SSD basic questions

[LOUISSSSS]

are SSD's just plug n play like SATA drives?

are they detected just like a SATA drive and i'd install my OS right after formatting it just like usual?

after installation of OS, is there anything special i need to do (drivers.. etc?) or i can just use my pc like usual and it'll hiccup-less?

do ssd's still stutter like they used to?

what can be recommended <$200 for at least 100gb? i'm guessing none lol

 

[alcoholbob]

1) yes
2) yes
3) depends on the drive
4) non-stutter free for $200. None. Occasionally on ebay you might see a 80GB X18/X25-M go for say $200-250. That's about as good as it will get.

 

[taltamir]

the vertex and the intel = only worthwhile ssd drives. well, there is the falcon which is also a bigfoot drive like vertex, but it has a different firmware (increasing the space by a few GB at an untested as of yet cost to performance).

 

[alcoholbob]

Well there's the 256GB Samsung drive too, sold either as OEM or under Corsair P256 line. Originally OCZ was going to sell this as the Summit. The Samsung looks better than the Vertex on Crystal Disk Mark, although I don't trust that benchmark, mainly because it's Samsung > Vertex > Intel on the read side, and Vertex overall is slower than the Summit--whereas in every other benchmark, its the other way around. Still, Samsung is clearly a performance drive and definitely the #3 and sometimes matches the Vertex.

There are a handful of older SLC drives out there although their sequential performance leaves much to be desired (but then again, when you only have 32GB of space its not particularly relevant). The rest...JMicron MLC...

HD Tune Pro 3.5 is probably my favorite benchmark, since it seems to more accurately represent real world performance (at least with the games I played, HD speed had a fairly substantial impact on performance).

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Astrallite
Well there's the 256GB Samsung drive too, sold either as OEM or under Corsair P256 line. Originally OCZ was going to sell this as the Summit. The Samsung looks better than the Vertex on Crystal Disk Mark, although I don't trust that benchmark, mainly because it's Samsung > Vertex > Intel on the read side, and Vertex overall is slower than the Summit--whereas in every other benchmark, its the other way around. Still, Samsung is clearly a performance drive and definitely the #3 and sometimes matches the Vertex.

There are a handful of older SLC drives out there although their sequential performance leaves much to be desired (but then again, when you only have 32GB of space its not particularly relevant). The rest...JMicron MLC...

HD Tune Pro 3.5 is probably my favorite benchmark, since it seems to more accurately represent real world performance (at least with the games I played, HD speed had a fairly substantial impact on performance).

And yet at the same time if you want quality bench results for 4k random read/writes you can't lose with crystaldiskmark.

For the read benches that you mention, my suspicion is that the test filesize used in those benches are either not the same size for comparing the SSD's (if the benches came from different sources)...some folks just use the default 100MB test filesize while others like to notch it up to 500MB.

I would be very surprised if in a controlled study the drive's sequential reads do not stack up correctly.