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SSD the best deal I could find


jason1025

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I spent about 4 hours doing a tons of research. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about SSD's

 

I decided to purchase this one found in the link below. Its the highest gain at the lowest cost. If anyone is searching for an SSD this is the bang for your buck model. a step down from this Agility 3 is the Vertex 2 which is also good but the decrease in performance is not worth the few bucks you may save. A step up from the agility 3 is the vertex 3 but not enough of a performance boost to warent the $40.00 increase in price.

 

Anyone of these 3 drives are a great buy but the Agility 3 is the sweet spot. I Do not recommend the Agility 2 at all.

 

Why do I only recommend OCZ?

 

I searched and read many comparisons on performance. Intels are rock solid and good performance but way to expensive when comparing equally rated performance. Crucial have the oposite problem. You may find CRUCIAL slightly cheaper in price than the OCZ but research shows they are not as good as the OCZ but they are a close 2nd.

 

There are many and I mean many manufacturers of SSD drives but for now the clear victor on price, performance and quality is OCZ.

 

To reiterate. If money is no object go with intel and get their latest and greatest but you will pay for it. If the OCZ is still too expensive go with a Crucial, but I don't recommend stepping down to them. NEVER under any circumstances purchase a Kingston!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They should not be allowed to even sell their drives. Pure crap. Do not buy Kingston.

 

Conclusion: OCZ.

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004Z0S6SO

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Be warned SSD drives have a finite life span, but they will most likely last longer than your spinning disks.

 

Also be warned Burnable CD's DVD's and Blu-rays also have a finite life span as they use some sort of organic material like a type of algie. Those of you with pictures on a CD or DVD in a vault will definitely be disappointed 10-15 years from now when you take them out.

 

If you want to protect and back up your data. get a box that supports raid 5 or 10. than get a 2nd one and keep it in a box as a backup. buy a bunch of bare bone drives.

 

Now your protected for at least 50 years.

 

As drives die you simply swap them out for new ones. The data is protected with raid 5 so that if any one drive fails you have no loss. Raid 10 will allow any 2 drives failing. If the box fails or dies thats when you pull out the identical back up. Put the drives from the old box in the new box and turn it on.

 

I cant see anything safer than that.

 

I have 4 promise smart stores all raid 5 all on APC backup power. I have something called a ProBOx which I love. Raid zero no protection but I use it as my time machine so thats fine. If my time machine dies I simply rebuild it from the source.

 

I also have a drobo. It has a technology called beyond raid. Which basically makes swapping drives out hot swappable and you don't need to have the same size drives so you just keep expanding one drive at a time as you run out of room. You start off with 4 500GB drives and in the end you have 4 3TB drives without ever having to recopy anything. Kind of slick.

 

I think I will be the first person I know to have a PETABYTE.

 

I have to store tons of video for clients and personal projects.

 

Beware drobos are extremely slow when transferring files.

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Update !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I am not sure why but when I purchased my Agility 3 which is a 120GB drive it only cost me $149.00, no tax or shipping costs.

 

I don't know why but they jacked up the price to 172.00 Today.

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After a few days my drive died. :(

 

Ok I murdered it. Involuntary drive slaughter.

 

I was copying files. They copied successfully. I attempted to properly unmount / eject the drive on my mac. Unfortunately it hung.

 

Yes I know I should have shut down the computer at that point but I maid the fatal mistake of pulling the USB cable.

 

That was the end of the drive.

 

I love Amazon. They are sending out a new one.

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  • *A:M User*

SSD are definitely the wave of the future - but if you have Vista or XP I can't really recommend them. Newer drives support a garbage collection function called Trim, without it performance degrades over time. XP and Vista also (as far as I know) do not support Trim. This feature is supported in Win 7.

 

Sweet spot for SSD is about 128GB right now. 256GB is coming down in price but still pretty expensive. You can get a 64GB for a very reasonable price, if you make that your boot drive/photoshop scratch disk you will not be disappointed. Just don't expect to keep everything on it.

 

I have one in my work laptop ( I bought a Kingston, I haven't had any problems with it, other than a bit of slowdown as XP does not support Trim) and it makes a big difference. I need to figure out a way to set up a scheduled task to run a manual wipe utility to keep performance up.

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I am looking at getting an OCZ Vertex 3 Sata III 2.5 in SSD - 240GB as my OS/boot drive (still have a 2nd disk for data). I might go in over lunch tomorrow and do the long installation on Saturday. My laptop is only SATA II (at least, the drives are SATA II, I can't tell for sure about the interface), but I figure it's best to get SATA III for the future.

 

This means I'll be getting Jason@Hash to issue me a new license in a few days.

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SSD are definitely the wave of the future - but if you have Vista or XP I can't really recommend them. Newer drives support a garbage collection function called Trim, without it performance degrades over time. XP and Vista also (as far as I know) do not support Trim. This feature is supported in Win 7.

 

Sweet spot for SSD is about 128GB right now. 256GB is coming down in price but still pretty expensive. You can get a 64GB for a very reasonable price, if you make that your boot drive/photoshop scratch disk you will not be disappointed. Just don't expect to keep everything on it.

 

I have one in my work laptop ( I bought a Kingston, I haven't had any problems with it, other than a bit of slowdown as XP does not support Trim) and it makes a big difference. I need to figure out a way to set up a scheduled task to run a manual wipe utility to keep performance up.

 

 

The problem you are having is that Kingston SSD drives are the slowest drives on the market by a huge margin. Never purchase a kingston SSD. I am using The OCZ drive for my Atomos Ninja.

 

Atomos and Decklink have both said Kingstons are not supported. They wouldn't say why as they probably do not want to bad mouth. I did a little research and found that when tested against other brands they are not even in they same ball park.

