Advice needed about a new hard-drive

[teclis1023]

Hi everyone,

Last night, unfortunately, I dropped my Macbook, killing the HDD inside (luckily I had just backed up).

I'm hoping to get some advice about possibly putting in an SSD instead of a standard HDD. I'm interested in an SSD due to their (supposed) resistance to shocks and drops, as well as increased speed.

I'm not much of a power user - primarily I use my notebook for word processing, spreadsheets, browsing the internet and (rarely) photo editing. I hardly need a powerhouse of a computer; however, with that being said, I do want something quite snappy. I don't download music or movies, and I spend most of my time writing papers for publication, so my space requirements are relatively light.

I'm not interested in dropping a lot of money on a hard drive, especially since I can get a 7200 RPM 320GB drive for somewhere between 60 - 80 bucks. However, I wouldn't mind spending a bit more on a nice SSD, if the performance and reliability would be better! At my price point, I understand that I will only be affording an MLC drive, but I'm hoping that that would perform well enough.

I've been looking at the Kingston V Series 64GB drive, as it provides a pretty nice price-point, while giving me ample storage for most of what I need. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820139132).

However, a quick search of the forums, as well as reviewing some of Anand's articles on SSDs makes me think that it might be better to get a smaller Intel 40GB drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820167025)

On paper, the Kingston has better read/write speeds; however, people seem to prefer Intel drives. Am I missing something here? Are these drives suitable for what I'm doing? I'm hoping for a two-year life span on this drive with daily usage, and a fresh install of Leopard.

Thank you so much!

 

[Glenn]

My understanding is that Kingston drive uses a jMicron controller. If so, I would definately take the Intel even at the smaller capacity. I'm mac stupid so i have no idea how much room your OS, apps and files uses, but I would go with an Intel or anything without a jmicron controller before I bought that model of Kingston?

 

[teclis1023]

Hi Glenn,

I'm doing some research and seeing that the jMicron is a poor controller. How can I find out which SSDs use which controllers?

 

[teclis1023]

Looking at reviews and articles, it looks like the jMicron controller has been re-tooled to work a bit better. I'm really quite torn. Early reviews of the 40GB Intel seem to be very positive...some even say that it's a competitor to its big brother, the X25-M. While slower, the Kingston does provide more storage, which could be quite nice.

I'm leaning slightly toward the Intel drive, but I'll do a bit more research. If anyone has either of these drives, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

 

[Voo]

The JMicron controllers perform worse than conventional HDDs in some scenarios, so you really better stay away from them. If you want something "snappy" the last thing you want are 1second lags when opening a file..

 

[teclis1023]

Hey Voo,

Thanks for the response. That's one of the reasons I'm leaning toward an Intel drive!

 

[teclis1023]

Thank you everyone - I've ordered. I appreciate your help!