Any SSD worth getting for < R1500

Brawler

Brawler

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I am thinking it is time for me to upgrade to a SSD but do not want to pay R3k +.

After looking around on the local online shops I see there is quite a few 60odd gigabyte drives in this price range, most of them seem to be last years tech though.

Some questions(Don't have time to keep up to date with these things anymore :()
Is there anything special about the very new drives?
Will it last me 3 years or more?
Any recommendations?

I saw a OCZ Vertex 2 (60GB) for R1300? any good?

If it matters, my PC spec: AMD 965 quad, 4gb, 6850, currently using a seagate 7200.12 500GB as OS drive. PC mainly used for internet, downloading, working with large databases, a bit of programming, the odd VM, play a game now and again to but nothing hectic.

Thanks .
 
definitely following this thread, also wondering when SSD will become of age
interested to see what guys in the know have to say
 
It is most definitely worth it for programming, especially if you're working with large databases or lots of small files (eg. Java).
I'm using an OCZ Vertex 2 30GB SSD at my office and I'm running Ubuntu 10.04 x64 + Netbeans off it. I'm mainly programming in Java, PHP & C and using MySQL and the performance boost is most definitely worth it.
I paid like R1400 for my 30GB OCZ Vertex 2 drive in last year February.

Make sure that the SSD that you get is at least one with a SandForce 1200 chipset or better, with like maximum 285MB/s read & 275MB/s write speeds. eg:
G.Skill Phoenix Pro 60GB SSD @ R1300 * Currently out of stock
Cosair Force Series 60GB SSD @ R1360
 
I'm using the OCZ Vertex 2. The 3 is out apparently, but not available in SA yet. It's insanely fast in benchmarks etc, but the real life effects are minimal, the only real difference I've noticed from a normal HDD is the much faster and eerily quiet boot-ups. Maybe for certain tasks, like programming, which someone mentioned, it would make a big difference, but for gaming and such it doesn't really, unless of course you install the game on it, which isn't really that practical with a 60GB drive.

That said, I do have 8GB of RAM so maybe that's why I didn't notice much of a difference, the Windows files were already loaded into memory at startup.

In short, I'm glad I bought it, it's a nice-to-have feature, but until SSD's become much larger and cheaper, that's all they'll be.

It should last several years, yes, if you take precautions to minimise writing to the drive, since that's what wears the flash memory out the fastest. Things like disabling defrag are recommended but Windows 7 does that automatically if it detects an SSD. The only thing you need to do is move your browser cache to another drive, since that can quickly perform thousands of write operations.

Also, if you're running Windows 7, make sure you've got Service Pack 1 installed, since that enables SSD Trim, which also extends the life.
 
Brawler said:
I am thinking it is time for me to upgrade to a SSD but do not want to pay R3k +.

After looking around on the local online shops I see there is quite a few 60odd gigabyte drives in this price range, most of them seem to be last years tech though.

Is there anything special about the very new drives?
Will it last me 3 years or more?
Any recommendations?

PC mainly used for internet, downloading, working with large databases, a bit of programming, the odd VM, play a game now and again to but nothing hectic.

Thanks .
Click to expand...

The drives are special, yes. For most, it's because of the quick loading times. Like Pada said, programming has quite some benifits and the most witnessed benefit is boot times as well as load times for programs. They are also a bit greener in terms of energy consumption contrary to what most people think.

I don't have it on me now, but it was training material given to us by either Intel, Western Digital or Seagate showing that SSD's put under constant read/write pressure simulating usage over a certain amount of years ended up being quite capable of lasting for a long time. (I know of an Intel Case Study with Takeda Pharmaceuticals claiming moving to SSD's to prevent disk failures (although It's more laptop based).

If you are programming and working with databases then you'll see quite a performance increase in that. For gaming the level load time etc is quicker, a point heavily emphasized by Intel.

On SSDReview.com the Adata S599 64Gb SSD using Sandforce-1222 processor is the rated budget SSD. They're R1 165
Corsair's 60Gb Force Series is R1 280
OCZ's 60Gb Vertex 2 is R1 250.

But there really are lots out there..


Like Pada said, ones with high Read / Write speeds will be recommended for you for what you do, whereas someone who just wants to use it for Windows and gaming would be fine with a cheaper one that has high read speads.
 
Pada said:
@TJ99:
The OCZ Vertex 3 drives are already available in SA. Like LandmarkPC already said they would have it in stock by like 5th of May, but now it seems you'll have to call for stock availability: http://www.landmarkpc.co.za/store/vertex-sandforce-120gb-sata6g-p-6639.html

As far as I know SSD Trim support was included in Windows 7, without Service Pack 1 even.
Click to expand...

Mmm yes it seems win 7 supports it out of the box after all...

The link you provided kind of proves the OP's point though, over 3 grand for a 120GB :sick:
 
Would it be worth it for a graphic designer? I would usually work with Photoshop/illustrator/indesign/flash, do a bit of web design/joomla on xampp as well. Some light gaming now and again.

