best bang for the buck SSD?

[blanketyblank]

I want to get a SSD drive for quietness and access times, but I've heard many of them have problems and the new ones which don't are prohibitively expensive for me.
I don't really care about drive space as long as the drive can fit the OS
so I think anything over 8 GB would work for me.
What I do want though is a fast boot drive so I can get into windows quickly. Write and read speeds are secondary since I already have 2 x 640 drives for data.

Given this criteria what are the best drives out there to buy and roughly how much would they cost? I don't really have a fixed budget, but the cheaper the better though definitely under $200. If it decreases the price I'm willing to live with some of the problem drives if they aren't big problems. I haven't really been following up on SSD technology so I'm not quite sure what the problems I should look out for are or how they would affect me.

 

[techmanc]

I cant say what a good drive would be for you but you could start looking here................


http://www.newegg.com/Store/Su...ubCategory=636&Tpk=SSD

 

[TemjinGold]

This one.

 

[blanketyblank]

Thanks that doesn't seem like a bad price considering it's 64 gigs.
Does that drive have any of the problems that I've been hearing about. Something about stutter I think.

I'm wondering if this drive would also be good:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820220341

From the specs it looks nice though it does say "up to" which makes me nervous.
I'm thinking maybe 2 of those in Raid 0 would make a super fast boot drive
though I'd probably try with just 1 since it would be my first SSD.

 

[TemjinGold]

All drives in your budget will have the stutter. The Titan seems to minimize it though with its dual controllers.

 

[magreen]

Originally posted by: TemjinGold
All drives in your budget will have the stutter. The Titan seems to minimize it though with its dual controllers.

Right. This technology is just on the cusp of being really mainstream, but it's not quite there yet. For now, the Intel one is dropping in price to the $380 range, which is starting to sound interesting... but not quite mainstream yet.

 

[techmanc]

I know this is off topic but how much difference in performance would this drive be using it as your boot drive. You also not be so drive space limited. Aren't there speed benefits of using a drive like this?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16822136322

 

[blanketyblank]

Actually I was considering getting a velociraptor as well, but I've heard that there is a high pitched whine from the drive due to the high rpms. Right now my system is almost silent at idle, and I don't want to lose that.
I've read somewhere the way to fix the problem is to remove the icepack and use a sound dampening enclosure, but losing the 5 year warranty is too high a cost for me to do that.

Thanks for the advice. Guess I need to wait just a little longer then even though at least the stuttering drives have moved within my price range.

 

[jedisolo]

Corsair is selling a rebadged Samsung 128 GB SSD. This drive uses the Samsung controller and it probably has onboard cache like my Samsung Sata 2 SLC 64 GB does. The drive doesn't stutter like the ones using the Jmicron controller. I have the G.skill Titan 256 GB running as my main boot drive in my Thinkpad T400 and I'm not experiencing any stuttering.

 

[TemjinGold]

Originally posted by: blanketyblank
Actually I was considering getting a velociraptor as well, but I've heard that there is a high pitched whine from the drive due to the high rpms. Right now my system is almost silent at idle, and I don't want to lose that.
I've read somewhere the way to fix the problem is to remove the icepack and use a sound dampening enclosure, but losing the 5 year warranty is too high a cost for me to do that.

Thanks for the advice. Guess I need to wait just a little longer then even though at least the stuttering drives have moved within my price range.

I have the velociraptor and I hear nothing from it. It is way quieter than the 74 gig raptor it replaced. This is one of the quietest drives I've ever owned.

 

[MTDEW]

Originally posted by: TemjinGold

Originally posted by: blanketyblank
Actually I was considering getting a velociraptor as well, but I've heard that there is a high pitched whine from the drive due to the high rpms. Right now my system is almost silent at idle, and I don't want to lose that.
I've read somewhere the way to fix the problem is to remove the icepack and use a sound dampening enclosure, but losing the 5 year warranty is too high a cost for me to do that.

Thanks for the advice. Guess I need to wait just a little longer then even though at least the stuttering drives have moved within my price range.

I have the velociraptor and I hear nothing from it. It is way quieter than the 74 gig raptor it replaced. This is one of the quietest drives I've ever owned.

I was gonna post this same reply. :thumbsup:
My 300gb Velociraptor definitaley does not "wine" and is barely audible at all.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: MTDEW

Originally posted by: TemjinGold

Originally posted by: blanketyblank
Actually I was considering getting a velociraptor as well, but I've heard that there is a high pitched whine from the drive due to the high rpms. Right now my system is almost silent at idle, and I don't want to lose that.
I've read somewhere the way to fix the problem is to remove the icepack and use a sound dampening enclosure, but losing the 5 year warranty is too high a cost for me to do that.

Thanks for the advice. Guess I need to wait just a little longer then even though at least the stuttering drives have moved within my price range.

I have the velociraptor and I hear nothing from it. It is way quieter than the 74 gig raptor it replaced. This is one of the quietest drives I've ever owned.

I was gonna post this same reply. :thumbsup:
My 300gb Velociraptor definitaley does not "wine" and is barely audible at all.

I don't have the velociraptor, I actually have two (raid-0) of the prior-gen raptors that if anything I would assume make more noise than the current gen velociraptor...and there is definitely no whine noise from my drives. Only time I hear them over my case fans (3x120mm) is when they are actively seeking. Otherwise nothing.

