Is there honestly any difference between these two SSD's?

[SeductivePig]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820171545&Tpk=sandisk 120gb ssd
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148442



Is it worth the price difference for me ($50) for 8GB more memory and a newer version of SSD? As far as I'm concerned the difference is Sata 2 vs Sata 3, and the read times are apparently twice as much on the Crucial.

Should I spend the extra money and get the Crucial? I have a $32 amazon credit as well so that brings the price down to $100 or $150..

 

[nboy22]

I have been researching the past few days about SSDs, and funny enough those were two of my top choices along with some other OCZ ones, and an intel one.

I bought the crucial one tonight from BHphoto. It was $180 for 3 day UPS shipping to my door. It is better than the sandisk for a few different reasons. The Sandisk is only Sata II, and the Crucial is Sata III. The Sandisk seems to have faster write speeds, and in a SATA III setup it is guarenteed the Crucial will have faster read speeds. It all depends on your setup.

I got the crucial because I will soon be upgrading to a new 2700k machine with SATA III, but my current board only has SATA II. If you have no other plans for your amazon credit and you plan on having a SATA III setup, I would definitely get the Crucial.

Oh yeah, and this is posted in the wrong section. There is a subforum for Memory and Storage.

 

[bryanW1995]

I would spend the extra for the crucial. Sandisk looks attractive now, but their support is nonexistent and they only recently became popular on newegg due to slashed prices. When crucial had an issue on the m4 they addressed it and fixed it immediately, if you get something similar from Sandisk then you'll be lucky to get ocz-level support.

 

[groberts101]

what's up with all the constant OCZ bashing? Should ask the guys around here who've had firsthand experience with their support before you start talking smack every other post you make around here.

Just gets old when people continuously parrot things they have no real experience with. If you don't like em?.. fine. Then just say that and leave it at that since it's not your cash and you've not been elected "our saviour" by anyone yet.

I've got 16 OCZ drives and they all work fine. My friends and family have another handful of them too without issue. many hundreds of thousands of these drives out there and they have no issues either.

If I or they actually had issues?.. I can literally go over there and get one-on-one support for a replacement drive. Not like any other mfgr doesn't have faulty drives or problematic installs on ocassion anyways. That's just life with tech in general.

In all honesty here?.. I'd take the M4 as well over that oldergen Sandforce drive. Older SF drives throttle too much, IMO. Newer 6G Sandforce's do not.

I'd take this drive over that M4 any day and twice on tuesday though. Toggle nand.. big cache.. bigger performance and 6G capable when you finally make the jump(if you havn't already). Think of it as a hotrodded M4. It was $189 after rebate.. but you missed it. I'd shop around to find one.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233226

 

[bryanW1995]

I understand that you work for ocz so you want to defend them, but they don't exactly have a sterling reputation for customer service. Anand even told Ryan Peterson to change the company name a few years ago. Can we agree that this was completely due to the company's overall poor reputation? Regardless, that's not pertinent to the OP's question, if you want to have a discussion about ocz's reputation why don't we start a new thread? That would probably be a lot of fun.

 

[groberts101]

Well.. you understood wrong then. I beta-test a few products for them and am no stranger to candor when I feel something needs to be said.

as for your interpretation of things that a reviewer says?.. I won't even go there because that's all it is. Interpretation.

A dedicated thread about OCZ? Why would we need that when just about every thread that makes mention of them goes off course like this one so easily?

Funny thing is for every 3 bashers that show up to talk smack about things for which many have no firsthand experience with?.. there are folks showing up specifically just to post that they have no issues and love their drives.

I say just enjoy what you bought and don't let others disuade you into thinking that they know more than you do about something that you actually own(or have owned in the past) from a reliability standpoint. Intel owners love Intel.. Marvell owners love Marvell.. Samsung owners love Samsung.. etc.. etc.

To each his own and every controller has its strengths and weaknesses from a user/usage model standpoint. That goes with any tech with most wanting to believe they made the better choice for whatever reason(far too much pride/ego involved usually). Live and let live.

 

[Coup27]

I would go with an m4 over those two drives. However as it has already been highlighted, one is an 1st gen Sandforce drive which I don't "think" are supported any longer, the other is a current gen drive which is. One is 3Gbps and one is 6Gbps. For the small cost difference it would be worth going with the m4, although it's not really a fair fight as one is a lot newer design than the other.

 

[bryanW1995]

Well.. you understood wrong then. I beta-test a few products for them and am no stranger to candor when I feel something needs to be said.

as for your interpretation of things that a reviewer says?.. I won't even go there because that's all it is. Interpretation.