I usually use a 50GB partition for my windows drive so a 60GB ssd will suit me just fine. I like things to load quickly which is why I've been tempted to get an SSD for a while now :p
 
Yeah I have a Corsair Force F40 - it's only a 40gb SSD but it's so awesomely fast that I still love using it.
 
Interesting and helpful thread as I'm also considering the move.

TJ99 said:
It should last several years, yes, if you take precautions to minimise writing to the drive, since that's what wears the flash memory out the fastest....
Click to expand...

Not disputing yours or anybodies advice but the short life span of an SSD has been questioned recently. Recent articles suggest a lifespan of up to 50yrs, personally for me if an SSD lasts 3-4yrs I'm happy. I've got an Aspire One with an 8GB SSD and according to what was said 3yrs ago it would now be dead (the SSD) but I've got no problems with it.

Had a discussion about SSD lifespan vs HDD lifespan with the guy in our office who does all the hardware buying (paranoid guy) and he made his valid points as he does daily research on the topic. I concluded that if your buying for a desktop then this could be an issue and perhaps better if you keep an existing HDD for some IO intensive processes. But if your looking to get for a laptop (like me), then its a no brainer as I've seen nearly every laptop in the office having a HDD failure within 2yrs whereas my Aspire One gets tosses into a bag on my bicycle and I do some off roading on my mountain bike on my way home.

Does anybody recommend hybrid SSD/HDD drives?
 
Agree with what you said on a laptop, SSD's are definitely worth it on laptops and increases battery life and reduces failures.

cbrunsdonza said:
Does anybody recommend hybrid SSD/HDD drives?
Click to expand...

I'd definitely recommend the Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid SSD for laptops. They come from 250Gb to 500Gb. It's got 4Gb SLC SSD and then 32mb cache for the HDD (The HDD is also 7200RPM which is not very often used in laptops as most come with 5400RPM drives with 8mb cache). The flash works with Adaptive Memory Technology that uses an algorithm and places files in the SSD section. (They also scored higher in PC Mark 05 and Vantage than 10 000 RPM drives.) And they top it off with a 5 year warranty.

They're R910 for a 320Gb though. R1 005 for a 500Gb.
 
@cbrunzdonza, SSD's do indeed seem to have high failure rates. However their speed benefit outweighs the risk for me. Just keep lots of backups. Jeff Atwood explains this best with an analogy to Barney's "crazy/hot" scale from How I met Your Mother:

Barney: There's no way she's above the line on the 'hot/crazy' scale.

Ted: She's not even on the 'hot/crazy' scale; she's just hot.

Robin: Wait, 'hot/crazy' scale?

Barney: Let me illustrate!
Click to expand...

Thing is, SSDs are so scorching hot that I'm willing to put up with their craziness.
 
Synaesthesia said:
@cbrunzdonza, SSD's do indeed seem to have high failure rates. However their speed benefit outweighs the risk for me. Just keep lots of backups. ...
Click to expand...

Thanks. My laptop is used for development so everything already lives in the cloud and in version control so a failed drive is not an issue.

My wife on the other hand uses her laptop for Pastel and her photos, so backups tend to be delayed, might consider a hybrid for her laptop then and then use her existing drive for backups (external case).

Will get a SSD end of July.
 
Thanks for valuable input :) Keen for that Corsair.
 
Sorry to bump this, but I'm looking at purchasing an SSD for stock analysis that I plan on doing. Essentially a DB and lots of small files that will be read and write in bursts, so I figure an SSD would be perfect for this.

Thing is, I have a notebook and only need about 30GB of storage for these files, so I thought of getting a USB 3.0 enclosure to use with the SSD (the laptop has one USB 3.0 port). Does anybody know if you take a serious performance hit when using USB, or can I buy a normal USB 3.0 -> Sata enclosure and plonk the SSD in there?

Looking at purchasing a Kingston 32, 64 or 96 GB SSD.
 
@ebendl:
Does your laptop perhaps have eSATAp? If it does have that, then you can simply connect the SSD directly to your laptop with an eSATAp to SATA + power cable/adapter.

Could you perhaps post the specs / model of the laptop that you have?

You might have difficulty finding a fast SATA to USB3 enclosure, especially if you're looking to run like an ADATA 511 60GB SSD @ ~R1400, which has like rated maximum read & write speeds of ~550MB/s and 500MB/s respectively.
With databases you'd rather want a SSD with a higher IOPS rating than one with a high sequential read/write performance. So something like the OCZ 60GB Agility 3 would be much better suited for this, since it has a much higher IO rate.

I've never connected a SSD to USB3/eSATA before, so I can't really comment on the performance. The speed of the Vizo USB3 enclosure that I have is terrible.

Another alternative would be to make use of an USB3 flash drive, like the following one for example: Supertalent USB3.0 Supercrypt Pro 32GB USB Flash Drive
But then you're getting awfully close to the price of a 120GB SSD.

If your database and files that you're working with is smaller than 4GB, then rather just put it all in RAM than on a SSD, since RAM is still way faster than the SSD's + it doesn't have a maximum amount of write cycles.

I'd guess that this is going to be quite an interesting topic...
 
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