Best SSD for about $100ish

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Shegokigo

Shegokigo

Preferably sized 50gb or higher.

Need quality and I'm curious what's the major difference between an internal and an external SSD? Is it also as easy to install as just plugging it in like a HDD?

I'll be buying this within a week or so. Advice my friends?

Side note: Would prefer to buy this from NewEgg as I have some discounts available for them at the moment.
 
Chad Sexington

Chad Sexington

I'd read the Feedback section... the 1-3 star reviews report failures around the 1 year mark.
Added at: 19:20
Yikes, some as early as 6 months! Yeah, I'm gonna say don't do that one. (I'll do a little research and see if I can't contribute an alternative for you, but I suspect the more tech savvy 'round here will beat me to it)
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Anything in that price size range (60-ish or less) is not going to be as fast. The small (capacity) ones are usually handicapped by having fewer data channels (since they have fewer chips on board to spread the load).

Assuming this is going to be a single (non-RAID) drive, TomsHardware has started a chart of SSDs (like they do with GPUs). They recommend the Crucial M4, which is based on the Marvell controller. This is a good thing if you plan to get another one later and do a RAID, as Marvell-based drives are better than average at surviving without being TRIM'd. They aren't perfect, but they're way better than any Sandforce-based drive in a RAID.

That said, I'd recommend the OCZ Agility 4 128GB, which is currently selling on NewEgg for about $110. They use the second generation Indilinx controller, which is pretty speedy.

As for the difference between internal and external, the drives themselves will probably perform exactly the same, but the external drive will be limited by the interface speed (usually USB 2.0 at about 50MB/sec), while the internal drive will sit right on the SATA bus and therefore enjoy speeds of 300-600MB/sec.

--Patrick
 
Shegokigo

Shegokigo

Ahhh PatrThom !

I do try my best to keep up with your tech talk so here goes.

This is basically going to be a gaming drive for 2-3 programs at any given time. I'm under the assumption that I can install it fairly easily? I do really like the suggestion on the $110 SSD. As for "RAID" I'm guessing that means shared drive between multiple HDs? I basically want to use this as a third drive. (Main drive is a Raptor, houses my OS and the bulk of my programs. Second is a 7200RPM basic "storage" HD and the third will be a SSD for specific gaming programs I use daily).
 
DarkAudit

DarkAudit

I haven't kept up with OCZ since I bailed on them after last summer's support disaster. Did they ever find out what was making their drives disappear from people's systems?
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
PatrThom said:
Anything in that price size range (60-ish or less) is not going to be as fast. The small (capacity) ones are usually handicapped by having fewer data channels (since they have fewer chips on board to spread the load).

Assuming this is going to be a single (non-RAID) drive, TomsHardware has started a chart of SSDs (like they do with GPUs). They recommend the Crucial M4, which is based on the Marvell controller. This is a good thing if you plan to get another one later and do a RAID, as Marvell-based drives are better than average at surviving without being TRIM'd. They aren't perfect, but they're way better than any Sandforce-based drive in a RAID.

That said, I'd recommend the OCZ Agility 4 128GB, which is currently selling on NewEgg for about $110. They use the second generation Indilinx controller, which is pretty speedy.

As for the difference between internal and external, the drives themselves will probably perform exactly the same, but the external drive will be limited by the interface speed (usually USB 2.0 at about 50MB/sec), while the internal drive will sit right on the SATA bus and therefore enjoy speeds of 300-600MB/sec.

--Patrick
Click to expand...
One point on those Agility 4s, if they are the ones I think they are. To get the benefits of that Indilinx controller you need to have a newer motherboard (as in not a 2008 one.) I don't know the exact details, maybe it requires SATA 3 (?) I can't remember. I just remember that I went and bought one of those (or maybe it was the Vertex3, can't remember) and I had to return it because I was paying like an additional 100$ for that indilinx controller and my computer couldn't actually benefit from it.

Maybe you could clarify the gobblety gook I just said?
 
Covar

Covar

Shegokigo said:
Ahhh PatrThom !

I do try my best to keep up with your tech talk so here goes.

