Solid State Hard Drive

[Kyrillian]

So I wanted to upgrade my main HD because it's only 150gb and I'm getting to the point where I can't install anything without deleting something. My only other storage is a USB external HD, and transferring big files is annoying.

So I was initially just going to get an internal 2nd HD and install games and stuff there, but as I was reading more I thought maybe I should just get a SSD and replace my main HD (turning my main HD into the slave).

Anyone know about these drives? I was looking around and saw they sold pure SSD drives and SSD-Hybrids, is there a huge difference? I imagine there is because the hybrids are significantly cheaper.

I was looking at this one: http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-2-5-Inch-Solid-State-CT256M4SSD2/dp/B004W2JL2A/ref=wl_it_dp_o_npd?ie=UTF8&coliid=I2BHS9CSA7YK8K&colid=25FI2EIL8GQAT

It's not as big a brand name as Samsung or some of the other ones I'm seeing, but it is at least $40 cheaper than the next closest one I can find. I tried to check around for any after xmas sales but didn't see any deals.

Let me know any thoughts on Solid State Drives.

[Jomama]

150gb? lol

Never heard/read anything about a hybrid.

I've been running a Corsair 64gb SSD for my OS drive for almost a year. Stable and fast. A little disappointed in the predicted longevity tho (run a little widget that gives you feedback about the SSD state, TRIM stuff, etc). According to the widget its lifespan is < 3 years.

IMO that one you linked really isn't a "deal"... A deal on a SSD should be in the realm of about $1 per gig, and I've seen those deals every few weeks from a variety of sources.. These guys track deals and I've seen a quite a few show up in the $1/gb range. http://dealzon.com/
Kingston has had some particularly good deals on the larger capacity drives over the last few month.

Then I have three 1tb in RAID5 for my main storage, games and a external for backup.

[Klaus]

Crucial is good shit. I have a OCZ SSD (120GB) that is SATA III. I love it. However, check your motherboard before you purchase one. Mine is about 1.5 years old and it only supports SATA II (3 Gb/sec) and not SATA III (6 Gb/sec). I have a controller card on order to be able to run at SATA III speed (since my SSD can).

Newegg had a ton of SSD on sale last week (20% off) so I would keep looking and you can see the price differences is always due to the speed it can run and what controller it has onboard.

SSD Deals (http://www.techbargains.com/catsearch.cfm/0_11_5)

I picked my 120GB SATA III drive up for $120 after rebate so Joe is correct $1 per GB.

[Jomama]

Corsair 120gb for $129 (after MIR) from newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?SID=u0t3760638f9fp0dd0c0s701&AID=10440897&PID=1225267&Item=N82E16820233206&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-cables-_-na-_-na


You could get 3 of these and run them in a RAID for the price of that Amazon one..

[Kyrillian]

I saw this one off that site you linked: http://www.amazon.com/OCZ-Technology-Agility-2-5-Inch-OCZSSD2-2AGTE240G/dp/B003MX6H9U/ref=wl_it_dp_o_npd?ie=UTF8&coliid=I3TRUWAUPGVANE&colid=25FI2EIL8GQAT

I am not really familiar with RAID so I don't know if I'd do that thing you said. I heard RAID increases the chance of an HD fail too, but I heard that a while ago, not sure if it's been resolved.

[Klaus]

Get the Agility 3 (same price)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227727

http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/20-227-727-Z03?$S300W$

Or Vertex 2

Link (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227754)

http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/20-227-754-TS?$S300W$

[Kyrillian]

I think I am going to get that agility 3 one, but what is the difference between agility, vertex, the numbers?

[Klaus]

Good question...... Actually I think they have come out with a few different "controllers" that run the SSD and each one is faster. From a google search...


OCZ Vertex 3 uses Samsung flash, like all other Indilinx drives.

