Question What was your first SSD and when did you buy it?

[cbn]

Here is my first SSD (a 64GB Sandisk 2.5") which I bought in early 2014.

 

[EXCellR8]

80GB Intel X25-M (1st gen) bought early 2009.

After having tried one through various means, there was really no going back to HDDs. Had to have it.

+1

X25-M 80GB was among the first SSD I tried in late 2010. Same conclusion drawn though... no more spindle boot drives, ever again. I believe I was running an X58 setup at the time.

 

[ultimatebob]

A 256 GB Samsung 850 Evo around 2015. It still runs in my old laptop without issue.

My MacBook Pro came with an 256 GB SSD and I got that around 2014. I'm not sure if that "counts", though, since it came pre-installed.

 

[Drassx]

My first was a 120gb PNY SATA ssd (actually 2 one for me and one for my dad/parents) both still working in older configs mine has been formatted and used in 3 different computers. This was mid to late 2017 dont remember the date, it changed my life, i could never go back. And working on hdds as i do mostly everyday its at times(most of the time) very painful and triggering, to the point that now a days i pretty much take the approach of strictly recommending ssd to my customers and rarely hdds (outside of just raw storage). It makes both our lives easier in the long run.

 

[cfenton]

A 180GB Corsair Force Series 3 in 2010. It's still in my old Macbook, but it doesn't get much use anymore.

 

[Furious_Styles]

I skipped the 'teething' era of SSDs and bought a samsung 840 pro 256gb in 2014

 

[Arkaign]

Got an OCZ Vertex 4 in summer 2012, bought one for my brother at the same time. Was around $200. Both of them still work perfectly, and are still about as fast as SATA limited SSDs get in practical terms. Mine was downgraded to laptop duties years ago while the main rig was upgraded to 840 Pro 512GB, then 850 Pro 1TB, then nvme. Never really noticed an upgrade from the V4 through the 850, but I suppose SATA 6bps is just a bottleneck.

Weirdly, the ancient Vertex 4 is faster than many of the cheapie SSDs I throw into budget rigs and replacements for stock spinners for people. You know, 'brand X' 240GB for $24.99 etc. But all of them are a good bit better than your typical HDD.

 

[Furious_Styles]

Got an OCZ Vertex 4 in summer 2012, bought one for my brother at the same time. Was around $200. Both of them still work perfectly, and are still about as fast as SATA limited SSDs get in practical terms. Mine was downgraded to laptop duties years ago while the main rig was upgraded to 840 Pro 512GB, then 850 Pro 1TB, then nvme. Never really noticed an upgrade from the V4 through the 850, but I suppose SATA 6bps is just a bottleneck.

Weirdly, the ancient Vertex 4 is faster than many of the cheapie SSDs I throw into budget rigs and replacements for stock spinners for people. You know, 'brand X' 240GB for $24.99 etc. But all of them are a good bit better than your typical HDD.

That's pretty nice, weren't some of the OCZ SSDs notorious for failing? I didn't say in my post above but the 840 I bought is also still in my PC now as the OS drive and working flawlessly.

 

[Arkaign]

That's pretty nice, weren't some of the OCZ SSDs notorious for failing? I didn't say in my post above but the 840 I bought is also still in my PC now as the OS drive and working flawlessly.

Yes, the Vertex 3 and various previous models on Sandforce were indeed a mixed bag for sure in terms of reliability. At the time I picked up the V4s, I was taking a chance as they were a new model, new controller/etc, and nobody knew what the long term outlook might be. It turned out to be hugely more reliable than the earlier models thankfully, and that continued to improve.

 

[Furious_Styles]

Yes, the Vertex 3 and various previous models on Sandforce were indeed a mixed bag for sure in terms of reliability. At the time I picked up the V4s, I was taking a chance as they were a new model, new controller/etc, and nobody knew what the long term outlook might be. It turned out to be hugely more reliable than the earlier models thankfully, and that continued to improve.

I see. I think my brother still has a working vertex I'll have to check and see which one it is!

 

[sonoma1993]

A 64GB Sandisk I bought back in early 2010.

 

[Dev P. First]

My first SSD was Samsung 850 PRO 256GB. If I remember it correctly, I got it in 2015. It is among the very few SSDs that came with 10 years warranty at that time.

 

[ElFenix]

My first SSD purchase(s), were a batch of five, OCZ Agility 30GB SSDs.

think i got one of those and one of the kingston 40GB drives at about the same time. replaced them with a crucial m4, then replaced that with a seagate 600, which i've been rocking ever since.

 

[VirtualLarry]

think i got one of those and one of the kingston 40GB drives at about the same time. replaced them with a crucial m4, then replaced that with a seagate 600, which i've been rocking ever since.

Yeah, the "X25-V" model, 40GB. I got one of those too, but I didn't use it, I passed it on to a different friend, after I found out how much work it was to re-flash the Intel firmware, to gain TRIM support for Windows 7. (Stock Kingston X25-V firmware lacked TRIM support.)

Honestly, it probably wasn't really as much of a big deal as I thought that it was at the time.

