Most reliable SSD

[1100111010]

Hello everyone, I'm new to the forum! :3

Anyways, so I've been thinking of replacing my SSD array with a new one... but I can't decide which SSD to buy. I had four OCZ Vertex 2 drives configured in RAID 0... but unfortunately, three of them suddenly died yesterday, so I'm looking for a more reliable SSD this time. It would be great if I could get some help buying the right SSD for my computer.

In addition to that, I'm using a Gigabyte G1.Sniper X58 motherboard with the Marvell 9182 SATA 3 controller (I don't know if TRIM works or not), so should I just use a single drive on the Marvell controller instead of putting them on RAID 0 on the ICH10R like last time? :/

Thanks in advance and hopefully I haven't said anything stupid. XD

 

[nukemaster]

At current I do not think RAID passes the TRIM command(Intel is supposed to have it real soon, may even be out of some new board for all I know). It is all upto the drives firmware to do idle garbage collection.

Many users who want reliable tend to stick with Intel,Crucial,Samsung. They seem to be the goto SSDs for reliability.

I would call bad luck, but 3 SSDs at once is kind of bad odds.

 

[1100111010]

Well, three SSDs didn't die all at once. They stopped working one by one.

You know, I actually have a Crucial C300 SSD on my MacBook Pro and it's been working fine since 2010, and some of my friends are saying that Intel SSDs are pretty good too. But which would be more reliable? Are there any models you can recommend?

And do you think I should buy multiple SSDs and put them on RAID on SATA 2 ICH10R like last time or get a single SSD and use the SATA 3 Marvell 9182… or should I just use a single drive on the SATA 2 ICH10R? I hear Marvell controllers aren't very good with RAID and I don't know if it supports TRIM on single drives. So I'm a bit confused here. :/

 

[nukemaster]

I personally have 3 M4's, but have not put enough hours on them yet. The oldest one only has 2600 hours on it with the other 2 at only 1000 hours. They work very well, but I have hard drives with WAY more hours on them.

Intel normally is the most recommended(they had been making both the memory and controller. They have some sand force ones with a "custom" firmware as well). The M4's(C400 i think you would call it) and Samsung's 830's are the next in line.

I personally was going to run (R)AID0(whats the R for without Redundant!!), but decided since they are very fast, I would rather be able to keep an eye on the drives starts such as wear level(one drive has reached "3" thats gonna be a long time to fail) and nand life used(all still at 0). Even a single one is WAY faster then my 3 hard drive RAID setups from the past.

Some users here run (R)AID0 SSDs and are very happy with it as well. I find the access times are the biggest thing that SSDs offer in terms of feeling fast so raid does not help those, but DOES help read/write speeds.

I also have a very cheap Kingston V100 for Windows 8 and even it seems fast and works well for me(i expect the M4s to outlast it and they are much "faster").

EDIT.

Ohh and most users recommend the Intel controller because it works well(very stable), You can try the marvel as in your case, it should be faster(in theory at least, it is SATA 6gigabit/sec after all).

EDIT EDIT.
This is also an interesting read.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?271063-SSD-Write-Endurance-25nm-Vs-34nm

 

[1100111010]

Thank you so much for your help! I'm gonna do some research on Intel SSDs then. :3

Do you think using RAID 0 is going to degrade the life of my SSDs faster?

P.S. Thanks for the interesting link. :3

 

[1100111010]

Best answer selected by 1100111010.

 

[1100111010]

I would rather be able to keep an eye on the drives starts such as wear level(one drive has reached "3" thats gonna be a long time to fail) and nand life used(all still at 0). Even a single one is WAY faster then my 3 hard drive RAID setups from the past.

Oh by the way, how do you check the drive wear levels and the nand life?