ssd decisions

[celestialgrave]

Have some gift certificates to use and am looking at using them on an SSD.

OCZ Vertex 2 90gb $265
OCZ Agility 2 90gb $209
Crucial RealSSD 128GB $271
Intel 80GB g2 $229
Corsair Nova 128GB $265
Crucial (value line?) 128gb $287
PNY 128gb $240

Which do you guys think is the best value/performance? Only a couple of them are in the bench.

 

[Obsoleet]

One of these two

Crucial RealSSD 128GB $271
Intel 80GB g2 $229

Personally I'd go for the Intel. I've bought 3 of them and you will have guaranteed happiness with one. It'll be reliable and last years.
If you need more space, my 2nd choice is the Crucial.

 

[FishAk]

Personally I'd go for the Intel. I've bought 3 of them and you will have guaranteed happiness with one.

I believe all of them have a guaranty. If you mean dependability, the consensus is that Intel has the most reliable drives due to them being out the longest. Don't tell Old Hippie. Out of 5 Intels, he has used 3. Of the three, three have bricked.

The 90Gb Vertex 2 trounces the 80Gb Intel drive in both performance, and cost/Gb of actual usable space.

Intel 80Gb @ 64Gb usable space - $3.60/Gb
Crucial 128Gb @ 81Gb usable space- $3.34/Gb
Vertex 2 90Gb @ 90Gb usable space- $2.94/Gb
Agility 2 90Gb @ 90Gb usable space- $2.32/Gb

For me, I'm not so sure the extra IOPS of the Vertex 2 is worth that much extra cost over the Agility 2. I'd probably go with the Agility 2.

 

[Campy]

If you want the best performance, go for the vertex 2 imo. Sandforce is really good and you can use all the availible space without it slowing down. The C300 has better sequential speed but you'll need a sata600 interface on your motherboard to use all of it. Agility 2 is also a great buy. If it's your first SSD you'll be happy whichever one you choose ^^

Btw are you using the SSD for a laptop or just for an OS drive in a desktop?

 

[flamenko]

I would def def go with the SandForce dontroller but would look at the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro rather than the OCZ for reliability alone.

 

[celestialgrave]

I would def def go with the SandForce dontroller but would look at the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro rather than the OCZ for reliability alone.

Buy.com doesn't list any OWC Mercury drives and that's where I'm restricted to due to the gift certificates.

Right now it'll be used in my primary desktop and will probably be used for OS a few apps (MSOffice) and a few games (Steam related mostly) Everything else will be on other HDDs. It may end up in my laptop down the road. Figure next year may be time for a new build and if prices and performance can justify a new SSD then whichever one I pick at this time can go into the laptop.

 

[FishAk]

If your laptop has only one bay, you'll be restricted to just one drive, so you should go with the biggest. Of the drives you listed,the two 90Gb drives have the biggest usable space. Hmmm... They're cheaper/Gb and have the best performance too. So... What was the question?

 

[Voo]

and cost/Gb of actual usable space.
Intel 80Gb @ 64Gb usable space - $3.60/Gb
Crucial 128Gb @ 81Gb usable space- $3.34/Gb
Vertex 2 90Gb @ 90Gb usable space- $2.94/Gb
Agility 2 90Gb @ 90Gb usable space- $2.32/Gb

How exactly did you end up with those numbers? I mean you can increase the spare space of the SSDs, but since they all have around the same spare space to start with (~8-9&#37, it's strange when you add another 37% to the crucial, 20% to the Intel and nothing to the other two?

without extra spare space:
Intel 80Gb - $2.8625/Gb
Crucial 128Gb - $2.1172/Gb
Vertex 2 90Gb - $2.94/Gb
Agility 2 90Gb - $2.32/Gb

 

[FishAk]

The drives listed as 128Gb have 128Gb of flash, so no stock over-provisioning is deducted. Since I don't think the controllers of those drives are as good as Intel, Bearfoot, Indilinex, or Sandforce, I think 30 percent above the normal 7 percent is warranted. I could be wrong about this, but I haven't seen any evidence of that.

The SandForce drives have 96Gb of flash, and they also have a significant amount of flash that goes unused due to compression. Hence, no need to increase the stock over-provisioning in my view.



Most people agree that the Intel drive should not be filled beyond 80 percent.

 

[flamenko]

I was going to mention that element but the OP then stated that the OWC was out of the question.

Intel does start performance degradation as it fills around the 60% mark but its most noteable change is 80 and above. I cannot answer for any other Sandforce drive except for the OWC which, as shown in my reviews and testing, does not slow at all even when filled completely. I have asked numerous people (consumers and reviewers) for the exact test to be done on the OCZ as I dont have one and many did assure me they would return....which they never did.

To this day, I havent seen a crystal score for the OCZ or any other SandForce drive with it completely full which would be very interesting. In fact, I am starting to wonder if there is a reason why there has never been a return.

Futher, I could understand why so many are hesitant with their OCZ drives because of the drive mortality rate as it seems to be a weekly instance of a new 'bricked ssd' popping up.

 

[Voo]

The drives listed as 128Gb have 128Gb of flash, so no stock over-provisioning is deducted.

"Like the Intel and Indilinx drives, Crucial dedicates around 7% of the drive’s capacity to spare area."
src: http://www.anandtech.com/show/3812/the-ssd-diaries-crucials-realssd-c300

You just can't ship a SSD without spare area - the algorithms need some spare space (well you could, but the performance would suffer enormously).

