I'm looking to get my first SSD. I'm after a 120/128 GB model. It looks like a simple choice between the Crucial M4 and the OCZ Vertex 3 but my question is this... I only have a Sata II interface so if I were buy a cheaper drive, would I get the same performance? Alternatively would it be worth spending an extra however-much for a 6gb/s controller card (I'm not willing to upgrade my whole system to accommodate a new motherboard). If so can someone recommend one at a reasonable price?
this: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/lycom-pe-108-sata-iii-6gbps-1ext-and-1int-2ports-low-profile-pcie-20-host
Yea, I don't like these unknown brands, review-less products. Is it bootable? We don't know. Real world speed of SSD (SATA III ones) is about 300-350MB/s. They only reach 500MB/s (near peek of SATA 6Gbps) when you do a really large file read or write sequentially (in 1 step, nothing else interrupts it). So you don't really limit your SSD. Check out reviews of SSD's to know what I mean. Personally I have my eye on the Corsair Force 3 Series
I have got an M4 and it is fantastic. I am not using it to it's full potential either as it is connected to a ICH10R controller at 3gbs
It doesn't support RAID so you wouldn't be able to stripe SDDs later on (to boost capacity and speed) which your motherboard SATA sockets might. I did "try" a higher end Lycom card which was bootable - they use Marvell controllers so this should be too (downside being that card initialisation will add a few seconds to boot times for those obsessed on such things). I'd agree mostly - game level loads and data backups are areas where the lower speed will have an impact rather than day-to-day usage. Since capacity tends to be a bigger limitation than speed with most SSDs, you could shop around for a cheaper SATA2 model, but the Crucial does offer quite good random-access read speeds (though worse than its C300 predecessor or the Vertex 3) which will likely come into play more often. I'd suggest sticking with motherboard SATA for now. If you then decide on a separate controller card, one with more ports (and RAID capability) would serve you better for the future.
So you have to be careful on the Marvel chip to get, and make sure it's a true 6GBps one.. and not like the ones that are in most X58 motherboards, where it's 3Gbps in reality.
If you haven't already, check the bit tech article comparing the latest firmware upgrades for the M4 and the Vertex 3. The M4 received a massive speed boost and I'd definitely recommended it. Mines amazingly fast and it's on SATA 2 Sent from my Blade via the Bit-tech Android app
Cheers for the advice guys. I think I'll get myself an M4 and not bother with a controller card for the time being
Thats what I'm doing, and they're still crazy fast, plus when we upgrade to a SATA 6Gb/s motherboard we'll get another boost
