Research, balance reputation and price.
SSDs consist of three "systems of interest," the MEMORY various NAND types, some are better than others, better generally costs more, designers are learning to "optimize" the kinds. Synchronous and toggle nand are desireable.
NAND can be single, double, or multibit design. Single is more expensive but most reliable, more or less. SLC, MLC, TLC.
Second is the controller. This is a small CPU that "manages" the SSD. Sandforce and Marvel are the most ?common?.
Third is FIRMWARE, this controls what the SSD does. Some manufacturers do their own firmware or have it done, some depend on "tweaking" basic firmware offered with/by the controller company.
Sandforce is a controller where the firmware was supplied with limited tweaks allowed.
Unfortunately the OEM was not satisfactory and some "changes" made it worse.
Firmware is vital.
Intel maintained a good reputation through using propriety firmware for Sandforce controllers (negotiated special).
Sandforce uses data compression to post great speed, uncompressed data can slow it down.
Hense a migration to controllers with more balanced performance.
I found a great price on Kingston HyperX 3K using Sandforce. Kingston as best I could tell has a good reputation with these.
Next I found almost as good a price on Samsung 830 which use a different controller and Samsung firmware and has an excellent reputation.
In a year or two I'll be able to tell how well they work for me and whether I've had any issues.
There is also set up. There are "conditions must be met" for SSDs. Simple unless you mess up. New installs of operating system is recommended.
BIOS must be set to ACHI or RAID.
Defragementation disabled. TRIM enabled,
Some SSDs do not support TRIM in Raid.
Some SSDs "slow down" more than others as they fill up (and age). An issue..
Usually a reinstall "fixes"..
Usually an SSD failure means "no data saveable." Back up often.
And I am still researching my first install, so I cannot swear I got this all correct.
SSDs consist of three "systems of interest," the MEMORY various NAND types, some are better than others, better generally costs more, designers are learning to "optimize" the kinds. Synchronous and toggle nand are desireable.
NAND can be single, double, or multibit design. Single is more expensive but most reliable, more or less. SLC, MLC, TLC.
Second is the controller. This is a small CPU that "manages" the SSD. Sandforce and Marvel are the most ?common?.
Third is FIRMWARE, this controls what the SSD does. Some manufacturers do their own firmware or have it done, some depend on "tweaking" basic firmware offered with/by the controller company.
Sandforce is a controller where the firmware was supplied with limited tweaks allowed.
Unfortunately the OEM was not satisfactory and some "changes" made it worse.
Firmware is vital.
Intel maintained a good reputation through using propriety firmware for Sandforce controllers (negotiated special).
Sandforce uses data compression to post great speed, uncompressed data can slow it down.
Hense a migration to controllers with more balanced performance.
I found a great price on Kingston HyperX 3K using Sandforce. Kingston as best I could tell has a good reputation with these.
Next I found almost as good a price on Samsung 830 which use a different controller and Samsung firmware and has an excellent reputation.
In a year or two I'll be able to tell how well they work for me and whether I've had any issues.
There is also set up. There are "conditions must be met" for SSDs. Simple unless you mess up. New installs of operating system is recommended.
BIOS must be set to ACHI or RAID.
Defragementation disabled. TRIM enabled,
Some SSDs do not support TRIM in Raid.
Some SSDs "slow down" more than others as they fill up (and age). An issue..
Usually a reinstall "fixes"..
Usually an SSD failure means "no data saveable." Back up often.
And I am still researching my first install, so I cannot swear I got this all correct.
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tweakboy
Diamond Member
First experience and a good one. Crucial M4 512GB all the way.. 010G makes it faster then Windows 8 makes your ssd even faster, for example, my DAW app used to take 5 second to launch,,, "not open a project" just app. Now it takes 3 seconds. It used to takes 3 minutes to do Registry Life registry defrag, With 8 it takes 5 seconds....... things are snappy and stable I took this pic when I hit 2222 a little while back,,,Im using 512k cluster size on top of that, default is 4096.. I was on 512 put the image from external onto SSD and boooom 3 minute boot time of 7 went to 20 seconds......now with 8 my boot time "To the desktop" is about 15 seconds
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ok so Sandforce can be good or bad. so it depends on the firmware the company releases? So OCZ is sandforce but there firmware sucks so the SSD has high chance of failure?
Do I want a small SSD or big one? So main thing for all of you is you use SSD for operating system. Then what do you do with the rest of the space?
Do you make it caching SSD or do you actually install your favorite programs and games on there for super quick load times.
To me it sounds like it makes more sense to get a small SSD and use Intel caching SSD as long as you have the CPU with the feature? unless you have a lot of money, which I don't, smaller SSD better?
Do I want a small SSD or big one? So main thing for all of you is you use SSD for operating system. Then what do you do with the rest of the space?
Do you make it caching SSD or do you actually install your favorite programs and games on there for super quick load times.