A dedicated thread about OCZ? Why would we need that when just about every thread that makes mention of them goes off course like this one so easily?

Funny thing is for every 3 bashers that show up to talk smack about things for which many have no firsthand experience with?.. there are folks showing up specifically just to post that they have no issues and love their drives.

I say just enjoy what you bought and don't let others disuade you into thinking that they know more than you do about something that you actually own(or have owned in the past) from a reliability standpoint. Intel owners love Intel.. Marvell owners love Marvell.. Samsung owners love Samsung.. etc.. etc.

To each his own and every controller has its strengths and weaknesses from a user/usage model standpoint. That goes with any tech with most wanting to believe they made the better choice for whatever reason(far too much pride/ego involved usually). Live and let live.

So you're saying that the average OCZ ssd customer is just as satisfied as the average intel customer? Or Samsung? This is rich. Please provide some sort of proof or evidence of some kind to support that ludicrous statement.

And if you think that Anand is just "another reviewer" then you probably won't find many supporters here. I wouldn't say that he's the foremost expert on or reviewer of ssd's these days, but I admit that I'm hard-pressed to come up with somebody of similar stature in the industry who has spent as much time with ssd's at least. Maybe you'd care to provide us with some statements from other well-regarded experts or reviewers that refutes Anand's comments?

 

[Soulkeeper]

that sandisk SSD uses a 1st generation sandforce controller
the M4 should outperform it in most everything

for some reason I like the marvell controllers best right now

 

[Soulkeeper]

what's up with all the constant OCZ bashing? Should ask the guys around here who've had firsthand experience with their support before you start talking smack every other post you make around here.

Just gets old when people continuously parrot things they have no real experience with. If you don't like em?.. fine. Then just say that and leave it at that since it's not your cash and you've not been elected "our saviour" by anyone yet.

I've got 16 OCZ drives and they all work fine. My friends and family have another handful of them too without issue. many hundreds of thousands of these drives out there and they have no issues either.

If I or they actually had issues?.. I can literally go over there and get one-on-one support for a replacement drive. Not like any other mfgr doesn't have faulty drives or problematic installs on ocassion anyways. That's just life with tech in general.

In all honesty here?.. I'd take the M4 as well over that oldergen Sandforce drive. Older SF drives throttle too much, IMO. Newer 6G Sandforce's do not.

I'd take this drive over that M4 any day and twice on tuesday though. Toggle nand.. big cache.. bigger performance and 6G capable when you finally make the jump(if you havn't already). Think of it as a hotrodded M4. It was $189 after rebate.. but you missed it. I'd shop around to find one.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233226

nice catch on that corsair
"When comparing similar SSDs, it turns out the Corsair Performance Pro shares a lot with the Plextor M3S; so much in fact that they share the same PCB." -- storagereview.com

another marvell based SSD 🙂

too bad I didn't know about it before, I just bought the plextor M3 today
it also has toggle nand, big cache, 5yr warranty
$185 + $3 shipping
I don't think i'll be unhappy with it 🙂

 

[bryanW1995]

Marvel is the best combo of speed and reliability from what I've seen. The m4 and intel 510 series also use Marvell controllers. Supposedly the 520 Intels will use sandforce, but they are on indefinite delay bc intel can't get them up to their reliability standards.

 

[zCypher]

Only buy a SATA2 drive if you don't have any intention to upgrade to a SATA3 system any time soon. I personally have 3 SF2281 drives in various systems and a Vertex2 (I think it's the SF1200 controller? not sure), they are all doing well.

OCZ sold a crap ton of drives, and many people did have a lot of issues (I did RMA my first Vertex2 as well). Many people have also had issues with Intel and Crucial drives, too. They still kick ass though and on the most part, for the vast majority of people they are rock solid. I think it would still hold true to say that the vast majority of OCZ drives sold are also doing just fine. It doesn't take a very big portion of their drives sold to yield such a blemish on their record, so I can definitely understand people's frustration when they've had issues, and hesitation to consider the drives when reading about the horror stories.

Back on point, if you are considering those two specific drives definitely go with the M4 or if you can find a deal on the Corsair or Plextor drives, go with that instead. I can't really advise that you get an older SATA2 drive even if it is $50 less. Unless of course you never will upgrade that system to support SATA3, but even then - it is generally a better idea to stay with the latest tech with latest firmware when it comes to SSDs.

Good luck, and have fun - I know I've had tons of fun since I started playing with SSDs.