This is basically going to be a gaming drive for 2-3 programs at any given time. I'm under the assumption that I can install it fairly easily? I do really like the suggestion on the $110 SSD. As for "RAID" I'm guessing that means shared drive between multiple HDs? I basically want to use this as a third drive. (Main drive is a Raptor, houses my OS and the bulk of my programs. Second is a 7200RPM basic "storage" HD and the third will be a SSD for specific gaming programs I use daily).
Click to expand...
A couple "no brainers" when it comes to setting up your SSD:
  • If you install the OS on it you're going to want to use folders on a HDD for your default library folders. This will reduce the number of writes to the drive and should help it's lifespan (however small and improvement)
  • In the same vein you'll want "D:\Program Files" and "D:\Program Files (x86)" just for space reasons on the drive. Make it a lot easier when you just have to change a 'C' to a 'D'
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

They are SATA3, yes. You still get the benefit of the amazing fast search/read, but your max speed is limited to only 300MB/s if you're still using a SATA2 motherboard.
DarkAudit said:
I haven't kept up with OCZ since I bailed on them after last summer's support disaster. Did they ever find out what was making their drives disappear from people's systems?
Click to expand...
Yes, I believe they finally issued a firmware update to fix that. I think it was only confined to their Sandforce2281-based drives. The Intel 5xx drives based on SF2281 do not have this problem (Intel's custom firmware practically eliminates the error), and I hope everyone else got a similar fix later.
Shegokigo said:
I do try my best to keep up with your tech talk so here goes.
Click to expand...
RAID is the method of ganging together multiple (usually identical) drives in order to increase either the effective speed or the effective reliability (or both) compared to a single drive. Most people only care about RAID 0 (stripe for speed) or RAID 1 (mirror for reliability).

SSDs get slower and slower over time as they get full and "dirty" (once they get over about 3/4 full). In order to return back to their amazingly fast performance, they need to be cleaned up ("garbage collection") due to what can be thought of as the SSD equivalent of fragmentation. Some drives are better at doing this on their own than others, but there is a reset ("defragment") command called TRIM which is available in Win7/OSX10.7 and up that lets the OS tell the drive to clean itself (at the cost of increased drive activity and write amplification*).

TL;DR: The big advantage you're going to get with SSDs in gaming is the significantly reduced random seek time. The increased read speed is also nice, but it's not as important as the seek time thing.

--Patrick
*Write amplification is "bad" because you can only write so many times to SSDs, so anything which increases the amount of writing will shorten the life of the drive.
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
How much of an issue is the limited writes these days though? I vaguely remember someone mentioning recently that the amount of writes you can handle on an SSD is so large nowadays that it isn't really a big issue and is about as significant as a platter/hardware failure on an HDD.
 
strawman

strawman

Most flash memory lasts about 100,000 write cycles, but that's a statistical average. Some will fail sooner, some will last longer.

The drives include additional storage that is set aside as backup flash. When one block of flash goes bad, the controller assigns that block to a new area, and stops using the bad block.

Strictly speaking flash failure rates are very low. However there ar still a number of weak links in the SSD that could cause premature failure, such as the controller chip, the flash controller in each individual flash chip, and a few other parts.

Further, critical information about the drive that the controller needs to work is contained in one of the flash chips. That leaves another opening for a fairly minor issue to completely disable the drive.

SSDs have different failure modes than hard drives, and theres still a very large variation in quality and robustness between different SSDs, so one can't easily generalize. A good SSD should have better reliability than a good hard drive under the same conditions. Comparing cheap SSDs with cheap hard drives, though, is an exercise in futility.
 
Shegokigo

Shegokigo

So the "length of survivability" for this SSD if I used it only for 2-3 gaming programs at any given time would be pretty decent?

Also, should I just go ahead and pick that SSD up PatrThom ? Also would it be as easy as I think? Plug, read and use or is there more details to consider?
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
Its pretty darned easy to use/install. I run my OS off of one SSD and my programs/games on another. Just plugged them in, started my OS install and away I went. I never even mounted the things (one of them is dangling.....I should fix that.) Granted I haven't upgraded the firmware on either of them (it's basically impossible to do it on the OS SSD) but other than that it works fine.
 
Shegokigo

Shegokigo

Does my mother board or anything technical matter with that particular brand of SSD?

I have a MSI MS-7520 Eclipse SLI x58
 
Necronic

Necronic

Staff member
That's a Nehalim board so I think it should handle any of the most recent stuff. Although I may be wrong.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Most current SSDs are managed well enough with wear leveling and other reliability tricks that a consumer probably shouldn't have any more concern than you would for a mechanical drive. Many current SSDs are expected to last something like 5000 rewrite cycles*, which is about a 600TB lifetime on a 128GB drive. If you are using the drive in an enterprise setting as a cache drive, you might hit that limit in about 5 years. However, even hardcore power users max out at about 20GB/day (according to 2010 Intel testing**), so you should have some breathing room, Shegokigo .

That drive should be at least as reliable as any other SSD, which is to say that you should treat it like it is as reliable as any other hard drive (mechanical or otherwise). Using one is as easy as sticking it into a system and formatting it, just like any other drive. You don't have to do anything special, your system will just see another drive. For full speed, the connector you attach it to should be in AHCI mode rather than ATA/IDE mode (if you need to manually set that choice in the BIOS). So long as you have a SATA2 or SATA3 port, you're pretty much guaranteed compatibility.

