Best SSDs For The Money: April 2012

Name: For Reference, SSD Versus HDD: Power And Performance - Best SSDs For The Money: April 2012
Author: Andrew Ku

by Andrew Ku April 25, 2012 at 11:00 PM

63 Comments

For Reference, SSD Versus HDD: Power And Performance

Do you transcode video, copy large amounts of data, or run your own Web server? If you consistently perform I/O-intensive tasks, SSDs are a great way to improve speed. But even if you only browse the Internet, SSDs still offer tangible benefits in performance and power. Take a look at the CPU utilization and power consumption results from one of our recent reviews:

A disk-based drive will always consume more power absolutely. At the system level, an SSD increases power consumption because CPU and memory utilization rises in response to increased I/O activity (they're not sitting there, waiting on a hard drive to send data). But remember that an SSD-based configuration will always finish those operations faster. You see that reflected in the charts above. At the end of the day, an SSD lowers power consumption. This is why performance and power go hand-in-hand.

PCMark Vantage (x64) HDD Suite	Average Power Rating (W)	Actual Power Used (mW)	Average CPU utilization (%)	Completion Time (mm:ss)
Kingston SSDNow 100 V+	0.6	85	14.7	8:06
OCZ Agility 2	1.4	186	10.9	7:54
Intel X25-M	1.4	242	10.8	10:17
OCZ Vertex 3 Pro	1.6	207	15.1	7:41
OCZ Vertex 2	1.9	269	13.9	8:28
Seagate Momentus 5400.6	2.2	426	10.4	11:40
OCZ Vertex 3	2.3	305	15.1	7:50
G.Skill SATA II FM-25S2S-64GB	2.6	369	13.5	8:40

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63 comments

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for me reliability & gigabyte/$ are the only criteria that should matter for most consumers looking for SSDs .
especially 1st time buyers.
eddieroolz

I think I'd be going with a Crucial m4 for its superb reliability.
hellfire24

i agree that crucial drives are not the fastest but they are a great value with high quality and reliability.
kyuuketsuki

Those Mushkin drives that consistently sit at or under the $1/GB mark are simply killer. If I had some money to burn, I'd have already popped a 240GB one in my system.
hmp_goose

I'm still lost, after all these months: Why are there drives with higher prices listed after the Chronos Deluxe?

Honorable Mentions for laptop use? The price premium surely doesn't cover 16GB of extra capacity …
sirencall

I got an OCZ Agility III for my aging laptop and made that thing into a screamer and boots faster than my cell phone. I paid 150 for it and it is 120gb so I think it was a pretty sweet deal and a great investment.....it also managed to double my battery life somehow lol. What I want to see is a review of msata SSD's for those who have a mobo with a built in msata port since its hard to find a which ones would fit the board since there are various types that are not true msata and thus result in wasted money
slomo4sho

How is the reliability on the Samsung drives?
ikyung

Currently using an M4 on my laptop and the Samsung 830 which I got couple months ago in my desktop. Both are superb devices.
noobnerd

call me when they're 50 cents per gig. i r broke
SkyWalker1726

Agility 3 User , boots fast , Read/Write Fast
__-_-_-__

crucial m4 better then samsung 830?!?!? WHAT A JOKE. wonder how much crucial paid toms. I upgraded from a crucial to a samsung and I can see clearly the improvements.
ssd drives now still do not give the bang for buck in terms of capacity compared to HDDs..
blackbirden

Does Toms have any idea how well the Plextor M3 Pro series performs compared to the rest of the crowd,
it seems a bit intresting. But i cant tell from reviews ,
some shows very exelent performance others not so good.
ubercake

SSDs are kind of ugly. This is one of those monthly articles that could use one of the Tom's models to spice it up a bit.
catchphrase

Recently bought an Intel 820 120GB from Newegg, on sale for under $140. It's now the boot and gaming drive for a Core Duo system. In my opinion, even operating on SATA3, it has proven a very effective upgrade.
catchphrase

Recently bought an Intel 820 120GB from Newegg, on sale for under $140. It's now the boot and gaming drive for a Core Duo system. In my opinion, even operating on SATA3, it has proven a very effective upgrade.
Onus

I'd like to see more focus on reliability. I've had to RMA 2/5 SSDs, and lost some data when they died. I added a Samsung 830 recently, and I hope it holds up; it is backed up weekly onto a mechanical drive.
grizzlebee

As Kyuuketsuki said, I'd go with the Mushkin for $1/GB. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226236
Mushkin Chronos Deluxe 240gb for CAN$199 after MIR... just ordered one... for once we are getting some deals. http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=62972&vpn=MKNSSDCR240GB%2DDX&manufacture=Mushkin%20Enhanced&promoid=1058
inflexion

I was fortunate enough to pick up a Crucial M4 128gb last month for $1 per gigabyte to my doorstep a little over a month ago. I have been using it as my primary drive in my work laptop and I have been very impressed. Good performance and rock solid. I would recommend if you can find it in that price range. I wanted the Samsung 830 that Toms recommends this month. I am in the market for 2 more 128 gb drives and maybe I can get one for $1 a gig in the coming months.
billybobser

128GB OCZ octane on sata II for $120, and synchronus memory.

Given that I care more about $ per gb than speed per gb, I bought this and am happy, though time will tell before it dies out on me.

But booting is fine, and application loads almost instant, I could've spent more on twice as instant though...
clindman

do they not take reliability into account at all for these articles? that's #1 for me.
ubercake

jtt283I'd like to see more focus on reliability. I've had to RMA 2/5 SSDs, and lost some data when they died. I added a Samsung 830 recently, and I hope it holds up; it is backed up weekly onto a mechanical drive.

Try the Intels. I've had 3 separate models now and they continue to function without fail.
badtaylorx

mushkin "MX" branded chronos deluxe??? anyone benched one yet???

for an ssd with 120gb, sycrons, sf2281, mlc and all the bells and whistles $140seems awfully cheap