Which SSD to buy

Discussion in 'SSD and HDD storage' started by procol, Mar 10, 2012.

  1. Lukc

    Lukc Guest

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    i don't think m4 use sandforce..
     
  2. luque

    luque Guest

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    M4 is marvell!!!!
     
  3. Sash

    Sash Ancient Guru

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    Last edited: Apr 3, 2012
  4. Anfield82

    Anfield82 Guest

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    I'm in the same situation. I've been leaning towards the OCZ Agility 3 because of the attractive price tag but I'm worried about some users having issues. The Crucial M4 is also another I've been looking at, a bit more expensive but more stable? Will the low write speed be a problem? I'm just a gamer, nothing more lol.

    Would be grateful for some advice too.
     

  5. scheherazade

    scheherazade Ancient Guru

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    You will never tell the difference between any of them under normal usage.

    In theory, a game can load in 30 seconds from an HDD.
    From a slow SSD, it may be 10 seconds.
    From a fast SSD, it may be 9 seconds.
    It just isn't a major issue - to the typical person.

    Your typical writes are small, usually consisting of updating flags in the registry, or a few k in a temp file.

    The user experience will mostly be determined by the 4K qd0 benchmarks - which are typically in the sub 100mb/s range, for essentially all SSDs.

    There is no correlation between fast top speed, and fast 4k qd0 speed, which is why you see 'unimpressive' drives keep up with or beat the 'fast' drive when you do various workload benchmarks.

    Speed is multifaceted. It's not only a matter of 'top speed'.
    To use a car analogy : You wouldn't bring a 7000 HP top fuel drag racer to a race circuit.
    Sure, it's a "FAST" car... but not the right kind of fast.
    (i.e. a 1.6l hatch would out-pace a top fuel car around a race circuit - but vice versa you would not bring a 1.6l hatch to a drag race with a 7000 hp top fuel car.).

    So for a drive, you have two ends of the speed spectrum.
    Case #1: Fast at lots of small writes
    Case #2: Fast at a few large writes
    Being fast at one case does NOT mean being fast at the other case.

    Furthermore, the vast majority of your computer's writes are case #1

    The crucial M4 is 'just ok' at case #2 - but is quite good at case #1.

    A vertex3 is not superior to the M4 in case #1.
    For large files of a particular type*, the vertex 3 is superior to the M4 (i.e. a subset of case #2).

    *The top speed of the Vertex3 is reached when copying files that are : A) large AND B) compressible.

    Most large files are media files. Media files are [essentially] not compressible.
    In those cases, the write speed of a Vertex3 is comparable with an M4.

    Most small files are non-media files, and are compressible.
    In those cases, the write speed of a Vertex3 is comparable with an M4.

    Hence, when you benchmark them against each other using a mixed-task workload, the M4 ends up being a good match for the Vertex3 (or any SF2).

    But if you're doing certain things, like moving large amounts of ISO files from place to place, all the time... then a vertex3 will be hands down superior.





    What it boils down to is this :

    99+% of the time, SSDs are indiscernibly fast.

    -1% of the time you can tell one is faster than the other, and then it's over in a moment and you go back to the 99+% workload where again you can't tell them apart.

    Advertised speeds focus on the rare 'best case scenarios'.

    Speeds that matter (4k qd0, access time, good garbage-collection), are generally not advertised, and are usually "all over the map across all kinds of drives, with no correlation to the top speeds".

    -scheherazade
     
    Last edited: Apr 4, 2012
  6. Anfield82

    Anfield82 Guest

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    Loads of information, thanks :) I've always had a HDD so I imagine any SSD is going to impress me lol
     
  7. scheherazade

    scheherazade Ancient Guru

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    Any of the recent offerings are quite good.

    Even previous gen on Sata2 are [for the typical use case] going to be 90% as good as the recent offerings.

    You'd have to go back 2+ generations before you have to worry about 'going wrong' (performance wise).

    Unless you're hung up on benchmarks / e-peen, you will be just fine with whatever.

    -scheherazade
     
  8. Mineria

    Mineria Ancient Guru

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  9. Sash

    Sash Ancient Guru

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    here is my confusion, get a hyperx 64 gb usb 3 thumb drive, or get am intel SSD when i will buy the i7 3770? i think i will need more storage space.
    meh getting a usb stick is cheaper than that promotion and has same speeds like a series 300 ssd
     
    Last edited: Apr 4, 2012
  10. Mineria

    Mineria Ancient Guru

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    The USB stick misses out on TRIM and other features and won't last as long.
     

  11. ElementalDragon

    ElementalDragon Ancient Guru

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    Yea. Flash drives aren't really built to last as long as SSD's/HDD's are, since they're not really expected to be doing massive amounts of read/write cycles... more as storage media than operational media. Probably far better off with the SSD.
     
  12. Anfield82

    Anfield82 Guest

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    Bought a Crucial m4 128GB in the end. Thanks again for the info.
     

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