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Which SSD to get for a Win7 OS drive? (1x 120-160GB / 2x 80GB Raid0)

A

Alx09

Junior Member
Hello! (another which-one-to-get thread, sorry)
I've been looking around for a good OS SSD for quite a while now.

I was very close to buy 2x80GB Intel X-25M G2 a while ago, but then I heard intel's new drives were coming, so I decided to sit back and wait some months, however the reviews of the new intel's are not as convincing as I had hoped. Today I read the review of the 120gb vertex 3, but it doesn't seem to be a good choice either, since I don't have 6Gbps.

I've been lurking around on the forums a while trying to find an answer for which one to get, but haven't really found it.

Some SSD's I'm considering:

  • Intel 320 120/160gb
  • Intel 510 120gb
  • OCZ Vertex 3 120gb
  • Crucial C300 128gb
  • Crucial C400 128gb
  • 2x Intel X-25M G2 80gb/120gb Raid 0
What am I looking for in a system drive? From what I've read read/write speeds are not everything, but the random reads/writes are much more important? (sorry, I don't have a lot of deep knowledge)

Is Raid 0'ing 2 ssds with 80gb/120gb a good option or will it cause problems for a system drive?

I am a full-time front-end web designer, so I use Photoshop quite a lot. Playing lots of games as well. But most important for me is just that programs and windows feels/starts/closes quick.

Would be great so have some opionions.
TL;DR- If you were to buy a Windows7 drive, around 120-160gb, before May 1st, which one would you get, and why?

Current Specs:
- Asus P6T Deluxe v2
- Intel Core i7 920
- Corsair Dominator 6GB DDR3 1600mhz
- Radeon HD5870
- 500GB x 3 7200rpm + OCZ Vertex Extreme SSD 30GB (way too small for a system drive, it's a pain)
- Corsair HX 850W
- Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit)
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wait a couple weeks to see if the G2 stock goes on a nice sale and grab 2x 80GB and raid0 them. there's no problems running them in raid0, especially since the G2 supports TRIM in raid. i ran 2x 160GB in raid0 for a couple years with no problems and just recently did a reinstall. got a sandybridge so i wanted a fresh start. STILL using my G1 drives.
 
for anything you or anyone here would use it for, absolutely. my G1s in raid0 still rock my OS. even gives me a 7.9 in the windex (not that that means anything).
 
Alright, so 2x X-25M G2 in raid0 would still perform better than 2x intel 310 in raid0, for my needs?

They are both pretty much the same price/gb at the moment in Sweden.
 
nanaki333 said:
wait a couple weeks to see if the G2 stock goes on a nice sale and grab 2x 80GB and raid0 them. there's no problems running them in raid0, especially since the G2 supports TRIM in raid. i ran 2x 160GB in raid0 for a couple years with no problems and just recently did a reinstall. got a sandybridge so i wanted a fresh start. STILL using my G1 drives.
Click to expand...

Unless I missed the big news, there is still no raid solution with trim support.
 
nanaki333 said:
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?70793-TRIM-FOR-INTEL-RAID
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/detail_desc.aspx?agr=N&ProductID=&DwnldID=15251

they added trim raid support to intel raid drivers about a year ago.
Click to expand...

Wrong. They added TRIM support for a single SSD on the same controller that is also running a raid. So if you have a ssd and 2 hdds in raid, you get trim for your ssd. That was not possible before. However if your raid the ssd's themselves, no trim.

http://communities.intel.com/thread/16242
 
beginner99 said:
Wrong. They added TRIM support for a single SSD on the same controller that is also running a raid. So if you have a ssd and 2 hdds in raid, you get trim for your ssd. That was not possible before. However if your raid the ssd's themselves, no trim.

http://communities.intel.com/thread/16242
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doh...

well, there IS still a way of doing trim on raided SSDs.
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...-A-simple-guide-for-speeding-up-EOL-OCZ-SSD-s.

i did it throughout the 2 years i had my G1s 🙂
 
Alx09 said:
Some SSD's I'm considering:

  • Intel 320 120/160gb
  • Intel 510 120gb
  • OCZ Vertex 3 120gb
  • Crucial C300 128gb
  • Crucial C400 128gb
  • 2x Intel X-25M G2 80gb/120gb Raid 0
TL;DR- If you were to buy a Windows7 drive, around 120-160gb, before May 1st, which one would you get, and why?
Click to expand...

