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xympa

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I was looking to buy an SSD with 120gb, I've read a lot about these SSDs and I'm still torn between the Agility 3, Force series 3 and the Crucial M4...

As I understand it, the m4 has much higher 4k write and read speeds, but on the rest of the categories, the agility and the force series 3 seem to be amazingly better, what's your take on it? Which one would you advise having in mind that most of the time the SSD will have 20GB free at most?
 
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I wouldn't recommend any of the 3.

First, you're comparing 2 different categories of NAND. The type of NAND used is 90% of the determining factor in an SSD's performance.

the agility uses asynchronous, the corsair and the m4 use synchronous.

However, toggle is by far the fastest, and any toggle NAND ssd will perform almost exactly the same. Toggle NAND ssd are about the same price as synchronous right now, so there's almost no reason to buy a synchronous NAND based ssd at the moment.

Only difference between them being price and reliability. Intel does not yet make toggle NAND ssd's. Their synchonous series is 510.

Sandisk has the cheapest 120gb toggle ssd ($140 sandisk extreme). they're also almost as reliable as intel, having...

tomatthe

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I wouldn't consider Corsair an ssd manufacture based on previous experience with 3 force 3 drives, and 2 performance 3 drives dead within a years total time running put together.

I'm using a samsung now, and people here generally seem to think the Samsung 830 or Intel 520 series is the way to go reliability wise. They cost more then the ones you mentioned, but there is a reason for that imo.
 

xympa

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When you say reliability, do you mean that if if a get a vertex it is bound to fail sooner or later? I'll be using this on my laptop with windows 7, as my only storage means, I'll be doing work mainly.
 
I wouldn't recommend any of the 3.

First, you're comparing 2 different categories of NAND. The type of NAND used is 90% of the determining factor in an SSD's performance.

the agility uses asynchronous, the corsair and the m4 use synchronous.

However, toggle is by far the fastest, and any toggle NAND ssd will perform almost exactly the same. Toggle NAND ssd are about the same price as synchronous right now, so there's almost no reason to buy a synchronous NAND based ssd at the moment.

Only difference between them being price and reliability. Intel does not yet make toggle NAND ssd's. Their synchonous series is 510.

Sandisk has the cheapest 120gb toggle ssd ($140 sandisk extreme). they're also almost as reliable as intel, having made enterprise level SSD's for the last 10 years.

Mushkin has the cheapest 240 gb toggle ($238 chronos deluxe)

other toggle based ssd are patriot's wildfire and samsung's 830.

I'd stay away from OCZ. They've developed a bit of a reputation for poor customer service and reliability as of late.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-review-benchmark,3139-6.html

Given that a 256gb m4 is in the same performance tier as 120gb toggle sandforce drives, the toggle ssd's are rougly twice as fast as synchronous non-sandforce drives.
 
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xympa

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When they are almost full SSDs start to reduce performance am I right? Would it be worth it to buy a 240GB one or to keep my 120GB full? I am reluctant to open up my pockets for that, but if it has a decent increase in performance than I would think about it...
 

Kursun

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I have been using a pair Corsair P64 for several years and have had no problems.

On the other hand, after reading on an audio forum that Samsung used 10V capacitors on 12V rails (should have used 16V capacitors) I am much more cautious on the Samsung brand.
 

Kursun

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I have 120 gb ssd boot drive (Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit). It's packed with software. But still, it is 70% free.
TRIM will take care of performance deterioration with usage.
 

xympa

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I'm torn between the 120GB sandisk and the 240GB Mushkin... I'm afarid I'll run out of space with only 120GB but also hardly willing to buy a 240GB for it's price, which is around 260€...

BTW: Sandisk doesn't mention TRIM anywhere on their website, nor any of the reviews i read.
 

game junky

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Agreed - 520 is a great drive.

When we initially switched several work stations at the office, I purchased the OCZ Vertex 2's - we didn't have any sata 6gb/s ports on those machines and the Vertex 2's seemed to be the best speed for the least money. I purchased 3 drives, 1 failed within 4 weeks, 1 failed within 3 months and the other was pull due to concern over the previous failures. OCZ did replace those drives and I have reused those in other systems which needed speed but weren't a reliability concern. After firmware upgrades, uninstalling Intel RST driver, a lot of tweaking and prayer, they seem to all be running stable. Nonetheless, I won't be purchasing OCZ for anything flash-based for awhile.

Cost for speed, they're still definitely a good option but I personally have had too many hiccups to give them any more of my money. I have been using the Intel 520 in my desktop and I couldn't be happier. Dell typically deploys Samsung SSDs in their newer laptops - they'll all been fairly snappy and low maintenance.
 
mushkin chronos 120 is the only one i have ever owned and it couldn't be better. scored higher than the highest pc mark score listed for drive mark, it must not have been updated in a while but i am very happy. not to mention the support is sooooo good, you can get technical questions answered in minutes on the forum.
 