Sadly raptors got a bad rep from the early first-gen models and have never been able to shake it. I fully expect SSD's and stuttering to be the same way.

8 yrs from now I have every expectation that we'll still be responding to threads in this forum with OP's asking if SSD xyz has stuttering issues (despite having been solved 6 yrs prior by that time) :laugh: You know its going to happen.

 

[blanketyblank]

maybe it's a matter of luck or sensitivity?

I've been looking at reviews of the drive and this one:
http://forums.hardwarezone.com...owthread.php?t=2070270
says:

Both the Velociraptor and the WD Caviar 640GB has a very soft whine while its spinning which can't be heard from a distance. The whine from the Velociraptor is slightly louder since its spins at 10,000RPM compared to 7,200RPM. The seek noise is louder and slightly higher pitched compared to the WD Caviar 640GB. Those looking for a quiet rig should stay away from the Velociraptor.

Silent PC Review
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article844-page3.html
says:

The VelociRaptor has a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality disorder. As delivered in the IcePack frame, its acoustics can only be described as poor. The measured SPL is about the same as the previous gen Raptor WD1500ADFD but it actually sounds a bit worse. The 22 dBA idle SPL does not tell about the clearly audible, annoying 2kHz tone which rises at least 5 dB above the fundamental tone at 166Hz. Most regular readers know that 25 dBA with AAM is not quiet by today's standards. This is accompanied by an exacerbation of that 2kHz tone mentioned above, and audible harmonic overtones around 4kHz, 5kHz, 7kHz and 10kHz. It comes with AAM disabled, as would be the case for an performance drive, with SPL measured at 28 dBA, a level hardly any SPCR enthusiast would accept.

 

[MTDEW]

Originally posted by: blanketyblank
maybe it's a matter of luck or sensitivity?

I've been looking at reviews of the drive and this one:
http://forums.hardwarezone.com...owthread.php?t=2070270
says:

Both the Velociraptor and the WD Caviar 640GB has a very soft whine while its spinning which can't be heard from a distance. The whine from the Velociraptor is slightly louder since its spins at 10,000RPM compared to 7,200RPM. The seek noise is louder and slightly higher pitched compared to the WD Caviar 640GB. Those looking for a quiet rig should stay away from the Velociraptor.

Silent PC Review
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article844-page3.html
says:

The VelociRaptor has a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality disorder. As delivered in the IcePack frame, its acoustics can only be described as poor. The measured SPL is about the same as the previous gen Raptor WD1500ADFD but it actually sounds a bit worse. The 22 dBA idle SPL does not tell about the clearly audible, annoying 2kHz tone which rises at least 5 dB above the fundamental tone at 166Hz. Most regular readers know that 25 dBA with AAM is not quiet by today's standards. This is accompanied by an exacerbation of that 2kHz tone mentioned above, and audible harmonic overtones around 4kHz, 5kHz, 7kHz and 10kHz. It comes with AAM disabled, as would be the case for an performance drive, with SPL measured at 28 dBA, a level hardly any SPCR enthusiast would accept.

Wow!
I happen to have a WD 640gb AAKS and a WD 300GB velociraptor in my main rig that i'm typing on right now.
And neither of them wine at all....honest!

You hear a barely audible churning sound that all hard drives make when accessing the discs, but thats it.
And my Tower is sitting up even with my desk right beside me at ear level.
Its a Cooler Master stacker 830 with the side fan cage removed, so theres just the "open" meshed side panel between me and the drives.

 

[TemjinGold]

Keep in mind that SPCR's standard is absolute dead silence. Unless you get a defective drive, I guarantee the velociraptor is way quieter than both of your current HDs.

 

[Gautama2]

How long do you think it will be until decently-sized SSDs become affordable?

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: blanketyblank
Actually I was considering getting a velociraptor as well, but I've heard that there is a high pitched whine from the drive due to the high rpms. Right now my system is almost silent at idle, and I don't want to lose that.
I've read somewhere the way to fix the problem is to remove the icepack and use a sound dampening enclosure, but losing the 5 year warranty is too high a cost for me to do that.

I have three VelociRaptor 300GB in my household and they are pretty darn quiet, especially compared to the Raptor X that all of them replaced. I'm a reformed silent freak and used to run an Antec Solo case with undervolted Yate Loon fan, Scythe Ninja passive CPU heatsink, AC Acclero S1 on my 8800 GT, suspended hard drives... I can say that the VelociRaptor is not any louder than any other quiet drive.

You can buy the VelociRaptor without the icepack heatsink. They are very rare and have not dropped in price much because they are marketed to the server environment where 2.5" enterprise drives are pretty much the standard. Also, places that tend to sell them aren't trying to beat each other as the cheapest. I think the going price is around $280, while the normal one with icepak is around $230 these days.

If you just absolutely cannot stand the extra couple seconds it takes for Windows to boot, then do some research into S3 sleep states. If you get a setup (mostly motherboard BIOS support) that supports it and set it up properly, when your system goes to sleep it can pretty much almost shut itself off. Then, coming out of sleep usually only takes a few seconds beyond the HDD spin-up time.