| Details: | Solid State Drives:
Our policy has always been recommending deals on products that seem to be a great value, and until now, SSD's have been difficult to recommend because of their high cost.
Now SSD's are beginning to be more affordable, and are worth looking at.
We will start off showing the difference between hard drives and SSD's, followed by some specific SSD's we recommend.
It's no secret that SSD's are faster than hard drives, and cost more per GB.
But selecting which SSD drive is right for you, and how to use an SSD is a little more complicated than a hard drive.
For example, here are some differences between SSD and hard drives, and where the advantage lies.
| Hard Drive |
Solid State Drive |
1.8" & 2.5" drives transfer data around 20-40 MBytes/sec
3.5" drives transfer data around 40-100 MBytes/sec |
(advantage) 1.8", 2.5", 3.5" drives transfer around 75-385 MBytes/sec |
| (advantage) Cost around $0.04 to $0.06 per GB for a 5400rpm or 7200rpm drive, with most recent hot deals around $0.04/GB. |
Cost around $1.75 to $2.75 per GB, with recent hot deals around $1.75 to $2.15 per GB. |
| Has moving parts, so they are susceptible to skips caused by bumpy conditions. |
(advantage) No moving parts.
Some Youtube videos show someone throwing an SSD from the roof of a 3 story building, plugging it back in, and working fine. |
| Depending on the hard drive's spindle rotation speeds, they consume about 4 to 8 watts of power and can get very hot. |
(advantage) SSD's use less than 1 watt power, and do not get hot. |
| In Windows filesystems, hard drives benefit from occasional defragmentation to avoid the drive having to spend time finding the data across all areas of the disk, similar to a CD player jumping ahead and back to different tracks just to play a single song. |
(advantage) SSD's do not benefit from defragmentation, because SSD's can theoretically access any data on its drive at the same speed.
In fact, you should disable defragmentation when using an SSD in Windows, to improve the longevity of your SSD by reducing the amount of unnecessary writes. |
| (advantage) Hard drives do not degrade in performance as data is written to the drive.
Hard drives running a Windows filesystem can become fragmented, especially when they fill up, but can be defragmented. |
SSD's can degrade in performance over time as data is written, deleted, then later overwritten.
Degradation can begin as early as when the SSD is filled to capacity.
A new TRIM feature for Windows and Linux helps slow the rate of degradation.
Mac supposedly will release TRIM compatibility soon, but we heard Windows filesystems benefit more from TRIM than Mac by the way they store data on the drive.
As described on WindowsITPro.com, TRIM only helps slow the rate of degradation, and does not eliminate it.
This is why SSD's probably should only be purchased in brand new condition, to avoid drives which already suffer from degraded performance.
Formatting SSD's do not help bring back the performance.
There are some SSD-specific "secure erase" or "wipe" or "Sanity Erase" utilities which can restore the SSD back to peak performance by erasing all data blocks on the SSD.
Wiping degraded SSD's is great if your SSD contains data that can be easily backed up first then later restored, but not so easy when your SSD contains your operating system. |
| (slight advantage) Partition and use the entire drive if you want, but keeping hard drives from exceeding 85% capacity will help keep the performance optimal.
Drives on Windows can be defragmented to help keep the performance optimal as the drive fills up.
If your drive reaches capacity, just delete some data, defragment, and the drive should perform at or near peak performance. |
Leaving 10% to 20% free at all times should help reduce the rate of performance degradation.
Some people even recommend leaving 10% to 20% unpartitioned, so the SSD will internally use the unallocated space as extra free blocks useful when the drive writes and deletes a lot of data.
Check the SSD's specs for its true memory size, as some SSD's have already factored in an automatic 10% to 20% of space which cannot be partitioned.
Intel's have about 5% reserved, while Vertex 2's already have about 20% of space reserved.
So if you buy an Intel X25-M 80GB to hold your operating system and all your programs, you might want to consider leaving 5GB to 15GB unallocated, unpartitioned, and therefore unusable by you. |
| Comparing the performance of different hard drives is relatively simple.
They spin at either around 5400rpm, 7200rpm, 10,000rpm, or 15,000rpm, where the faster spindle speeds mean faster access to your data. |
Comparing SSD performance requires reading reviews and viewing benchmark comparisons. |
| Can be used safely with most operating systems, even older ones such as Windows XP |
Best if used on a newer operating system with TRIM support, or a Mac |
| (advantage) Friendly to all RAID levels, those with redundancy (RAID 1), those with striping (RAID 0), and those with both (RAID 5,6,10).
Double the performance of one disk by striping it across another disk of equal specs. |
Most SSD's are not so RAID friendly in Windows yet.
Intel came out with Windows 7 TRIM drivers for RAID, but it's new.
Also putting SSD on a hardware RAID card with in a stripe set (RAID 0) configuration may not give much benefit unless the RAID card supports speeds faster than the SSDs can perform. |
So as a buyer, don't think you need to choose between old clunky technology (hard drives) and new super-fast technology (SSD).
