Shopping for a SSD, Or Harddrive? Advice?

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burned-ati

Limp Gawd
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Jan 27, 2006
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Hey guys, as you all know. Ive just built a new system, Im held back by 5 year old sata harddrive. Its really slow, and old. And, extracting files, or transferring them is taking a really long time, as well load time are a little down.

I want something a little faster, I want to be less than $100 on a new SSD or HD, what should I go for? a smaller SSD? Or a larger 6gbs HD? I could use this current one as storage as well.

I was considering this, but I really do not know a lot about SSD, or even newer drives.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239049


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236245

I do not need that much space.
 
get a SSD and use your old drive for storage. In terms of speed SSD can't be beat. I think the going rate for a fast 120 gig SSD is about 100 bucks.
 
Ok, SSD it is. I know there really fast. What is the best SSD for around $100, Give or take a few dollars?

I would like it to be really fast, and itleast 60gb or more.
 
I personally own this one SanDisk Extreme SSD 120

I think it is the cheapest 120 gig at this speed. I have had it for 6 months and 0 issues.....With that being said last time I checked you couldn't update the drivers on this SSD...but I haven't needed to just a FYI. The more expensive models in this same class allow for driver updates.

Also keep in mind you have to have Sata 6.0 to utilize the speeds.
 
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I also have a Sandisk Extreme, but the 240gb model. It's neck and neck with the Samsung 830 or HyperX 3k.

The HyperX 3k is good and $100 for 120gb is probably the best price you're going to see lately. There were a bunch of fire sales around $70-$80 in Nov-Dec, but nothing since.

The intel X25-m 160gb is also on sale, but above your target price.
 
stevedave said:
I personally own this one SanDisk Extreme SSD 120

I think it is the cheapest 120 gig at this speed. I have had it for 6 months and 0 issues.....With that being said last time I checked you couldn't update the drivers on this SSD...but I haven't needed to just a FYI. The more expensive models in this same class allow for driver updates.

Also keep in mind you have to have Sata 6.0 to utilize the speeds.
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My motherboard supports sata 6
 
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im hearing good things about these SSD drives. One of these will push my system over the top then. My current drive is so slow! It score 4.9 in WEI on windows 8
 
burned-ati said:
im hearing good things about these SSD drives. One of these will push my system over the top then. My current drive is so slow! It score 4.9 in WEI on windows 8
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literally night and day from your old drive biggest and best upgrade you can make.
 
Hey guys, I think ive made my mind up. Im considering the Intel Maple 330 series. I can get a Intel 330 SSD 120gb new for about $80-$110 free shipping on ebay, they have excellent read/write speeds!

Has anyone had any experience with these Intel SSD's?
 
stevedave said:
Just going to post this as an FYI>

SAMSUNG 840 Series MZ-7TD250KW 2.5" 250GB
$189.99 - $40 with promo code AFTBEXC123 = $149.99

I'd be all over this if I didn't already have the SanDisk
Click to expand...

That's a good deal, and a lot of storage to. But its write time is less than half as fast as some of the other SSD's. It has a 240mb write speed, compared to 450-500mb write speed's on the other SSD's

I mean, I don't know very much about SSD's but, isn't that a big deal?
 
yeah its a bit slower. But right now I have 8 gigs free from my 120 so at this point I'd drop my write speeds for some more space. 120 is plenty of space don't get me wrong I could always just uninstall something I don't actively play/use like CIV5 or Adobe everything but photoshop...but the day I need/want it I'd have to re install it and uninstall something else.

Also write speeds to me are just nice to haves I care only about read speed. All depends on what you plan to use it for.
 
Don't overthink this. The slowest ssd out there will run rings around any hdd, even one that is faster than the old one you have. Read speeds are what you are going to notice more than writes so I would go with the 840 250 gig deal..
 
Im using a Seagate 160gb sata 7200rpm, its not even a sata2, It definitely doesn't belong with the rest of my system. Im going to purchase a SSD Monday.

I have enough time from now and then to find a good one. Ive gotta do something quick though, this drive is horrible for my main O.S "win 8" to be on. Its boot times, and writing speeds or terrible.
 
HDDs are just awful. They just don't have the IOPS. I don't even have the patience to be around them for anything other than storage.
 
stevedave said:
yeah its a bit slower. But right now I have 8 gigs free from my 120 so at this point I'd drop my write speeds for some more space. 120 is plenty of space don't get me wrong I could always just uninstall something I don't actively play/use like CIV5 or Adobe everything but photoshop...but the day I need/want it I'd have to re install it and uninstall something else.

