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Help me choose an SSD. Should I even get one?

WhipperSnapper

WhipperSnapper

Lifer
After 5.5 years the Win XP Pro on my desktop has gotten screwed up. (No Taskbar, no way to even get to Help and Support so that I can go back to a restore point.) I'm thinking that instead of formatting this Seagate 120 GB (IDE) hard drive and reinstalling Win XP Pro that it might make more sense to purchase a SSD and install Win XP Pro on that. Aside from faster booting and program loading, I could still access the Seagate without having lost anything. (I've got everything already backed up, but still, I'd like to be able to see what programs I had previously had installed, etc.)

Could I just plug the SSD drive into a SATA connection and go to work? The mobo is an Epox -9NPA+ Ultra nForce 4. Would I have to mess around with anything if the drive needs to run in ACHI? Would I need to do anything in the BIOS?

Here are four candidates. I'm leaning towards the 90 GB OCZ Vertex 3 because it seems like the best value for the money and I need a 2.5-3.5 bracket (an additional $5 at Newegg). I know that some of the older OCZ SSDs had issues with bad firmware, but supposedly the newer 2.15 firmware resolved the problems and they are supposed to be good drives now.


$65 60 GB, Sata 3 ($70 with $5 bracket)
OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-60G 2.5" 60GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive
Is this one better than the $75 OCZ???
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227725
$100 – 15% off - $20 rebate = $65

$75 60 GB, Sata 3 ($80 with $5 bracket)
OCZ Solid 3 SLD3-25SAT3-60G 2.5" 60GB SATA III MLC
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227728
$100 – 15% off - $10 rebate = $75

$90 80 GB, Sata 2
Intel 320 Series SSDSA2CW080G3K5 2.5" 80GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (and comes with $10 Newegg gift card)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167047
$140 - $50 rebate = $90 with $10 Newegg gift card
Has Bracket
SLOWER than the OCZs for read/write

$97.50 90 GB, Sata 3
OCZ Vertex 3 VTX3-25SAT3-90G 2.5" 90GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227759
$150 – 15% off - $30 rebate = $97.50
Has Bracket
 
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What is TRIM and is it an issue with WinXP? Do some of the newer SSDs do their own trimming independently of the computer and operating system? What happens if the SSD never gets trimmed?
 
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Have you looked at Crucial M4? they are Speed of Agility and Reliability of Intel, they are expensive though...

I am not sure about the TRIM and compatibility with mobo but I have used SSDs in IDE mode with XP on older mobos and still got much faster boot speeds compared to HDDs
 
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It looks like the deal on the Intel has ended. I think it comes down to these three. What's the difference between the Agility 3 and Vertex 3 60 GBs? Which one would last longer? Which would be faster?

$70 60 GB, Sata 3 ($65 AR plus $5 bracket)
OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-60G 2.5" 60GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive
Is this one better than the $75 OCZ???
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227725
$100 – 15% off - $20 rebate = $65

$69.25 60 GB, Sata 3
OCZ Vertex 3 VTX3-25SAT3-60G 2.5" 60GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227737
$105 – 15% off - $20 rebate = $69.25
Has Bracket

$97.50 90 GB, Sata 3
OCZ Vertex 3 VTX3-25SAT3-90G 2.5" 90GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227759
$150 – 15% off - $30 rebate = $97.50
Has Bracket
 
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If you ask me, anything smaller than 90GB just isn't worth it.
Sure, you have only the OS on it, but I like to have some other programs as well, and the more space is very nice to have.

For XP, no, it don't support TRIM via the OS, but you can get a sandforce based drive that does GC automagically when you leave the drive alone with no write/read access to it for a couple hours. (As in, just boot your machine to BIOS screen, and leave it there for awhile).
I would use AHCI drivers on XP as well.
 
What is TRIM and is it an issue with WinXP? Do some of the newer SSDs do their own trimming independently of the computer and operating system? What happens if the SSD never gets trimmed?
Click to expand...

TRIM is an externally initiated purge of deleted pages in the SSD. SSDs do not delete (ie, zero out) deleted data from its file system when you delete something. It just marks a page as free for use. In order to write to these "free for writing but not deleted" areas, you need to write 0s before actually writing your data. Thus, if you try to write to these pages, it takes twice as long as normal; ie, your drive slows down.

Elixer said:
For XP, no, it don't support TRIM via the OS, but you can get a sandforce based drive that does GC automagically when you leave the drive alone with no write/read access to it for a couple hours. (As in, just boot your machine to BIOS screen, and leave it there for awhile).
I would use AHCI drivers on XP as well.
Click to expand...

All modern SSDs, regardless of manufacturer, have garbage collection that cleans your drive even if it receives no TRIM commands. If you feel TRIM may be an issue for you, Intel drives come with the Intel SSD Toolbox, which passes manual TRIM commands. It is operating system agnostic.

As far as the 3 you picked out, the Vertex 3 is faster than the Agility3, and the 90GB is faster than the 60 GB Vertex3. The 90 GB version would last the longest as it has the most flash. Incidentally, you will likely not see the death due to flash lifetime of any of the three proposed SSD's in the next decade or two or three... providing you don't hammer your drives like these guys do. Terabytes of data a day...
 