To me it sounds like it makes more sense to get a small SSD and use Intel caching SSD as long as you have the CPU with the feature? unless you have a lot of money, which I don't, smaller SSD better?
The new OCZ Vertex 4's and Agility 4's are based on a Marvell controller. I haven't followed them so I can't really comment on them, but I think most of OCZ's issues were with the Sandforce drives ( Vertex/Agility 2's and 3's )
I personally have had good luck with My Crucial M4's, Plextor M3's and Intel X25's.
Have just had the plextors for a few months though so far.
Hellhammer
AnandTech Emeritus
- Apr 25, 2011
- 701
- 4
- 81
Intel is the only SandForce OEM with a custom firmware. Everyone else uses the firmware supplied by SandForce, no tweaks or modifications allowed. OCZ was the first OEM to release SF-2000 based SSDs and back then the firmware was immature, which lead to a bunch of issues (BSOD etc.).
It's unlikely that a firmware would completely break hardware. It can cause a ton of issues but if the SSD becomes undetectable by BIOS or any system, then it's most likely that some piece of the hardware has failed.
ok I was reading the Crucial 64gb and a lot of the newest reviews say it dies in 1 year exactly. that is not a good sign.
maybe Intel is better choice? 64gb or 120gb drive?
maybe Intel is better choice? 64gb or 120gb drive?
I'd say Samsung since that is the brand Apple uses in its computers.
The failures here at Anandtech I feel are because the 840 and/or 840 Pro are probably just going through growing pains. Intel had a similar issue with their 320 early on and then it ended up turning into a good drive.
The failures here at Anandtech I feel are because the 840 and/or 840 Pro are probably just going through growing pains. Intel had a similar issue with their 320 early on and then it ended up turning into a good drive.
A spare cloned SSD is a great idea, thanks!
And that question the OP asked is the quintessentially PERFECT question for a board like this if you think ab out it.
GREAT QUESTION!
Hellhammer
AnandTech Emeritus
- Apr 25, 2011
- 701
- 4
- 81
Toshiba has a SandForce based SATA 6Gbps drive that is used in the current MacBook Airs. One thing about Toshiba is that they are an OEM-only manufacturer so their SSDs are a bit meaningless to most consumers (can't really compare with others since you can't buy them).
Crucial had an issue known as the 5000 hour bug in early firmware. It has been corrected for quite a while, the failures referenced might be related to the 5000 hour issue? From everything I have ever seen Crucial is one of the more reliable drives.
Maybe Hellhammer can comment on this.
Not certain, but I thought I read somewhere that Toshiba has developed, or is working on their own SATA 6 controller as well. Am I mistaken?
I personally trust Crucial. More personal preference rather than knowing how good they are. You'd have to look at the returns of failed SSDs to get a good sense of which are the best and which are the worst. I am sure someone on here will post some stats.
Crucial has failed on me and I generally view it as grossly overrated.
It's slower and more expensive and has a shorter warranty than many other SSDs too
It's slower and more expensive and has a shorter warranty than many other SSDs too
Hellhammer
AnandTech Emeritus
- Apr 25, 2011
- 701
- 4
- 81
The 5000-hour bug was fixed months ago, although the 010G update has been a bit troublesome for some users. I would regard Crucial m4 as one of the more reliable drives but given the firmware issues, a Samsung SSD 830 or a Plextor SSD will be a safer bet.
At first it seemed like Toshiba will have a SATA 6Gbps controller but that turned out to be a rebranded SandForce controller.
Smart Cache is reasonable for a 32 GB SSD, otherwise not.
Black Friday is coming, be prepared.
I bought the Kingston HyperX K3 120 GB for $60 each after reading Intel now supported TRIM in RAID0.
Then I bought 2 Samsung 830 128GB for $70 each.
My hold up is having learned TRIM in RAID0 is supported on 7x series motherboards with recent firmware updates. Using an H67 and was building a Z68 Motherboard machine.
So I need a Z77 motherboard if I want to do RAID0.
The larger the SSD the better it works. You need to research this.
Generally you keep Operating System, AntiVirus, other security software, office, and you most important to speed up programs on the SSD. There is no reason to keep DATA on the SSD. Music, movies, pictures, documents, all are fine on HDD.
At current sale pricing anything less than 128 GB seems silly..
Black Friday is coming, be prepared.
I bought the Kingston HyperX K3 120 GB for $60 each after reading Intel now supported TRIM in RAID0.
Then I bought 2 Samsung 830 128GB for $70 each.
My hold up is having learned TRIM in RAID0 is supported on 7x series motherboards with recent firmware updates. Using an H67 and was building a Z68 Motherboard machine.
So I need a Z77 motherboard if I want to do RAID0.
The larger the SSD the better it works. You need to research this.
Generally you keep Operating System, AntiVirus, other security software, office, and you most important to speed up programs on the SSD. There is no reason to keep DATA on the SSD. Music, movies, pictures, documents, all are fine on HDD.
At current sale pricing anything less than 128 GB seems silly..
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