 

[ElFenix]

Yeah, the "X25-V" model, 40GB. I got one of those too, but I didn't use it, I passed it on to a different friend, after I found out how much work it was to re-flash the Intel firmware, to gain TRIM support for Windows 7. (Stock Kingston X25-V firmware lacked TRIM support.)

Honestly, it probably wasn't really as much of a big deal as I thought that it was at the time.

i'd forgotten that the kingston drives were intel inside

 

[mopardude87]

My first was a Corsair Force f60 60gb back in 2010,coming from a 300gb Raptor as a boot up drive it was amazingly fast but i won't lie when i say the size bothered me.Luckily BF2 and UT3 was all i played so i had plenty of room for those but just barely.

Been fun watching myself practically doubling the size at a lower price point every time i upgraded,i went from $200 for the 60gb F60 to the $90 i paid for my 500gb Samsung evo 860.

 

[Todd33]

My first was last week MX-500 M.2 1TB, love it.

 

[Johnny Lucky]

My first ssd was a SAMSUNG 470 Series 2.5" 256GB SATA II Internal Solid State Drive that I purchased in December 2010.

Historical Trivia - Tom's Hardware, which is AnandTech's sister site now that Purch owns them, published their first ssd technical review in June 2006. The drive was so new it was not yet called a solid state drive. It was a Samsung prototype that never made it to actual production because there were a lot of problems with it. Samsung went back to the drawing board and eventually came back with a vengeance. The company wound up controlling between 30% to 45% of the ssd market thanks to OEM contracts with companies like Dell, Lenovo, HP, Sony, Acer, and others. The OEM contracts were so lucrative that the sale of consumer ssd's to the general public were a minor afterthought.

 

[aleader]

Kingston A400 120GB in 2014(ish). It's still my system drive (Win 7-64). Bought another for my son's computer a few years ago. Neither have given me issues (knock wood). I have an empty M2 slot that I may fill soon with a Crucial 500GB if/when I upgrade to W10. I'll probably use the 120GB Kingston drive for my younger son's PC when I build it from my misc parts that I have...better than chucking it I guess.

 

[cbn]

Kingston A400 120GB in 2014(ish).

A400 came along in 2017. Could it have been V300?

 

[aleader]

A400 came along in 2017. Could it have been V300?

Yep, V300...my bad!

 

[undici]

Got an OCZ Vertex 4 in summer 2012, bought one for my brother at the same time. Was around $200. Both of them still work perfectly, and are still about as fast as SATA limited SSDs get in practical terms. Mine was downgraded to laptop duties years ago while the main rig was upgraded to 840 Pro 512GB, then 850 Pro 1TB, then nvme. Never really noticed an upgrade from the V4 through the 850, but I suppose SATA 6bps is just a bottleneck.

Weirdly, the ancient Vertex 4 is faster than many of the cheapie SSDs I throw into budget rigs and replacements for stock spinners for people. You know, 'brand X' 240GB for $24.99 etc. But all of them are a good bit better than your typical HDD.

I also got an awesome OCZ Vertex 4 earlier in 2012 in Japan, it's been very reliable running inside a Mac Mini until this month (August 2019), so over 7 years without a single issue.

I had only the MacOS installed in it, and an original HDD 500Gb for most of the data and as a backup.

Within 2 days the SSD apparently died! The macOS had trouble booting once on the first day, and launching Finder. On the second day, the same issue with Finder and freezing the OSX (High Sierra), reboot 2~3 times and then puff... gone... no safe mode, repair, recovery, nor even showing up on Disk Utility.

Tried this Power Cycle trick on an old Windows laptop and it did show in Disk Utility after but disappeared again soon after.

RIP OCZ Vertex 4

 

[IntelUser2000]

80GB Intel X25-M (1st gen) bought early 2009.

After having tried one through various means, there was really no going back to HDDs. Had to have it.

Yes, I was very focused on having a responsive system back then. Was using a WD360 Raptor drive.

Then moved to the X25-M in late 2008. I am pretty sure I am among the handful to own one in the Vancouver area haha.

Paid $900 CDN after tax. Still use it as the main drive in my secondary system.

The X25-M was also the first SSD to bring real battery life gains in laptops. SSDs prior to that, and most after that were lower power just in theory. Often it ended up being worse than systems using notebook HDDs.

 

[pepone1234]

A kingston v300 120GB before they changed the nand to a lower quality one. I sold it to a friend when I bought a new computer a while after.

 

[The Audience]

2 x 60GB OCZ Agility 3 back in 2011/12ish

Still up and running in my i7 2600K (must be a Ricki Lake or something) as OS-drive and pagefile/scratch disk, tho my old friend BSOD has started coming by a little too often, so I guess it's time for an upgrade...

 

[Amol S.]

My first SSD is in my new laptop that I bought near the end of May. The specs I selected contained the SSD so it was not added to the laptop separately.

The SSD that my laptop uses is a PCIe NVMe OPAL2.0 M.2 254GB SSD. I like it. Laptop is at login screen within 2-3 seconds after pressing the power button.