current status of solid state hard drive technology

[wpshooter]

I am anticipating building myself a new system soon.

I am wondering if the technology for an affordable ($200 or less) solid state hard drive has come to the point that I should try a SSD instead of a convention platter drive.

I have done some research, but a lot of the information I am seeing appears to be somewhat dated/old.

One of the things that I have been seeing are postings regarding concerns about lags/latencies in the lower price level SSDs. Is this STILL/presently something that I need to be alarmed about regarding the SSD drives ?

If I were to decide to try one of these drives, what would be your recommendations as far as fastest and most reliable drive brands and models in a $200 or below price range ?

Thanks.

 

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

SSD is quickly maturing. However, the cheap early released ones are not worth buying. There's a reason they are cheap, and the new Intel ones are not.

It is relatively safe to buy SSD right now though. I would not spend a lot on it, but two smaller ones in a RAID0 would be something I'd do in a new system for a quick machine for general use and gaming probably. Then slap a big fat HDD next to them for storage. The OCZ and Patriot SSD's in the 30~32g ranges have been tried & tested and are good drives for their cost. They are not as good as the $600 Intel drive, speed wise, but hey, $500 difference there. Two of those 30g's in RAID0 perform exquisitely.

Very best,

 

[Denithor]

Not in the <$200 price range.

The low end drives suffer "micro-stutter" related to extremely poor write performance as a result of the crappy JMicron controller they all use (yep - all of them).

There are some advances on the way, take a look at my other thread on the subject. New info out today!

 

[Blain]

An SSD under $200? :shocked:

Stay up on the porch and stick with a 7200rpm mechanical drive. :thumbsup:
Maybe grab a VelociRaptor.

 

[wpshooter]

Originally posted by: Blain
An SSD under $200? :shocked:

Stay up on the porch and stick with a 7200rpm mechanical drive. :thumbsup:
Maybe grab a VelociRaptor.

Yes, under $200.

Unless I am mistaken, there are several of them already listed on newegg.com.

Thanks.

 

[Denithor]

There are quite a few listed but none of them are worth buying just yet.

But the new G.Skill Titan drives look very, very promising indeed.

 

[bradley]

Everyone focuses on read speed but neglects writes. I want a balance of both, also great wear leveling and RAID support. I want a better price price/performance ratio that Intel currently offers. With that criteria in mind, for me the G.Skill Titan is the first drive worth owning.... even with those two jmicron controllers in RAID.

I believe the original question was about maturity though. Until drives no longer need OS tweaking to avoid defragmentation, prefetching, pagefile usage, hibernation, system restore etc. for increased longevity, I'd say the tech isn't completely mature yet.... more than stable enough however.

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: bradley
Everyone focuses on read speed but neglects writes. I want a balance of both, also great wear leveling and RAID support. I want a better price price/performance ratio that Intel currently offers. With that criteria in mind, for me the G.Skill Titan is the first drive worth owning.... even with those two jmicron controllers in RAID.

Yep - $1.95-2.34/GB is a lot better ratio than $6.25/GB that Intel wants for their drives.

I believe the original question was about maturity though. Until drives no longer need OS tweaking to avoid defragmentation, prefetching, pagefile usage, hibernation, system restore etc. for increased longevity, I'd say the tech isn't completely mature yet.... more than stable enough however.

How is that a reflection on the drive itself? M$ tuned Vista for optimal performance on mechanical drives - and did a good job with it. But that has nothing to do with drive performance or longevity, just with the OS being set up for older technology (remember, Vista came out two years ago).

The one thing I find a little disturbing is the two year warranty on these drives. I mean, the top-tier models from WD & Seagate come with five year warranties, why should we have to settle for two on these?

 

[bradley]

Originally posted by: Denithor

How is that a reflection on the drive itself?

I wouldn't say its a reflection on SSD technology as much as its maturity. The average user wants complete support out of the box. Hardware is only as good as its software support. They don't know anything about the registry, and will pay extra to remain happily in bliss.

There are probably just as many early adopters with a vague understanding of the additional wear-and-tear on non-tweaked SSD drives running Vista/XP. I hope Windows 7 will make that contention moot. I'm sure the SSD warranties will become more robust with time too.

 

[taltamir]

SSD is maturing RAPIDLY, and is already awesome for the laptop. But it is not yet competitive in the desktop computer section. Get a 150GB velociraptor.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...sc=velociraptor&Page=1

 

[SunSamurai]

Get a 150GB velociraptor? I hope you guys are kidding? You do know their are fixes for the shuddering drives. 80$ gets you 32GB of way better performance than a raptor.

 

[Cookie Monster]

The OCZ vertex and G.Skill titan all look promising especially the former, where they carry 32MB of cache (or 64? correct me if I am wrong). The next generation SSDs, like vertex2 also looks VERY promising. It wont be soon when SSDs will take over mechanical drives.

 

[imported_TimBob]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
The OCZ vertex and G.Skill titan all look promising especially the former, where they carry 32MB of cache (or 64? correct me if I am wrong). The next generation SSDs, like vertex2 also looks VERY promising. It wont be soon when SSDs will take over mechanical drives.

I think the 30gb and 60gb have 32mb cache and the larger ones have 64mb.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
The OCZ vertex and G.Skill titan all look promising especially the former, where they carry 32MB of cache (or 64? correct me if I am wrong). The next generation SSDs, like vertex2 also looks VERY promising. It wont be soon when SSDs will take over mechanical drives.

yes, there are SSDs that rip the raptor apart... but they are significantly more expensive. price competative SSDs are much weaker than the raptor.

 

[yh125d]

I promised myself to wait 6 more months until I mess with SSD at all, but it's getting hard to refrain...

 

[taltamir]

it is very tempting...

 

[meson2000]

Are the OCZ Vertex drives out anywhere to buy yet??? Seems like they were announced a while ago...

 

[imported_TimBob]

Latest date I've seen for Vertex is January 31st.

 

[coolVariable]

Seems like OCZ is pulling a bait and switch again
I really dislike that company.