Also write speeds to me are just nice to haves I care only about read speed. All depends on what you plan to use it for.
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I have to refrain from installing stuff because of the small 128gb SSD. I would go for 256gb if you have the $$.
 
Well, im going to go ahead and get a 120GB or 128 Monday. And when I receive my tax refund back, I would like to buy another identical to it. And then reformat and raid them together. What kind of speeds does raiding SSD's get you?

From the looks of it, the Kingston, intel, crucial, and samsungs are all very fast SSD's.
 
burned-ati said:
Well, im going to go ahead and get a 120GB or 128 Monday. And when I receive my tax refund back, I would like to buy another identical to it. And then reformat and raid them together. What kind of speeds does raiding SSD's get you?

From the looks of it, the Kingston, intel, crucial, and samsungs are all very fast SSD's.
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You would be better served getting a 250 gig class ssd instead of doing two 128's in raid. Ssd's start to lose performance when they get close to being full. The specs from the manufacturers are best case scenarios on new drives with a small amount of data on them. Over time, as you put more and more data on the drive, the performance will be lower. Two ssd's in raid are technically faster than one ssd, but it is not a huge difference. Also, you will lose all your data if one of the drives in the raid dies on you. If you go this route make sure you do regular backups onto a third drive.

I just switched over to an SSD from an HDD and believe me when I say that you be amazed at the difference. I was and I had a sata 3 drive, not the old sata you have.
 
bernaby said:
You would be better served getting a 250 gig class ssd instead of doing two 128's in raid. Ssd's start to lose performance when they get close to being full. The specs from the manufacturers are best case scenarios on new drives with a small amount of data on them. Over time, as you put more and more data on the drive, the performance will be lower. Two ssd's in raid are technically faster than one ssd, but it is not a huge difference. Also, you will lose all your data if one of the drives in the raid dies on you. If you go this route make sure you do regular backups onto a third drive.

I just switched over to an SSD from an HDD and believe me when I say that you be amazed at the difference. I was and I had a sata 3 drive, not the old sata you have.
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+1 for this. I just had one of my Phoenix Pros 120gb drives die and take out my array. I'd go for one larger instead of multiple small drives
 
The question no one has asked, and that you have not given any information for, is how much data do you have? How large is that old drive of yours? How much do you want to be able to store on the main drive? If you have an old sata1 or sata2 drive, and it runs at less than 7200rpm, then you would notice a difference by simply getting a sata3 drive at 7200rpm. You have an Intel z77 board so I know that you have at least a couple of sata3 ports. An ssd's performance and lifetime is degraded when when it is filled to near capacity. In other words....a 120gb ssd with 110gb of data on it will be slower and last a shorter time than a 250gb unit with 180gb, all other factors being equal. This is because all of the temp files will be constantly writing to the same 10gb of memory cells and the memory cells in an ssd can only be written to so many times before they fail. I have a 500gb ssd and only have 135gb on it. I will not allow it to go over 300gb, leaving plenty of overhaed, or what is called "overprovisioning". This is why I recomend that you get a 250 instead of a 120.
 
Forget the benchmark speeds , in real world applications those big numbers mean jack shit. What you should concern yourself with is a quality SSD brand and how much space you need. Don't sweat longevity , an SSD is best used as an OS drive so it's not a giant concern. You should always clone your OS drive anyway just to be safe and that'll require a HDD.

Stick with Crucial , Samsung and Intel. They are the most reliable. I would recommend you take how much storage you think you'll need for an OS drive and double it. Its always safe and worth while to over estimate. Considering that application size isn't getting any smaller , I would recommend at least 256GB for an OS drive and just buy a HDD for games/movies/music/other data.

The best mix currently is SSD for the OS and HDD for storage.
 
Godmachine said:
Stick with Crucial , Samsung and Intel. They are the most reliable. I would recommend you take how much storage you think you'll need for an OS drive and double it. Its always safe and worth while to over estimate. Considering that application size isn't getting any smaller , I would recommend at least 256GB for an OS drive and just buy a HDD for games/movies/music/other data.

The best mix currently is SSD for the OS and HDD for storage.
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Quite interesting this thread. I opened another thread for my SSD search (desktop) and my friend's (laptop).

One a first selection I made at Newegg, looking for recommended types and good size/price deals, a Samsung 830 256Gb seems to shine because of how many recommendations it had and also the "eggs" spread, which is also important.

Intel 520 240Gb type was a bit more expensive. There was no Crucial in that first list though.

I also doubled the size I think I would need for OS and other programs.
 
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