7-8% for the consumer drives and 20-30% for the enterprise ones seems to be the standard industry wide atm. And from the AT and similar reviews there seems to be no reason to think the crucial controller needs more spare area than the Intel. You obviously alway get better performance and a more graceful degradation. The 7-8% may be a problem if you hammer the drive with random IOPS, but that's hardly standard behavior for a consumer drive.
And using 40% spare space is completely disproportionate - how do you want to torture those drives?

PS: The intel controller for example looses at most 15% performance in the absolute worst case szenario - and that's with only 7% spare area. Hardly that worrying

 

[flamenko]

I saw no performance hit whatsoever between the OWC 120Gb (7&#37 and the RE version 100Gb (28%) tests are all posted.

 

[Voo]

I saw no performance hit whatsoever between the OWC 120Gb (7&#37 and the RE version 100Gb (28%) tests are all posted.

Yeah had the wrong numbers in my head - edited before I saw your post.. sorry. The difference is at most 3% (absolute) in some rare cases but mostly not measurable.

 

[FishAk]

"Like the Intel and Indilinx drives, Crucial dedicates around 7% of the drive’s capacity to spare area."

I agree with you. The drive isn't shipped without spare area, but it's advertised without deducting it. The 128Gb is an advertising gimick to make the drive look bigger. They are advertising the entire nand, and not the amount of space the drive will show to the OS. The flash comes in 16Gb chips, and 128 is a multiple of 16.

 

[Voo]

I agree with you. The drive isn't shipped without spare area, but it's advertised without deducting it.

I think that'd be fraud in lots of countries - and from the AT review I don't think that's true:
If you look at the table where Anand lists the capacity, he lists both the Crucial as well as the Intel with their advertised size - and we know that the spare area isn't included on the Intel drives.

But I think the solution is easy: Flash chips come in 16GiB (!) while those sizes are in GB - which pans out to exactly 7.4% extra space.. well

 

[FishAk]

And using 40% spare space is completely disproportionate - how do you want to torture those drives?

Perhaps you are right about this. I'm just leery about the Jmicron controller. Hell, they can't even get their SATA controller on the motherboards right.

 

[flamenko]

To add to that, even the 28% overprovisioning drives are incorrectly listed as they contain 128Gb NAND to which 28Gb is dedicated to to over provisioning but, on a clean install, you are still getting only 93Gb after the firmware allocates for its needs.

Myself, I am surprised as to why the industry has clouded over the entire performance degradation issue when drives fill and when they age. I started testing as such two reviews back but, other than that, i know of only one review which is on a Mac where several drives are tested specifically for agind and was i shocked in the result. When I get to the office later, i will link that here.

 

[Voo]

To add to that, even the 28% overprovisioning drives are incorrectly listed as they contain 128Gb NAND to which 28Gb is dedicated to to over provisioning but, on a clean install, you are still getting only 93Gb after the firmware allocates for its needs.

I thought they sold the 28% spare space drives as 100Gb drives (which would be correct)? The only thing is that Windows shows disk sizes as GiB - which works out to 93.xGiB = 100Gb

 

[FishAk]

This chart shows both the Crucial C300, and Corsair Nova 128Gb drives having a usable space of 119Gb, while the 160Gb Intel drive works out to 149Gb.

The SF drives in this reference are the early versions from before 7 percent became standard.

 

[flamenko]

I thought they sold the 28% spare space drives as 100Gb drives (which would be correct)? The only thing is that Windows shows disk sizes as GiB - which works out to 93.xGiB = 100Gb

The RE drive is listed as a 100Gb drive but contains 128Gb of NAND and yes...that is right 93Gb total.

 

[Voo]

This chart shows both the Crucial C300, and Corsair Nova 128Gb drives having a usable space of 119Gb, while the 160Gb Intel drive works out to 149Gb.

Which also includes the conversion from Gb -> GiB and don't tell us what the advertised size is (though I agree the table isn't the best, just adds to the confusion to not accurately label the columns). If the drive was sold as 100gb back then, it's still correct.

Don't see any problems here, all manufacterers advertise their sizes as Gb, while OSes usually use GiB (although they denote them as Gb) - and the advertised sizes don't include the spare space. We can argue that the whole Gb/GiB mess is annoying and I think anyone would agree, but well nothing new and I think we'll be stuck with it for the rest of our lifes.

@flamenko: Ok, thought you also said that they included the spare area in the advertised size, misunderstanding.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

My second OCZ Vertex LE 100g just died 3 days ago. This makes 2 new Vertex 100g LE's that have died on me. I am considering selling the replacement from the first RMA

 

[FishAk]

If memory serves me, that Vertex LE used a premature SF firmware release that wasn't meant for the general public. Crucial got around at least one of the problems with that firmware by disabling the power reduction feature of the controller. Perhaps this is why the the LEs are not so reliable.

 

[MagickMan]

Been using a 120GB Agility 2 in my notebook for a while and it's been a great drive. Very fast.

 

[LokutusofBorg]

If memory serves me, that Vertex LE used a premature SF firmware release that wasn't meant for the general public. Crucial got around at least one of the problems with that firmware by disabling the power reduction feature of the controller. Perhaps this is why the the LEs are not so reliable.

Crucial sells drives with SF controllers?