Need 2 reliable, small SSD's, $190 budget.

[Patoooo1]

I want to build a gaming PC and I heard they really speed up loading times. I went to the EA forums and the ones they provided me had low reviews and stated they died after a couple weeks. So 2 small SSD's provide double a large one. I'd like to say around the price stated in the title. BTW my motherboard has 6gb/s.

 

[WyomingKnott]

Start by reading this: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-ssd-caching,2966.html
I'm not sure if you want two drives to double the space or mirror each other or split the load or what - but you will do better with one larger drive in any case.

 

[tecmo34]

^+1...

Is you budget total or individual drives? At this point, I would look at the Crucial m4 64GB drives but it takes it over your budget for two.

 

[Patoooo1]

That's my budget for the SSD's...I heard 2 are double the speed.

 

[Leaps-from-Shadows]

If you put two SSDs in a RAID-0 array, it will be faster than one larger drive. However, if one drive fails for whatever reason, all of the data is lost. You also lose automatic garbage collection when SSDs are in RAID.

You won't see any huge differences. It will be noticeable, but only a few seconds here or there when loading game levels.

I recommend getting a single drive -- in particular, one of these: Crucial M4 128GB, Plextor PX-M2 128GB, or Samsung 470 128GB. That will hold Windows and a few of your most-used programs. Then get a 1TB or 2TB hard drive for the rest of your programs and data. Make sure you do research on SSD optimizations and what steps you need to take to keep your SSD from filling up.

 

[Patoooo1]

Samsung good? Does it arrive dead frequently or stuff like that?

 

[WyomingKnott]

I disagree with Leaps-from-Shadows (is he a Kzin?). The reports that I have read say that you get better results from buying twice-the-size in the same line of drives then by tying two together.

 

[Leaps-from-Shadows]

I disagree with Leaps-from-Shadows (is he a Kzin?). The reports that I have read say that you get better results from buying twice-the-size in the same line of drives then by tying two together.

lol No I'm not Kzinti. Nice to see that someone else knows what they are though.

RAID-0 arrays nearly double the read and write performance of any SSD, no matter what size it is. So a drive that does 250/170 will come close to 500/340 in a RAID-0 array. A drive that does 500/500 could theoretically do close to 1000/1000 in RAID-0, but will likely be limited by the interface. Buying a larger drive in the same series won't give anywhere near that kind of benefit.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

We're getting a little off subject but any relation to the Kilrathi?

Patoooo1 - The Samsung 470 series solid state drives are excellent ssd's. They were first released at the end of last August. Samsung also supplies OEM versions of the ssd's to Sony, Dell, and Apple. It is one year later and the ssd's are still problem free. Unfortunately, The Samsung ssd's are only SATA 2.0 3Gb/s capable.

 

[Leaps-from-Shadows]

We're getting a little off subject but any relation to the Kilrathi?

Very similar. Aggressive and warlike bipedal big cats, just in a different universe.

And yes, the Samsung is only SATA2, whereas the Crucial M4 and Plextor PX-M2 are both SATA3. Game level loading times will be reduced either way though.