 

[flexium]

ssd is still rapidly changing. New ssd are significantly better than old ones in terms of more speed, and more longer testing time for reliability.
sandisk one is really not popular at all. You have a higher chance of running into problems without anyone knowledgeable in ur product.

get the Crucial. on the other hand, I bought the plextor m3 today for 166.

 

[Obsoleet]

what's up with all the constant OCZ bashing? Should ask the guys around here who've had firsthand experience with their support before you start talking smack every other post you make around here.

Cuz they're trash. I've owned two OCZ drives. Never again.

Just gets old when people continuously parrot things they have no real experience with. If you don't like em?.. fine. Then just say that and leave it at that since it's not your cash and you've not been elected "our saviour" by anyone yet.

Got experience.

So does Anand.

I've got 16 OCZ drives and they all work fine. My friends and family have another handful of them too without issue. many hundreds of thousands of these drives out there and they have no issues either.

Nice anecdotal experience. Unfortunately the rest of us paid for OCZ drives, and got burned. Nice to know someone got 16 free drives without issue..

If I or they actually had issues?.. I can literally go over there and get one-on-one support for a replacement drive. Not like any other mfgr doesn't have faulty drives or problematic installs on ocassion anyways. That's just life with tech in general.

That's not like with tech in general using Intel, Samsung or Crucial.

In all honesty here?.. I'd take the M4 as well over that oldergen Sandforce drive. Older SF drives throttle too much, IMO. Newer 6G Sandforce's do not.

Most of us would take the M4.

I'd take this drive over that M4 any day and twice on tuesday though. Toggle nand.. big cache.. bigger performance and 6G capable when you finally make the jump(if you havn't already). Think of it as a hotrodded M4. It was $189 after rebate.. but you missed it. I'd shop around to find one.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233226

No thanks. Crucial M4 is the way to go between these choices for reliability and support reasons.

 

[groberts101]

Cuz they're trash. I've owned two OCZ drives. Never again.


Got experience.

So does Anand.


Nice anecdotal experience. Unfortunately the rest of us paid for OCZ drives, and got burned. Nice to know someone got 16 free drives without issue..


That's not like with tech in general using Intel, Samsung or Crucial.


Most of us would take the M4.



No thanks. Crucial M4 is the way to go between these choices for reliability and support reasons.

2 drives and some reading?..ROFLMAO.. well surely you have it all figured out by now then. Can't argue with a vast cross section of SSD knowledge like that.

and quite thread crapping around here just to argue with me about my brand preference. I made my choice.. you made yours. Just leave it at that.

 

[j03h4gLund]

I can say with personal experience that OCZ is a solid brand and company. They have great support from my experience and honor their lifetime warranties on memory. I RMA'd a package of 2x1gb sticks of ram due to one being DOA. I waited nearly 2 years to RMA because I simply didnt need to have more ram at the time and honestly felt like being lazy about it. When I finally did RMA it, they didnt ask questions about why it took so long - they simply replaced it and replaced it with 2x2gb sticks of ram = 2gb free ddr2 ram. Can't complain there.

I bought a patriot torqx 2 but almost pulled the trigger on the ocz vertex 3 and suggest anyone up in the air to give them a shot.

As for Anand's comments on OCZ changing their company name... if you watched his video on youtube about ssd's, he talks about that and admits that OCZ has came a long way from back then. Anand gives props to OCZ and I do too.

 

[kbp]

As far as OCZ's RMA department I think they were very helpful.
They were going to refund me the cost of the drive plus shipping fee's. Fortunately the next day they released the 2.15 bios and all has been well since. Thus I canceled the RMA and have been very happy since. They even called me back (via phone) day's later to make sure I was fully satisfied with any/all problems that I had with the drive.
Granted, it was a few months of frustration but the end result made me a very happy camper! My Vertex 3 now resides in my laptop because I have a RAID array in my "box" at home now.

 

[Mfusick]

I own 5 OCZ drives and they all work great.

Most people that bash them have a stick up their ass for some unknown reason.

It's sad.

 

[Mfusick]

Ever notice most people that bash OCZ don't even own one?

 

[bryanW1995]

2 drives and some reading?..ROFLMAO.. well surely you have it all figured out by now then. Can't argue with a vast cross section of SSD knowledge like that.

and quite thread crapping around here just to argue with me about my brand preference. I made my choice.. you made yours. Just leave it at that.

