OCZ Agility or Kingston SSD for Boot Drive?

[andyaycw]

I'm currently debating whether to choose the Kingston 40GB SSD or the 30GB OCZ Agility to use in my desktop system as the boot drive. I'm looking for input on whether or not the extra 10GB of space on the Kingston is worth it for no TRIM, or if I should make a small sacrifice by going with the smaller 30GB OCZ Agility which does have support for TRIM.

I guess it all boils down to how much a lack of TRIM will adversely affect the Kingston drive, as well as whether or not 30GB of space is enough for an installation of Windows 7 x64.

Thanks.

 

[garritynet]

What else are you going to put on there besides windows? If its just windows then 30GBs will be more than enough.

 

[andyaycw]

I was thinking about putting only Windows on there, and my other apps on another drive.

If I opt for the OCZ Agility, is there any need to worry about that 20% free space rule since it has TRIM?

 

[Engineer]

Kingston 40GB is $89.99 - Bing (4 to 7&#37 at Buy.com. Makes the decision a little harder.

Click me!

Edit: By the way, why Agility vs the $30 cheaper Vertex (with TRIM)?

Click me!

 

[RaistlinZ]

Will SATA 3 offer much benefit for SSD's?

 

[Engineer]

Will SATA 3 offer much benefit for SSD's?

On current generation, I would say no as I don't think any of the current models max out the 3Gbps of SATA 2. The next generation of SSD's could possibly max it out.

 

[railman]

I'm currently debating whether to choose the Kingston 40GB SSD or the 30GB OCZ Agility to use in my desktop system as the boot drive. I'm looking for input on whether or not the extra 10GB of space on the Kingston is worth it for no TRIM, or if I should make a small sacrifice by going with the smaller 30GB OCZ Agility which does have support for TRIM.

I guess it all boils down to how much a lack of TRIM will adversely affect the Kingston drive, as well as whether or not 30GB of space is enough for an installation of Windows 7 x64.

Thanks.

If you are only going to install Win 7 on the drive go with OCZ 30GB Vertex drive. The Agility drives are good but they use a variety of NAND chips in them (they come from different manufacturers) The Vertex uses NAND from only 1 manufacturer which I believe is Toshiba so is generally considered to be of somewhat higher quality.

30GB of space is sufficient for a Win 7 64 install as that should only use about 14GB to 15GB of space. Yes the 20 percent free space still does matter even with TRIM and the lack of TRIM will effect performance over time, how much or how little time will depend on how you use your PC.

If you go with a non TRIM capable drive then you will have to perform disk maintenence manually with whatever software are available for your drive on a fairly regular basis. Just remember the smaller the drive, the more you use it, the more often you will have to do maintenence.

 

[Engineer]

The Vertex uses NAND from only 1 manufacturer which I believe is Toshiba so is generally considered to be of somewhat higher quality.

Apparently, that's not true anymore. Reading the OCZ forums this morning, seems someone received a drive with bios 1.42. When he/she asked for a bios downgrade, Tony (from OCZ) told them to hold tight and that there were no downgrades because that particular drive used different NAND chips than previous ones.

Until the next release (1.5) I can not offer you a flash from 1.42 to 1.41, the reason being 1.41 at this time does not support the nand used on the drive you have 1.42 on.

So, I suggest you sit tight, install to 1 drive only for now in ahci mode

 

[railman]

Apparently, that's not true anymore. Reading the OCZ forums this morning, seems someone received a drive with bios 1.42. When he/she asked for a bios downgrade, Tony (from OCZ) told them to hold tight and that there were no downgrades because that particular drive used different NAND chips than previous ones.

Interesting, I know that the 1.42 update was available for download for vertex owners for a very limited time and then pulled because of incompatabilities. Apparently one or more drives made there way into the supply channel with that firmware. Guess that was an OOOPS!

