Best SSD boot drive value?

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TheTony

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Jun 23, 2005
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I'd like to add an SSD to my new build, as a boot drive. After my initial research, I settled on the Intel X-25V because of it's entry level price, reliability and read performance. However, with the next-gen on the horizon, there seems to be some downward movement on current-gen pricing in the last week. This has put two other similar capacity models on my radar: the Corsair Force F40 and OCZ Agility 2 60GB. Aside from the OCZ's extra capacity (and $40 higher price point), I'd like to know if there's any insight to be shared on any of these three models. My primary concern is reliability, with value and performance important but secondary.

Again, this is to be used for a boot (and core apps) drive.

Thanks!
 
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TheTony

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Jun 23, 2005
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flamenko said:
IMHO Intel long before the Kingston...
Click to expand...

Agreed - while the Kingston's may be similar to the Intels, they use the JMicron controller, which means that it's not going to be near the read performance of the Intel. In addition, that particular controller has had its share of issues - to be fair though, Kingston's "worked with their vendors to eliminate them".

jjmIII said:
Kingston 64gb with TRIM
Best deal IMO

or

Intel 80gb if you can find this deal
Best Buy
Click to expand...

Kingston - see above

The Intel, however, is nice. That said, it's a full $30 above the highest priced one I mentioned. In addition, this is for a boot drive, and in my case 80GB may be more than I need. Besides, they're being cleared out, so without a little luck, I'm going to need to hunt for that model, and end up having to return to BB to get the full savings ($30GC).
 
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TheTony

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jjmIII said:
Agreed....if money is no object.


Hmmm, I have not seen that? The user reviews show happy buyers...
Click to expand...

If money was no object, I'd get the X-25E (SLC model). :D

The JMF602 controller earned JMicron a poor reputation. While the Kingston you linked does not use the same controller (JMF618, from what I can tell), it reportedly still has heat issues. Some manufacturers have abandoned JMicron (see OCZ) and even Kingston has migrated to other controllers for some of their drives (ie SSDNow V+ series with a Samsung controller).

I'm sure the Kingston drive will do the job, but I'd rather get a more reliable and better performing Intel or Corsair for the same price. Or spend a little more for the Agility 2 with the larger capacity.

To that end, can any comment on the Corsair F40 or Agility 2 60GB? Or how the X-25V's read performance stacks up? The F40 is relatively new, so experience with the F120 is also appreciated, since they're very similar.
 
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FishAk

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Jun 13, 2010
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With 40Gb nand, the X-25V, and F40 will yield about 30Gb, and 37Gb respectively. The Agility 2, with it's 64Gb nand, yields a true 60Gb usable capacity. I didn't research prices, but if the drives are anywhere close to each other, the Agility 2 is the better buy by a long shot.


This is assuming that the F40 is actually a SandForce drive, which I'm not sure. If it's not, it shouldn't even be on your radar screen, unless it's significantly priced, very much below the Intel drive.


Personally, for a boot drive, I wouldn't consider anything under 60Gb if using Windows 7, considering the expected size of the W7 service packs. If you work real hard at it, and give up some of the features of W7, you can squeeze everything into a smaller drive. But actual usable space under 40Gb will get real tight in a hurry.

Edit:
OK, I just saw your post about the price of the drives on another thread. Just considering actual usable space, the price/Gb is as follows:


Intel X-25V – 30Gb - $100 = $3.33/Gb
Corsair Force F40 - 37Gb - $90 = $2.43/Gb
OCZ Agility 2 - 60Gb - $135 = $2.25/Gb
 
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TheTony

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Jun 23, 2005
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FishAk said:
With 40Gb nand, the X-25V, and F40 will yield about 30Gb, and 37Gb respectively. The Agility 2, with it's 64Gb nand, yields a true 60Gb usable capacity. I didn't research prices, but if the drives are anywhere close to each other, the Agility 2 is the better buy by a long shot.


This is assuming that the F40 is actually a SandForce drive, which I'm not sure. If it's not, it shouldn't even be on your radar screen, unless it's significantly priced, very much below the Intel drive.


Personally, for a boot drive, I wouldn't consider anything under 60Gb if using Windows 7, considering the expected size of the W7 service packs. If you work real hard at it, and give up some of the features of W7, you can squeeze everything into a smaller drive. But actual usable space under 40Gb will get real tight in a hurry.

Edit:
OK, I just saw your post about the price of the drives on another thread. Just considering actual usable space, the price/Gb is as follows:


Intel X-25V – 30Gb - $100 = $3.33/Gb
Corsair Force F40 - 37Gb - $90 = $2.43/Gb
OCZ Agility 2 - 60Gb - $135 = $2.25/Gb
Click to expand...


The Force F40 does use the Sandforce controller.

I've heard varying reports on how much capacity is sufficient for a boot drive, but none have said that 40 was insufficient. The question was, rather, whether the remaining space was sufficient for core applications and any future (core) additions. I've heard of W7 using as little as 10GBs (Ultimate 64-bit) but it seems 15-20 is more realistic - are you suggesting with service packs it'll use upwards of 30 GB?

The pricing on the Agility is in line with the others, in terms of extra cost for extra capacity, so I wouldn't have a problem choosing it on a value basis. Really my only hesitation with that model is OCZ's quality - while they seem to produce a good product, I'm not convinced their quality is consistent. This is only based on what I've heard from others, however.

Appreciate the response - reinforced some considerations, and you addressed the 3 models I mentioned specifically.
 
