Any signifcant SSD changes imminent? Good time to buy?

echn111

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Considering an SSD, but am wondering when would be the right time to buy. I generally prefer to buy shortly after new technology comes out and replaces old tech.

However, from what I've read, the two well regarded "safe" mid-range SSD purchases are the Intel X25-M and the OCZ Vertex. Of the two, the Intel is supposed to be perform slightly better. My concern is that in the SSD market, which is supposed to be moving very fast, the "best" well regarded semi-mainstream SSD drive is a positively ancient 9 months old now.

Prices have decreased now but I'm a bit concerned that the leader in the mid-range SSD is unchanged for so long. Is there something "significant" that is going to be released in the SSD market soon? When do you guys think is a decent time for a somewhat price concious purchaser to grab an SSD?
 
I just bought the 128 GB G. Skill Falcon. I cannot wait any longer and would miss out on the fun fast speed.

The way I think about is that "if you just put in a little overtime at work you will make some extra money for a pricier item." I always think about overtime work to justify my more extravagant spending.
 
SSD's are in a constant and rapid state of evolution right now. That "out of date 9 months from now" situation isn't going to change much for the next year or so. SATA rev. 3.0 hardware is going to be released this year(amd SB850), with double the bandwidth (500-600 MB/s per drive) and a few other tweaks. From looking at products manufacturers have out now it's likely SSD's that can max out SATA rev. 3 will be out as soon as there are motherboards and controllers that can use them. There's also hardware TRIM support and windows 7. Other than the indilinx based drives (vertex, ultradrive ME, falcon) no one else has announced they will support it. The X25-m seems to have a good enough controller that it's not going to matter as much, and they can probably support trim via firmware when they think the time is right. Otherwise unless the drive supports or can be flashed to support trim I wouldn't even think of purchasing it.

Edit: I'd say if you have the money and don't want to upgrade your motherboard soon, grab a 120 or 80 gig SSD from ocz or intel. Use it for windows and your favorite apps and games. SATA3 speeds won't do any good if you only have a sata2 controller. There's some debate as to whether the increased bandwidth will matter as much as the lower latency inherent to SSD's, so you'll probably have most of the benefits even with a current drive.
 
I read that SSD price may be cut in half before the end of the year.
One thing is certain, there is still room for price cuts!
 
Considering an SSD, but am wondering when would be the right time to buy. I generally prefer to buy shortly after new technology comes out and replaces old tech.

However, from what I've read, the two well regarded "safe" mid-range SSD purchases are the Intel X25-M and the OCZ Vertex. Of the two, the Intel is supposed to be perform slightly better. My concern is that in the SSD market, which is supposed to be moving very fast, the "best" well regarded semi-mainstream SSD drive is a positively ancient 9 months old now.

Prices have decreased now but I'm a bit concerned that the leader in the mid-range SSD is unchanged for so long. Is there something "significant" that is going to be released in the SSD market soon? When do you guys think is a decent time for a somewhat price concious purchaser to grab an SSD?

All I know is that Intel is more than 3x as good as the OCZ on 4K random reads/writes, and also has better read speed, although inferior write speed. Also, Intel has released firmware (that has been tested) to address the performance degradation issue. The Vertex is as yet insufficiently tested, and in what testing I've seen, degrades much more. I would put my money with Intel (and I do).

Also, I'd say that if you're pretty well-off, then the time is now.
 
It's the perfect time to buy. IMHO anyone sporting an i7 and a gaming video card will appreciate a SSD enough to justify the purchase. We buy new processors and video cards and are fairly happy with a 10-20% performance increase. An SSD delivers much more than that over your standard SATA drives.
 
This is indeed the perfect time to buy. There are some card based SSD's coming out, but they will be found in the 1,500+ price range.
 
All I know is that Intel is more than 3x as good as the OCZ on 4K random reads/writes, and also has better read speed, although inferior write speed. Also, Intel has released firmware (that has been tested) to address the performance degradation issue. The Vertex is as yet insufficiently tested, and in what testing I've seen, degrades much more. I would put my money with Intel (and I do).

Also, I'd say that if you're pretty well-off, then the time is now.

There is no question that the Intel is a superior drive.
The problem is that its twice the price for same amount of space, than that of the Vertex....and does not have the sequential write speeds even close to the Vertex.
Yea The X25-E does, but its $800 for 64gb:rolleyes:

Even after degredation it will still be lightyears better than your avg 7200rpm HDD.
 
