dillema - Samsung C830 128GB or Crucial M4 128GB

[aaksheytalwar]

Samsung is faster

 

[cytg111]

hate to throw some logic at it but ill try none the less

samsung, excellent reviews, top performance, new drive, so far good track record.
crucial, excellent reviews, top performance -1, older drive, good track record.

I'd take the older drive, cause its been proven over a longer period of time .. and suffer the minus one.

 

[Coup27]

I think once an SSD has had a stable 6 months it's classed as proven, IMO.

 

[audioman83]

I'm also looking to get a SSD in the 120-128GB class.

I'm not concerned with which one is cheaper by a couple of Hamiltons.
I'm going to use this new drive for around 2.5 to 3yrs.
I'd like to be able to operate without worrying about performance degrading due to (A.) how heavily I use it, or (B.) how much data is on it.

What drive would you guys recommend with those concerns in mind?
BTW why is the Corsair Force Series GT 120 GB not included in the discussion about the best 128GB SSD to get now? Just curious.

 

[Coup27]

Firstly, the the m4 was released 13 months ago so expect something newer from Crucial possibly this year. The Samsung was released 6 months ago so expect that to be their consumer drive for at least the rest of this year. The Samsung is faster, you can verify that in Bench on the main site.

Aslong as you're using a setup with TRIM, then you won't have an issue with drive degradation. Over provisioning your SSD is good practice but is purely optional.

The Corsair Force Series GT uses a Sandforce 2281 controller. Drives based on this controller have had/got (depending on who you talk to) a very sketchy reliability record. If you want a drive you can not worry about, you will be alot safer with either the m4 or 830.

 

[audioman83]

Firstly, the the m4 was released 13 months ago so expect something newer from Crucial possibly this year. The Samsung was released 6 months ago so expect that to be their consumer drive for at least the rest of this year. The Samsung is faster, you can verify that in Bench on the main site.

Aslong as you're using a setup with TRIM, then you won't have an issue with drive degradation. Over provisioning your SSD is good practice but is purely optional.

The Corsair Force Series GT uses a Sandforce 2281 controller. Drives based on this controller have had/got (depending on who you talk to) a very sketchy reliability record. If you want a drive you can not worry about, you will be alot safer with either the m4 or 830.

Thanks for the input!
Concerning your first pargraph, it would be good for me to wait, and look for a new drive from Crucial. I wonder if their next drive will be different only in raw speed.

If I fill the Samsung or the M4 so that there is only, say, 10GB free, the performance won't tank?

 

[sequoia464]

Thanks for the input!
Concerning your first pargraph, it would be good for me to wait, and look for a new drive from Crucial. I wonder if their next drive will be different only in raw speed.

If I fill the Samsung or the M4 so that there is only, say, 10GB free, the performance won't tank?

One old rule of thumb used to be leave 10%-15% of the drive unformatted to prevent performance degradation (from what I have read). I don't know if this is really necessary any longer or not. Hopefully someone else can comment on this.

I still do it as all of my SSD's are in raid0.

 

[slow_poke]

no need for any extra op on either crucial or sammy drives.

Their GC is excellent.

Been using two M4's in R0 since the day they came out, neither has ever seen a trim command. They are as fast now or faster than when I bought them.

Never a dropped drive in bios, not once.

 

[chimaxi83]

One old rule of thumb used to be leave 10%-15% of the drive unformatted to prevent performance degradation (from what I have read). I don't know if this is really necessary any longer or not. Hopefully someone else can comment on this.

I still do it as all of my SSD's are in raid0.

A lot of drives (if not all of them) do this automatically. My 64GB M4 only let's me utilize 60GB.

 

[Coup27]

audioman83 you can wait for a new drive from Crucial but nothing has been announced yet, it's a fair assumption we'll need a new drive sometime this year but thats all it is. Traditionally Crucial base their drives on a Marvell controller. The new Vertex 4 uses the new Marvell controller so if they continue down that route, then that'll give you an idea of performance.

All drives have amount of spare area (typically 7%) which you cannot see as a formatted volume and cannot use. This is down to the binary to decimal conversion. It is purely the users choice if they want to allocate more spare area by leaving some of the disk unpartitioned. Doing so reduces write amplification and maintains performance better, but at the cost of disk space.

Crucial have no guidlines or recommendations for allocating more spare area. Samsungs SSD Magician does recommend allocating 6GB per 64GB more spare area. I have 11.9GB allocated for spare area on my 830 128GB.