SSD Upgrade for sub £100

[Rookie1986]

Hey guys,

I'm looking to do the whole SSD upgrade thingy and just wanted to know what the best SSD for sub £100 is. In another thread about my Windows upgrade Pancake mentioned the Crucial M4's, are these really the dogs ballocks or should I be considering something else?

Thnx

<> Edit <>

Also, will I need a 2.5" to 3.5" adaptor plate?

[Yosh]

Hey guys,

I'm looking to do the whole SSD upgrade thingy and just wanted to know what the best SSD for sub £100 is. In another thread about my Windows upgrade Pancake mentioned the Crucial M4's, are these really the dogs ballocks or should I be considering something else?

Thnx

<> Edit <>

Also, will I need a 2.5" to 3.5" adaptor plate?

Just bought an OCZ Agility 3 on Scan at the weekend, it is regularly on offer and the adapter was just under £4, got the pair for under £80 delivered i think it was.

I just upgraded from a slowish hdd so i should see an improvement As far as i understand if going from a slowish drive to an SSD you should see an improvement with most of the newer ones.

[scaryjim]

How about a 120GB Vertex Plus for £110? Only slightly over budget but a lot more capacity then anything else in its price range...

EDIT: scrap that, get the 120GB Agility 3 for £125 Ebuyer bargains for the win

[Millennium]

120GB Vertex Plus for £99 beast your deal Scary

I did link this, I think it would be good for many patterns of usage (slow IOPS though!) but for the sort of hardware enthusiast who absolutely must have the best of the best I still think a 60GB M4 is the way to go. And upgrade the firmware too if you have to!

[Rookie1986]

How about a 120GB Vertex Plus for £110? Only slightly over budget but a lot more capacity then anything else in its price range...

EDIT: scrap that, get the 120GB Agility 3 for £125 Ebuyer bargains for the win

I got the e-mail about the OCZ Agility 3 this morning, not sure what the differences are between it and the Vertex Plus though??

120GB Vertex Plus for £99 beast your deal Scary

I did link this, I think it would be good for many patterns of usage (slow IOPS though!) but for the sort of hardware enthusiast who absolutely must have the best of the best I still think a 60GB M4 is the way to go. And upgrade the firmware too if you have to!

Well the space on the drive isn't really a factor because the system will run with the bare minimum on it (Windows 7, Office 2010, Outlook and a few other bits. No Music, photos or Video will be stored on the drive). So with that in mind which drive will offer the better performance??

Thanks guys ^^

[Sputnik]

So with that in mind which drive will offer the better performance??

It comes down to the old 'Sandforce vs other controllers' discussion. If you have a search there was a big thread about it not so long back.

Sandforce looks great when looking at the numbers but, There are issues with them slowing down.

If it was me I'd buy the Crucial M4.

[Rookie1986]

It comes down to the old 'Sandforce vs other controllers' discussion. If you have a search there was a big thread about it not so long back.

Sandforce looks great when looking at the numbers but, There are issues with them slowing down.

If it was me I'd buy the Crucial M4.

TBH I was leaning towards the M4, will I need any connection cables or do they come in-the-box?

[Rookie1986]

Well I placed an order on Scan.co.uk for the M4 + Adaptor, should get it tomorrow..... shame I won't get my copy of Windows 7 until the end of the week, guess its time to clear down my old HDD ready for upgrade day ^^

Rookie

[Millennium]

Enjoy your new SSD, the difference is like night and day if you use a lot of apps off the C drive.

Even if you don't, faster boot times are great. I was able to fit a Win7 install, my apps, and 2-3 games on my 60GB ssd and the difference is amazing. Yours will be even faster!

When you get Win7 you can install straight on the SSD and it will take care of alignment for you, so no worries there. I have heard from a couple of places that you need to run the Windows Experience Index after installing to get the best from your SSD (if I understand this correctly it changes some windows stuff based on you having an SSD).

There are plenty of resources out there, but remember to disable scheduled defrag of your SSD in Programs > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter if it's not already disabled. You don't really need this on an SSD (though I did run it once just after my install and a few reboots).

Enjoy your new SSD!

edit: you should connect it using any 6gb/s SATA3 cables which came with your motherboard. I had two. I don't think it will come with any, sorry.

[Sputnik]

Neither of my SSD's came with a cable. The OCZ came with a bracket and some screws and the Crucial was a refurb so I only got the bare drive.

Make sure you set your BIOS to AHCI before you connect it and install windows 7. If you do a fresh install of Windows 7 it should make all the necessary settings during install.