Silicon Motion's SM2246EN four-channel controller is awesome, but it's only recently that we've seen it make a splash. With IMFT flash, Adata's SP610 brings value to the table, offering a compelling mix of speed and price to battle against companies like Crucial that have made an art out of low pricing. Adata Premier Pro SP610 512 GB
Mid-range capacity, high end performance
It's a interesting maneuver, since Adata already has not one, but several mainstream SSD lines. Most of those are SandForce based, but adding diversity to the mix is one of Adata's specialties. SSD management and cloning software sweetens the pot. Read the Full Review
SanDisk's X210 is an OEM-styled variant of the company's Marvell platform used by the enviably-quick Extreme II. With less over-provisioning and no fluff, it's offered as an option to OEMs looking for the finest in SATA-based SSD performance. SanDisk X210 512 GB
A Pro Offering To Please Discriminating Buyers
The more we test the X210, the better it gets. Now that you can actually buy this drive from a number of places, it's worthy of our recommendation. Selling for just north of $300, the X210 at 512 GB is decidedly a bargain for the kind of performance it delivers in all metrics. Five years of warranty coverage imparts peace of mind, too.
Toshiba is one of the world's largest SSD manufacturers, but you don't hear much about it. That's largely due to the company's huge involvement in OEM SSDs, though more than a few drives in this column rely on Toshiba flash. Still, its consumer presence is low-key. Toshiba Q Series Pro 512 GB
Toshiba's Client-Oriented Performance SSD
The Q Pro is Toshiba's answer to competing performance claims, wielding an undisclosed proprietary controller and premium Toggle-mode DDR flash.
The M500 wiggled its way into our hearts with a combination of advanced security features, admirable performance, and awe-inspiring prices. Crucial's newer M550 takes those attributes to the next level. Crucial M550 512 GB
One-Half Terabyte of Awesome
The 512 GB models serves up as much performance as the 1 TB configuration for close to $300. Although the drive is more expensive than the 480 GB M500 it improves upon, you get as much speed as you could expect from a SATA 6Gb/s-based SSD.
A 960 GB Crucial M500 for less than $500 gives you a per-gigabyte cost of roughly $.48. That's insane. Tack on power-loss protection, TCG Opal 2.0 encryption, and even a little bit of NAND redundancy for good measure. Crucial M500 960 GB
A Massive Drive With Attractive Features
Built on Marvell's 88SS9187 processor and Micron's 20 nm, 128 Gb NAND, the M500 puts generous capacity and enterprise-esque features into the hands of consumers. This thing is a luxury item, to be sure. And it's hard for us to recommend that you spend as much on an SSD as some people spend on an entire gaming system. But if you need to maximize solid-state capacity for your dollar, Crucial's 960 GB M500 is the way to go.
How can we recommend one 960 GB drive and not the competing 1000 GB model, now that they're both viable options? Samsung 840 EVO 1 TB
Spacious Capacity Based on TLC NAND
Pricing differences between them are now nearly non-existent. But you get an extra 40 GB of capacity on the Samsung SSD. And believe me, there are times I wish I had access to Samsung's sweet software toolbox when I'm working with other drives.
You do end up with the inherently-lower write endurance of triple-level cell NAND. Otherwise, both drives are similar. Samsung turns in choice power data, while the M500 gets the value vote.
Samsung finally released its EVO firmware to fulfill the promise of TCG Opal 2.0 security and eDrive capabilities, so existing SSDs can take advantage of the upgrade.
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.
MX100 256GB is ~$115 and the 512GB is $215. Hard to beat those prices.
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.
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
flushes cache? is that bad?
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
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