Best SSD to buy at my price range?

I wouldn't bother with anything other then a Samsung or Intel drive. Between all those ocz drives perhaps someone else will offer some input, but it's not worth dealing with lesser ssds imo.

No clue if you can get those drives there, or how much they are but if you can at least check them out.

The OCZ actually got some REALLY good reviews, and they'r well known in the SSD industry. Don't know what youre talking about man..

You asked for opinions, and you got one. As mentioned perhaps someone else will offer advice on the ocz line.

The Samsung and Intel ones are pricier than the OCZ, is that worth the performance boost?

Reliability is more the concern I would pay most attention to. It's doubtful any real world differences would be felt between pretty much any sata 3 drives.

Mushkin enhanced chronos deluxe is 170 for a 240gb model. It's as fast and reliable as you can get.

Nope, the performance is negligible. However, until the 4th gen, agility drives weren't reliable. The Agility 4, however, is up there with intel and samsung.

What is the best 120-128 GB SSD i can get? The samsung 830 is really at the very end of my price range.. I am really not willing to pay any more than that. Which SSD should I get? The Samsung? An Intel, maybe?

I'm happy with my OCZ Vertex 4.  

Again, i dare you to find a bad review.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

The samsung 830 256g drive is $154.99 shipped from amazon today.

I Own a OCZ Agility 3 drive (60GB) and I absolutely love it.
However, I have RMA'd three OCZ drives before this. This is not exclusive to the OCZ brand and I do not know if the failure rate is specifically higher for OCZ.

If you're getting any SSD drive, make sure that you remember to backup any save-files that install to the C: Drive. Plan ahead for failure because it's not uncommon to turn your PC on, and having the drive suddenly disappear. (RIP Skyrim saves 2x over)

I have had an 80GB Intel X25-M 2nd gen since they launched (2009) and it's still kicking. No issues. Not one RMA. No lost data, ever. It's been my staple OS drive since then, through 4 different PCs (I am a laptop gamer that likes to stay current, so I buy and sell every 6-12 months, and this drive has never left my possession as I put the original hard drive back into the laptop when I sell it). It's about halfway through its expected life, and I take care of the sucker. I also reformat a lot, as I am never happy with the way Windows is, and every now and again I'll switch to Linux then back again, so this SSD has seen much abuse.

If I were to go with another SSD, it most certainly would be an Intel after my experience with this one.

Edit: Here's an Intel 330 SATA3 120GB drive for $104.99: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/ite...

this is true on older ssds but nothing that is being sold today. SSDs have a wear life that is beyond what the average user can get to.

3 corsair force 3 drives, and one corsair performance drive for me rma'd. There is certainly no rule in place as to when and if an ssd will fail. Those drives were enough to keep me from buying anything other then samsung/intel.

The Cell wear is not the problem, it is failure of the controller components which is the issue. It is just one of those things that happens.

fair enough

1) I have 2 120 gig Agility 3.
... If you want a SATA II SSD, it is OK, It does NOT perform any better on Sata 3 than if it is on a SATA II port. Born out in review and in my testing.
... OCZ Finally Ironed out the Bugs with the SF22xx Controller so much less an issue today.
.. Bought when the first came out, One worked great, other one had compatability issues with laptop (Switch to M4, no Problems). However in reading the OCZ forum, OCZ will never see the light of day in my systems. that SAID the vertex 4 looks like a good buy.

I have 13 SSDs dating back to the Intel G1. Includes 3 Cucial M4's, 3 Samsung 830.

For desk tops I recommend the Samsung 830, Curcial M4's and Plextor's new drives.
As to performance - NOT a nickels worth of diff in real day-to-day usage of the better ones. - FORGET BENCHMARKS!!! Of these I buy based on lowest cost at time of purchase to determine which one.

Do not recommend any SF22xx drive unless it is heavly discounted (cost) compared to the other controller based SSDs.

Sata III drives that use Async NAND and the SF22xx controller (ie say Agility III) are lower performance drives and do not benefit much from SATA III. Not sure about marvel based Async Nand, but probably inbetween Agility III and say Curcial m4.

The Biggest Thing I look at is Least user problems (Do not confuse with reliability).
For this, even if you can not Buy from Newegg, Look at the ratings (must take with a grain of salt). Look for large number of reviews ie 100+ as to few reviews can be VERY misleading. The Compare the 1 or two egg ratings between the brands you are looking at.
Ex:
Samsung 830 6% Ref: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
M4 9% Ref: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
Then the Mushkin Enhanced with 26% 1/2 ratings - any one say OUCH
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

I hope this helps as I really do recommend SSDs.
If handled/used properly they all seem reliable I've not had a single failure yet and that's about 6 diff brands.

