Well, it looks like prices are completely out the window now. I bought my M225 a week ago from Dabs for £219, they are now listing it at £275! Did I buy at the right time or what? The Agility looks like a nice buy at £230. What I meant by multiple source chips is that they are using more than one source for their NAND flash chips for the Agility. The sample CPC tested was using Intel chips and performed very well. However, CPC slapped a big caveat on it and said that there is no guarantee the drive you get will have the same chips and could perform quite differently. I'm guessing that kind of tallies with the Techradar review. If I'm spending £200+ on a bit of kit, I don't want a lottery.
Bindi, They have bailed on the recent TRIM firmware update for now, as it was causing other performance issues. So much so that Crucial removed the link from their site.
this is too much (first DDR3 prices; from 80GBP to 112GBP; then Ati's 5850 and 5870 garbage, and now this!!) my purse banged shut! I'm going for a Seagate 7200.12; at least I know there what the price stands for.
I think the firmware version was 1711, there were a few peeps on the Crucial forums who were less than thrilled. I'm sure you can use your omnipwntent powers to squeeze a little info out of them. Just been back on the Crucial forums, it looks like they have released a further update. Crucial are telling everyone with 1711 to flash back to 1571 before applying the new update.
This puts the "guaranteed firmware" under a whole new perspective for Custom PC. (not to mention the conclusion about Samsung's controller in Kingston V+ review here: "we would look elswhere,..." bet you would; Intel maybe :hehe )
I originally ordered from Novatech a few weeks ago (Sept 22nd I think), and they had for £217, but their ETA on drives was optimistic to say the least, and they eventually said they weren't expecting any until Oct 30th. I cancelled the order and got one overnighted from Dabs. The price was £219, but I paid about £14 for next day delivery on the saturday morning. So I paid £233 in total, which is still a bargain.
Are they that much of an improvement over the conventional HDD? Wonder how much of a difference one would make in a HTPC as the boot drive?
Arg!! So the OCZ Agility 120 is not as good as it looks? I bought one after a lot of research, and after been sure that has no stuttering problems. Because of his Indilinx controller. I haven't tested yet, I have it stored until my new notebook arrives (I'll swap the hard drives) but it's to late to change it for a vertex unit!! Do you think this problem will be solved with a new firmware? I'm a bit disappointed with ocz right now...
Afaik from what people have said it depends on the quality of memory chips they used. You might have the same good quality Samsung ones that are in every other drive around...you might not. Which is why it's cheaper - there's a bit of a gamble. So no way to know whether it will perform well or merely OK until you try. Can't imagine a firmware update would help. *disclaimer - all of the above is purely from reading this thread and going some googling. Non-expert!
I just talked with with my friend over at a mayor investment bank; apparently SanDisc will have X3 SSDs, while the X4 with their exclusive revolutionary controller (SanDisc sole rights) is still sort of future. Therefore there is nothing to wait; or Intel proven TRIM solutions or the juggling from "competition" where you don't know for how long it will perform SSD like.
I would get a cheap one for a HTPC only because of noise and heat. You want that to be as quiet and cool as humanly possible - not for performance. HTPC's need to be "fast enough", unless you're making it do something exotic.
£275 at Dabs.com £263 at Overclockers (but out of stock) £253 at Novatech (and finally IN stock) The price has been bouncing around for a month, but mainly bouncing upwards.
I have a lot to correct; there is a very interesting review on PC Perspective: http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=766&type=expert&pid=7 Even a humble Crucial 64SSD beats an Intel 160GB G2 SSD in home applications usage. An OCZ Vertex leaves the Intel in dust. What TRIM is concerned, there is a "Wiper" or "Performance Restore" utility, that is proven to work, till they solve the TRIM applicability. When they solve the TRIM on Indilinx, the drives having it will be in clear advantage over Intel. However, till then Intel is on top, since OCZ Vertex and similar drop their write speeds towards 44 Mb/sec (talking about staying behind HDD), while Intel G2 keeps no matter what its new level. http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=733&type=expert&pid=13