There is no question that the Intel is a superior drive.
The problem is that its twice the price for same amount of space, than that of the Vertex....and does not have the sequential write speeds even close to the Vertex.
Yea The X25-E does, but its $800 for 64gb:rolleyes:

Even after degredation it will still be lightyears better than your avg 7200rpm HDD.

QFT

Exactly, SSDs are so much faster than standard hard drives that even with some performance loss due to overwriting, they are still much better.

As with any cutting edge technology, whatever you buy now will be cheaper and better in 6 months. There is no way around that. And in 6 months after that, something cheaper and faster will again be available. You simply must decide your budget, and see if you can get something that will work for you at the time, and don't agonize over it after you make your decision. Buying cutting edge tech is worse than buying a new car.

You can maximise your future options by leaning towards bigger drives if you can afford them. That is the only regret I have about buying 4 X 30 gig OCZ solids 5 months ago. I should have gone with 3 X 60 gigs instead. Not a big deal, just something to consider.

Don
 
Excerpt taken from OCZ press release

With a line of SSDs leading the adoption of flash mass storage, OCZ is excited to reveal for the first time the OCZ “Colossus” one terabyte SSD prototype, in a new 3.5” form factor to be a truly viable flash-based solution for desktops without the need for converter brackets. OCZ continues to pave the way in the SSD sector and prove that these next generation drives are the ideal upgrade for cutting-edge computing, offering incredible storage capacities and fast data access for your home, office, or gaming station.

Capacities will be available in 512gb and 1tb.....no info on pricing
2dbtlaq.jpg
 
Wouldn't be surprised if those are the prices. But a 1TB drive could replace my 2 harddrives now. But for that price is not even worth it. Doubt many will sell. Just think you spend $2000 this year, then one year later your purchase is now worth $1000. I'd be willing to spend $1000 on 1 terabyte, but not 2000.
 
OCZ Vertex is already cheap. Dunno how much cheap you guys want. Even the VRaptor got cheaper..
 
OCZ Vertex is already cheap. Dunno how much cheap you guys want. Even the VRaptor got cheaper..

People have gotten used to putting down a Ben and getting a terabyte drive. So when you gotta put down more than 2 to get "ONLY" 60 gigabytes, it can seem kinda pricey to most people.

Don't try and be logical and explain that 60 gig is plenty big enough for MOST peoples OS drive. Or that their performance will be vastly superior to the TB drive for the C note. Or that it is silent and uses less energy. The just get hung up on the price and the size.

Don
 
While SDDs are technically much faster, I don't see their benefit due to price in a home desktop computer. Servers I can see more, as well as laptops that are moved alot. But I think theres still 1 more year, until the price is good enough to go to the desktop. I opted for 2x VRaptors, and in normal use, *I* don't need more speed than that.

If you only do storage, or doing server style datebase, etc. Then I can see it.

I don't have SSD's though, that was just my decision, I opted for more space, and I think the VRaptors I got are good enough for me for now :), once prices drop though, SDDs all the way.
 
While SDDs are technically much faster, I don't see their benefit due to price in a home desktop computer. Servers I can see more, as well as laptops that are moved alot. But I think theres still 1 more year, until the price is good enough to go to the desktop. I opted for 2x VRaptors, and in normal use, *I* don't need more speed than that.

If you only do storage, or doing server style datebase, etc. Then I can see it.

I don't have SSD's though, that was just my decision, I opted for more space, and I think the VRaptors I got are good enough for me for now :), once prices drop though, SDDs all the way.

Well, of course 2 VRaptors gives you good speed, but cost more than a SSD and still falls behind. I don't really see a point going with 2 VRaptors..
 
Well, of course 2 VRaptors gives you good speed, but cost more than a SSD and still falls behind. I don't really see a point going with 2 VRaptors..

Doesn't cost more than a SDD of same size. My OS and programs fall into 300 gigs total. I like having both os and programs in one raid, then everything else, everywhere else.

I got 2 VRaptors 300 gigs each. So that gives me enough space for everything and to expand. 600 Gigs of SSD would be a way higher cost.

When the prices fall that I can get 600 gigs of SSD for the same price I paid for my raptors, then its time to move on.

AFAIK my 2 Vraptors will beat or come close to a single SDD on the same price. IE Any SSD's under 400 bucks. And Ill have alot more space to boot.

I believe by the time SDDS hit high Gigabyte or Terabyte sizes and are cheap enough, and we have SATA 3, to take advantage of, then it will make a significant difference.

