3 questions from a SSD noob (yes I read the sticky).

[nanaki333]

It has been said that newegg has built in sales monitoring, when something starts to sell a lot the price jumps. Of course this could be just rumors, but it did happen with the 6850 video cards when I was shopping for mine.

it's definitely not a rumor. i've bought things and it went in reverse immediately after i click submit. the price actually DROPS by quite a bit when i bring up said item after i place my order.

 

[poguesquadron]

Regarding the Vertex 2 - Some have noted the numerous 1 Star ratings over at Newegg - how much stock should one put in these reviews? Are these people the loud minority, or is there definite cause for concern?

I ask because I'm looking at an affordable 80GB drive right now, and after rebates, the 80GB Vertex 2 comes in at $140, and this is also a drive recommended as a "Best SSD For the Money" from Tom's Hardware in April (that is, the same model number, not the later one which apparently offers smaller capacity and lower performance).

Then again, if anyone else can recommend a good 80GB SSD around that price range, that would be great. I want to use it as a boot drive, Adobe stuff, and some games, and the 60GB won't cut it for me (I've been on an 80GB laptop for the past 5 years, so I'm very much in the habit of routinely deleting or backing up old files).

 

[WaTaGuMp]

Regarding the Vertex 2 - Some have noted the numerous 1 Star ratings over at Newegg - how much stock should one put in these reviews? Are these people the loud minority, or is there definite cause for concern?

I ask because I'm looking at an affordable 80GB drive right now, and after rebates, the 80GB Vertex 2 comes in at $140, and this is also a drive recommended as a "Best SSD For the Money" from Tom's Hardware in April (that is, the same model number, not the later one which apparently offers smaller capacity and lower performance).

Then again, if anyone else can recommend a good 80GB SSD around that price range, that would be great. I want to use it as a boot drive, Adobe stuff, and some games, and the 60GB won't cut it for me (I've been on an 80GB laptop for the past 5 years, so I'm very much in the habit of routinely deleting or backing up old files).

Even a review on the Anandtech home page has a paragraph about failure rates on OCZ drives. I posted it for you.

The only reason I can see going for Intel's 510 over the 240GB Vertex 3 is the reliability aspect. Intel has typically had lower return rates than OCZ and while OCZ tends to take care of its customers very well, many would just rather not have an issue to begin with. I will say that SandForce reliability has come a long way in the past year but there's still a lot of proving that both SF and OCZ have to do with the Vertex 3 to really cement themselves as a top tier player in the SSD space.

 

[poguesquadron]

Sounds good. I think I will wind up sticking with Intel or Crucial just for reliability concerns. I'm coming off a 5 year old laptop right now, so anything will feel fast, haha. I've got my eye on an 80GB Intel 320 right now for $179 (apparently along with a copy of Assasin's Creed Brotherhood). I might just go with that.

 

[WaTaGuMp]

Sounds good. I think I will wind up sticking with Intel or Crucial just for reliability concerns. I'm coming off a 5 year old laptop right now, so anything will feel fast, haha. I've got my eye on an 80GB Intel 320 right now for $179 (apparently along with a copy of Assasin's Creed Brotherhood). I might just go with that.

I think that's a solid choice, I am looking into possibly getting a used C300 myself.

 

[poguesquadron]

It's just annoying that 80GB isn't as common as some other sizes, and I'm sure for a lot of people, it's kind of the perfect size. I've been using my 5 year old Macbook Pro with an 80GB HDD...I routinely just move things I'm not using to my 1TB drive, and I keep about 15-20 GB of space free with no problem (and on my PC build, all of my music and everything will be on the HDD anyway, so that's probably another ~10GB I don't have to worry about).

And hey, I'll get a game to test out, haha. I've never played an Assassin's Creed game so I'm looking forward to playing with that.

 

[Barfo]

it's definitely not a rumor. i've bought things and it went in reverse immediately after i click submit. the price actually DROPS by quite a bit when i bring up said item after i place my order.

The intel drive has now jumped to $175. Fuckers 😡