Need Advise on Picking OCZ vs. Crucial SSD

[eldiablopotato]

I'm looking around for an SSD, and I'll be the first to say it I need some advise. I'm currently debating on getting either the OCZ Vertex LE, or the Crucial RealSSD C300. I plan on loading just applications, games, and the OS on the SSD. Then use a larger rotational based hard drive for all the data.

It seems to me that the OCZ one is the one to get, but I looked at the random read time of the OCZ model. Now I don't know what to think. Any feedback you guys can send my way is appreciated.


FYI, my motherboard doesn't support 6Gbps SATA. 🙁

Link to the latest AnandTech SSD article: http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3747&p=1

 

[MrSpadge]

Since both are extremely fast I'd go with the Vertex LE due to the price difference. If it's already sold out I'd take a closer look at this OWC model.

MrS

 

[pjkenned]

I'm probably going to end up getting both (the 100GB LE is on pre-order). However, I was strongly considering (and may still) pick up a second 120GB Vertex since price wise I'd rather have a $600 240GB raid 0 drive (despite the fact I'm not a raid 0 fan) than a 100GB $440 drive with faster 4k writes. Realistically though, I swap machines with Intel G1, G2, Patriot PS-100's, and Indilinx controllers all day. The PS-100 drives are OK performance wise, better than standard drives and have the low heat/ no noise of the SSD's. The Intel v. Indilinx w/ TRIM is pretty much a wash. Benchmark wise, you can see differences, usage wise, I'm not sensitive enough to tell the difference, other than the fact that the Intel SSD's aren't fast enough to peg GigE writes (since they can't sustain 100MB/s sequential).

I think this new generation is going to be a big improvement, however, it is really the difference between pushing SATA II and barely needing SATA III. Since capacities aren't that big, I'm guessing most people will keep music/ video on separate spindle disks so there is less sequential writing and less compressed file writes on the SSD's (an issue with the Sandforce drives). Bottom line, this is probably going to come down to whichever one is cheaper cost/GB wise. Hopefully it will also force Indilinx to drop Barefoot prices slightly and make cheaper previous gen SSD's.

 

[eldiablopotato]

Thanks much for the input guys.

Looking over the benchmarks for both drives, the results are pretty close. The ocassions where the OCZ drive comes ahead seems to be:
*2MB Sequential Write (kicked butt)
*4KB Random Write (kicked butt)
*4K Aligned - 4KB Random Write
*PCMark Vantage - Overall Suite
*PCMark Vantage - Music Test
*PCMark Vantage - Productivity Test
*PCMark Vantage - HDD Test

While the C300 drive shines at:
*4KB Random Read
*PCMark Vantage - Memories Test
*AnandTech Storage Bench - Light Workload
*AnandTech Storage Bench - Heavy Workload

I doesn't look like you can go wrong with either card, but for my needs I'm debating whether what's more important the random read time or sequential/random write time.

 

[MrSpadge]

When you've got lot's of random access performance of an HDD is crippled. Considering that I'm not experiencing this regularly with my machines I'd say it doesn't happen very often during my usage models.

MrS

 

[eldiablopotato]

Noob question I apologize, what would be the cases where write performance is really a major factor?

 

[Beautiful_Life]

If you have a desktop, try to maximize your budget so that you can set up two SSDs in RAID 0. Rather than buying 1 160GB SSD, get two 80GB ones. In Raid 0, you get the combined capacity and speed. As for the bran, get the cheaper one if you can do a RAID 0 setup. It's gonna be extremely fast anyway

 

[BChico]

I was planning on picking up a Intel X25-M G2 160GB. Just read the review for the C300 and sounds great.

Any reason to go with Intel over this drive?

 

[Pandamonium]

wrong thread