass makes performance worse over time.

There is definitely a compatibility issue however with some motherboards - some Z68 chipsets in particular. This isn't a problem for Saracen's friend. However I'd still go with the previous generation sand force chips if you're concerned - they are proven to be reliable and maintain their performance well, or if you don't have TRIM, the kingstons garbage collection will help performance in the short-medium term, albeit with higher 'wear' rate as a consequence of the increased write operations.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

And Anandtech found that there was little to no real world difference between synchronous and asynchronous.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4604/t...sds-compared/6



http://www.anandtech.com/show/4604/t...sds-compared/7

Now stick them on Sata 2 and there's going to be even less (no) difference.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/..._asynchronous/

Which is also confirmed by the Hexus benchmarks too.

If you are using SATA 2 the you might as well just get something like the 96GB Kingston then which is less than £1/GB or the Crucial M4 I suggested as you think all the drives are similar in realworld benchmarks.

Since this is the case then the Crucial M4 is a better choice then as it has had less issues overall. OTH,since it is not a SandForce drive it is not in vogue either. Meh!

Anand believes, and I'd take his word frankly, that SF drives stay performing better over time (reslilency), so I take issue with your repeated claims that duraclass makes performance worse over time.

That is the problem he has not actually tested it himself. The fact of the matter is despite what you say even he considers Intel drives to be more reliable when compared to the latest SF drives.

DuraClass agressiveness is dependent on how the manufacturer assigns the warranty. OCZ seem to be more aggressive in this regards and it can kick in earlier.

I would rather go with thhe drive which maintains it speed over 4 to 5 years rather than the one which throttled to be kept within what warranty the company thinks it wants usage to be in. TBH,a warranty should be time dependent not usage dependent. AFAIK,Intel does not do this and I don't think other companies do this either.

If all the drives have similar realworld speeds then I would go for one which has less issues overall and does not have a controller which has lead to one recall,and multiple other implementations having major firmware updates.

It is not limited to just one implementation of the SF2281 though. If it was I would just pass it off as bad QC on the part of one SSD maker.

From Anandtech:

"
The BSOD issue continues to be a significant blemish on SandForce's trackrecord. I don't have nearly enough systems deployed with SF-2281 hardware to really make any accurate statements of how widespread the issue is, but even if it is limited - it's a problem that should not exist. SandForce based drives continue to offer the best performance out of anything on the market today, not just in peak performance but in performance over time. For systems without TRIM support (e.g. Macs without the TRIM enabler) the hallmark SandForce resiliency is even more important. Unfortunately the unresolved BSOD issue makes all of these drives a risk if you don't know for sure that your system won't be affected.

The safest route without sacrificing significant performance continues to be Intel's SSD 510. "

Like I said if these issues don't crop up for the next few months I will change my viewpoint on the drives.

[ik9000]

Intel have not fared better with the 320 series which also has problems(total data loss due to power cycle glitch).

That problem's been resolved with a firmware update which is now available

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4646/i...text-13x-error

[ik9000]

to be fair to Cat, even Anandtech's tests show the Kingston Hyper X to be the best available

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4604/t...ssds-compared/

(The best Sandforce 2281 drive that is)

[Sheva]

Cat, It's not that I don't like the Crucial M4.

I just don't really see it as being £20 better. That's 15% more in price compared to the Corsair one I would be buying. I've not used SSD before. It will still be lightening fast for me. And it still has very good reviews.

The corsair one is basically the cheapest Sata 3 SSD you can get. And it still has reasonable speeds and after the update reasonable reliability. That's why I'm leaning towards it.

[Brewster0101]

The review from Hexus on the Corsair force 3 is quite interesting. Like you say the M4 is generally quicker even though it should have a much slower write speed.

So with the big issue being with non-compressible data. I intend to use my SSD for a boot drive, office, apps and a game or two. My Samsung F3 will hold all my media.

Still the M4 does hold its own even with app loading speeds. hmmmmm

Food for thoughts.

