SSD Advice

Archer

Archer

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Looking at the 120GB range
So, OCZ Agility 3 vs OCZ Vertex 3 vs Adata S511 vs Corsair Force 3. Cause everytime I look a them I end up being even more confused :/ Agility is cheapest but suffers in some areas. The other three are more or less the same price, but which one is "better?"

For the most part I'll just be gaming, 3D modelling and I might get into rendering more depending on what CPU I get. Will do the occasional photoshop as well. Really cant go much higher than R2500 on this.
 
If it were me, I would get the Agility 3. From the review I read on Anandtech (I suggest you look around for it), the stuff that I use my PC for would not really benefit from the Vertex 3.

However, look at information about the Sandforce 2281 BSOD problem. It will affect the Corsair Force 3, Agility 3 and Vertex 3. Firmware updates have reduced it, but according to the forums, not completely eliminated it. From the looks of things, its unlikely that you will have the problem, but not guaranteed. Just beware and do research before you buy.
 
I think in your every day-to-day use, you will not notice a difference at all..
I'd just pick the one with the best priced and least reported errors.
 
hopefully your upgrading the mobo in the sig for the ssd,no use having a sata 3 ssd on sata 2 mobo or a sata 3 card.

sata 3 card, just causes problems with sata 3 ssd's,or it does with marvel controller :P

just get agilty 3 ssd, day to day the agilty 3 is fine.
 
Mobo will be upgraded, but current one has 2 SATA6 ports anyway.

edit:
/activate paranoia
120GB will be enough as well right? :p W7 + 20GB of programs + 4 or 5 games?
Have 1.5TB for other storage
 
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You'd be surprised at how fast your drive fills up!
SSD for os and apps and other crap etc.. then 2nd hybrid drive for games :) works nice for me.
 
I bought the 120Gb Adata S511 because it came with disk cloning software and a 2.5" -> 3.5" bracket. The Agility has neither and the Vertex has bracket but no software.

I have 2 magnetic drives D: for games/development/etc and E: for media. I disabled hibernation and moved swap file to E:, saved about 12Gb on SSD (and obviously minimisng unwanted writes to the SSD). I have VS 2010, SQL Server 2008 R2 and a host of other development tools on WIndows 7 x64 and only using 30Gb so far. Moved IE and Chrome temp folders to E: as well (minimising unwanted writes again).

Windows boots in seconds and programs are dam quick. My games load quicker now than when they were on the same magnetic drive as OS.

*knock on wood* everything is fine so far, been running for 2 weeks.
 
Dont need a bracket, I'll be making my own SSD mount ;)
 
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Wouldnt having the temp files on a magnetic drive reduce a lot of the point of an SSD? I get the whole write limit thing, but I thought the write limit was high enough that it didnt really matter?
 
Yes, having the temp files on the mechanical disc would reduce the point of the SSD a bit, but if you just move your temporary Internet folder its OK.

At my office I'm just running a RAM drive and then moving ALL my temp folders to the RAM drive :D
 
Hmm. I saw the Adata on special at Take2 for about R2,250.

At that price I'd pick it over the others, since there isn't much in it in terms of performance of the other 3. I wouldn't take the Agility because of its asynchronous NAND, which makes it slower.
 
The Sandforce BSOD issue is a deal breaker IMHO...

EDIT: And I bought a Vertex 3, get BSOD's every 5 days. Downgraded FW from V2.11 to V2.09 in the pursuit of stability...

I should have been more thorough with my research. This product is temperamental...
 
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It seems that for a lot of people, the problem has completely disappeared. But not all. It may be worth looking at an Intel SSD, or an SSD that uses another brand of controller, like JMicron or whatever.

I'm thinking of buying a 256GB SSD and 2 x 1TB HDD for RAID 0 when I upgrade at the end of this year. I've done RAID 0 before, dont know why I'm tempted to do it again. Its not like its a huge boost for most applications.
 
I purchased the Crucial M4 128gb for R1700 including delivery from the US :)
 
Pada said:
Yes, having the temp files on the mechanical disc would reduce the point of the SSD a bit, but if you just move your temporary Internet folder its OK.

At my office I'm just running a RAM drive and then moving ALL my temp folders to the RAM drive :D
Click to expand...

Yip agreed. My programs and apps make full use of the SSD. Like I said "Moved IE and Chrome temp folders". So that only affects browsing history, cache, cookies, etc which is not important at all to me.
 
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