Unfornately I don't have SDDs to test, but I do have my raptors, and when my system is assembled, I would be more than welcomed to benchmark agaisnt SSD's, etc ;).

I am not defending the VR's, Ill go to whatever is the best option, but my opinion from what I seen and benchmarks I researched, SSD's have the speed down, not much else, and when price, and size catch up, then it will be time to put those suckers in here. I mean I do have 4 more 3.5 slots to fill ;)


Plus, games, applications, etc will have to go to the lowest common denominator, not everyone will have SSD's and until they become common place, theres no way they will be really needed. They will shave time off rendering or things like that, but not much else. When apps can be optimized to take advantage of their full speed, then again I think its time to move on. People are barely Dual Core'd, its like a 50/50 split or so, its going to be a while imo.
 
Well, of course 2 VRaptors gives you good speed, but cost more than a SSD and still falls behind. I don't really see a point going with 2 VRaptors..

Yeah, I don't see the logic in that either... I'm waiting 'till Windows 7 to buy my first SSD, then I'll take out the 250GB that I'm using for video right now and use the 640GB for video and data alike (and the SSD for the OS and most programs). If I were buying right now I'd absolutely go with an SSD over two VRaptors or even a single one though.

Not sure what apps you're waiting on to be optimized for SSDs... It's nowhere near the same thing as adding additional cores, that's kind of the beauty of an SSD upgrade right now, it's a big improvement across the board, much more so than any other kind of upgrade. The only optimizations that SSDs need are towards improving their performance as they're used/filled and minimizing unnecessary writes that were usually done to speed up systems that operated w/regular HDDs, which ultimately has more to do with longevity and sustained performance over time than raw speed.
 
My problem is with sustained write speeds etc, also every single review on SSD vs VR's, on almost every single site points to VR as a better choice. I have no problem on agreeing to disagree and maybe I made the wrong choice, but I still don't see SSD's as a good value. Even the VR's value is hard to swallow since normal 7k HDD are much faster. I just saw to much love for SSDs, and wanted to point out to the OP that IMO not as good of a choice. But he can decide, but check many many reviews on the VR's and SSD, Almost every time the VR's win.

SSD's will be for sure the best choice eventually. I just don't think they are at the moment. And until I see someone here posting hard facts, and benches that disagree with reviews I am not really convinced.

Go look up reviews on the VR 300 gig, and it wins almost across the board with every site, for a myriad of reasons. Again I am not talking about theoretical, or 1 month or 6 months from now. I am talking about today, right now.

Feel free to post links to benchmarks where 1 or 2 $400 (in total cost) SDDs crush raptors, and better yet, a SSD with good capacity that crushes them, ie 120 or larger.

To the poster above, you just mentioned your buying your first SDD in October, which pretty much validates what I said, which is ironically hypocritical if you don't see the point of getting a VR now. Right now, is not the best time to get an SDD. If come October the prices (rumored to drop 50-80%), or optimizations get better, than I may agree with you. Until then, VR's still is the best choice for today. 4 months is a long time, and Windows 7 may bring the optimizations that I need.

From what I read and hear, in the next 6 months to 1 year it will be a good time to get an SSD, as the 512 gig ones, will be under $500. But that's a different case, for now, no thanks. If you have hard facts to prove otherwise feel free to share. My point is simple, TODAY June 4th, 2009, HDD's are more mature, and have better cost benefits than SSD's. For sure, if you like early adopting thats your thing, but no way, especially in $/Gigabytes are SSDs worth it for normal means.

I will look into getting 2 SSD's to raid 0 come windows 7 myself as well, most likely towards Dec, or Jan though. Than I can make the VR's into very fast data drives :).
 
The reason the sites dont reccomend ssd's over VR's is two-fold.
1) Space
2) Price

If those dont matter then SSD is the better choice.

I have both, and will never use a HDD for a boot/system drive ever agian.
 
The reason the sites dont reccomend ssd's over VR's is two-fold.
1) Space
2) Price

If those dont matter then SSD is the better choice.

I have both, and will never use a HDD for a boot/system drive ever agian.

Space no longer is an issue, it's just cost. You can get 1tb ssd's now in 2.5" of space... it's just cost now.
 
The reason the sites dont reccomend ssd's over VR's is two-fold.
1) Space
2) Price

If those dont matter then SSD is the better choice.