Yes, but your choice sucks. J/K. Seriously, though, why do you push so hard for OCZ? What's the longest you've actually run one of your "16" ocz drives? Anand is just one dude, truly a drop in the bucket, but there are just so many people who have similar experiences to obsoleet's and, um, not as many with great experiences like yours. Contrast that with intel's great track record, and even when they did have an issue with the 320 it took them a couple of weeks rather than 10 months to diagnose and fix the issue. Ditto crucial with the m4. Samsung's 830 has/had an issue that nobody had actually replicated in the wild, and they fixed it before anybody DID replicate it. Those companies have great validation, and ocz, at least in the past, did not. I personally have an open mind about ocz going forward, I get that Ryan Peterson has bet the company on ssd success, and I'm confident that he'll make sure that their octanes and future everest-based ssd's are better than vertex 2 and similar crap from the past. However, if prices are the same on BF between a theoretical "octane 2" and a crucial m4, intel 510 series, or samsung 830, then I'm going with something from one of the big 3 because their track record has been better over a longer period of time. If everest and everest 2 look to be excellent, and I can get 2x256gb ssd's for .75 per gb instead of $1/gb, then I'll probably go with ocz, instead.

Ever notice most people that bash OCZ don't even own one?

obsoleet owned 2 of them and they both failed. Have you ever heard of that happening to somebody on an intel ssd, even the 320 series? And technically, those didn't fail as they were recoverable, but they at least did have issues. And I'm not bashing ocz at all, I'm just using my brain and doing research before I buy an item based upon price alone instead of value.

 

[jwilliams4200]

It is quite clear that Sandforce SSDs are less reliable than similar SSDs with Marvell controllers. Just look at the statistics from newegg reviews of two popular SSDs:

Percentage of below-average reviews (1 or 2 eggs):

128GB Crucial m4

7% all reviews
5% last 6 months
5% last 2 weeks


120GB Vertex 3

26% all reviews
25% last 6 months
29% last 2 weeks


I chose those two SSDs because they are comparable and they have gotten a relatively large number of reviews on newegg.

Note that you cannot assume that 26% (or 25% or 29%) of BUYERS of the OCZ Vertex 3 will rate it below average. All we know is that 26% of REVIEWERS rated it below average. We do not know what percentage of buyers actually posted a review. However, it is reasonable to compare the relative percentages of bad reviews for two products since we can assume that the percentage of dissatisfied buyers who post reviews is likely to be about the same for similar products.

Looking at the numbers above, note that 26% of Vertex 3 reviewers give a below-average review but only 7% of Crucial m4 reviewers give a below-average review. You can find similar percentages for other Sandforce-controlled SSDs. From this, we can conclude that it is much more likely for buyers to be dissatisfied with a Vertex 3 than with a Crucial m4.

Also, note that the Vertex 3 has not gotten any better with time. 25% of reviewers in the last 6 months were unhappy, and 29% from the last 2 weeks. Also, several of the reviews from the last 2 weeks mention BSODs. I'd say that is persuasive evidence that the BSOD problem with the Vertex 3 is NOT fixed with recent firmware updates.

The conclusion is clear -- even now there is good reason for people who care about reliability and stability of their computer systems to avoid Sandforce-controlled SSDs.

 

[groberts101]

I'll make it short and simple here. The bulk of Sandforce issues(previous and more currently) are power mgmt related. If you know this from the get-go and take the necessary precautions to circumvent the potential for those variables to be introduced on some systems?.. they can live a very long life just as any other more "simplistic controller" can.

Furthermore, I do more than just read and speculate as to these variables. I test, help many others to implement known workarounds with great success, and personally use what has been proven to work and avoid what has not. 6 drives in R0 for nearly 2 years straight along with family members running them successfully would be part of my credentials for that knowledge. Others who use and test these SSD's have found the very same thing as well. Should you have to do all that extra work to maintain stability?.. well obviously no. Can it be done with the right protocols?.. absolutely.

So, rather than pointing fingers and needlessly posturing as to who's fault it is?.. we work around the controllers know and proven weaknesses in hopes that bios, driver, and firmware will evolve to make things more seamless and troublefree for most others who may see issue. Not so many are able to do that and of course run into issue on ocassion but given the sheer volume of these controllers on the market?.. the percentage of problems are not as widespread as many like to try and point out.

And using Newegg reviews to rate overall drive stability over time?.. pretty funny stuff there. Regardless of what that site would say?.. it's very much fact stability and overall customer satisfaction are vastly improved from the initail release of that controller. All that needs to be done is track the mfgrs forums where the negative posts have slowed considerably. People who keep smearing and spreading fud like this are simply not doing their homework or working from the drive that they are bashing. Simple as that.