[Unique]

if you have sata2 am i right in saying that 300mbs is the fastest speed you can use, so a drive with say 285mbs each way isn't going to be notably slower than a drive with 500mbs each way?

thus getting the kingston instead of the vertex gives you more space for your money and more reliability, and wouldn't be half the speed of the vertex even though the specs show it can be twice as fast?

so no point in splashing out more money on a faster drive than 300mbs?

and in real terms a standard HDD transfer rate would be 75mbs (is that both read and write?), so a 300mbs SSD would be four times faster in real terms, thus a 2 minute bootup would be 30 seconds on an SSD and a minute bootup would be 15 seconds?

thus spending say £70-90 on the budget range of SSD's would give a fourfold speed increase?

i'm just wondering whether i should get a smaller faster SSD for my laptop or a 1tb 2.5" HDD. or even the hybrid momentum. it's a fast boot time to get started on the laptop that i'd like, but without paying daft money

[Brewster0101]

Ok ok, this is alot more complicated that I thought...

synchronous vs asynchronous NAND

Corsair force 3 vs Corsair Force GT ( or OCZ range, makes no odds on make)

£88 vs £115 (60gb versions)

I can't justify £115 for a 60gb hard drive. So if £88 gets me the latest drive that will have issues with performing as it should and also may suffer reliability issues...... What about going for last years models..

£77 gets me OCZ 60GB Vertex 2E , which seems to have little issues, but in theory is half the speed? I will be using SATA 3 controller....

Is it worth just saving some pennies and going with last years reliable tech?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The M4 does use synchronous flash and is slightly bigger than the other drives as it is 64GB(£1.30/GB) and is SATA 3.0 too. The Crucial M4 also has a 3 year warranty on their international website although Scan reports it a 5 years. If in the UK this is the case and not a typo that would be good news.

OTH,the Kingston is much slower but the fact is that it is much cheaper per GB(£0.94/GB). The Kingston has a three year warranty.

[Brewster0101]

synchronous flash .

Mind Melt!!!

Synchronous flash is better.... (more reliable speeds)

So the M4 is this years tech but is the write speeds still slower than the last years models as mentioned but has a faster read speed , by nearly x2 more speed.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

There are the OCZ Vertex 2E 60GB and Corsair Nova 2 60GB SDDs for around £75. There were some issues with both these SSDs with random resetting IIRC(I even remember some threads on Hexus about this). I would check out what firmware versions were affected.

There is also the Plextor M2 64GB:

http://www.ebuyer.com/265871-plextor...0mb-s-px-64m2s

It seems to use the same controller as the Crucial M4. AFAIK,this is the same Marvell controller used in the Intel 510 series. I know that the Kingston uses Toshiba TH58NV NAND and the Plextor Toshiba TX58TV NAND. OTH,I cannot find out what type they are.

[ik9000]

if you have sata2 am i right in saying that 300mbs is the fastest speed you can use, so a drive with say 285mbs each way isn't going to be notably slower than a drive with 500mbs each way?

thus getting the kingston instead of the vertex gives you more space for your money and more reliability, and wouldn't be half the speed of the vertex even though the specs show it can be twice as fast?

so no point in splashing out more money on a faster drive than 300mbs?

and in real terms a standard HDD transfer rate would be 75mbs (is that both read and write?), so a 300mbs SSD would be four times faster in real terms, thus a 2 minute bootup would be 30 seconds on an SSD and a minute bootup would be 15 seconds?

thus spending say £70-90 on the budget range of SSD's would give a fourfold speed increase?

i'm just wondering whether i should get a smaller faster SSD for my laptop or a 1tb 2.5" HDD. or even the hybrid momentum. it's a fast boot time to get started on the laptop that i'd like, but without paying daft money

Last time I checked the seagate momentus hybrid drives were giving their users no end of problems with degrading speed. I haven't heard of a fix, but haven't really looked for the last few months. If you're just using sataII then get a sataII SSD and see if you can still get a 34nm NAND model, NOT a 25nm one if you can avoid it.

[ik9000]

There are the OCZ Vertex 2E 60GB and Corsair Nova 2 60GB SDDs for around £75. There were some issues with both these SSDs with random resetting IIRC(I even remember some threads on Hexus about this)..

Not wishing to sound dim but what's IIRC?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Not wishing to sound dim but what's IIRC?

IIRC is If I Recall Correctly or If I Remember Correctly.