I have both, and will never use a HDD for a boot/system drive ever agian.

QFT

PC1X1 Said:
My OS and programs fall into 300 gigs total. I like having both os and programs in one raid, then everything else, everywhere else.

Yes, if you feel that you need that much stuff on your fastest drive, then Vraptors are a better choice for you right now. But most apps do not really benefit from being on your fastest drive, so a hybrid approach would be a good choice for a lot of people. A 60 gig Vertex or 2 matched up to a WD 640 for bulk storage, for instance.

If you want to try and match hard drives and SSDs for space and price only, then HDs will seem like a good investment for a long time to come. But once you throw speed, particularly access time into the mix, then the choice becomes a lot closer.

Like nitrobass, after using SSDs for my OS drives, I will NEVER willingly go back to using a magnetic drives again. But I will continue to use magnetic drives for buk storage for the forseable future. I know, I need to update my sig.

Don
 
Like nitrobass, after using SSDs for my OS drives, I will NEVER willingly go back to using a magnetic drives again.

I've said about the same thing when I went to the origional Raptor, then a VR, and now SSDs.

What's next in line? :D
 
Memristors or isolinear optical chips or something ;)

Sign me up for those ;).

Its a good convo that we are having here, and with the last 3 posts I totally agree. Notice that when I posted, I used alot of *I*, me and IMO, because to me the VR's were the better choice. And to others in a similar situation, the VR's problably benefit more now. I guess I was just :mad:, on those posts that spoke as if I were :confused: or something hehe. As if there was no reason why one would buy a VR etc.

But I agree 100% that if your only loading up your OS and don't use alot of space, the SSD's are a good choice. The only thing and goes with what Ockie said, size isn't to much of an issue the 512 gig ones exist already. Its cost.

I am upgrading as we speak, so the two choices were, 2x SSD's or the VR's. I figured go with the VR's for now, and later on get 2x 256 or higher SSD's. Then my data drives would also be fast, ala the VR's its a win win.

I think OP will be better served to buy VR's or something similar for more space for now, and in the future in 6 months or now then get SSD's. At least thats my personal plan, can't wait for the WD's SSD T-Rex ;) (Name Patent pending) (/joke)
 
Yep, as long as you're satisfied with the performance of what you have now, there's no harm in waiting for SSD prices to inevitably drop. When my best friend was specc'ing out his first gaming PC build last month (he was a mac guy) I recommended against getting into SSD's for now. He's not exactly a techhead so for reliable "don't need to mess with it" performance normal hard drives are better for the time being. Best to ease him into PC's with more mature hardware. Next year I think will be a completely different story.
 
Apprently SuperTalent is working on a pcie based SSD that will use 8 of the indilix controllers, and provide Read/Writes 1.5/1.3gbs 1tb is supposed to come in under $1000, but I dont think we will see that for another 6months
 
As a charter member of the "cheap bastards club" (our motto: we are too cheap to use capital letters), I think that SSDs don't provide the right amount of performance for the price. They will have to get much cheaper before I buy any. Do I want some SSDs? Of course. But not at these prices.



 
As a charter member of the "cheap bastards club" (our motto: we are too cheap to use capital letters), I think that SSDs don't provide the right amount of performance for the price. They will have to get much cheaper before I buy any. Do I want some SSDs? Of course. But not at these prices.

As a charter member of the "C.B.C." you should know that statement would be considered heresy in any thread containing the letters "SSD" and you put yourself in the position of being condemned forever to mechanical HD purgartory.......I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere. :D
 
It's the perfect time to buy.

It's not the perfect time to buy. For consumer class products (enterprises is a very different matter) it's the best time to start considering SSDs because we are now more aware of the flaws and what we should avoid.


All I know is that Intel is more than 3x as good as the OCZ on 4K random reads/writes, and also has better read speed, although inferior write speed. Also, Intel has released firmware (that has been tested) to address the performance degradation issue. The Vertex is as yet insufficiently tested, and in what testing I've seen, degrades much more. I would put my money with Intel (and I do).

Also, I'd say that if you're pretty well-off, then the time is now.

Parts of this assessment are badly worded. When this person is talking about write speeds being better on the vertex he is talking about sequential speeds.

That's why he correctly points out Intel having better random writing speeds.

Furthermore OCZ does their own firmware updates and from customer reactions they have been good and in some cases excellent.

Intel is the best but the most expensive and uses a different GB structure that can make or break your buying thresholds.

