SSD rookie needs advise

Champ

Hello all,
I've built my share of PCs over the years but this will be my first time shopping in the SSD market.

I've been reading bits and pieces in my spare time and well SSDs made me initially apprehensive while reading about the first generation of SSDs available to the retail market mainly the performance degradation over time. I understand the situation has improved with the latest generation of SSDs having TRIM, improved firmware etc...though the SSD controller plays a part in this as well.

I'm looking for an SSD brand that's very reliable in terms of maintaining performance over time. Activities would mainly be gaming and browsing, nothing too heavy like video editing, database work etc...

I'm considering either Crucial's RealSSD C300 series (Marvell Controller) or the OCZ Vertex 2 series (SandForce Controller).
Which would you opt for and why?

Would the Intel G3 series be worth the wait?

In terms of optimally using SSDs is this a good checklist?:
-Windows 7 as this has native SSD support i.e. TRIM as well as disabling superfetch, defrag
-Ensure BIOS is set to AHCI for best SSD performance
-RAID configurations may be problematic for some SSDs in performing TRIM so better to keep them off RAID?
-1 smaller SSD for the OS and apps say 64 GB and a larger SSD for games etc... say 128 GB?
-Keep a normal HD for media and other large file storage as well as moving the SWAP file over to it (some suggestions on the net are to disable the SWAP file altogether?) .

Many thanks for reading this and hopefully replying:)

Monotype

SSDs aren't great for games in that games are big and SSDs are so expensive per GB!

If you're doing a lot of general browsing and playing the same games, the C300 is a better option. The read speeds are are excellent.

If your the sort of person who is constantly installing/uninstalling and playing every demo that comes out, the V2 is the better choice with the more favourable write speeds.

I've had a C300 and a Corsair F60 (similar to the V2) and the boost in read speeds is definitely noticeable (and nice). Things load just that bit faster and boot times are a little better.

I would get the C300 over the V2 as on a daily basis, the only writing I usually do is downloads and documents.

All that said, the C300 is only worth it if you have SATA 6Gbps. Otherwise get the V2.

Saadyst

Champ wrote: »

Hello all,
I've built my share of PCs over the years but this will be my first time shopping in the SSD market.

I've been reading bits and pieces in my spare time and well SSDs made me initially apprehensive while reading about the first generation of SSDs available to the retail market mainly the performance degradation over time. I understand the situation has improved with the latest generation of SSDs having TRIM, improved firmware etc...though the SSD controller plays a part in this as well.

I'm looking for an SSD brand that's very reliable in terms of maintaining performance over time. Activities would mainly be gaming and browsing, nothing too heavy like video editing, database work etc...

I'm considering either Crucial's RealSSD C300 series (Marvell Controller) or the OCZ Vertex 2 series (SandForce Controller).
Which would you opt for and why?

Would the Intel G3 series be worth the wait?

In terms of optimally using SSDs is this a good checklist?:
-Windows 7 as this has native SSD support i.e. TRIM as well as disabling superfetch, defrag
-Ensure BIOS is set to AHCI for best SSD performance
-RAID configurations may be problematic for some SSDs in performing TRIM so better to keep them off RAID?
-1 smaller SSD for the OS and apps say 64 GB and a larger SSD for games etc... say 128 GB?
-Keep a normal HD for media and other large file storage as well as moving the SWAP file over to it (some suggestions on the net are to disable the SWAP file altogether?) .

Many thanks for reading this and hopefully replying:)

You'd probably just want the one SSD. The intel G3s should drop the price per GB for SSDs, and come along in much bigger capacities. With the bigger capacity comes bigger lifetime. Your call if you want to wait for them - I think they should be out very soon IIRC?

BIOS AHCI .. I have my doubts, but there are other advantages to it, not the least of which is power consumption, so yeah, enable it.

RAID SSDs is just silly and an incredible waste of money. Never was a fan of RAID to begin with on HDDs, but on SSDs, there is actually no point at all.

Yes to the HDD for storage etc. Leave the swap file as is. Basically, there's not much tinkering you have to do. Windows 7 will automatically turn off defrag on an SSD, and if you're going with an Intel drive they have a neat little utility that'll check everything else for you.

ScumLord

Monotype wrote: »

SSDs aren't great for games in that games are big and SSDs are so expensive per GB!

That would depend on the game and how serious you are about it. ARMA2 gets a great boost from an SSD and the people who play it tend to be serious about playing it (probably due to the investment you need to make in learning it).

If you just play games to completion for leisure it's not worth putting your games on an SSD as you'll run out of space rapidly and need to be swapping out old games to make space for new ones but if you have one game that you always play stick it on the SSD.

One problem I had with my SSD (I think, I didn't look into it as I was getting a new PC soon) was I put GRID on it to see how it played on the SSD and when I uninstalled it I didn't get the 8gb of space back. My SSD seems to always be full but I'll be starting from fresh next week and won't be putting games on it anymore, other than ARMA 2 maybe.

Champ

Hey,
Thanks for the replies.

Monotype is right the C300 has quite the impressive read speed:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3812/the-ssd-diaries-crucials-realssd-c300/2

As for gaming and space that shouldn't be a problem as I play only a few select games and 60~ GB of space seems to be the max my games directory is taking so e.g. a 128GB SSD should be enough to do the job with room to spare.:)