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Best SSDs For The Money: August 2012

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  • SSD
  • Buyer's Guides
  • Storage
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Anonymous
July 19, 2014 12:13:18 AM

Are you still holding off on an SSD upgrade? You may not need to. Vendors are cutting their prices yet again. If you're on a budget, drives under $200 sure are tempting. This may be a temporary phenomenon, though; retailers are in "back to school" mode.

Best SSDs For The Money: August 2012 : Read more

More about : ssds money august 2012

July 19, 2014 2:01:31 AM

"We only recommend SSDs we've actually used."

Is that why you don't mention Crucial's MX100 line? With the current pricing on the 256GB and 512GB MX100 drives, it's hard to justify buying anything else at those capacity points.
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a b G Storage
July 19, 2014 3:58:47 AM

I agree with kalmquist. At the price of the MX100 it is tempting to buy a 512GB SSD. (never would have said that last year)

MX100 256GB is ~$115 and the 512GB is $215. Hard to beat those prices.
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July 19, 2014 5:14:50 AM

leaving out the mx100 here actially spoils the list i think. please update after a test, i have seen it perform practically on par with samsungs evo but being even cheaper. this drive i think is the way to go for 500gb and up at the moment.
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a b G Storage
July 19, 2014 6:09:40 AM

As the others have said, the Crucial MX100 is a MAJOR omission here. Even more so when both the slower M500 and the pricier M550 make the list. The MX100 performs practically identically to the M550 for a price almost identical to that of the M500.
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July 19, 2014 6:41:29 AM

With regards to the "Other solid state options", do you reckon another USB 3.0 drives roundup/review would be doable? The last one has been some time ago, but I did find that really helpful and I'm in fact typing this from Windows 8.1 installed on my SanDisk Extreme 32GB USB :D 

Going by the fact that you're still recommending that stick, I'll assume I'm not doing too badly, but an overview of the current state of USB 3.0 would be nice.
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July 19, 2014 8:30:17 AM

where's crucial M500 250gb?:(  thats so cheap and good at same time ! only 100$
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July 19, 2014 8:31:17 AM

wait :o  MX100 is only 110$? i tought its like 180$ !!! thats amazing !(250gb)
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July 19, 2014 9:24:59 PM

When will we get a real cost/performance chart rather than the ridiculous thing that's been used for ages? Just take the performance, divide by price, and divide by the number of GB, and let people sort by 4k composite, sequential composite, and a test bench score. And best to group them by capacity, since cost per gb drastically decreases between 64gb and 1tb
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July 20, 2014 3:55:38 PM

a/ hard to believe u need more than 64gb for a boot drive

b/ the killer factor is access speed vs a HDD - who gives a rats about transfer speed? - huge is huge

given the above, despite the scoffers, i still think raid 1 w/ a ssd primary & a hdd secondary could work well in some apps. none seem to have tried it & benched it meaningfully i can see

most realtime work is done by primary (ssd) drive

fast & cheap always up redundancy

d/ i hear rumors than the sandisk cache thingo has weird firmware - flushes the cache a lot - defeats the purpose? Many say its great.

loved the idea when first heard it, now not so sure
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July 20, 2014 7:48:04 PM

so the 10 year warranty isn't really a 10 year warranty?
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July 20, 2014 7:48:10 PM

Quote:
so the 10 year warranty isn't really a 10 year warranty?


flushes cache? is that bad?
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a b G Storage
July 20, 2014 9:22:37 PM

The difference in idle power between a Samsung (0.34W) and an AData (1.21W) could be a big deal in a laptop, and is worth mentioning.
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July 22, 2014 12:28:23 AM

So why aren't the 850 Pro's included in the charts? Based on the review a few weeks ago, their numbers top virtually every drive on this list.
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a b G Storage
July 22, 2014 8:16:04 AM

Probably has to do with the "for the money" part. The 850 Pro is pricey. You can get a 512 GB Crucial MX100 for about the same money as a 256 GB Samsung 850 Pro. For most people, the MX100 would be a much better option.
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July 24, 2014 11:49:35 AM

Crucial MX100 is almost as fast as the more expensive M550, the only downside is that they don't make a 1Tb SSD (I really hope they will produce it in the end for a price around $300,00 :p ).
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July 26, 2014 3:22:00 AM

Your ssd list makes me realize how fast life goes!!!
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July 30, 2014 3:10:28 AM

Samsung 840 Pro data displays writes speed instead of IOPS
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August 3, 2014 5:27:22 AM

being silly. as many are, say u r broke or trying to stretch an old pcS life ...

