OCZ v. Intel

[7dragons]

This is a pretty straight-forward question, though I do not expect the answers to be.

I've had my eye on both an Intel SSD and one by OCZ, and I'm waffling seriously bad between them. I'm looking primarily for a boot drive, with room for some applications (Office, Dreamweaver), and maybe The Witcher 2 I've been itching to get at. I have a regular WD 500gb storage drive for everything else.

My problem is, I have techitis really bad -- you know, the irresistable urge to get the latest and greatest gadget and gizmo that hits the market. I've learned restraint recently, but it's hard. Very, very hard... Of course, the Vertex 3 is practically daring me to buy it, but I've heard of firmware issues that are a pain, and the price is always a factor. The Vertex 2 is slower, but with SSDs, that's a relative term. With both of these drives, I've read a lot about the drive failure rate, which is definitely at the back of my mind. Intel sacrifices speed for reliability -- again, relatively speaking. Both the 320 (slower and cheaper) and 510 (faster and more expensive) have been calling out, too.

So there's where I'm at. What I'd like is to get opinions on these drives from those who have actually used them. Why you bought them, issues installing, issues since installing, and general info is welcome. And please, we all have our favorites, but try to keep the bashing of brands to a minimum.

That said, I look forward to reading your comments!

 

[Nightmarejr]

Don't get caught up between the failure rates... When they go, they go. Your main concern should be between pricing and speed. If you can afford it go for the OCZ if not there are cheaper options in terms of reliability and speed other than Intel. Intel is just the bottom bin pick of safes. Theres alot of newer ssds that trumph intel in speed and "reliability"

Simple stuff to know. Smaller manufactoring process 32nm etc etc means less writes. Try to get trim support or something similar. Depending on OS configure your system to use ssds properly. GL HF

 

[JohnnyLucky]

You may want to read this article over at The SSD Review:

http://thessdreview.com/ssd-guides/buyers-guide/the-ssd-manufacturers-bluff/

Last Sunday I purchased relatively inexpensive, entry level ssd that was on sale at newegg. Normally I would not even recommend the ssd unless an individual was on a really tight budget. I bought it for the sole purpose of finding out how it performs with my own motherboard and my own software applications.