Kursun - "that Samsung used 10V capacitors on 12V rails" They probably used 10 V caps because SSDs do NOT use the 12 V rail, they are a 5 V device, ie they can be plugged into a USB port and work, USB port is 5 V.

quilciri - "I'd stay away from OCZ. They've developed a bit of a reputation for poor customer service and reliability as of late" I Concur Agillity III is a poor choice for SATA III as it's performance on SATA II port is almost Identical.

On performance. While Benchmarks using UNcompressed data (ATTO) may show some big diffs. Most of the higher end SSDs real life IN USE performance diff is not that big (OS + Program Drive). I would look at LEAST user problems, and cost, to determine which one to buy. In that, I tend to go Intel 510/520, Samsung 830, and curcial M4, Which ever one is cheapeast when Buying. The Mushkin have about as good rep as the 3 I mentioned and very good for a SF22xx based SSD.

As to size, I'm not a gamer, All 4 of my systems the average space for Windows + apps is around 35->40 gigs. Hibernation (around 6 gigs) is disabled, Page file min and max are set to 1024 mbs. Restore points are disabled.

SSDs I have: Intel G1 and G2, Torqx, Phenox Pro, WD, 2 Agility IIIs (ugh), 2 M4's and one Samsung 830.
Sytem using SSDs, 3 laptops and 2 desktops.

 

Kursun

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Samsung is not only an SSD manufacturer. They build everything from washing machines to cameras.

The case I mentioned is about their TVs. If you google "Samsung capacitor" you'll collect some data.

If they do this skimping on their TVs, it is not hard to figure they probably carry this manufacturing philosophy beyond TVs...

 
^ discussion is about SSD and in that vain they have the 2nd highest reliability rating Intel being #1, not a washing machine. Have 2 Samsung monitors/HDTVs (24 In and 27 ") and just bought the 32 Samsung in 120 Hz LED TV for Monitor/TV - THEY ALL work Great. You posted in a discussion of SSDs AND used the term 12 V rail - TVs do not have a +12 V rail they have a 12 Volt power supply - Recommend you be a little clearer on what you are refering to.

If you have a reference to "poor" quality Samsung SSDs please post and I'll stand corrected.

Yes I did google "samsung Caps" seams it affected models around manuf around 2009/10. If memory servs me right, this applied to a lot of different MBs also - a BAD batch of china manuf caps.
 

cbrunnem

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i have the mushkin enhanced chronos deluxe. make sure you get the enhanced chronos deluxe version. the other version uses older slower memory. this drive is probably the best ssd out there for the price and is awesome. get it
 

Kursun

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I see that you do like Samsung. The sentence I had read about Samsung capacitors:
"Sumsung has been charged with using 10V caps on a 12V rail in their flat screen power supplies. Then sufficient accumulated TV run time will result in failed caps and a non-working TV. 16V (or higher) caps would be preferred."

Now, a bad batch and using 10V capacitors instead of 16Vs are different things. This information (use of lower rated capacitor) is verified after doing a google search.

BTW, TVs do have voltage rails as most any electronic equipment.
From wikipedia:
"A power supply rail or voltage rail refers to a single voltage provided by a power supply unit (PSU). Although the term is generally used in electronic engineering, many people, especially computer enthusiasts, encounter it in the context of personal computer power supplies."
Different voltage rails can be obtained from a single power supply. In most electronic equipment different stages are designed to work with different voltages. Low signal stages need lower voltage than higher power output stages.
 
I stand corrected on the Use of Rails, I've only taught series regulated, shunt regulated, Switching PSU, HV Power suppiesand a at least one most have never heard of. Never heard the term rails until computers switching PSUs. I could go on, But heck not worth it.

The topic is about SSDs, and I stand by my comment that Samsung SSDs have a good rep for reliability. No I'm not a samsung Fanboy, I buy what seems to be the best deal when I need it.
 

xympa

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I made up my mind, I've read good reviews about this one aswell, If i bought one today, it would be the Chronos Deluxe.
 

xympa

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Well, I still haven't made up my mind completely, and I'm now thinking about 240gb models, a 240gb Force Series GT showed up on my radar at 274€ (with shipping), for 8 more hours, anyone has any quick opinions on this guy?

The Chronos Deluxe is extremely difficult to find on my country...

For the same price I can get a 256gb Crucial m4, it's advertised with slower write speeds though, despite that, I'm seeing the crucial climb all the benchmarks with lower access times and higher sequential read/writes.
 
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