SSDs - State of the Product?

ddrueding

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MLC is worse than SLC, but they were able to mostly overcome the reliability and performance issues while bringing the price down. If they have enough redundancy and integrated checking to keep the reliability where it should be, I don't care what technology they use.
 

CougTek

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I received the 256GB 830 today. I'm not sure what to do with it.
Usually, you power off your computer, plug two cables to it (one for data, one for power) and you boot your computer. After going to the "disk management" section of the "computer management" window, you create a new volume on the newly detected drive and then you quick-format it. It's just a little more complicated for a laptop (you have to find the hard drive bay and then screw in the new drive - you might also have to copy the content of the former drive to the new one in order to boot the system). If your computer runs Linux, it's completly different and if you run MAC OS X, you're hopeless.
 

LunarMist

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:rofl: I have not decided where and when to use it. I'm hopeless, yet not a Mac user. :lol:
 

MaxBurn

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I have found the built in (to the EFI BIOS) disk assistant on mac to be quite good, handy to always have a disk/partition manager outside of the OS. HFS+ on mac not so great though.
 

mubs

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From various threads (the jtr's pc crapped out, the Merc's new massive build, etc.), I've culled the latest recommendations, listed below. Can you knowledgeable folks please rank them? Thanks.

Intel 320 Series SSDSA2BW160G301 2.5" 160GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - OEM

Intel 330 Series Maple Crest SSDSC2CT180A3K5 2.5" 180GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Kingston SSD Now V+200 KR-S3020-3H 120GB/SandForce/2.5" SATA/7mm slim

Intel Cherryvale 520

Samsung 830

Corsair Force GT

Samsung 830 (another vote)
 

mubs

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First of, all these were recommended by you guys, so I'm sure they are the best of the current crop. Personally, I would not split hairs over speed differences between these SSDs; the delta between any of these and a spinning HDD is going to be wide enough. I would rate reliability highest (for me), followed by b-f-b, with speed coming last.

There's a vendor here with several models of Intel's 520 listed on their website, with no price and a "Coming Soon" blurb. Most probably vaporware, but it'll be good to see them available here.
 

ddrueding

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If reliability is high on your list, I would put the Intel drives on top. For price reasons the 330, 320, and 520 in that order.

Then the Samsung, then the Corsair, then the Kingston.
 

jtr1962

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I'm definitely not an expert on SSDs, but reading a lot of Newegg reviews pretty much confirms what Dave said. Intel is tops for reliability, and when they have shell shocker deals they're not much more than Samsung or Corsair.

I agree about not splitting hairs over performance. All of the name brand SSDs are going to be >2 orders of magnitude faster than mechanical drives in terms of access time. Most will come pretty close to saturating a SATAIII interface, at least when reading. To me it doesn't matter much if one drive is 50,000 IOPS and another is 70,000 IOPS. Both will be stupidly fast compared to anything with spinning disks.
 

MaxBurn

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I'm rather of the opinion going for Intel or Samsung as well though my sample size is really small with only three G2 intel drives and now a 820 drive. Software sweet for each gets things done but the arconis that is customized for intel to get the right partition offset etc is a nice touch. Samsung included something as well but I never used it.
 

mubs

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The whole thing seems risky to me; I think I'll stick with hard drives for now. Maybe is a few years the technology will have matured.
 

Mercutio

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The advice that I've consistently given is that the benefits outweigh the risks. Add an SSD, but keep your important data backed up.
 

ddrueding

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The whole thing seems risky to me; I think I'll stick with hard drives for now. Maybe is a few years the technology will have matured.

It has been out for a whole bunch of years, and enterprise-grade drives are being released by bit names. These things don't happen to risky tech. And as Merc said, the rewards are staggering. Really horse and buggy vs. car stuff.
 

Mercutio

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The Stinson Scale is applicable in a vast array of situations. I've found myself using it in my classes a few times as well.
 

mubs

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Well, the current hw has been a nice big hit to the bank balance. Perhaps I'll wait a bit and then buy an SSD and port my OS install over to it. Thanks.
 

Chewy509

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CougTek

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Same SF2281 sandforce controller, but with 20nm NAND does drop the power usage quite a bit (compared to Intel's other offerings).

I think people interested in Intel's Sandforce drives should rush and buy the older generation before the 335 and 525 series replace them completely. Whatever slim performance and lower power gain the new generation might have over the older one won't be of much use when the drive's memory will have crapped out.
 

Chewy509

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Certainly, I wonder how far it'll go before we see SSDs are yearly replacement items. (most manufacturers only give 12mths on warranty, so what do they care that the duty cycle of drive will only last 18mth by design).
 

Handruin

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They could also create a 1TB SSD in a 3.5" case. Those are still very common among desktop users.
 

LunarMist

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They could also create a 1TB SSD in a 3.5" case. Those are still very common among desktop users.

I need the 2.5" FF for the notebook, but it can be 9.5mm in height. The Samsung 840 drive series is disappointing in that the max capacity is only 512GB, although all the chips are on one side of the board. I don't think space is the issue. My other option is to buy two 512GB drives or one 480 and one 512, but that mean the data needs to be copied off to the external bare SSD with something like this.
 
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