I'd look at 120 or 128 gb drives. I saw an off brand at newegg for $130 the other day. BF deals were even better.. $1 per gb is the sweet spot now.

Btw, intel is more expensive but they are the most reliable. If you can get a deal on an intel don't worry about the read or write speeds, just buy it.
 
120GB drives are starting to be interesting price-wise. My next drive is going to be at least 120GB for sure. I currently have the 60GB Vertex2, while the performance is pretty good it's almost impossible to keep 30GB free even with almost nothing installed.

I've seen the ADATA S510 120GB (SF2281 asyncronous) for as low as $139.99 after rebates (yes, some mail in rebates, but so what) - which is a steal really.
 
zCypher said:
120GB drives are starting to be interesting price-wise. My next drive is going to be at least 120GB for sure. I currently have the 60GB Vertex2, while the performance is pretty good it's almost impossible to keep 30GB free even with almost nothing installed.

I've seen the ADATA S510 120GB (SF2281 asyncronous) for as low as $139.99 after rebates (yes, some mail in rebates, but so what) - which is a steal really.
Click to expand...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...CE&PageSize=20

Best price on any of these is currently $139 shipped with no rebates. It was $129 last week. 5* avg review, and they've gotten 8 more in the past few weeks as well. Sandisk isn't a name brand, but with such excellent reviews I wouldn't be as hesitant as usual. And for a deal like that without the hassle of an MIR, plus the extra space, that's the one I'd buy right now.

I've got about 56gb available for data on my x25m g2, and I fell your pain about keeping any space available on it at all. I had to move moutains to get it back up to 25gb free after installing DAO + all the DLC and installing TQ/TQIT from impulse. I finally was able to move TQ/TQIT onto the storage drive, but it was a major hassle. I'm pretty stoked with my current setup, but when I upgrade to IVB/Haswell I'll definitely get something larger.

edit: after checking the others, they've all dropped prices aggressively. The sandisk unit was $40-$50 cheaper than everything else last week. Pretty soon we'll be seeing regular (non-sale) prices in the $1/gb range, with maybe crazy offers closer to $.60-.70/gb on BF with rebates next year. I remember thinking after spending around $220 for an 80gb x25m g2 on BF 09 that ssd prices were stagnating, but apparently the ssd manufacturers see a chance to grab some serious market share right now with the spindle drive companies in disarray right now.
 
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I got a 160gb intel 320 series in my wife's laptop, and it is almost big enough. I'll probably look in the 240-300gb range when I upgrade to IVB/Haswell. Hopefully I can hold off until BF 2012, it's scary to think about how low prices might be by then.
 
I don’t think we can help you to narrow down the size you want. More is always better – but only you can determine if it is worth the cost. Since you’ve been living with only 120 gigs, and if you only intend on installing windows and programs on the drive – then clearly something smaller would suffice. What is the current size of your windows and programs folders? You might have 90 gigs of programs and only 20 of data, or perhaps the reverse.

In my experience – my C: drive only has windows and programs – and is less than 80 gigs. I’d guess that I have only 10 larger programs such as office & games, and wouldn’t mind deleting one to install another if I needed to. So when I get a SSD, I plan to get 80+ gigs, depending on price. Money wont be a huge factor so I’d probably spend an extra $30 for 30 gigs of space, but I wouldn’t spend an extra $100 for 120 extra gigs of space I don’t need.
 
I saw that same deal on newegg yesterday. Either ssd's are finally starting to get reasonable, or the manufacturers smell blood with seagate/wd right now.
 
Elixer said:
If you ask me, anything smaller than 90GB just isn't worth it.
Sure, you have only the OS on it, but I like to have some other programs as well, and the more space is very nice to have.

For XP, no, it don't support TRIM via the OS, but you can get a sandforce based drive that does GC automagically when you leave the drive alone with no write/read access to it for a couple hours. (As in, just boot your machine to BIOS screen, and leave it there for awhile).
I would use AHCI drivers on XP as well.
Click to expand...


My personal experience is that 120 GB is the sweetn spot althought I started out with a 60 GB in my system. It depends, in my application I have a second drive. If you have a laptop which typically only have a single drive, a 240 GB drive might be the way to go. They have started getting a bit more affordable.
 
gevorg said:
Whats your budget? Currently, you can get Intel 320 Series 160GB SSD from Amazon for $165 AR.
Click to expand...

I'd really like to keep this under $100 but I'd be willing to go a little higher for the right value. Unfortunately it looks like the sweet spot for value is to get a 120-128 GB drive for around $130 which is a little more than I'd like to spend. I'd be happy if I could get a trouble-free 64 GB drive for around $60.

I tried to get the Kingston 128 GB drives for around $100 AR and even had one in my cart with the HARDOCP1221A 20% off Kingston discount applied, but when I went to check out it said the discount was now invalid. Guess they ran out of funds right as I was about to place my order. (You snooze, you lose.)

The 120 GB OCZ Vertex Plus drive for $110 after rebate (and maybe even $100 AR with $10 off via Visa) is tempting but so many people have had trouble with that drive.
 
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