Another SSD thread - 120GB under £150

[Brewster0101]

Morning

Few weeks ago I asked advice about getting a SSD under £100. Well now I have decided to go for a 120gb model and stick to no more than £150... Will be used on a SATA 3 motherboard and as a boot drive for Windows 7.

I was looking at the :

Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB @ £136 from scan on a weekend special

Or

120GB SSD Corsair Force Series 3 @ £124 from scan on a weekend special

Big debate is speed. On paper the Force 3 is faster but in real terms because of the asynchronous NAND the Corsair uses the speed results are very varied. The Crucial M4 using synchronous NAND and its speeds are more consistent.....

But I did notice that even with the asynchronous NAND on the Corsair, its write speeds don't drop below the max write speed of the synchronous Nand speed of the 128gb M4.

Can someone with more knowledge confirm this or educate me.

[kalniel]

In real terms you won't notice the difference between them - they are both blindingly quick. The corsair should last longer, due to lower write amplication (there are a limited number of writes you can make to a drive), however you'll almost certainly never reach the limit before changing the drive anyway, because it'll be considered so old and slow. There are also compatibility issues with the sata 3 sandforce controllers, such as in the corsair (but not the crucial), so check with your motherboard to see if there are known issues. The Crucial might be a safer bet if you're not sure.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The synchronous NAND used on the Crucial drive shows much lower performance drop off as the drive is filled. The asynchronous NAND SandForce drives show large drop offs in performance when compared to their synchronous cousins.

Even though every SSD has issues when launched, many implimentations of the SandForce SSF2281 had massive problems. The Force 3 was recalled and there seems to be many issues with Agility 3 as well. I am not sure about the Force 3 GT which seems OK ATM. The Crucial M4 ATM seems relatively fine and the latest firmware means read speeds are massively improved.

Also,the Crucial and Intel drives seem to be very long lasting too. I would look at this thread:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...e-25nm-Vs-34nm

A Crucial M4 64GB has survived at least 191TB of data being written to it with write speeds stil staying consistent with no throttling. Write amplification with incompressible data is actually slightly less with the Marvell controlller than with the previous generation SF1200 controller.

[Sputnik]

Shame you didn't buy one of the Crucial refurbs.

I have a Vertex 2e and a Crucial C300. The Crucial C300 is better in my opinion. The Sandforce controllers just look better in some benchmarks like ATTO, If you compare them in AS-SSD the Crucial give a better score and has faster reads and writes.

At least with the Crucial ones the read/write speeds are consistent and are not dependant on if it is compressable data or not.

OCZ Vertex 2e 60gb.





Crucial C300 128gb.

[Brewster0101]

Shame you didn't buy one of the Crucial refurbs.

Didn't like the idea of a 30 day warranty on something that likely already broke once.

This SSD would be used with a Asus M5A99X EVO board on the SB950 controller. Nothing on the Asus forums regarding this board and any SSD problems. Although there is some chatty regarding the Vertex 3 on the 850 controller causing issues.

Amazed at the difference between the Vertex 2e and a Crucial C300 - you must be chuffed with those performance gains.

[Sputnik]

Well, If your going to use the SSD as a boot drive for your OS and Apps. I'd still get the Crucial as most of the time you'll only be reading from it. As you can see from the results I posted, When the Sandforce drives are tested on non-compressible data it's write speed isn't any better than the Crucial drives.

[kalniel]

Well, If your going to use the SSD as a boot drive for your OS and Apps. I'd still get the Crucial as most of the time you'll only be reading from it. As you can see from the results I posted, When the Sandforce drives are tested on non-compressible data it's write speed isn't any better than the Crucial drives.

Boot drive stuff is highly compressible data though. Just don't use it as your jpeg or mpeg storage drive.

And your vertex drive results are way too low, something's clearly wrong. I have a sata 2 corsair force 120gb and the results are similar to your crucial drive results in the worst case scenario.

[Sputnik]

Boot drive stuff is highly compressible data though.

But, Will it make any difference to read speeds? and even if it does the Crucial can still read at reasonable speeds.

And your vertex drive results are way too low, something's clearly wrong. I have a sata 2 corsair force 120gb and the results are similar to your crucial drive results in the worst case scenario.

That damn drive has been like it since I got it but, I've never found out why.

[Hicks12]

Must say either i have dodgy drives or SSD's really are dependent on a good motherboard (my mobo has NCQ support but no AHCI, lol... ide mode ftl).

Corsair f60 (boot drive)


New C300 refurb 128gb


no where near good speeds... i really do think its about the motherboard so will know in a month or two (depending how long bulldozer takes so i can decide if i want Intel or AMD lol). I think you cant really go wrong with any ssd now... these speeds are just headlines and advertisement as you dont need much in terms of sequential it was just the response time that made HDD poor, with the improvement that ssd brings aslong as you got for something like the c300 or newer you cant go wrong .

[Brewster0101]

I've seen some results on other forums regarding what different AHCI makes. Looks like not having this enabled can seriously decrease the performance of a SSD drive.

[Sputnik]

Maybe someone can explain to me how some drives alignment figure in AS-SSD is 1024K and others like mine are 103424K ?

[kalniel]

Maybe someone can explain to me how some drives alignment figure in AS-SSD is 1024K and others like mine are 103424K ?

Can only guess that the drivers are reporting it oddly. Try the intel AHCI rather than MS - performance is meant to be better as well (though boot time is longer as it initialises).

Best case type scenario for compressible data on my drive gives (though I had stuff running in background as well):

[danroyle]

i got a 64gb refurb from crucial the c300 these are my speeds and ssdlife report.

[Brewster0101]

Also,the Crucial and Intel drives seem to be very long lasting too. I would look at this thread:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...e-25nm-Vs-34nm

Information overload.... Very impressive data though from the author of that post.

I think the M4 seems to offer the best reliability over the Agility 3 or Force 3. Sacrifice's a little performance over pure reliable consistent speed and durability.

[iranu]

There's only one imho and that's the crucial M4. There's been a firmware upgrade and it's increased read speeds significantly. http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-St...ble/td-p/60995