Which SSD right NOW?

[pinkfloydhomer]

I want to buy an SSD right now, not wait until Vertex 3 and all the other next-gen drives are available and bug-free.

I will be buying a Sandy Bridge motherboard (probably some ASUS with H67) along with it, and I will be running Windows 7 64-bit. This will be my everyday desktop.

I have narrowed it down to Vertex 2, C300 or X25-M G2, either 64 GB or 128 GB (or thereabouts). I was leaning towards 64 GB since it will be enough for my OS drive, and also cheaper. Then I could always upgrade once Vertex 3 (or similar) was stable, if I wanted. And the 64 GB drive could then find use in one of my other computers. But as I understand it, the 128GB will be both faster out of the box and will have less performance loss as time goes by because each memory cell will be have less wear on average, all else being equal.

Can you help me make the final decision? Which model? Which size?

Thanks

 

[daship]

Of your 3 choices the C300 is the only Sata III drve. No brainer since your new mobo will have Sata III. I bought the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820249010 super fast drive. Boot sWindows in 8.9 seconds. It scores a 7.7 on WIE and I know the C300 scores 7.9, I believe because the C300 has better IOPs.

Don't buy nothing less then 128, the samllest I've had wasd 80 and it waas to small, and I didn't have much installed other then office apps for work, and photoshop, lightroom, and DPP along with 1 game WoW, and it filled up all 80G.

The price for smaller drives is tempting but they are a waste of time and money.

 

[RetiredChief]

Intel G2 (or newer 320- Note 320 is mSata) - Slower 4K random, Higher reliability, some what overpriced based on performance/compotion.

Sata -II based on SF1200 controller,Higher on 4 K random reads and lower on writes (reads more important than writes.. C300 Higher on less important Sequential read/writes. Bothe score in the 7.7->7.8 range for WEI, But WEI is not that good of a comparison.

C300 - great drive, but I opted for the Sata-II Phoenix Pro when I bought mine. C300 had rather poor GC, may have improved if they have a newer firmware since they came out. + is that it is sata III, just not a big jump in performance over Sata II SF1200 based SSDs.

Min size - 80 gig (Intel), but prefer the 120/128 gig size, Do not recommend the 60/64 gig.


For comparision (Intel 320 Review): Remember, interms of Benchmarks, a user is not likely to see any difference with 10% or less in a benchmark.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4244/intel-ssd-320-review/8
On vertex-2, a little leary as possibility of getting on that they had a problem with, should be out of the pipline by now but I would opt for one of the other SF12xx based SSDs if that is what you go with.

Older review C300
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3812/the-ssd-diaries-crucials-realssd-c300/2