--Patrick
*Older drives could survive thousands more cycles because they were made of physically bigger circuits. As the circuits shrink, they get faster, but they can't survive as many write/erase/write cycles. 5000 cycles is what Intel claims for the current 20 nanometer circuit size, I believe.
**Sorry, can't link from iPod. EDIT: Here's the link to the Intel presentation (if it's still up) and their PDF.
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

I know the read/write speed is faster, but man, I just can't bring myself to spend 100.00 for what equates to about 1/16th of my current hard drive space, even for gaming.
 
Shegokigo

Shegokigo

Most people also wouldn't spend another $100 for a few more fps from a bit extra RAM. $50 on a mousepad. $100+ on a mouse. $100+ on a keyboard. $100 per month on a faster internet connection. $150 on a console joystick made from japanese arcade parts and all the other silly things I do with my income in the pure sense of "just a bit better gaming".

Then again, I don't have school loans, high rent/bills, kids, spouse, or any other kind of income expenses. I spend my income on gaming and alcohol/going out.

Now if I had other responsibilities? Yeah I'd see your point.
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

Yeah, all my stuff cost a fraction of that, except for the important performance innards, like CPU, GPU, RAM and Motherboard.
 
Shegokigo

Shegokigo

The way I see it, is a 1% upgrade is a 1% upgrade. 5-10 small 1% upgrades? Yeah, I'll take it.

I do as you do though, and upgrade the innards before everything else.

I'm coming up on a CPU/MB upgrade around Winter.
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

Yeah, the inside of my computer is pretty much a beast (as much as it can be on a budget). I haven't run across a current gen game that makes it chug yet.
 
Shegokigo

Shegokigo

Sad that even though my system is pretty much crushing the Diablo 3 specs, I get annoying Micro Stutter.

I've learned to accept it in a few games due to the software limitation, but knowing that it might be my HDD speed is driving me bananas.
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

I haven't really played D3 on my main PC as my mobo went out right after Diablo came out (just got the new one today!) and I am running it on max settings on the laptop. I haven't had any problems at all with it.

There is another person in the Diablo 3 thread that is having the same issue, and I think Vrii is getting that now after the most recent update. So, it may not be your hardware at all.
 
Shegokigo

Shegokigo

Very true, but I've been meaning to get a SSD for a good while now (Yes I really am so vain that cutting seconds off a game's loading time really does matter to me). Prices are definitely better than just a year ago, used to barely get 20gb for the same price as now.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Shegokigo said:
Just to confirm
Click to expand...
-Yes, that is the drive I mentioned. (FWIW, I'd happily buy one for myself, if I had a machine good enough to use it)
-Yes, it should work with your motherboard.
-Yes, you will be limited to SATA2 speeds (300MB/sec max) since you have no SATA3 ports. Sorry. No way around that* until you get a board with SATA3.

--Patrick
*Without giving up a PCIe slot.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

When you come into real serious money, you get a couple of these in a RAID 0 for 120GB of pretty much untouchable performance. Sure, the transfer speed is still limited to SATA2, but the access time is half that of the Agility 4*. Shame about the price, though.

--Patrick
*Yes, that translates to twice as fast.
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

In the past year, I've replaced everything except the case, keyboard, monitor and mouse.

I'm hoping this build will keep me in gaming goodness for a while.

I'll fully admit that the main reason I updated my GPU wasn't really for performance, but to use it with my 3D TV. Arkham City looks gorgeous in 3D, as does Skyrim.
 
Shegokigo

Shegokigo

PatrThom said:
When you come into real serious money, you get a couple of these in a RAID 0 for 120GB of pretty much untouchable performance. Sure, the transfer speed is still limited to SATA2, but the access time is half that of the Agility 4*. Shame about the price, though.

--Patrick
*Yes, that translates to twice as fast.
Click to expand...
Yeeeeah, even I have my lines.... unless I hit the lotto. Then yeah, 10k comp system for me every year :cool:

Bowielee , Just can't get into 3D (I remember the thread there was and I won't repeat it) so the best non-3D I can get is my preference.
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

I realize some people hate 3D, but besides being able to do 3D, the card was a big performance bump for me as well.
 
Shegokigo

Shegokigo

Wow, crimney. Almost 3 years? Yeesh, that made my skin crawl. Seriously. Thankfully I did overclock my CPU to 3.5 and the MB/RAM has been fantastic.

Definitely upgrading in Winter though...

Thanks Pat.
 
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