Buying SSD: Need Advice

[ramvid01]

So after much thought and indecision, I have decided to buy an SSD. Right now I am in the market for a 128gb SSD that costs between $160-220 (thats my budget).

I have a few questions though after some research. Are Intel's SSD's that much reliable than the rest of the field? I saw that their return rates are much lower than other manufacturers. Also I read that OCZ Vertex 3 is/was having firmware problems. Is this related to some incompatabilities with other computer parts or just bad firmware and has that been fixed. Finally, what are your opinions about Samsung/Corsair drives? Reliable, worth it?

Any suggestions/answers to questions on SSD's would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[gmcizzle]

In terms of reliability there's basically 2 types of SSDs: SandForce based and non-SandForce based. Intel, Crucial, Samsung, and some others are non-SandForce based SSDs and basically have the most reliability. The SandForce based SSDs used to have issues, but most of that has been fixed with recent firmware updates. Also, the SandForce SSDs tend to be slightly faster in general, but in reality you won't notice this difference, and slightly cheaper as well. OCZ, Corsair, Kingston, and some others make SandForce-based SSDs.

 

[ramvid01]

So your saying that non-Sandforce based are more reliable? What other types of controllers are there? I am assuming that Intel is using its own controller.

 

[gmcizzle]

The SandForce controller was considered not very reliable since it came out, although recent firmware updates definitely made them better. Are they as reliable as Intel, Samsung, etc? Maybe, maybe not, but if you want the best reliability you definitely want to go with a non-SandForce SSD. I believe Intel, Samsung, and Crucial all make their own controllers for their SSDs.