What should I get for a 64gb or 128gb SSD boot drive?

[dsc106]

Not sure what the current best deal is out there; searching newegg brings me the Crucial M4 series with a lot of reviews, but I see newer drives that are faster. Haven't been keeping on all the hype with controllers/speeds/etc.

What's the best bang for buck, performance/quality drive I should get to boot Win7 on? Depending on the price difference, I'd go with either 64gb or 128gb.

 

[Zap]

The M4 is still a solid buy. I'd say go for 128GB, because that should be enough for not only Windows, but most (or even all) of your apps.

 

[dsc106]

Solid buy or best buy? Just wondering cause I see other drives that have faster read/write speeds - but I am not sure if they are as reliable, proven, or have as good of controllers?

 

[Pray To Jesus]

Intel 330 180gb for $135 @ Amazon with MIR

 

[nk215]

The good drives are: Samsung 830, intel, flexor m3, crucial m4, Kingston hyper X. Those are solid drives at any prices. The best buy is any of those on sale for that particular day.

There is certain brand that I stay away from regardless of cost (OCZ) so their ssd are never a good buy to me. In general stay away from the sand force controller unless it's an intel.

 

[KingFatty]

I suppose you could get a 64 GB size and train yourself to be utterly disciplined and carefully make sure you don't fill up the drive.

But now that 128 GB sizes are getting some great sale prices, I'd say that's the sweet spot. You can sort of relax and just throw stuff all over the drive, not worry too much about filling it up.

If you have more money to spend, the 256 GB have a performance boost over the 128 GB, but really it's kind of hard to notice that small boost between different SSDs.

The point is to get an SSD to get the speed boost compared to disk drives, but then figure out how much you are willing to discipline yourself to avoid running out of space etc.

 

[Revolution 11]

OP, to warn you, the actual size of a drive will feel different to each person. For some, 64 GB is enough to last them for a decade. For others, 64 GB can be filled up in weeks.

So make sure you know which storage size you are comfortable with. If you need more space but the SSD budget is not enough, you might be ok with a smaller size than you wanted if you pair it with a regular hard drive for mass storage.

For brands, nk215 has the right idea.

 

[thelastjuju]

Really depends on how many programs you use that will benefit from SSD.

I only have a select few, and a few games with long load times so a 64gb M4 has served me perfectly for many months now. I'm only using 2/3 of its capacity.

Remember, there's no need to store all your files like MP3s, JPGs, and AVIs on an SSD.. everything like that can remain on an HDD since you'll never actually notice how many nanoseconds faster an SSD will launch these types of files.

 

[jhansman]

I just replaced my 64GB boot M4 with a 128GB Sammy 830. Would I like to boot from a 256 or 512 GB? Sure, but not even at the current prices can I afford one of those, so 128GB is ideal for me right now. I still store my data on a 7400 RPM spinner, but the OS and my few major apps are on the boot drive.

 

[dsc106]

OK, I'll get a 128gb. Seems like the sweet spot on price.

I actually have a 512gb SSD for my hackintosh (which has all my pics, movies, etc), and in Windows I will want one for booting the OS, installing Adobe CS6, and StarCraft II. I will put everything else (games, video files, media editing, etc.) on a 3TB internal HDD.

I also have a server with all my documents, etc. I have so much HDD space I don't know what to do with.

The good drives are: Samsung 830, intel, flexor m3, crucial m4, Kingston hyper X. Those are solid drives at any prices. The best buy is any of those on sale for that particular day.

Thanks! I will look into these.

 

[beginner99]

Here the 128 GB m4 cost only about 1/3 more than the 64 GB for double the space. IMHO a no-brainer. And the m4 is pretty much the cheapest recommendable drive out there.