120 gigs vs 128 gigs SSD

zincloid

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Jan 17, 2013
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10,510
I was wondering what is the difference between a 120gb and 128gb SSD other than the size.
8gb difference between two size categories doesn't make much sense to me. Is there any other aspect where they are different?
I am not comparing any brands or any specific ssd here, just trying to find out what benefit I get by purchasing a 128gig SSD over a 120gig SSD other than the size.
 
I think you will find that the bigest difference between the two is the controller that is used.
Vast majority of 120 gig Sata III drives use the Sandforce controller, Samsung 840 NON-pro is an exception).
While the 128 gig drives use a A) Marvel controller, B) Samsung Controller, C) OCZ versions 4 use a in-house controler.

The SF based yield a artificially high Benchmark performance when using ATTO which is the most often spec cited by manuf. I tend to shy away from SF controller based SSDs. With SF SSDs and Using AS SSD benchmark you will not get the advertized Sequencial performance.

I never use ATTO, which is a HDD benchmark, as it uses Highly compressable data. AS SSD, Developed for SSDs, use compressed data and is morerepresenative of a OS + Program drive.


Have 3 Curcial M4s, 3 Samsung 830s, one Samsung 80 Pro. Also have 2 SF22xx Based OCZ Agility IIIs (which is also the ONLY drive I've had a problem with)
 
A SSD of 120 or 128gb will have the same number of underlying nand chips.
They actually have more than 128gb of pace, but some is needed for the controller tables and some is reserved for expansion and longevity.
To some extent, 128gb or even 120gb is a bit of false advertising since the actual amount of user available space will be the same, about 112gb.

And... for all practical uses, modern SSD's will perform about the same in normal desktop usage. It takes an unrealistic synthetic benchmark to detect the differences.

Buy based on price and perhaps the vendor's reputation for support and reliability.
Samsung and Intel are considered to be the most solid.
 

steave_01

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Nov 15, 2012
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I totally do not go by the benchmark results. They would just provide a threshold value and the actual read/write numbers might vary from this. I personally feel u rely on someone who has actual real world statistics for compressible/incompressible data. Intel 5xx series SSD are said to have better sequential write performance for compressible data-520 Mbp/s


 
Intel 520 is a good SSD, but for cost/performance I think the Curcial M4 and Samsung 830 are a better choice. The Samsung 830's are becoming hard to find.
The Samsung 840 Pro is probably the best SSD, however they need to come down in price.
520 Review (somewhat dtded): http://www.anandtech.com/show/5508/intel-ssd-520-review-cherryville-brings-reliability-to-sandforce/3

PS: I limited my list of SSDs, I really have about 13 SSD ( 7 different brands) which include the Intel G1 and The G2. The Intel G1 and G2 was by far the BEST SSD at that timeframe when introduced.