SSD questions for new system

[cactusjack]

Dear all,

I am buying a new gaming PC soon from Scan. I will buy with a normal 2TB hard drive and a SSD.

I have never bought a SSD before, and have a couple of questions. Please forgive my ignorance - I know I should read more about SSDs, but most of my reading has been focussed recently on GPUs and monitors.

Any advice is much appreciated.

These are the 3 options I have for a SSD (to run Windows and programs on this new PC):

120GB OCZ Vertex 3, Sandforce SSD, Read 550MB/s, Write 500MB/s (£74.60)

120GB Corsair Force 3, Sandforce SSD, Read 550Mb/s, Write 510Mb/s (£72.12) subtract £2.48

128GB Crucial M4, Marvell SSD, Read 500MB/s, Write 175MB/s (£71.12) subtract £3.48


Reviews of the OCZ seems varied.
Earlier threads in the forum mention problems with the controller for Corsair.
This leave Crucial.

I am not sure who or what to go with from the above options. Can anyone offer any insights into:

1) Which of the above 3 offers best reliability?

2) Are SSds a liability? - is reliability just as good or better compared to normal hard disks? If I want peace of mind, should I just stick with the 2TB hard drive for this gaming PC?

Thanks.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The M4 is the most reliable. There is also a fourth option,the Samsung 830 which is a very good drive.

[Phage]

Anecdotally the OCZ have a higher failure rate than the others, but this rate is still quite low. If reliability is your main concern then the M4 is your best choice.

A liability ? I'd say no, but I do backups regularly anyway. I don't know how they compare to a HDD overall but I have had no issues with either (touch wood).

In a gaming machine I'd say they were near-essential. The levels on some games can take a long time to load from a HDD, and seconds from a SSD. Ditto launching a game. At current pricing you can afford a 128Gb M4 and put W7 and a couple of big games on it no problems at all.

[cactusjack]

Big Thanks to Phage and CAT-THE-FIFTH.

A final 2 questions:

Looks like I will go with the M4.

1) The M4 write speed is 175MB/s - much lower than the 500MB for OCZ and Corsair. Is 175MB still pretty fast?

2) If I am running a SSD with the OS and programs/games, and the Harddrive for data:
a) Can I still install other programs on the Hard drive or would they need to be exclusive to the SSD
b) Would I need some form of RAID setup? - or is RAID completely unnecessary for the SSD and hard drive to be organised / communicate with one another.

Thanks again!

[SUMMONER]

I have had two SSDs die on me, an OCZ Vertex 2 and a Crucial M4. The Vertex stopped being recognised by the bios (no data recovery would have been possible - luckily it wasn't necessary anyway) and the Crucial showed loads of bad sectors, but was still accessible.

I have 5GB of free cloud storage with SpiderOAK and AllwaySync backs up all my important folders to the NAS every night. I consider this the absolute minimum when it comes to preventing data loss.

I would go for the Crucial M4 because the warranty is very good, however the Samsung 830 is supposed to be a weeeeee... bit faster.

[SUMMONER]

Read/write speeds aren't that important at all, a SSD appears so fast because of it's low seek time (the time it takes to find a specific file). Also a lot of the manufacturers are quoting sequential read/write speeds, which are not relevant to every day computer use (ie: loading Windows).

No special setup is needed. Simply install Windows to the SSD and create a partition on the hard drive afterwards (you will likely have to re-assign drive letters manually if you want the HDD to be the D: drive). Then simply CUT and PASTE the Documents, Music, Videos, etc... folders from your Windows user folder to the hard drive (Windows will automatically maintain the link to those folders) and all your files will be stored on the HDD instead of the SSD.

Create an extra folder on the HDD called Program Files. Now when you install a new application choose custom setup and point it into that folder to install the application on the HDD instead of the SSD.

[rustedzeke]

In a quite recent issue of the CustomPC magazine, they did a 'Storage Supertest'. They did in depth reviews of many SSDs and HDDs, and seemed without doubt in favor of the Crucial M4 series (their favourite was the 256GB, which they awarded with the 'Premium Grade' award. They also awarded the 128GB and 512GB with 'Approved' awards).
In my recent computer build I took this information into account and purchased a Crucial M4 128GB which I recommend.

[CommissarTommy]

You should also look at the 128GB Plextor M3, With its 5 year warranty, amazing reliability and Marvell controller it is a great choice. I myself have chose this of a Samsung (Which is also an amazing drive). Just avoid Sandforce (apart from the Sandisk Extreme) The Sandisk Extreme has good toggle nand so it does not have many problems but the Crucial M4, Samsung 830 and Plextor M3 are you best non-intel bets at the moment.

[Agent]

The OCZ only looks faster at writing due to compressible data being used, it really is a 'headline' advertising speed. When you use non-compressible data it's write speed drops.

http://www.destructoid.com/review-oc...e-213810.phtml
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/sto...ware-face-of/3

Check the write speeds in those reviews between the two drives. M4 comes out on top on all tests when writing data in the linked examples.

[Fyter]

I currently have the Crucial M4 128GB SSD.
Definitely recommend it, reliable and fast.