As you can see there are many advantages and disadvantages of each.
While an SSD can be 2 to 8 times faster than a hard drive (with a bigger boost in performance in laptops than desktops), it really all depends on what you're looking for.
Because SSD's can degrade in performance when doing lots of writes over a period of time, they are usually best when loaded once with something (like the operating system and programs) and limit the amount of changes/writes to your SSD.
For this reason, when comparing SSD performance, you probably should focus more on the SSD's sequential reads and random reads than the writes.
Because SSD's can degrade by doing lots of writes, and because of the SSD's high cost, these are reasons why some desktop computer users are buying an SSD for their operating system & programs, but also keeping a hard drive in their computer to store all their music, movies, temporary files, and swap space.
Desktop users who want an SSD for a super-fast "scratch space" drive separate from the operating system should be prepared to wipe the SSD and reload the files when it eventually runs very slowly.
What to Look For in an SSD:
Since SSD's seem best when used for the operating system, you probably want one that's reliable as well as fast.
Here are the three things we will focus on:
- Reliability - Nobody wants to pay money for something that causes failure/return/RMA hassles
- Performance - obviously you want the best bang for your buck
- Support & ease of installing firmware upgrades - SSD is a rapidly changing technology.
When new enhancements come out, you want to know the manufacturer provides an easy way to upgrade the drive's firmware.
Reviews of drive failures are the best way to determine a drive's reliability.
Based solely on Newegg's user reviews as of 8/26/2010, the most reliable consumer SSD's today, available in 50GB to 160GB capacity with a cost of around $1.50 to $2.50 per GB appear to be:
- Intel X25 (G2 models) - Released a long time ago with almost no reported drive failures or issues since, good support, and good toolkit software for Windows.
- Crucial C300 - Almost no reported drive failures or issues since firmware fixes in June.
All new drives purchased from a reputable vendor do have updated firmware.
- Kingston SSDNow V Series and G.Skill Phoenix Pro - Few reports of failures/issues, their support seem decent, and their existing firmware update tools seem okay.
- Corsair Performance and Corsair Force - Few reports of failures/issues, but some reported their firmware update tool was a little difficult to use.
- OCZ Vertex 2 - Unfortunately, several reported drive failures & reliability issues recently.
- Patriot - Lots of failures.
Technically, the lowest read/write performing SSD above is the Intel X25-M however it does have better random seek times than most of the other drives.
This means the overall real-world performance of the Intel's should be just about as good as the newer SSD's which are priced similarly, especially with operating system and application tasks.
For games and bootup times, sequential read speeds are more important.
Some resources to compare SSD performance are Anandtech and StorageReview.
You will find a drive like the C300 and Vertex 2 series will have some of the fastest transfer rates and quickest bootup times, but if you plan on using this drive for your bootup/operating system, also keep in mind the other factors stated above: reliability & support.
Considering reliability, performance, software, and support, our recommendations for today's best values depend on how much you want to spend, and what you will use the SSD for:
| Looking to spend around $100 for the OS and some Programs |
Intel X25-V 40GB SSD |
| Looking to spend around $125 for Apps & Games |
Kingston SSDNow V-Series 64GB |
| Looking to spend around $150 for OS, Apps, Games |
G.Skill Phoenix Pro Series 60GB SSD |
| Looking to spend around $200 for OS, Apps, Games |
Intel X25-M G2 80GB SSD |
| Looking to spend around $250 for OS, Apps, Games |
Crucial C300 128GB SSD |
| Looking to spend around $400 for OS, Apps, Games |
Intel X25-M G2 160GB SSD |
| Just looking for the fastest write speeds |
OCZ Vertex 2 |
| If your motherboard supports SATA3 |
any 2.5" Crucial C300 SSD |
| If your ultra-portable Laptop/Netbook needs a Micro-SATA 1.8" drive |
Crucial C300 1.8" or a Intel X18-M |
| Use on a non-TRIM supported OS, or in a multi-disk RAID |
G.Skill Phoenix Pro or OCZ Vertex 2 |
Note, our recommendations will change often as prices fluctuate, deals become available, and new drives come out.
These are only suggestions, and we recommend you do your own research before making any decision on which is the best for you.
If you're using an SSD for the operating system (OS), it is recommended the OS freshly installed on the SSD from scratch, although transferring from an existing hard drive should work fine if you are technically savvy.
If you have a laptop computer or netbook and are unsure whether you need a 2.5" or 1.8" SSD, use Crucial's Storage Advisor.
Enter your laptop/netbook's make and model, and it will display compatible SSD's in either 2.5" or 1.8" form factor, telling you which size your portable computer is compatible with.
Most retail versions of SSD's include a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter for installing inside a desktop/tower computer.
The OCZ Vertex 2 and the Corsair P128 do not include an adapter. |