Samsung 830s are the way to go. Now you say they are at the top of the price range, but ever since the talk about the new 840 has come out, the 830 has been dropping like crazy in price. Honestly I would suggest going with a Samsung 830 and just being patient and waiting for the prices to start failing. I would think it is only a matter of time before the price drops here are reflected over there.

After Samsung 830, I would suggest a Crucial m4, then intel 520/330 and then ocz vertex 4/agility4 and just like everyone is saying it is based more on reliability than performance.

If you can spend $30 more... Then I would recommend the 256GB version of Samsung 830

http://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-7PC2...

This one is the with the desktop kit... For some reason, its about the same price as the stand-alone SSD one... $0.05 more expensive. I don't think you would mine the $0.05 difference, right?

The Muskin Chronos Deluxe and the Samsung 830 are "First Tier" SSD's from THG's list . You said $150 = a max of $20 and for that you could double the size and have a 1st Tier SSD

240 GB Mushkin Chronos Deluxe - $170
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

256 GB Samsung 830 - $170
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

I have installed over a dozen of the Mushkin and about 6 of the Samsung as their price has just recently dropped into affordability,

Here's THG's Tier 1

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-...

My vote is for the samsung 830 too, amazing drives and incredible reliability which is I think the most important factor in a SSD. I personally wouldnt consider anything but samsung, intel or crucial.

jack
As much as I love Tom's, Personnally I do not put much stock in there Tier ratings on the SSDs.
I have two 128 Gig M4's (tier 5), a 256 gig M4 Tier 3, two Samsung 128 gig Tier 3 and a 256 gig Samsung Tier 1. I find NO real life diff in day-to-day usage of these drives. Maybe a sec or two diff on boot time, But the diff in program load times are not enough to notice. ie if SSD X loads Program A in 20 Millisecs and SSD Y loads the same program in 15 MilliSec, Percentage wise looks big (33%). However Human reaction around 100 millisecond So NO preceved performance diff. Might See a Small diff if Program Like excell loads a Huge Streadsheet - providing the spread sheet is also on the SSD. On My slow system using a sata II SSD if I click on a recent link spreadsheet (Spreadsheet is on a 2nd SSD), Ecell and the spreadsheet are there before I could move the mouse to edit a cell - Any faster is of no consequence.

And in there own words:
Quote
At the end of the day, the real-world differences between SSDs in a desktop environment aren't altogether very large. The most important jump happens when you go from a hard drive to (almost) any SSD. With that said, there are measurable attributes that separate one SSD from another. However, they have to be digested as a sum of many parts. Within individual apps, you'll hardly notice the difference between a Vertex 2 and Samsung's 830. But if you look at performance over an entire month, you will find the 830 to be a better performer.
End quote.

So i think i'll be buying the Samsung 830, then? Are they REALLY reliable? What do you do if the ssd RMA? What is RMA? How do you treat at and how do you use an ssd correctly to not let it get RMA? Thanks so much for the help, guys! Thankyku!

RMA = return merchandise authorization.
For Explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_merchandise_authori...

Best advice:
1) Be cautious of Static Electricity Buil-up on you. Do not touch the pins that connect to MB. If By change you get "zapped" when touching a metal object - DISCHARGE yourself be even taking the SSD out of the protective BAG.
2) DO NOT over fill. You must leave about 15 % of the drive UNUSED. This is to allow Wear leveling, Garbage Colector, and Trim to work ther Magic to keep the erformance near manufactor spec.
Google SSD tweaks. ie See http://www.overclock.net/t/1133897/windows-7-ssd-tweaki...
At a Min, I recommend
A) Disable Hibernation - save SSD space equal to amount of Ram installed.
B) Take control of vertual Memory (page file or Swap file) Set bout Min and max to the same value. Myself I use 1024 mb. This save approx 1.5 X Ram - 1 gig og space on SSD. ie if you have 8 Gigs, Windows will use about 16 Gigs for the swap file. so Setting both Min and max to 1024 Mbs will save about 15 gigs of space on SSD.
C Either limit the disk space that Restore points can take, or as I do Just disable it. Restore points take up 300 mbs per point. so just 10 restore points = 3 gigs space on SSD.
D Move my doc folder to HDD.
E PRIOR to installing windows 7 on SSD, insure BIOS is set to AHCI

PS Unsure on how to do just google.
ie How do I set Virtual memory Google "set virtual memory windows 7"
http://windows.microsoft.com/is-IS/windows-vista/Change...

ENJOY.

As far as pagefile (aka Virtual Memory) goes, I have tried setting the minimum @ 128MB and max @ 4096MB and it seems to work fine. That way your pagefile.sys file starts out small and if you need more memory then it will take care of it automatically.

Another option is to make your storage drive the virtual memory drive and not worry about it.