What cheap SSD?

[Saracen]

A friend wants a cheap-ish SSD, of about 60GB. I'm not convinced he'll see value for money, but it's his money and he wants one.

So .... in the "value" bracket, what do people recommend .... and what should the avoid?

It's a Q6600 machine, 8GB DDR2 and, obviously, SATA-2.

Are the Sata-3 drives worth going for?

Should he avoid Sandforce?

What about OZC Agility 3 etc? They seem cheap at the moment.

Any opinions gratefully received, and passed on.

Thanks, all.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What sort of budget are we looking at?

Beware of the cheaper OCZ and Corsair SSDs as they use asynchronous flash and the latest SandForce controllers are buggy.

I would look at a Crucial M4 if speed is important.

However,the best deal ATM is for this Kingston SSD:

http://www.ebuyer.com/246998-kingsto...s-svp100s2-96g

[Saracen]

Budget .... about the point you're at there, but no higher.

Importance of speed? Best I can say is "relative". Any SSD is likely to be quick for him, but it's a general purpose machine, not a speed demon. I guess the answer is that faster is better provided it's not at a huge price premium.

Personally, I like the look of the Kingston, particularly in terms of capacity for the the price. I'm not convinced he'll do himself any favours if he goes for M4 performance over V+100 capacity, given that the budget tops out at around that point.

So the way I read it, he has a choice .... does he want smaller and a bit faster, or bigger and a bit slower.

Or am I missing something?

And thanks for the pointers, Cat. As you probably know, SSDs aren't really my thing.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

TBH,I am only using a first generation OCZ Vertex and the Kingston is tehcnically faster when it comes to write speed. Even with this relatively old SSD it is a big improvement over something like a Samsung F3 for boot times and loading of applications. The F3 is quite a fast hard disk too.

IMHO,I think the Kingston would do the job.

Here is the Hexus review of the drive:

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=30317

[Sheva]

I am going for the 120GB SSD Corsair Force Series 3 Series SATA III in my new build

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/corsa...0mb-s-85k-iops

Performance seems about as good as you can get. I don't know about asynchronous flash and controllers though. I hope that isnt a problem for me

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I am going for the 120GB SSD Corsair Force Series 3 Series SATA III in my new build

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/corsa...0mb-s-85k-iops

Performance seems about as good as you can get. I don't know about asynchronous flash and controllers though. I hope that isnt a problem for me

The Corsair Force 3 was recalled and the OCZ Vertex 3 had firmware issues.

[ik9000]

It's only one of the sandforce controllers that is buggy - The 2281 series. The 1200 series are fine.

And in Anandtech's own words:

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.

[ik9000]

The Corsair Force 3 was recalled and the OCZ Vertex 3 had firmware issues.

The Corsair GT uses Synchronous NAND as opposed to the Asynchronous in the Force 3. Are the drives actually recalled? I thought it was just a firmware issue but I might be wrong.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It's only one of the sandforce controllers that is buggy - The 2281 series. The 1200 series are fine.

And in Anandtech's own words:

The 2000 series is what is used in the latest drives!! You know the ones which were recalled and had issues.

"
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. "

The best drives in terms of long-term resilience are the Intel ones which have one fourth the return rate of other drives.

On top of this DuraClass is enabled on OCZ drives which artifically boosts SSD life by throttling the drives.

The Corsair GT uses Synchronous NAND as opposed to the Asynchronous in the Force 3. Are the drives actually recalled? I thought it was just a firmware issue but I might be wrong.

http://www.kitguru.net/components/ss...-3-ssd-recall/

The Crucial M4 uses synchronous flash unlike the latest Corsair and OCZ SSDs under £100.

[Sheva]

The Corsair Force 3 is OK now though right?

Also how important would you say synchronous flash is? Is it worth sacrificing read/write/IOPS for?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Corsair Force 3 is OK now though right?

Also how important would you say synchronous flash is? Is it worth sacrificing read/write/IOPS for?

I would read this article:

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

TBH,I would get the Crucial M4.

[Sheva]

I think might just get the Corsair anyway. It is nearly £20 cheaper, and the write speeds are a lot better.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I think might just get the Corsair anyway. It is nearly £20 cheaper, and the write speeds are a lot better.

Did you look at the article?? Look past the brand name and benchmarks which don't tell the full story.

This is what Hexus had to say about the Force 3:

"Corsair's 120GB Force Series 3 is one of the quickest SSDs available for under £170. Armed with a cutting-edge SandForce SF-2281 processor, it delivers excellent real-world performance when hooked up to a SATA 6Gbps interface, while keeping pricing in line with its previous-generation predecessor, the Force F120.

But competition at this price point is fierce, and users working largely with incompressible data - such as photos, music and video - may find that the similarly-priced-and-fractionally-larger 128GB Crucial m4 offers well-rounded performance better suited to their needs."

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=30998&page=8

On top of this it is plagued with issues. I would not touch it with a barge pole.

[Sheva]

I did.

The thing is, the Crucial M4 is £20 more. I don't know if it is worth that.

I wouldn't say the Force Series 3 is plagued with issues now

[Brewster0101]

I am too looking at getting a SSD for around £90 and looking at many forums, I've concluded the Corsair's Force 3 Series is good bet. Looking at Corsair forums, Corsair released 1.3 firmware which seams to have solved all issues. There are a number of people with issues, but there doesn't seem to be the same common issues as with the 1.2 and prior firmwares.

Seems that Intel controllers cause a number of issues compared to the AMD controllers.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I am too looking at getting a SSD for around £90 and looking at many forums, I've concluded the Corsair's Force 3 Series is good bet. Looking at Corsair forums, Corsair released 1.3 firmware which seams to have solved all issues. There are a number of people with issues, but there doesn't seem to be the same common issues as with the 1.2 and prior firmwares.

Seems that Intel controllers cause a number of issues compared to the AMD controllers.

The OCZ Vertex 3 and Agility 3 also had firmware problems too. They also implement DuraClass too. This is only seen on SandForce drives but none of the other drives with different controllers.

The drives are made to bench well but have poor performance with non-compressible data including videos,music and images means real world performance is not as good. The Force GT which uses synchronous NAND is much faster with such data.

Also,if these drives were not branded Corsair then people would not even put up with half the problems(like with their cheaply built lower end PSUs).

Look at the Hexus reviews for the drives.

Even the cheapest version of the Crucial M4 uses synchronous NAND unlike the cheaper asynchronous NAND found on the sub £100 Corsair and OCZ drives.

Instead what do Corsair do?? Bump up the cost by having you pay more for a GT version which should be the same price as the Force series.