Samsung's degradtion is less severe than Intel and the recovery from degradation is superior. But Samsung doesn't quite match the performance of Intel or OCZ in certain areas depending on block size of data.

OCZ should be considered the baseline for an SSD worth buyng. Anything else below them is complete garbage. The Vertex has a slightly lesser price advantage over Samsung while offering better performance in some areas at the start but OCZ's recovery after being used is inferior to even INtel's and can lead to it being less capable than the Samsung product over time.

It should be stated that the key fact that makes each of these SSDs viable are their controllers so don't get too attached to the brand name. Samsung and Intel make their own controllers and their controllers can be found in other products such as Kingston and Corsair.

OCZ doesn't make their own controller but instead get's it from a company called Indilix.Indilix controllers can now be found in another brand's SSD but I can't remember the name,
 
Apprently SuperTalent is working on a pcie based SSD that will use 8 of the indilix controllers, and provide Read/Writes 1.5/1.3gbs 1tb is supposed to come in under $1000, but I dont think we will see that for another 6months

That unit has my name on it. I saw it at an intro and it looks awesome, even has little hot swaps, haha
 
That unit has my name on it. I saw it at an intro and it looks awesome, even has little hot swaps, haha

Yea I forgot about that....how cool is that?
When you need more space or want more speed just upgrade the internals of it.
Thats just awesome.
 
Go look up reviews on the VR 300 gig, and it wins almost across the board with every site, for a myriad of reasons. Again I am not talking about theoretical, or 1 month or 6 months from now. I am talking about today, right now. Feel free to post links to benchmarks where 1 or 2 $400 (in total cost) SDDs crush raptors, and better yet, a SSD with good capacity that crushes them, ie 120 or larger.

To the poster above, you just mentioned your buying your first SDD in October, which pretty much validates what I said, which is ironically hypocritical if you don't see the point of getting a VR now. Right now, is not the best time to get an SDD. If come October the prices (rumored to drop 50-80%), or optimizations get better, than I may agree with you. Until then, VR's still is the best choice for today. 4 months is a long time, and Windows 7 may bring the optimizations that I need.

What the heck? Learn to read before you call someone a hypocrite over something they've said. I also said that if I were buying new drives right now I'd absolutely go for an SSD, I don't own a VRaptor either... The only reason some reviews will still recommend a VRaptor is the price vs. size factor, a lot of people prefer to stick to a single drive for all their stuff (data and programs), etc. I'd love to see these mythical reviews you've seen where a VRaptor is still as fast as a good SSD performance-wise.

SSDs are faster now, they're just not the perfect solution for everyone if for some reason you're averse to using multiple drives, etc... Or if you simply can't afford them. In your case you spent just as much on the two Raptors as you would on a good 120GB+ SSD and you're using multiple other drives for backup/data anyway, so I don't see what difference it makes to have gone with the VRaptors.

P.S. If I were to get a SSD today I'd definitely be running Windows 7 RC as my main OS as well, which a lot of people here are doing. Truth be told, I'm putting it off 'till Oct. out of laziness as much as anything. I could afford the SSD right now, but I'd rather wait 'till Windows 7 is officially out since I'll be doing a fresh install then anyway and I just did one w/Vista a little while ago, save a lil' cash in the process. I'm testing 7 on a separate partition but not using it full time, for the same reason.
 
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Thanks for the replies - I found them all quite useful.

I suppose that a cautious way of looking at the general view on this forum, based on these replies, is that it is not a "bad" time to buy.

As for space, I have 2TB of space on my 2 HDD's and will keep them, so the limited storage space isn't a major issue as I'd use the SSD for the O/S and key applications (and maybe the occational game.)

On the performance front, perhaps for sustained write speeds, raided performance hard drives might win sometimes, but I'm more interested in overall performance including reads and random writes/reads and it looks like the general view is that SSD's have the performance advantage.

Already running Windows 7, although that's really because the Vista service pack 2 upgrade somehow killed my system and I had to reinstall (so might as well go Win 7).

Still not too keen on the price, but it has gone down a lot from a few months ago.

Anyway, after reading all this, and finding a discounted SSD on ebay, which was further discounted via my ebay vouchers, I pulled the trigger and am eagerly awaiting my Intel X25-M SSD.
 
Awesome, be sure when you get it to check and make sure it's the latest firmware version, if not flash it before you do install anything on it. The old firmware had some long term performance degradation issues that the new firmware seems to have about eliminated.
 
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