What SSD do I get?

[hyeedo]

My system is a Athlon II X4 (unlocked)
6GB ddr 1333
and Nvidia GTS 250
My motherboard Biostart TA 870+ (supports SATA III)
My current hitachi 300gb hd seems to hog my system down

There seems to be quite a variety of SSD drives but I dont know what to get can anyone give feedback on actual use?
It comes down to one of 4 choices.
A cheap 60GB $70-80 SATA II
A 60GB $100 SATA III
A 120GB $145 SATA II (kingston ultra)
or a 120GB $170 SATA III

I'm basing the prices off newegg and tiger direct.

Do I really feel a difference between SATAII and III?
I usually play 1 or 2 online shooters
Or browse the web, I am really looking for faster response, I dont really do any file transfer, or video editing.

 

[tomatthe]

Sata III ssds are one of the few devices that can actually take advantage of the speed the Sata III spec has. Switching to a sata II ssd would still be a very noticeable just in overall system response time, but I would want to take advantage of the Sata III option if you could pay the extra money for it.

Size wise is really up to you, if you can fit your OS/Apps/Games (I guess you could have your games installed on the other drive, but I kinda like everything to load fast so keeping them on the ssd is optimal) on the 60gig drive and still have 10 to 20g free its probably alright to go with that one, otherwise I would go with the 120.

 

[k1114]

SSDs make no difference in games or programs except for load times so in an online shooter, it won't help at all. You will still be at the mercy of your internet (and your specs), same with browsing. This is because once it's loaded it's running from the ram. You will not notice a difference from sata2 vs 3 as the main advantage of a ssd is access times which results in the improved loading times. A 60GB ssd is enough for os plus 1 or 2 games.

 

[tomatthe]

I was thinking load times were a good portion of the reason people switch to SSD's. Quickly loading games actually are important to me, as well as apps like photoshop have a massive decrease in load times. It may seem minimal, but just pulling up the WoW login screen is much much quicker loading off an ssd. I did not intend to say there would be any noticeable increase in speed after the game was loaded if that's how it was read.

IMO I don't know why you would opt for a Sata 2 drive if your system supported Sata 3. The pricing isn't that substantial, and while a good portion of the advantages may never be realized it just makes better sense to me to go with the faster spec.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/ssd-charts-2011/benchmarks,129.html

Has a good listing of lots of drives being testing in different ways. Sata 2/3 are very close in many, and not so close to many others.

 

[hyeedo]

So should I just get one of the cheaper SATA II 60gb drives and call it a day?

 

[k1114]

If you want to save $25, yes. Make sure you update the firmware before using it, the older versions were quite buggy/unreliable.

Should have looked at your other threads before, I see you already have dealt with a ssd before.

 

[hyeedo]

Yah, they werent necessarily for me, so all I did was build and install OS. One was a patriot pyro the other was force series 3. The Force 3 was running on a SATA II mobo but seemed to be just as fast if not faster than the patriot pyro.
However they were both sata III drives so I just assume the quality must be better than a SATA II.

 

[rsinj]

My vote is the cheaper SSD.

You are not going to experience any significant or very noticeable increase in performance going from SATA II to SATA III. Regardless, to get the best performance out of either you'll need to have it running in AHCI mode.

Go for the cheaper one now - in two or three years you'll either have a newer machine, or be able to get a newer SSD which will be a number of times better/cheaper/bigger/faster than those available today. Don't overinvest now if you really don't have the necessity to. Most people really do not need anything other than a smallish SSD for their OS and main programs to get the biggest benefit.

We all know how technology advances, and how this will all evolve.

 

[hyeedo]

Its just hard to pick one when there so many. But quality stuff lasts. I paid $150 for 10k raptor 4-5 years ago. Up to today it works very fast compared to any other 7200rpm hd ive used.

 

[rsinj]

Its just hard to pick one when there so many. But quality stuff lasts. I paid $150 for 10k raptor 4-5 years ago. Up to today it works very fast compared to any other 7200rpm hd ive used.

I think the major names out there are all very good. No matter where you look at reviews, you are going to see all the complaints because SSD is still relatively expensive - so people are expecting very high quality and when they get less than that are quick to voice their disappointment. However, you also need to consider that most people who have good experiences are not the ones running to post their reviews. You see quite a few negative reviews for OCZ SSDs, however, they are selling tons of them because they are lower cost and have a very wide range of products in the space.

I personally have 3 Kingstons (of different models/flavors), one prior generation OCZ, and 2 new Crucials - all have performed flawlessly, and are working excellently on my machines running Windows 2000 Server, Windows XP, and Windows 7.

SSDs are still relatively new so whether you buy what you believe is a "quality" product, possibly being more expensive, I don't think is going to necessarily have a correlation to the life you get out of it.

How I decided which SSDs to buy...I watched and when the price was below $1/GB (purchase price + any rebate), I jumped on it. I did this with the 4 non-Crucial SSDs. I paid about $1.40/GB for the Crucials only because I have a high-end application where I wanted what I perceived to be a higher quality product. It's not particularly clear to me that the additional cost on the Crucials was worth it, however, everything runs well so I can't complain.

 

[rsinj]

However they were both sata III drives so I just assume the quality must be better than a SATA II.

I don't think that is a valid assumption.