Any of the above that's cheapest. They'll all great. Each will outperform the other in different things in benchmarks, but in real life and through the life of your ownership you'll won't be saving that much time versus the other. Since you're strapped to SATA 2 like me, I'd be keeping an eye on:

Intel 120 G2 (It's writes a little faster than it's 80GB brother. Lots cheap, used on ebay.)
Intel 310 (Despite the benchmark disappointments, everyone expected more, including myself, however Alynn from pcper had the best insights about it's real life and ownership performance in their podcast which was enlightening and assuring)

If were lucky to have SATA 6 any of your choices would be fine.
 
Alright, I guess I'll have to wait for a sale on the X-25M or get the 320. Intel is always a safe choice I guess. Thanks for the tip.
 
nanaki333 said:
wait a couple weeks to see if the G2 stock goes on a nice sale and grab 2x 80GB and raid0 them. there's no problems running them in raid0, especially since the G2 supports TRIM in raid. i ran 2x 160GB in raid0 for a couple years with no problems and just recently did a reinstall. got a sandybridge so i wanted a fresh start. STILL using my G1 drives.
Click to expand...

Are you sure you aren't confusing GC with TRIM? AFAIK, Intel still DOES NOT support TRIM in RAID mode on RAID drives, only that they support it on SINGLE DRIVES, when the chipset is in RAID mode.
 
VirtualLarry said:
Are you sure you aren't confusing GC with TRIM? AFAIK, Intel still DOES NOT support TRIM in RAID mode on RAID drives, only that they support it on SINGLE DRIVES, when the chipset is in RAID mode.
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yes. read my followup post. i made a mistake. you can still TRIM it with the other link i posted too, which is what i do every so often.
 
2 x 60GB Vertex 2's would smoke all those drives and be cheaper too. Sandforce doesn't require trim like the others either and maintains just fine.

I use 6 V2's in R0 for all my Adobe suite work and none of the others even come close. Even 2 of them in R0 far exceeded all the others I've tried on that list.

A fanboy?.. yeah.. probably. I have good reason though, as my Sandforce drives fly for an editing machine.
 
groberts101 said:
2 x 60GB Vertex 2's would smoke all those drives and be cheaper too. Sandforce doesn't require trim like the others either and maintains just fine.

I use 6 V2's in R0 for all my Adobe suite work and none of the others even come close. Even 2 of them in R0 far exceeded all the others I've tried on that list.

A fanboy?.. yeah.. probably. I have good reason though, as my Sandforce drives fly for an editing machine.
Click to expand...

This, as someone currently using 2x Corsair Force in R0, i can say that these things do very well in RAID without TRIM.
 
Acanthus said:
This, as someone currently using 2x Corsair Force in R0, i can say that these things do very well in RAID without TRIM.
Click to expand...

I haven't used any in RAID, but I've purchased a few Sandforce SSDs, and they do seem to get a little slower than my Intel drives do over time without TRIM (although they are all still quite fast)

One question - if you use Intel SSDs in RAID, can you still do a manual TRIM using the SSD toolbox? That can be scheduled to run once a week.
 
They say that once you cross a certain threshold the speed difference doesn't matter.

That said, a pair of Vertex 2s would be very tempting to go with.

I do find RAID to be a PITA though. I guess with smaller drives it's easier to deal with.
 
In reviews, which test should I look for if I want to see the speed of actual applications starting. Is it Random 4k Reads that is important there?
 
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