Which SSD to buy

procol · **Which SSD to buy -** 03-10-2012, 18:26 | posts: 28

Hi
Im looking for a very reliable ssd it does not need to be the fastest or anything like that. It shuold be about 120gb size.
I have been looking at the OCZ agility 3.
Would that be a good choice or do u suggest some other ssd?

ElementalDragon · 03-10-2012, 18:43 | posts: 8,249 | Location: Pennsylvania, USA

I'm actually using an Agility 3, and love it.... but i don't recall the P5N having SATA3 ports. So, either you can kinda prepare for a potential future upgrade and get the Agility 3, or if you don't plan on upgrading for quite some time, i'd say maybe the Agility/Vertex 2?

procol · 03-10-2012, 18:46 | posts: 28

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElementalDragon

I'm actually using an Agility 3, and love it.... but i don't recall the P5N having SATA3 ports. So, either you can kinda prepare for a potential future upgrade and get the Agility 3, or if you don't plan on upgrading for quite some time, i'd say maybe the Agility/Vertex 2?

ok nice, yeah im planning to upgrade to an Asus P8Z68-V LE and an i5 2500k

ElementalDragon · 03-11-2012, 08:21 | posts: 8,249 | Location: Pennsylvania, USA

Cool. Well then, i'd say your best bet for speed-on-a-buck would be the Agility 3. I thought about going to the Vertex when i bought mine, but honestly couldn't justify the price bump.... and haven't had an issue with the Agility.

procol · 03-11-2012, 14:00 | posts: 28

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElementalDragon

Cool. Well then, i'd say your best bet for speed-on-a-buck would be the Agility 3. I thought about going to the Vertex when i bought mine, but honestly couldn't justify the price bump.... and haven't had an issue with the Agility.

ok great thx!

Veteran · 03-11-2012, 23:41 | posts: 7,405 | Location: United kingdom

I heard good things about the M4 crucial,seems to be very stable and dont bsod as much as other drivers providing you upgrade the bios on the drive first...i hear bad things about ocz,even my real life friend had constant bsods with ocz ssd's so he sent it back and got a crucial.

ElementalDragon · 03-12-2012, 05:13 | posts: 8,249 | Location: Pennsylvania, USA

I haven't had a BSOD with my Agility 3 yet.... and i've been using it for a solid couple months now.

Lukc · 03-12-2012, 14:06 | posts: 346 | Location: Slovenija

crucial m4 is probably cheapest and really reliable...

TDurden · 03-12-2012, 16:36 | posts: 1,799 | Location: LT

Quote:

Originally Posted by procol

Hi
Im looking for a very reliable ssd it does not need to be the fastest or anything like that. It shuold be about 120gb size.
I have been looking at the OCZ agility 3.
Would that be a good choice or do u suggest some other ssd?

I would say Intel 520 then. Intel is probably the only company I would buy a sandforce based drive atm.
Plus you get 5 years warranty. Even if you dont use it for that long you can sell it later for a higher price.

ElementalDragon · 03-12-2012, 21:46 | posts: 8,249 | Location: Pennsylvania, USA

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lukc

crucial m4 is probably cheapest and really reliable...

wouldn't exactly say the cheapest.... their 128GB SSD is about the same price as Intel's 120GB SSD.

TDurden: Well... that's assuming you CAN sell the SSD. Selling storage media isn't usually the easiest thing to do, especially considering that SSD's do have a fairly limited lifespan, at least compared to HDD's. OCZ still gives you i believe a 3 year warranty. Pretty sure by the time anyone who purchased an SSD in the past year maybe will be using it for some time, and probably won't need to upgrade until SSD's are basically at the point where selling it to upgrade isn't really that worth it.

Lukc · 03-12-2012, 23:19 | posts: 346 | Location: Slovenija

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElementalDragon

wouldn't exactly say the cheapest.... their 128GB SSD is about the same price as Intel's 120GB SSD.

TDurden: Well... that's assuming you CAN sell the SSD. Selling storage media isn't usually the easiest thing to do, especially considering that SSD's do have a fairly limited lifespan, at least compared to HDD's. OCZ still gives you i believe a 3 year warranty. Pretty sure by the time anyone who purchased an SSD in the past year maybe will be using it for some time, and probably won't need to upgrade until SSD's are basically at the point where selling it to upgrade isn't really that worth it.

i can found M4 in my country 128gb version for 148eur. everything else is 175eur+..

