Need help understanding SSD.

[Atherakhia]

I'm upgrading soon and I want to invest in a nice SSD boot drive, but when searching for them I'm a bit overwhelmed by the variety and naming conventions being used. Could someone give me a brief summary of the different types and help me decide on the one to get?

I won't be getting anything extreme, so if it's $500+ I'm really not interested. I'm also shooting for the 60-80g range.

So basically what the difference is between the various OCZ options, the realistic speed differences between Intel's M and V series. And if the other brands are worth considering over OCZ or Intle.

Thanks guys.

 

[sub.mesa]

Go for the Intel.

In SSD-land, its the controller that sets the performance level. The Intel controller is very advanced and in some respects superior to others; like Indilinx which is used on many SSDs like OCZ Vertex.

In short you have 3 main performance specs:
- sequential performance (in MB/s; read/write)
- non-sequential or random IOps performance (in IOps or MB/s; read/write)
- read access latency (for blocking I/O applications)

All SSDs do good in read access latency; so they can boot and start applications fast. But the Intel controller is also especially fast in random IOps, which is most important for your system drive together with the low latency.

Sequential I/O is mostly done on large files for example where you store your personal data (movies, music, archives). These are things HDDs are very good at, only a tad slower than some SSDs. The Random I/O is another story, it could be 0.1MB/s for the HDD and 50MB/s+ for the SSD in this case. That's where the speed difference from HDD versus SSD come from.

So in short, the Intel X25-M G2 80GB may be your best bet. It also supports TRIM.

 

[Atherakhia]

And what about the OEM packages of each? I know typically OEM drives don't come with anything. Not even the screws to screw them into your case. If I went with the OEM version, do I just need a typical SATA2 cable and the brackets to convert the 3.5" bay to the 2.5" drive?

In another forum I asked for a ranking and they effectively said that it went X25-M, OCZ, X25-V for speed. Would you concur with this order? And if so, where do the various OCZ models fall in? On newegg for example they have like 4 different drives all with the same name but wildly different prices. Are there things I should look for to make sure I'm getting the best one of the bunch?

 

[Gildor57]

Nothing magical about where to mount the SSD. It doesn't have to go into a drive bay. Some people just velcro it to the inside of the case. Shoot, you could just let the thing sit on the bottom of your case (not that I would recommend that). Most people do put it in a drive bay because they have the adapter and its an easy solution. If you don't have one, they are cheap to buy. But, certainly there is no rule that says you must mount the SSD in the drive bay.

 

[Maximus96]

i bought a 2.5"to3.5" adapter from amazon for around $8 shipped no tax. can fit two 2.5" in there.

 

[sub.mesa]

 

[linster]

Made from real ducks I'm assuming.

 

[Beautiful_Life]

There is realistic speed difference between the various types of SSD out there. There are actually a few good articles on anandtech that explain what SSDs are and how they work, read them up and you will be able to decide wisely.

The simple answer is get the Intel X-25 M Generation 2 SSD. It offers the fastest read speeds of any SSDs and that's the only thing that matters really. In terms of real world performance, well I restart my computer in 28 seconds on a single SSD, while it takes two OCZ Vertex(the best in OCZ's lineup) to get that reboot time.