Upgrade for first generation Intel X25-M SSD? SATA 3.0 6Gbps?

[echn111]

Haven't been following any of the new SSD (or general PC storage) developments for a while, so slightly out of the loop, but wondering if it's a reasonable time to upgrade my aging first generation Intel X25-M 80GB SSD which only works on SATA 2.0 3Gbps and has no trim support. But it's got to make sense and only if technology has genuinely improved (and costs have gone down) to justify buying a new and better SSD.

Mainly interested in performance and looking at between 80 to 120GB of SSD storage (or more if it's worth it). Looking to pay the equivalent (or less) of what the first generation X25's cost when they first came out, but expecting a big increase in performance as (hopefully) technology has improved and prices have come down.

So has performance to price increased enough to justify buying a more modern SSD or should I wait a bit longer? If so, any recommendations?

Also, if I go for a SATA 3.0 6Gbps SSD, any good SATA 3.0 6Gbps controllers recommended (since I have no intention of changing my old x58 motherboard which only has sata 2.0) or will any cheap SATA 3.0 6Gbps controller give me equivalent real world performance?

 

[SJetski71]

So has performance to price increased enough to justify buying a more modern SSD or should I wait a bit longer? If so, any recommendations?

That's up to you, Intel will be releasing the G3 model early next year with nominally higher speeds and lower overall prices per gig, a win win.

But if you have the upgrade itch now then check out the great Sata 3.0 numbers on the Crucial RealSSD C300 series: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1553042

Their Sata 2.0 numbers are lower of course but still really good imho.

 

[The Hunter]

What sort of performance are you looking at? If you need raw sequential bandwidth, then the current SandForce drives or the Crucial drive mentioned above should be a pretty big improvement (particularly in write speeds). If random speeds are what you need, then the current SandForce drives should offer some improvements, but not a ton; likewise with the next-gen drives, they should boost random speeds somewhat, but it's evolutionary progress, so if you have a heavily IOPS dependant workload, then it'll be helpful, but for general usage, it probably won't be all that noticeably different from your current drive in terms of load times.

The big selling point for the next-gen drives is likely to be the usage of 25nm NAND, which is likely to give you a lot more capacity for a given price point. So unless you have a specific workload that needs the higher sequential bandwidth or somewhat increased random bandwidth, you're probably best off waiting a few months.

 

[echn111]

I'm more of a general purpose user rather than someone with a specific workload, so faster random read/writes would likely be more beneficial. Sequential speeds would help with my media files (mostly rather large Blu Ray and .flacs), but we're talking about terrbytes of files here, so I'll just stick to normal hard drives for that.

As there is no real urgency to upgrade my SSD right now, if the next big thing is 25nm NAND and the G3's, and this is happening in just a few months, it looks like I'm better off waiting for the next gen SSD's to come out. Thanks.

 

[The Hunter]

I'm more of a general purpose user rather than someone with a specific workload, so faster random read/writes would likely be more beneficial. Sequential speeds would help with my media files (mostly rather large Blu Ray and .flacs), but we're talking about terrbytes of files here, so I'll just stick to normal hard drives for that.

As there is no real urgency to upgrade my SSD right now, if the next big thing is 25nm NAND and the G3's, and this is happening in just a few months, it looks like I'm better off waiting for the next gen SSD's to come out. Thanks.

Yes, waiting for the better $/GB next-gens would be my recommendation. Given how you describe your usage, I doubt you'll notice that much of a difference in your day to day computing with the new drives, except perhaps large file copies and maybe loading times if you have any programs with a huge database of files (i.e. very large iTunes libraries). The biggest gain you're likely to get is lower prices and/or higher capacities.

 

[drescherjm]

I'd wait until G3 intels are out and get an 80GB G2 for less than $100 used.

Edit:
Thinking about this again I am not sure the performance difference would be worth the switch even it will only cost you $40 or so (estimated cost of selling your G1 used and picking up a G2 used when the G3s are out).

 

[That's_Corporate]

Also, if I go for a SATA 3.0 6Gbps SSD, any good SATA 3.0 6Gbps controllers recommended (since I have no intention of changing my old x58 motherboard which only has sata 2.0) or will any cheap SATA 3.0 6Gbps controller give me equivalent real world performance?

I was curious about this also. According to this review, the cheap SATA III controllers won't cut it: http://www.storagereview.com/crucial_realssd_c300_review_256gb

However, I'm not sure if that's truly the case. It would be a tough pill to swallow if one would need a $400 RAID card as well as the Crucial C300, just to get the speeds it was meant for.

 

[Old Hippie]

According to this review, the cheap SATA III controllers won't cut it: http://www.storagereview.com/crucial...0_review_256gb

Those reviews that are a wall of graphs are hard for me to understand.

I purchased one of the Crucial 256GB drives and am now selling my Intel80GB drives that were in RAID0.

Here's the Intel units...

and here's the Crucial.....

In my real world the Crucial unit is equal to the Intel units in all around day-to-day use.

The screaming read speed of the Intel units can be noticed in the quicker (1/2 to 1 second) boot but the Crucial unit does much better at RAR/unRARing files.

A high read speed is fine but when you get past a certain point/speed, it's inconsequential.

I do have the Asus SATA6 expansion card but haven't had a chance to play with it yet.

All SSDs have different "signatures" and to play the "numbers/stat game" doesn't make for a full picture in real world usage.