As they say, lottsa ram wins, even if slow.

So what say a big swap file on an ssd?

My 2gb, soon to be replaced, 98xp PC has a 4gb HDD swap file (suggested by windows) & it crawls - u can hear it
swapping
at least the ssd can be re-used - ram upgrades cannot
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August 3, 2014 8:18:14 AM

Mabe the conventional logic of ssdS is all wrong?

An entire copy of your system disk on cheap/fast, but niggardly on space, storage - really?

that means being anal with what goes where for ever more - time & hassle & maybe risk?

why not make it their problem?

seagate etc. hybrid 1tb drive - 8 gb cache onboard - $~100

something like sandisk intellicache~? 32gb ~$45 - not a drive - just a cache

maybe a small ssd for known scratch files like win swap etc - $45 64gb - $85 128gb - kingston?

would make a great raid 1 rig

I am told win 8 installs on 128gb can be a struggle - absurd

In theory, only cache what needs caching, not clutter.

Dont quote me if i am wrong (tho i cant see where, if they work ok)

Very fast almost all the time

Time is money - this is KISS



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August 3, 2014 6:38:12 PM

Looks like they are cutting back on these warranties. I'll wait a year or two before going SSD.
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a b G Storage
August 3, 2014 6:44:55 PM

kitekrazee said:
Looks like they are cutting back on these warranties. I'll wait a year or two before going SSD.

What are you talking about... Samsung just jumped on the 10 year warranty bandwagon with their 850 Pro. Warranties are getting longer, not shorter.
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a b G Storage
August 7, 2014 7:42:29 AM

I've noticed my system has only recently begun to experience some pauses. It has a fairly new (1 yr. max) SSD, but I forget which one; I think it is an AData.
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August 20, 2014 8:26:35 PM

Just bought the Samsung 850 Pro 128GB for $120 on Amazon. cuz it's newer (July 1, 2014) and betterer and more luxurious and V-Nand and durable and richer and better tasting.
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August 28, 2014 11:56:29 PM

where do the new amd ssds fall in this heirarchy?
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a b G Storage
August 29, 2014 5:06:42 AM

degreesofuncertainty said:
where do the new amd ssds fall in this heirarchy?

Slightly slower than the OCZ Vector 150, which uses the same controller.
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September 10, 2014 8:06:01 PM


Quote:
being silly. as many are, say u r broke or trying to stretch an old pcS life ...

As they say, lottsa ram wins, even if slow.

So what say a big swap file on an ssd?

My 2gb, soon to be replaced, 98xp PC has a 4gb HDD swap file (suggested by windows) & it crawls - u can hear it
swapping
at least the ssd can be re-used - ram upgrades cannot

You can put the page file on an SSD if you want. SSD's have limited lifespans, and are quite slower than RAM. In the short run (probably 2 years or less under moderate use), an SSD may do the trick until you can afford an upgrade.

More RAM is preferred if the price is reasonable and you plan on keeping the computer for a long time. My dad's desktop is a pentium 4 that is probably 10 years old. He has already repaired and re-soldered capacitors on the motherboard, replaced the power supply, maxed out the processor for a Pentium 4 that's ~3Ghz and has RAM at maybe 1GB (may be 1.5 GB at most, with a Mobo max of 2GB i think?). He plans on running it until it experiences complete failure or until someone gives him a new one due to upgrading. It's the living room computer. I've used it for web-browsing, photo-editing (adjusting levels, cropping, clone brush), youtube videos. It handles the tasks just fine.

This is an extreme case. Most users just upgrade when it breaks. However, in this case, more ram and an HDD pagefile is the better option. An SSD pagefile would likely be pushed to failure before the rest of the computer fails beyond hope of repair. RAM would be the better investment. He doesn't even care about 1-2 minute boot times. It's what he's used to. He just powers on the computer and grabs snacks while it's loading ;) 
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