TDurden · 03-12-2012, 23:29 | posts: 1,799 | Location: LT

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElementalDragon

wouldn't exactly say the cheapest.... their 128GB SSD is about the same price as Intel's 120GB SSD.

TDurden: Well... that's assuming you CAN sell the SSD. Selling storage media isn't usually the easiest thing to do, especially considering that SSD's do have a fairly limited lifespan, at least compared to HDD's. OCZ still gives you i believe a 3 year warranty. Pretty sure by the time anyone who purchased an SSD in the past year maybe will be using it for some time, and probably won't need to upgrade until SSD's are basically at the point where selling it to upgrade isn't really that worth it.

Of course you can, I have sold many HDDs.
That said a good SSD should last as long as traditional HDD or longer.
I would buy Intel 520 not only because of 5 years warranty, but because it's fast and most of all should prove to be more reliable then other Sandforce based SSDs. If I would buy SSD now it would be my choice. But for now I already have one and it's also from Intel, albeit a bit slower one. I had zero problems with it and after 2.5 years reported wear out is minimal.

Veteran · 03-13-2012, 00:17 | posts: 7,405 | Location: United kingdom

Quote:

Originally Posted by TDurden

Of course you can, I have sold many HDDs.
That said a good SSD should last as long as traditional HDD or longer.
I would buy Intel 520 not only because of 5 years warranty, but because it's fast and most of all should prove to be more reliable then other Sandforce based SSDs. If I would buy SSD now it would be my choice. But for now I already have one and it's also from Intel, albeit a bit slower one. I had zero problems with it and after 2.5 years reported wear out is minimal.

So do the intel drives last longer than other drivers regarding deterioration over a few years?

ElementalDragon · 03-13-2012, 00:32 | posts: 8,249 | Location: Pennsylvania, USA

I think that would basically be down to what chips are used in the drives... and even then it would probably be hard to tell if one might deteriorate faster than the other.

TDurden · *Last edited by TDurden; 03-13-2012 at 16:20.*

Quote:

Originally Posted by Veteran

So do the intel drives last longer than other drivers regarding deterioration over a few years?

I don't know if Intel drives last longer than other SSDs but I would expect them to last at least last as long as other SSDs. Good quality memory chips and good wear leveling algorithms certainly helps.

After 2.5 years of daily usage I don't see any deterioration. Swap and hybernate/hybrid sleep files are also on SSD. Basically standard windows configuration, I didn't change anything. I wanted to see how SSD will last myself. And the results seem to be congruent with my calculations. Basically you need a decade or more to wear out a good SSD with standard usage.

In fact "a decade" might be conservative to say..

Lets do some math. MLC flash is rated for 10.000 write on average. Let's be a bit more conservative and say 5.000 cycles.
160GB x 5.000 = 800.000GB
Let's say daily writes are 10GB (with swap file etc). With relaxed wear leveling of 1.3 it makes 13GB per day.
That makes it 61.538 days or more then 168 years.
Did I miss something? Even if I did (please correct me) we are talking about quite a few years

What does my SSD show itself?
Media Wearout Indicator shows 97 (down from 99 the first day, I assume it starts showing 99 when you start using it)

Explanation from Intel SSD Toolbox help:

Quote:

Media Wearout Indicator

Reports the number of cycles the NAND media has undergone. The normalized value declines linearly from 100 to 1 as the average erase cycle count increases from 0 to the maximum rated cycles

Now as I said it actually starts from 99 so it means after two and half years value change by 2.
99 / 2 = 49.5
2.5 yeas * 49.5 = 123.75 years (!?)

EDIT: yeah, I missed something. In practical usage drive is partially filled with data and afaik it's not moved automatically unless files are deleted/changed or manual optimization is run. So drive will not always have all the space for wear leveling. But still.. not all space is used under normal usage pattern, files do change and SSDs actually have spare area specifically for wear leveling. Afaik my Intel X25-M G2 160GB has about 11GB of it. So we can still count many years, decades (?)

Veteran · 03-14-2012, 23:32 | posts: 7,405 | Location: United kingdom

Quote:

Originally Posted by TDurden

I don't know if Intel drives last longer than other SSDs but I would expect them to last at least last as long as other SSDs. Good quality memory chips and good wear leveling algorithms certainly helps.