OCZ Agility 3 uses either Intel 50nm chips or Toshiba 40nm flash

Vertex 3 is slightly faster

[Kyrillian]

Well I went ahead and got the Vertex 3 they had on sale yesterday. Paid 319.99 for a 240gb one, there is also a $30 mail in rebate that I will forget to file I'm sure.

[Eric]

We started rolling out 120gb SSD's at work on our laptops and the boot times alone for W7 were incredibly reduced (down to less than 2 minutes from a cold boot). I'm buying one for my home PC to put Windows 7 and all my apps/games on it and leave my SATA terabyte drive as my data drive...hopefully this cuts my boot/load times down. Watching Newegg...

[Kyrillian]

Word to the wise, do not do the expedited processing option for $2.99. I did it and paid for overnight shipping because I was hoping to get the SSD today to start the process this weekend. I put the order in on Wednesday and as of today it still hasn't even shipped. Seems like the expedited processing is there version of an extended warranty. Either that or normal processing is ridiculously slow.

[Kyrillian]

Too add insult to injury with this expedited processing bs, Monica has been having issues with her HD and decided to upgrade to an SSD. So I buy one and this time I don't pay the $2.99 for expedited processing. I placed her order on Jan 8th, a Sunday, it got charged today and will ship tomorrow. My order was placed on Jan 4th and shipped yesterday. WHAT THE EFF!

[Jomama]

One thing different with SSD, turn off any auto-defrag schedule, don't want to defrag SSD's. And here's a little program widget that gives you info about the drive, read/writes, anticipated lifespan, and tells you if TRIM is enabled, etc
http://ssd-life.com/

[Eric]

I bought a 240gb OCZ SSD from Micro Center and it's glorious.

$5 says this is the early I/T trend this year now that the prices are dropping. I know I just bought $20k worth for all the laptops at my company as we're moving to Windows 7 in the next couple months so why not SSD's as well? I spoil my users...

[Eric]

Oh but a word to the wise: when you're reinstalling TOR it'll find the old install on your slave drive and attempt to just reinstall there. :) Make sure you point to your new SSD and do a fresh install.

[Klaus]

Ok, I hesitated to post this tool but wtf. Here is a simple tool to see how fast your SSD is. It caused me to purchase a SATA3 add on card so I could get faster (my mb is only SATA2).

[Klaus]

So are you guys seeing even close to the advertised speed? Even after I upgraded to a stand alone SataIII card I am still only seeing about half the speed.

[Kyrillian]

I ran the test and my result were abyssmal. It appears I have SATA 1, the slowest of them all. I scored like a 260 on that test, I looked up a forum where people post their scores and a guy with the exact same SSD as me posted a score of 1200something.

Does anyone know if I can get a SATA 3 controller to increase the speed or if I have to go to SATA 2?

Even with the lower performance it is still about twice as fast as my HDD. Yesterday I exited TOR to restart the computer for some changes to take effect. I was shut down and back in TOR within about 45 seconds, the majority of that time was TOR loading.

[Kyrillian]

OK so here is something else I don't get. I checked the specs on my SSD to see what the max read/write is. It is basically 500mb/s for both. But when I ran Klauso's tester, it tested at 100mb/s for each.

SATA 1 is supposed to be capable of 1.5gb/s. Shouldn't I be able to get to 500mb/s without upgrading the controller?

I am also going to try upgrading my SSD Firmware. I remember before I bought it there were some complaints that it needed new firmware but it wasn't clear. Hope that makes it faster.

[Eric]

I haven't tested data speeds, but my boot times/app load times are awesome. I've been moving a lot of data around from my SATA 1 TB to my 250gb SSD and the times weren't noticeably bad. I'll test using that tool sometime...

[Klaus]

I finally received my rebate from OCZ on my SSD. I filled out the form online and promptly sent in the UPC etc. I had $3 deducted for "rush processing" and the rebate came in the form of a American Express card. However, it took almost 5 months to arrive..... so much for rush processing.

[Kyrillian]

Pretty sure I'm not even submitting mine. I always forget about them anyway.