[Recommend] OCZ Vertex 2 240GB vs Crucial C300 256GB

[junialum]

Hi all,

I've been reading through the threads and the stickies including various sites and benchmarks. I basically would like to purchase a 240-256GB range SSD within the next 2 months.

I've looked around and run the options down to:

• OCZ Vertex 2 240GB
• Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB

This is my system:

• i7 920
• 6GB DDR3
• Sata II only capable mobo. No Sata III
• Win 7 Ultimate

The purpose for the drive:

• OS
• All program files
• Photoshop, Illustrator and Premier work
• Gaming (basically WoW)

I would like your recommendation on the best drive to get. If there are other better options I should look to please let me know as well.

Thank you in advance.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Choice is up to you, just make sure you back up things from that OS drive regularly that you don't want to loose.. i've lost 2 SSD drives.

And welcome to the Anandtech forums

 

[junialum]

Choice is up to you, just make sure you back up things from that OS drive regularly that you don't want to loose.. i've lost 2 SSD drives.

And welcome to the Anandtech forums

Thank you!

You think they are very similar? That it is down to personal choice?

 

[alaricljs]

They are similar enough that for your need, ie: "general usage" that the differences are unimportant. If you were trying to tweak 1 specific thing then we could possibly recommend one over the other if that 1 thing was effected by something that is different between the two drives. Confused yet?

Seriously, just pick one that satisfies the "cheapest, best support" requirements. I've never been let down by either OCZ or Crucial for support, however I've heard more complaints about OCZ support. Throw in G.Skill's Phoenix Pro SSDs (basically the same as OCZ's Vertex 2 hardware and feature wise) and you'll get all sorts of arguments for/against the manufacturer's support.

 

[Diogenes2]

The Corsair will enjoy a boost if you ever get SATA III, but even with that it is unlikely you will notice any difference in real-world performance..

I would go with the best price you can find.

The rebate at Newegg Makes the OCZ relatively attractive right now ..

 

[junialum]

Well looking at my usage pattern it will be towards a higher amount of reads than writes. In terms of writes I will be probably doing more 'short' writes.

Would that change anything?

Thanks for all the assistance so far.

 

[tweakboy]

Crucial is more reliable piece of hardware. Intel might be faster a bit.

 

[tweakboy]

But honestly, how much of a rush are you in. Why not just wait for new sandbag the 500mbps SSD new generation... prices of what you want now will drop and youll have options.. gl

 

[Diogenes2]

Crucial is more reliable piece of hardware.

Evidence ?

Intel might be faster a bit.

Which model ?
Would the extra performance justify the extra cost ?

 

[Diogenes2]

Well looking at my usage pattern it will be towards a higher amount of reads than writes. In terms of writes I will be probably doing more 'short' writes.

Would that change anything?

Thanks for all the assistance so far.

You can struggle forever with the minor differences between those two drives, but in the end, the real world performance would be indistinguishable.

If you have made the decision to go with one of those drives, you can't go wrong by going with the best price, and have a few beers with the difference..

 

[Diogenes2]

But honestly, how much of a rush are you in. Why not just wait for new sandbag the 500mbps SSD new generation... prices of what you want now will drop and youll have options.. gl

There will always be something better in the future, which will make today's prices cheaper. If you make your upgrade decisions based on that, then you might as well not do anything..

 

[God Mode]

There will always be something better in the future, which will make today's prices cheaper. If you make your upgrade decisions based on that, then you might as well not do anything..

I think its worth the wait if release is guarenteed within 3 months or less. Imagine how someone that bought a P4 cpu felt when the core line up was released the next month.

 

[FishAk]

Allow me to propose an alternative to a large SSD I believe would be as fast, and cost less with more room for future improvements for more savings.

I assume you already have some large storage for your photo work, so you can adjust the following outline to incorporate your current resources if they are adequate.

You could buy 4 x 1Tb Spinpoint F3 drives for about $200. Since you have an i7 920, you probably also have the Intel chipset on your MB with the ICH10R controller. If so, you can arrange the 4 disks in a RAID 10 array, and have roughly 1.8Tb worth of fast storage for larger (>32Kb) files. By partitioning off the first 500Gb, you would have sequential storage that would rival the sequential speed of any current SSD.

