I'm looking for an SSD for the laptop I will buy. I would like to spend $130 maximum. I think I need 60GB of space, but I'm really not sure (I'll be carrying Win 7 x64, MS Office, Photoshop and Dreamweaver CS4, ~6GB of music, and not much else). I don't know much about SSDs. Any suggestions? I found one OCZ on Newegg that looked good, but I found some odd price/space differences: $114.99 - OCZ Vertex Series OCZSSD2-1VTX60G 2.5" 60GB SATA II MLC Sequential Read: Up to 230 MB/s Sequential Write: up to 135MB/s Sustained Write: up to 70MB/s (this looks like a pretty high-performance drive and a good deal, what do you guys think?) These next two seem to be anomalies and I'm not getting why they're priced so much: $124.95 - OCZ Vertex Series OCZSSD2-1VTX30GXXX 2.5" 30GB SATA II MLC Sequential Read: Up to 230 MB/s Sequential Write: up to 135MB/s Sustained Write: up to 80MB/s (why is this drive more expensive than the 60GB above? isn't it based off the same design? is it that 10MB sustained write advantage?) $114.99 - OCZ Vertex Turbo OCZSSD2-1VTXT30G 2.5" 30GB SATA II MLC Sequential Read: Up to 240 MB/s Sequential Write: up to 145MB/s Sustained Write: up to 100MB/s (now, it's part of the "Vertex Turbo" line so I assume it's faster, but it doesn't look much faster than the normal vertex drives, at least on paper) There must be more to it, since these specs are nearly identical. But anyways, I would really appreciate feedback and I would be very grateful if someone could advise me on this. That 60GB OCZ on the top there looks pretty good, but is it? Of course, if someone can suggest me a better buy, I'd be very willing to look into it. I'm not restricted to Newegg or anything, I'm just very familiar with that site.
^ Agreed. Do wait for the new SandForce (and perhaps Indilinx) based drives from OCZ, et al to be out. Anyways for an OS drive sequential read write doesn't matter much as long as it's not too slow (basically, above a Velociraptor will do) . For an OS/programs drive, what REALLY matters is the 4K random read/write. However, if you plan to use the SSD for data transfer (ie hold temporary RAW images while editing,etc) then sequential read/write would matter, but pretty much most of the SSDs will be fine for this. If you haven't already done so, I recommend you read the following for the basics: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2738 http://www.anandtech.com/show/2829 As for a ~$100 range: http://www.anandtech.com/show/3756/2010-value-ssd-100-roundup-kingston-and-ocz-take-on-intel/2 I personally use a X25-M G2 80GB and it works quite well with Win 7 + CAD programs + Photoshop CS5. There are faster drives out there, but most (for example the new SandForce 1200 based ) drives haven't still gone through enough time (the original X25-M released in late 2008) so reliability is unknown. If time is not of the essence, I highly recommend you wait and see. Intel is suppose to release their new SSDs in Q4 (~October) this year. Picking a SSD is quite annoying actually with all these different firmware, controllers,etc. Anyways, I think choice is a good thing, but it's up to the buyer to conduct the research properly.
Okay, excellent. Thank you. The thing is, I don't have much time, and by the time Q4 rolls around, i'll be in school already. So what do you think is the best drive out there for $130 or under that I could get right now?
^ Probably the X25-V for $100 @ Newegg. HOWEVER, 40GB may be too small imo. edit: One more thing, if you get any SSD follow this set up guide (even for Win 7): http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?47212-Vista-32-64-SSD-Windows-Registry-tweaks As for the RAM drive noted in the guide above, yes, you can store your firefox cache files or use it as a scratch disk. I got a 3GB scratch disk that I use to store videos (on a 2P, with 24GB RAM used mainly for CFD sims) when editing in Vegas.
64GB Crucial RealSSD C300 (CTFDDAC064MAG-1G1)...I would think with a discount code etc you should get this for under $130... ________ Children Nexium