 

But they are inexpensive.

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I am looking at getting an OCZ Vertex 3 Sata III 2.5 in SSD - 240GB as my OS/boot drive (still have a 2nd disk for data). I might go in over lunch tomorrow and do the long installation on Saturday. My laptop is only SATA II (at least, the drives are SATA II, I can't tell for sure about the interface), but I figure it's best to get SATA III for the future.

 

This means I'll be getting Jason@Hash to issue me a new license in a few days.

 

 

You cant go wrong with the Vertex 3. Its probably one of the fastest most reliable drives on the market when tested against other drives. But if you only have sata 2, I recommend you step down to the Agility 3. I paid $149.00 for a 120GB. Not as fast as the Vertex 3 but extremely fast non the less. Ther Agility 3 is sata 3.

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I am looking at getting an OCZ Vertex 3 Sata III 2.5 in SSD - 240GB [...].

You cant go wrong with the Vertex 3. Its probably one of the fastest most reliable drives on the market when tested against other drives. But if you only have sata 2, I recommend you step down to the Agility 3. I paid $149.00 for a 120GB. Not as fast as the Vertex 3 but extremely fast non the less. Ther Agility 3 is sata 3.

The Agilities were all sold out. Plus, they didn't have any discounts for the Agility, and the price difference between that and the Vertex was negligable, so I got the Vertex 3 240GB. Should be a long installation weekend.

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I am looking at getting an OCZ Vertex 3 Sata III 2.5 in SSD - 240GB [...].

You cant go wrong with the Vertex 3. Its probably one of the fastest most reliable drives on the market when tested against other drives. But if you only have sata 2, I recommend you step down to the Agility 3. I paid $149.00 for a 120GB. Not as fast as the Vertex 3 but extremely fast non the less. Ther Agility 3 is sata 3.

The Agilities were all sold out. Plus, they didn't have any discounts for the Agility, and the price difference between that and the Vertex was negligable, so I got the Vertex 3 240GB. Should be a long installation weekend.

 

 

Well you can't go wrong with the Vertex 3. It is the fastest thing out there for the money. Below is an alternative.

 

$154 for agility 3 120GB good deal. you could get 2 and raid them 0. now you are talking double data rates.

 

http://www.amazon.com/OCZ-Technology-Agili...1347&sr=8-4

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Ok I am thinking of getting a SSD 128MB for a boot drive and having an mechincal HD for data. I think this is a silly question but how can I force files to only be loaded on mechanical HD? I have tried in the past to store data on other drives but I seem to be not disaplined in remembering to do this. Once other family members start using it I am sure the SSD would get over filled very soon. Can Windows be setup to keep OS only and keep OS from growing in the future.

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  • Hash Fellow
Once other family members start using it I am sure the SSD would get over filled very soon. Can Windows be setup to keep OS only and keep OS from growing in the future.

 

Could something like giving everyone a specific "user" name they log in with and having "permissions" set so they can only write to the data drive.

 

You, the "administrator", would have to install programs for them if they want them on the SSD drive.

 

I'm sure something like this is what you do but I'm a one-person household so I've never tried it.

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Once other family members start using it I am sure the SSD would get over filled very soon. Can Windows be setup to keep OS only and keep OS from growing in the future.

 

Could something like giving everyone a specific "user" name they log in with and having "permissions" set so they can only write to the data drive.

 

You, the "administrator", would have to install programs for them if they want them on the SSD drive.

 

I'm sure something like this is what you do but I'm a one-person household so I've never tried it.

 

That's another question when we install additional programs exe.photo shop and games does not some things get written to the OS I get my system full of programs over time and I wondering if I could manage to make a small boot/system drive work for me?

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  • Hash Fellow
That's another question when we install additional programs exe.photo shop and games does not some things get written to the OS I get my system full of programs over time and I wondering if I could manage to make a small boot/system drive work for me?

 

What gets written to the OS (dlls?) is probably small compared to the regular installed app files, which you probably do want on the SSD anyway.

 

A small boot drive you would probably have to manage very closely, so might as well get a largish one... 65 Gigs or higher?

 

 

But if you want to install something not to the SSD I presume you can choose where ever you want during the install.

 

I still recommend something like Norton Ghost to image your OS drive after you get the normal stuff installed at first, then you can always revert to that clean state easily later.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Finally got the new drive installed, reinstalled the OS, installed of my work programs. One thing that I did before taking out the old drive is I did a P2V (Physical to Virtual) migration of my existing system to a VMWare image onto a backup USB3 drive, and have used that for a few things that I missed moving.

 

I'm liking the performance boost. I just have to get a new A:M license update and I'm in business!

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  • Hash Fellow

I was investigating getting an SSD for my tablet. It has a 60GB HD in it right now.

 

Wouldn't just about any SSD be dramatically faster than the HD in my six - year old tablet? I'm thinking cheapest is the way to go for something like that.

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I was investigating getting an SSD for my tablet. It has a 60GB HD in it right now.

 

Wouldn't just about any SSD be dramatically faster than the HD in my six - year old tablet? I'm thinking cheapest is the way to go for something like that.

 

Hm... be careful. What connection does your tablet offer?

IDE, SATA (1), SATA 2 or SATA 3?

 

The last two should in general result in a faster workspeed, the others may not and I am not quite sure if you can buy a IDE-based SSD at all...

 

See you

*Fuchur*

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  • Hash Fellow
IDE, SATA (1), SATA 2 or SATA 3?

 

The last two should in general result in a faster workspeed, the others may not and I am not quite sure if you can buy a IDE-based SSD at all...

 

None of those! It's a ZIF (IDE). There are such SSDs for sale.

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