Hardware SSD Buyer's Guide

Im guessing its http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Highpoint-RocketRAID-620(RR620)-2-channel-Internal-PCI-e-v2-x1-to-SATA-6Gb-s-RAID-controller(card) Seems to be the only highpoint card i can see.

 

The reason to get an SSD is random performance, particularly random read. Sequential performance is a much smaller win over mechanical drives, and shouldn't be a big factor in choosing which drive to get. IMO anything >150MB/sec read/write is more than enough (the OS can optimize sequential reads easily with read ahead cache), unless you spend a large fraction of your day waiting for large contiguous data transfers. Even then, RAID over mechanical drives would be a cheaper and better option: you can double read bandwidth with mirroring, and only pay 2x/GB.

And for this reason I still would find it difficult to recommend a non-Intel drive. Until competitors are able to outperform Intel on random read, it has the edge.

 

Could try crucial's website direct? (Plus quidco ;-))

 

Very good article!

I wish we could see a few mac tests now you have established the best value SSD's around

 

Its linked in the guide on the last page but here it is again.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/High...-v2-x1-to-SATA-6Gb-s-non-RAID-controller-card

 

I'm surprised the Wester Digital drive is not on here. I believe it uses the JMF612/618 controller with WD's firmware. I bought the 128gb version from Newegg the other day for 219, it was the performance/price I could deal with.
If anyone wants some benchies, I'll do one when I do my fresh install once I get it tomorrow. Send me a PM with the applications you want me to test. I'll use HDTach and whatever else I can find.

 

I've had my Crucial M225 and I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread until I tried to install a program, just like I have done in the past and it completed borked itself. Couldn't do anything on the drive - couldn't even format it or anything. Fortunately it was only an OS drive so didn't lose anything - but a pain getting myself set up again.

Sent it off to Crucial and should be getting a replacement tomorrow.

 

worth upgrading?

from my over a year old Samsung 64GB with read/write speeds of 90/70 to Corsair Reactor R60??


would love to see a continuation of this article in your monthly buyer's guide, where it will mention any new SSD that may take the crown in your recommendation.

 

I was wondering didn't you say that PCI-E x1 cards were slow and didn't offer very good performance? Also do you know if this works fine in the MSI P55-GD65 x1 slots? It's a pain knowing who to believe abotu what's gen 1 or 2 but I thought you'd know.

 

I'm going to be the wet rag here and say that the SSD "value" is heavily influenced by your PC usage patterns. For me, I almost never shut down my Windows 7 or Vista based PC's - both my desktop and laptop are only ever put in sleep mode, except for Patch Tuesday's. That makes the increase in boot up speed meaningless - hard drives and SSDs will resume from standby about the same (~3sec).

Also, as someone who typically runs the same handful of programs over and over, Windows does a remarkable job with Superfetch of getting that stuff all in memory (4GB in each system) so the hard disk again becomes a non-issue.

With that being said, when I switched from my 7200 RPM notebook drive to a Intel G1 80GB ($110 on eBay), my Windows experience index for hard drive skyrocketed (up to 7.4), but my day to day life was not dramatically altered. Some things are definitely noticeably faster (specifically, applying large patches, as mentioned), but 90% of what I do, I don't notice a difference.

Be sure to think about your usage before plunking down a huge wad of cash. It may not be worth $200-$300 just to boot up Windows faster every month or so.

 

Thanks for the spot - at time of writing this wasn't the case!

 

Any chance you could post your findings from SATA 3 motherboards? It would seem to make a fine complement for people like myself who have a SATA 2 mobo whether to get a card or change mobo.

 

It's not only on boot... It's fast in everything else, if u multi-task alot, an SSD is a no-dealer... Just buy the thing... Copy, paste operations are really fast too, programs execute even faster, or install faster (I remember when I installed C&C Generals & Zero Hour, in 1min/2min each one of them with isos).

I almost get a heart attack everytime I have to use a friend's notebook, or a regular pc with mechanical HDD's. (all my pc's have SSD's, except for my HTPC/server)

 

Cheap Corsair Reactor 60Gb http://www.ebuyer.com/product/196890 £94.99 that's great value

 

I wonder if faster technology is eroding our sense of patience

 

ive just bought a Vertex 60GB and im already looking at options to store my games as well.

 

wow, super bargain. Gotten £15 cheaper in 3 days!

 

I wish this had come out earlier in the year when i purchased my intel ssd

 

just to trow something out there
what about 2x RealSSD C300 64GB drives in RAID0 and guess what it cost around £50 less than a 128GB RealSSD C300 and will deliver alot faster performance while having same space and you can add a 6Gbps PCIe 2.0 SATA controller for around £30 to the mix if you want to, or just buy a amd motherboard with SB850!

 

An excellent guide.
I'll bookmark it for future reference.