 

[Engineer]

Interesting, I know that the 1.42 update was available for download for vertex owners for a very limited time and then pulled because of incompatabilities. Apparently one or more drives made there way into the supply channel with that firmware. Guess that was an OOOPS!

By the way, I misread your original post and thought that you stated that all the NAND's were the same, not the same BRAND. You may be right in that they are all the same BRAND, but apparently they are not all of the same type.

 

[andyaycw]

Kingston 40GB is $89.99 - Bing (4 to 7%) at Buy.com. Makes the decision a little harder.

Click me!

Edit: By the way, why Agility vs the $30 cheaper Vertex (with TRIM)?

Click me!

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531&p=25

Seems like the random write performance on the Vertex is just slightly better than a standard HDD, which is why I decided to rule out the Vertex.

Also, as far as going with a non-TRIM enabled drive, I figure that since read speeds are largely unaffected, I should be okay with using it only as a boot drive. I think I'll go with the 40GB Kingston for now.

 

[railman]

By the way, I misread your original post and thought that you stated that all the NAND's were the same, not the same BRAND. You may be right in that they are all the same BRAND, but apparently they are not all of the same type.

Yeah, somethings up there. I'll have to keep an eye out for what it is. For this thread though I think the Vertex is the best buy for the money.

 

[Engineer]

Yeah, somethings up there. I'll have to keep an eye out for what it is. For this thread though I think the Vertex is the best buy for the money.

The Kingston would be a much better drive if it had native TRIM but it can still be cleaned up using a wiper utility every so often. The random writes make it attractive as well as the extra 10GB of space. The Vertex has much better sequential. The "balance" (as Anand put it) seems to make the Vertex a very good drive "overall" in real life tests (not benchmarks).

I can't wait to install my 120GB Vertex (sitting on my dining room table) into my new Core I5 system! :biggrin:

 

[ElFenix]

how about the OCZ vertex 30GB vs the kingston 40GB? the OCZ apparently has trim support atm, whereas kingston does not. is the OCZ quicker?

 

[Ayah]

The kingston will be faster with random writes (maybe sequential reads too, can't remember exactly), the vertex in everything else.

If I had to choose between a 30GB vertex and a 40GB Kingston, I'd probably have to go with the Kingston just because it's slightly larger.

 

[Zoomer]

Get the larger drive, then schedule the wiper utility to run every month or so. That should be good enough.

If it's me, however, I would wait a little. It looks like prices are changing direction, ie. no going up anymore, maybe a possibility to a downtrend next year?

 

[Rifter]

Will SATA 3 offer much benefit for SSD's?

Definatly, Raid a few SSD's and you will max out SATA 2 no problem.

 

[GuyGordon]

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531&p=25

Seems like the random write performance on the Vertex is just slightly better than a standard HDD, which is why I decided to rule out the Vertex.

Careful there. That's a rather old review.

IIRC they improved that rather odd result with a bios change.

 

[GuyGordon]

I'm also looking to buy a fast, small SSD this week. My price point is around $100. Newegg has these two on sale (both after $30 MIR):

Kingston SSDNow V-Series SNV125-S2BD/64GB 2.5" 64GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid state disk (SSD) Desktop bundled accessory kit - Retail


OCZ Vertex Series OCZSSD2-1VTX30GXXX 2.5" 30GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid state disk (SSD) - Retail

Kingston-V: 65Gb, $104.99, free shipping, 100 R, 80 W

OCZ-Vertex: 30Gb, $94.99, free shipping, 230 R, 135 W

The last two numbers are Sequential Access Read, and Sequential Access Write in MB/s quoted from the Specifications tab on Newegg. So the OCZ Vertex is around twice as fast, but only half the size. OUCH!

Reading the Buyer Reviews I see the Kingston V-series uses the JMicron controller. And yes, people are complaining about Stutter.

A note to everyone comparing SSD drives: Pay close attention to the Series name. Quoting price or specs for a "Kingston" or "OCZ" drive without a series name is worthless.