Momentus XT vs. Itel 40GB SSD

[RailGun88]

I've been thinking about this for a while now but need some opinions/help. I'm looking at getting the Momentus XT so I can have my OS and all my games on my boot drive so it would increase the read speeds of both my OS and games. However, the 40gb Intel SSD is an actual SSD, but only 40GB. This would get full very quickly with my games. Or should I bite the bullet and get the 80GB Intel?

Edit: Also looked at the OCZ Agility 2 60GB, looks good and will give me some playing room for extra games. Would this be the best option? Or is one if the previous?

 

[adampower]

I assume this is for your Laptop? In that case I like the intel options. They have the best speed per watt, so to speak. They sip the power and provide great IOPS for things such as games and the OS. Buy the largest you can afford.

The momentus xt is very impressive, for what it is. However it is still a spinning disk with 4GB of 'buffer'.

If you're worried about space buy an external drive for pennies/gb. It'll give you a nice place for total system backups as well.

 

[geofelt]

The key is how much space do you need?

For what it is worth, I installed a Intel X25-V 40gb drive in my laptop with windows-7, I am taking up 20gb out of 37gb with windows, civ 2 and civ4, e-mail, and microsoft security essentials. I made no particular effort to delete things to save space.

The SSD really makes everything much snappier.

That said, I would wait a bit for the gen3 SSD drives which should launch soon. They will be based on 25nm nand and will be bigger, faster, and cheaper.
The Intel IDF 2010 is next week which should provide some info.

 

[RailGun88]

Desktop, so I'm not so concerned about power, even though I would like to now the best option for my laptop for when I can upgrade that. But my windows installation takes up 44.2GB, so I would like a good extra amount of room for more games. I like the 90GB OCZ Agility (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227604), cause it has another 10GB compared to the Intel for the same price.

Also I have an extra HDD, for my documents and everything else.

 

[geofelt]

Desktop, so I'm not so concerned about power, even though I would like to now the best option for my laptop for when I can upgrade that. But my windows installation takes up 44.2GB, so I would like a good extra amount of room for more games. I like the 90GB OCZ Agility (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227604), cause it has another 10GB compared to the Intel for the same price.

Also I have an extra HDD, for my documents and everything else.

The Intel 80gb SSD actually has 96gb. Intel is very conservative in leaving extra room for performance and longevity.

Still you risk a case of buyer's remorse with the gen3 drives coming.

 

[RailGun88]

What do the gen3 drives have. I can only support SATA 3, also I think I might wait a little longer because supposedly prices are supposed to drop. If so I think I might stay with the OCZ Agility 2 and just get a 120GB if its cheap enough.

 

[geofelt]

What do the gen3 drives have. I can only support SATA 3, also I think I might wait a little longer because supposedly prices are supposed to drop. If so I think I might stay with the OCZ Agility 2 and just get a 120GB if its cheap enough.

Because of the shift to 25nm, manufacturing can get about twice the number of nand chips on a wafer. In theory, this will cut the cost in half. Since the SSD market is very competitive your price could come down appropriately. More nand chips in a drive means more can be accessed concurrently, improving sequential speeds. Lastly, controller design is improving.

I think anyone buying a SSD now is risking buyer's remorse.

 

[RailGun88]

I thank you for stopping me from making a terrible decision. That just leaves the question on whether or not to go with the OCZ Agility 2. I've heard good things about the Sandforce controller. So should I see if there is going to be another series of OCZ SSDs with the Sandforce, or wait and see if something better pops-up when the new ones come out?

 

[RetiredChief]

RailGun 88, You stated that you only have SATA II on your MB. If you have an available PCI-2 x4 (or x8, or x16) slot then the Asus E3S6 might help.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813995004&Tpk=u3s6%20add-on%20card

In addition to 2 internal SATA6 (cannot raid them) ports, you also get 2 external USB 3 ports. I have it install on my Gigabyte P55-UD4P MB and seams to work. Connected WD 1TH Sata 6 Drive (DO NOT Recommend) and swapped my Intel 80 Gig G2 (No bennie, just stuck it on to check card). Powered on system, card recognized both drives (properly) and booted off of the Intel SSD. Have since swapped the SSD back to the MB SATA II port.

 

[RailGun88]

No, only an X1 slot. I shall look for something like this. Thank you. But my question still stands. Is the Sandforce controller as good as I've heard, and should I wait and see if they have a newer series of OCZ Agility 2? Or should I just go with the Intel drives when they come out?

EDIT: I can't find one.
EDIT2: This maybe? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132030&cm_re=sata_6_card-_-16-132-030-_-Product, or this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815158207&cm_re=sata_6_card-_-15-158-207-_-Producthttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815158207&cm_re=sata_6_card-_-15-158-207-_-Product

 

[adampower]

I think the sandforce controller is great. However, you've waited this long you can give it another month or two.

One of two things will happen. Probably, the intel G3 will blow everything out of the water and the price of the current drives should reflect that. Or, the G3 will flop but the cost of the 25nm NAND will bring the price per GB down. Either way you win.

I bought a couple of cheap SSD's in the spring and I love 'em. However, I want to upgrade all my computers (and my wife's laptop) but will wait for the intel announcement. Unfortunately, I think everybody else is waiting too. Might be an interesting supply/demand event. hmmmm

 

[bamboe]

When i did look at some other site reviews about the Momentus because i am thinking of buying one,
all the people are really happy with it, (sorry the reviews are in dutch language, but they are on tweakers.net
i just went to here to see what other people think about it)
It amazes me that all the people here say go for the bigger ssd, if you want some extra speed and lots of more space
i really think that the momentus is a very good option.
Written data is always put on the platters, but what it does is that it loads the most used data in the 4 gig partition, boosting that part with speed, and because of that windows starts up very fast, since the most used files of windows are actually not that much big there is enough space for other data on that 4 gig partion, boosting the startups from those programs. Assuming you don't play 10 differend games on a day, after a short while the games you play the most will be written in the faster part of the harddisk speeding up that part.

Namaste,
Aernout.

 

[bamboe]

I couldn't edit, but for those who did read the review, they updated it, read this part also.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/seagate-momentus-xt-hybrid-hard-drive-ssd,2638-4.html