Buy a 60 to 120Gb Sandforce or Intel SSD, and install just your OS and programs on it. Put the other stuff you need fast access to on the first partition of the 4 disk RAID 10 array, and use a 2Tb or 2 x 1Tb Green drives to back up your system.

SSDs are set to do a refresh, and you can expect more capacity, and better performance along with lower prices in the relatively near future. It would make more sense to buy a large SSD then, when the performance is better than the above setup, and the price is much cheaper.

The above setup, with well over twice the capacity, would perform just as well as the much more expensive large capacity SSD. Also, you get an additional 1.3Tb extra storage for free.

240Gb Vertex 2 = $450

Net yield = 240Gb
Total cost = $450 or $1.88/Gb

VS

4 x 1Tb F3s = $220
60Gb Vertex 2 = $120

Net yield = 560Gb with an additional 1300Gb fairly fast free storage
Total cost = $330 or $0.59/Gb

The advantages for the SSD only route I can think of are:

Noise- SSD is totally silent

Tolerance to G-forces- SSD is near impervious

Heat/Power consumption- Probably in the neighborhood of 4-5 times less

Size- single 2.5" drive vs 4 x 3.5" drives, plus a 2.5"

Convenience- no need to move the scratch file in photoshop

Possibly a very small speed advantage- you probably couldn't tell the difference without benchmarking

 

[junialum]

Hi all,

Thanks for the replies. I will go with whichever is cheaper then since on the end usage it is indistinguishable for me.

--

I've tried RAID and it is fast but frankly not reliable. I had to replug my SATA cables every 4-5 months because it will believe that the RAID setup has degraded.

I'm also going for a big SSD because I would like to first use it on my desktop and in a year's time move it to my laptop as its only drive. That will be of course in the future.

--

Thanks a lot for the help and the opinions. Very much appreciated.

 

[LokutusofBorg]

The place the Crucials really shine (other than SATA3 support) is reads. It doesn't make a huge difference because the OCZ (SF) drives are really good, but it does bear mentioning. Crucial is a solid company. If they weren't having the firmware problems they had this summer we'd be running Crucial drives at work instead of Vertex 2s.

 

[junialum]

The place the Crucials really shine (other than SATA3 support) is reads. It doesn't make a huge difference because the OCZ (SF) drives are really good, but it does bear mentioning. Crucial is a solid company. If they weren't having the firmware problems they had this summer we'd be running Crucial drives at work instead of Vertex 2s.

Kindly enlighten on what firmware problems there are pls

 

[fffblackmage]

Crucial had some firmware issues when the C300 first came out, but it's been fixed since.

My vote goes to the Sandforce SSDs (Vertex 2).

 

[LokutusofBorg]

Kindly enlighten on what firmware problems there are pls

I said firmware problems in the summer, which is when we bought SSDs for work. Anand has covered the issues in his articles. You read the articles on this site, right? Not the forums, the actual site...

 

[junialum]

I said firmware problems in the summer, which is when we bought SSDs for work. Anand has covered the issues in his articles. You read the articles on this site, right? Not the forums, the actual site...

Yes I did. I thought there were new problems. Seems to be just its down on price. I'm talking to the distributors in my country. Crucial's seems to be going at 20% cheaper than OCZ's

 

[lmccrary]

I recommend the Vertex 2. I consider it the best money I've ever spent on a computer component, hands down.

 

[Old Hippie]

I've had Intel G1 and G2s, Vertex2s, and now a Crucial300 256GB.

The SF controllers' numbers are very misleading and this Crucial 256GB unit is great.

 

[junialum]

Thank you for the responses.

@Old Hippie: Nice to hear from someone who had the luxury of owning both. SF numbers are inflated on paper?

 

[Old Hippie]

SF numbers are inflated on paper?

Because of the compression technique used by the SF controller it's shows great specs when used in certain instances.

Mine absolutely screamed when it came to compressing/uncompressing RAR files but I don't do that all day long.

The SF drives are definately equal to others but to equate them as being faster by their specs is unrealistic.

 

[sechs]

Under real world conditions, I think that it's difficult to divine a real difference between current generation drives. As said by others, unless you're optimizing for a particular task, it's hard to rate one over another.

To be frank, a lot of people would have trouble differentiating this current batch of drives with last generation drives based on Indilinx controllers.

 

[junialum]

Looks like I'll go for the best price then. Thanks all