Sandforce 2281 controllers have nearly dominated the market for enthusiasts and it's been pointed out by most reviewers as well. Even the golden boy has bought into the hype lately to get a piece of that action as well. That should say something in itself as the the market viability of these controllers.

Speed sells and these SF drives are fast.. synthetically or with real data.

 

[jwilliams4200]

I'll make it short and simple here
[snip lots of rambling]
Speed sells and these SF drives are fast.. synthetically or with real data.

LOL, I'd hate to see long!

SF drives are fast, but not the fastest for realistic workloads (that crown belongs to the Marvell toggle-flash SSDs). SF do benchmark well since a lot of benchmarks, even the ones that claim to play back traces, are sending easily compressible data. But the data that most people are writing every day can hardly be compressed at all by SF, and that hurts performance compared to most benchmarks people see.

But all of that is hardly relevant for most people, since the slight differences in perceived speed among SSDs pales in comparison to the hassle of having your SSD fail or cause a BSOD. And the Sandforce SSDs are much more likely to cause hassles for people than the Marvell SSDs, or the Intel SSDs (not counting the 520, since it will be months before we know how reliable that is).

 

[groberts101]

LOL, I'd hate to see long!

SF drives are fast, but not the fastest for realistic workloads (that crown belongs to the Marvell toggle-flash SSDs). SF do benchmark well since a lot of benchmarks, even the ones that claim to play back traces, are sending easily compressible data. But the data that most people are writing every day can hardly be compressed at all by SF, and that hurts performance compared to most benchmarks people see.

But all of that is hardly relevant for most people, since the slight differences in perceived speed among SSDs pales in comparison to the hassle of having your SSD fail or cause a BSOD. And the Sandforce SSDs are much more likely to cause hassles for people than the Marvell SSDs, or the Intel SSDs (not counting the 520, since it will be months before we know how reliable that is).

lol.. maybe I should have said.. "I'll make the initial paragraphs overview short and simple here"?

And what is a realistic workload? Copying nothing but incompresible data as if you were using it strictly as a storage volume? They were designed to be OS drives and that's where they excell. Do you trust Anands heavy bench?

average data rates
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/260

what about disk busy times?
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/263

maybe that's unrealistic workloads from what "average users" would ever see in real life? How about the light bench then?

average data rates
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/266

disk busy time
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/269

and let's not forget the PCMark Vantage testing since it uses actual data streams to mimic the supposedly faster performance you speak of above.

HDD suite
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/75

Productivity suite
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/74

see a common denominator for who's at the top of the charts on most ocassions? Sandforce 2281.

In the end here?.. I could really care less as to what benchmarks show. Real usage and time saved in MY workloads tells me what is fast and what is slower. And I've tested many so far and Sandforce is on the top of the heap right now for sheer speed in real usage.

So like what you want.. but until you test these drives side by side to supposedly faster models?.. it's all just speculation and FUD.

And hardly relevant to most people? ROFLAO. Do you know who has sold more controllers so far? Well.. obviously not, I guess with posts like that. Speed sells more drives than stability in the consumer market. Always has and probably always will for that matter. This ain't enterprise here bud.

 

[jwilliams4200]

What you do not seem to realize is that most data is incompressible to a Sandforce controller. The Sandforce controller is just not very good at compressing anything except highly repetitive data like a stream of zeros. Except for programs and OS installs, which most people only install once, most data people write to their SSDs can be compressed by SF by only a few percent, and most not at all.

As for Anand's traces, no, I do not trust them. As far as I have seen, he has never commented on the actual data that is being written, only the pattern of IOs. If you look at most software that records IO traces and plays them back, they do NOT record the actual data. They record that, say, a 4KiB block was written, but not what was in the block. And many of those programs substitute an easily compressible pattern for the data when they play the trace back. Then there is the issue of recording IOs over hours or days and then playing them back very quickly resulting in a lot higher load and QD than typical usage. That is very unrealistic. Besides, Anand's traces are not consistent. Look how much some of the SSDs ratings changed when he changed from his old traces to his new traces.

And where are the Corsair Performance Pro or Plextor M2P on those charts? Oh, Anand has not reviewed them. Hmmm.

The most useful benchmarks are those that measure the time to perform realistic tasks. Booting the OS, starting applications, loading a new game level, saving files, copying files, scanning files, searching a database, etc.

As for who sells more controllers, I fail to see the relevance. McDonald's has sold how many billions now? And we all know they have the highest quality food.

By the way, the phrase you are looking for is "couldn't care less". When you write "could really care less" it means that you do care.