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blckgrffn

blckgrffn

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"@acfoltzer My standing recommendation is anything SandForce based, MLC is fine unless you're talking about a compiler server farm"

From Anands twitter feed, and I am guessing he has spent more time looking into this than any of us ;)
 
GullyFoyle

GullyFoyle

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Dec 13, 2000
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I know it's not on your radar TheTony, but I just wanted to throw this out there, for other's comparison purposes:

Intel X-25V – 30Gb - $100 = $3.33/Gb
Corsair Force F40 - 37Gb - $90 = $2.43/Gb
OCZ Agility 2 - 60Gb - $135 = $2.25/Gb
Click to expand...

Kingston 64gb with TRIM: 64Gb - $94 AR = $1.47/Gb :)
 
GullyFoyle

GullyFoyle

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Dec 13, 2000
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Link to why the Kingston requires so much more empty space to maintain performance?
Are you referring to the space reserved for "levelling" during formatting? Because I heard this drive formats to 59.5GB...
 
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FishAk

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GullyFoyle said:
Link to why the Kingston requires so much more empty space to maintain performance?
Are you referring to the space reserved for "levelling" during formatting? Because I heard this drive formats to 59.5GB...
Click to expand...
According to an IBM study, to keep write amplification down, and therefor performance up, the more static data you have, the more spare area you need.

Since the SF controller uses compression- sometimes saving as much as 50 percent of it's nand when saving data, but telling the OS it used the full space for the file(s) it was told to save- SF can use that saved nand as spare area. This makes it unnecessary to set aside any extra space to keep up performance with the SF drives.

From what I can tell, the Kingston 64Gb drive uses a Toshiba/JMicron controller- which certainly must warrant more spare area than real controllers.
 
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blckgrffn

blckgrffn

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Well, spreading your assumptions are nice but misleading.

This drive formats to basically 64GB marketing size from my experience - and its likely the space it needs to do wear leveling is hidden from view - and the SF drive doesn't need to have so much of this space set aside. This is a deal for the manufacturers - they can pass that savings along if they want to.

Do you really think that these drives die when written full? That the drive manufacturers would have some hidden value of free space that we, as users, would need to kept set aside at all times? TRIM should take care of this for us by keeping the data written as concisely as possible and making sure whole blocks are available for use, ie not a huge performance problem?

I got that from reading Anand's articles and if I misread it, I am sorry.

FishAk said:
According to an IBM study, to keep write amplification down, and therefor performance up, the more static data you have, the more spare area you need.

Since the SF controller uses compression- sometimes saving as much as 50 percent of it's nand when saving data, but telling the OS it used the full space for the file(s) it was told to save- SF can use that saved nand as spare area. This makes it unnecessary to set aside any extra space to keep up performance with the SF drives.

From what I can tell, the Kingston 64Gb drive uses a Toshiba/JMicron controller- which certainly must warrant more spare area than real controllers.
Click to expand...
 
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FishAk

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blckgrffn said:
Well, spreading your assumptions are nice but misleading.
Click to expand...

The only part that's an assumption is this:

FishAk said:
- SF can use that saved nand as spare area. This makes it unnecessary to set aside any extra space to keep up performance with the SF drives.
Click to expand...

From the AnandTech articals, we know:

1- SF doesn't write everything to the nand. The SF compression algorithm can save up to half the writes at least.

2- Even though the SF controller only uses say 7Gb to save a 10Gb file, it still reports that 10Gb of space was consumed. Neither the user, or the OS can access the saved (3Gb in this example) space. SF reports it as used.

My speculation, for which I have no corroborative evidence, is that the SF guys are much smarter than I am, and that they would realize that they could use this saved nand as spare area.

As far as I know, no other controller uses compression, which saves space on the nand, which in turn, could allow for that saved space to be used as spare area. Therefor, all other drives need to have more than the stock 7 percent reserved for spare to keep performance.

Obviously, capacity is the single biggest drawback for consumers of SSDs. Naturally, manufacturers would wish to advertise the most usable space possible for their drives. Hell, some, like Kingston, even advertise the total nand, instead of the actual user space available.

I don't have an answer as to why, if SF truly does operate the way I suspect, they wouldn't make more of it in their adds. Perhaps they goofed, and don't actually use that saved space. Perhaps they simply don't want to get so technical with consumers- thinking it would not benefit their bottom line.
 
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blckgrffn

blckgrffn

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Saying that you need to keep a TRIM enabled Kingston drive at 50% used is an unproven, at best, assertion.

General question - have SSD manufacturers foregone the 1GB = 1,000 MB thing are are we still going to be buying drives that format differently than are advertised?
 
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fuzzymath10

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Feb 17, 2010
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blckgrffn said:
Saying that you need to keep a TRIM enabled Kingston drive at 50% used is an unproven, at best, assertion.

General question - have SSD manufacturers foregone the 1GB = 1,000 MB thing are are we still going to be buying drives that format differently than are advertised?
Click to expand...

In Intel's case, I think they use the difference as spare area. So on my 80GB X25-M, there are 80GiB of memory, but only 80GB is usable (i.e. it looks like an 80GB magnetic drive in terms of capacity, i.e. 74.5GiB), and the rest is spare area.
 
flamenko

flamenko

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I hope this doesnt suddenly become a OCZ rebate thread yet again but honestly, that is a great price (the OCZ) if you want to join the club and then wait for the rebate.

The trade off of course is better scoring as well as a guarantee that the drive will not degrade in performance throughout warranty of the drive.

Can I ask a favour? The reason is because I have asked literally dozens of others and not one has gotten back to me yet. You see, the biggest problem with ssd technology is that the majority of ssds slow significantly as they fill. I did a simple test with the OWC and this was the result:

owc+gold+500mb.PNG


Can you fill that drive completely, run a CDM with it at 0FILL and then post the result once you have done it. The only drive that I can do this with is the OWC believe it or not and I havent got a OCZ so I keep asking but never get the result which I am starting to wonder about.
 
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