After 2.5 years of daily usage I don't see any deterioration. Swap and hybernate/hybrid sleep files are also on SSD. Basically standard windows configuration, I didn't change anything. I wanted to see how SSD will last myself. And the results seem to be congruent with my calculations. Basically you need a decade or more to wear out a good SSD with standard usage.

In fact "a decade" might be conservative to say..

Lets do some math. MLC flash is rated for 10.000 write on average. Let's be a bit more conservative and say 5.000 cycles.
160GB x 5.000 = 800.000GB
Let's say daily writes are 10GB (with swap file etc). With relaxed wear leveling of 1.3 it makes 13GB per day.
That makes it 61.538 days or more then 168 years.
Did I miss something? Even if I did (please correct me) we are talking about quite a few years

What does my SSD show itself?
Media Wearout Indicator shows 97 (down from 99 the first day, I assume it starts showing 99 when you start using it)

Explanation from Intel SSD Toolbox help:

Now as I said it actually starts from 99 so it means after two and half years value change by 2.
99 / 2 = 49.5
2.5 yeas * 49.5 = 123.75 years (!?)

EDIT: yeah, I missed something. In practical usage drive is partially filled with data and afaik it's not moved automatically unless files are deleted/changed or manual optimization is run. So drive will not always have all the space for wear leveling. But still.. not all space is used under normal usage pattern, files do change and SSDs actually have spare area specifically for wear leveling. Afaik my Intel X25-M G2 160GB has about 11GB of it. So we can still count many years, decades (?)

Thanks for sharing your experience with ssd's ill certainly keep Intel drives in mind and will do some thorough research on the whole ssd subject when the time comes of me actually purchasing

Valagard · 03-15-2012, 00:18 | posts: 963

Price, Agility 3

Performance, Vertex 3, M4 or Intel 520

Longevity, Intel 520 or Vertex 3, Vertex 3 is second cause sometimes they use different chips then Intel, but -most- of the time they are the exact same chips

Bentez · 03-16-2012, 14:08 | posts: 986 | Location: Southampton, UK

Quote:

Originally Posted by Valagard

Price, Agility 3

Performance, Vertex 3, M4 or Intel 520

Longevity, Intel 520 or Vertex 3, Vertex 3 is second cause sometimes they use different chips then Intel, but -most- of the time they are the exact same chips

What about Corsair's Force GT or Mushkin Chronos 120? I don't think theres much between any of the Sandforce drives to be honest

Valagard · 03-17-2012, 07:42 | posts: 963

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bentez

What about Corsair's Force GT or Mushkin Chronos 120? I don't think theres much between any of the Sandforce drives to be honest

Corsair Force GT can read large files faster then the Vertex 3, but for multiple access, jumping between tons of small files etc the Vertex 3 is faster

Sash · 04-03-2012, 16:33 | posts: 7,068

Kingston HyperX is not bad as well, very good performance, over 500MB/s on both reads and writes, it uses the latest sandforce 2281 controller, i dont know how it performs, no CPU to power my rig

but i got it based on reviews, and the fact that is basically the same sandforce chip as in: crucial m4, ocz agility and vertex 3, intel 520, of all these SSDs, it has the best speeds at least in numbers, maybe the others are limited by firmware, don't know

Lukc · 04-03-2012, 19:24 | posts: 346 | Location: Slovenija

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sash

Kingston HyperX is not bad as well, very good performance, over 500MB/s on both reads and writes, it uses the latest sandforce 2281 controller, i dont know how it performs, no CPU to power my rig

but i got it based on reviews, and the fact that is basically the same sandforce chip as in: crucial m4, ocz agility and vertex 3, intel 520, of all these SSDs, it has the best speeds at least in numbers, maybe the others are limited by firmware, don't know

i don't think m4 use sandforce..

luque · 04-03-2012, 19:31 | posts: 1 | Location: Colombia

M4 is marvell!!!!

Sash · 04-03-2012, 20:46 | posts: 7,068

yes, i confused crucial with corsair force, my conclusion and opinion is that any SSD with sandforce controller will suffice, technically they are all the same, the only diference is price and firmware

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/sto...iot-ssd_2.html

Anfield82 · 04-03-2012, 21:20 | posts: 1,099 | Location: UK

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.

scheherazade · 04-03-2012, 23:18 | posts: 1,926 | Location: NOVA

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anfield82

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.

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