What's the best SSD to get?

the_syco

Looking to get a SSD for BF3, and I'm wondering which would be the best make/model? Need at least 120GB, and want a SATA 3 SSD, preferably one that comes with a PCI-E card for maximum speed (or I'll just buy one separately.

Thus far, I've been using Western Digital HDD's as I find them very reliable. How are they in the SSD market, and how do the likes of Crucial, OCZ, Kingston and Corsair stack up against WD?

U_Fig

the_syco wrote: »

Looking to get a SSD for BF3, and I'm wondering which would be the best make/model? Need at least 120GB, and want a SATA 3 SSD, preferably one that comes with a PCI-E card for maximum speed (or I'll just buy one separately.

Thus far, I've been using Western Digital HDD's as I find them very reliable. How are they in the SSD market, and how do the likes of Crucial, OCZ, Kingston and Corsair stack up against WD?

I bought and OCZ agility 3 120GB there recently got it with a voucher for like ~ 100 euro off amazon..great slighty slower than the vertex 3 but my motherboard I my supports SATA 3GB/s and Thats SATA 6GB/s and even with this bottleneck still doubled my performance..

LoGiE

I've got a Samsung 128GB 830 Series SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive in my laptop. Makes a huge difference to battery life and I've never seen applications open so fast!

Hijpo

Whatever you do, dont defrag it

LoGiE

Once you've got windows 7 installed defrag along with some other functions are turned off by default. I don't know if it's the same for Linux distros.

the_syco

U_Fig wrote: »

my motherboard I my supports SATA 3GB/s and Thats SATA 6GB/s and even with this bottleneck still doubled my performance..

Check your motherboard for a spare PCI-E slot, and use it. I think it allows better speed?

U_Fig

the_syco wrote: »

U_Fig wrote: »

my motherboard I my supports SATA 3GB/s and Thats SATA 6GB/s and even with this bottleneck still doubled my performance..

Check your motherboard for a spare PCI-E slot, and use it. I think it allows better speed?

I'm quite happy with the speed but I will do this alright..the faster the better

Sean^DCT4

I had a Kingston 128GB V100 and it was awful. Ended up RTM (returned to manufacturer).

I then decided to get an OCZ Vertex 3 240GB. It blew the Kingston out of the water.

Read/Write on the Kingston: ~ 180MB/sec
Read/Write on the OCZ Vertex3: 500-550 MB/sec

I do have SATA 6GB/sec so I do get the maximum out of the SSD. Loading times in Battlefield3 are < 10 seconds (haven't timed it yet). This is on full settings like AA, AF, Ultra settings on everything.

brianwalshcork

Sean^DCT4 wrote: »

Read/Write on the Kingston: ~ 180MB/sec
Read/Write on the OCZ Vertex3: 500-550 MB/sec

Hi Sean,

What did you use to measure the read/write speeds & what settings did you use?

I got a new laptop with a 256 GB SSD as the boot drive, and used IoMeter after installing to get some numbers, but I'm either doing something wrong in IOMeter or the drive isn't performing very well.

Thanks,
Brian

Sean^DCT4

I used ATTO, it's recommended by OCZ for running benchmarks on their SSD's. I used the default settings as far as I remember.

What SSD do you have? What speeds are you getting?

brianwalshcork

It's a Samsung PM810 in a Dell M6600.
I think that Samsung only sell these OEM from what I've read.

in IOMeter, there's no default set up, so I tested with the following:

Request size 4K
Queue Depth: 32
100% read, 0% write
100% sequential distribution, 0% random
Test Time 180 seconds

... which shoud have given me the highest possible IOPS & MB/s numbers I thought.

This was returning 19500 IOPS and 78 MB/s for the SSD.


I've also got a 500 GB 7.2K RPM SATA drive in this laptop, the same test parameters return 27400 IOPS and 108 MB/s .... so something isn't correct.

I'll try out the ATTO utility to see how that goes by comparison.

Brian

vibe666

ditto on the OCZ SSD's.

i have a pair of 60gb Agility 3's in RAID0 and they're great.

there *were* some pretty big issues with random data corruption on some of the sandforce based SSD's (not just with OCZ, across the board), but a recent firmware update appears to have solved that. touch wood i never had any issues with mine though aside from one time when i accidentally pulled out a sata cable and the RAID set fell over.

even with 3Gbps SATA they're wickedly fast, i can't even imagine how we'll they'd do with 6Gbps. :cool:

Sean^DCT4

brianwalshcork wrote: »

It's a Samsung PM810 in a Dell M6600.
I think that Samsung only sell these OEM from what I've read.

in IOMeter, there's no default set up, so I tested with the following:

Request size 4K
Queue Depth: 32
100% read, 0% write
100% sequential distribution, 0% random
Test Time 180 seconds

... which shoud have given me the highest possible IOPS & MB/s numbers I thought.

This was returning 19500 IOPS and 78 MB/s for the SSD.


I've also got a 500 GB 7.2K RPM SATA drive in this laptop, the same test parameters return 27400 IOPS and 108 MB/s .... so something isn't correct.

I'll try out the ATTO utility to see how that goes by comparison.

Brian

From memory (pardon the pun ), the Western Digital VelociRaptor, which I thought was the fastest mechanical HD only got ~80-100MB/sec. So it does sound like something is wrong with your benchmarking tool or setup. Yeah, give the ATTO utility a whirl and see how you get on.

vibe666

i usually use CrystalDiskMark.

no objective reason, i just think the results look nicer than ATTO.

brianwalshcork

OK, the results from ATTO look a bit more reasonable:

SSD - Write / Read: 259 / 267 MB/s
SATA HDD - Write / Read: 113 / 113 MB/s

So looks like I've got a fast mechanical HDD and a mediocre SSD!

Khannie

brianwalshcork wrote: »

So looks like I've got a fast mechanical HDD and a mediocre SSD!

I would take an SSD with half the transfer rate of a mechanical hdd any day. The real beauty of SSD's is the lack of seek time IMO. Click. Application launched. Lovely. It's very rare that you're using the full transfer rate of a HDD anyway.

brianwalshcork

Khannie wrote: »

I would take an SSD with half the transfer rate of a mechanical hdd any day. The real beauty of SSD's is the lack of seek time IMO. Click. Application launched. Lovely. It's very rare that you're using the full transfer rate of a HDD anyway.

Valid point - I haven't used the new laptop at all yet, and it'll be January before I can transfer over to it so won't be able to see the real world performance until then... for now, I just wanted to see how the SSD compared to the normal disk as it's my first one.

Khannie

brianwalshcork wrote: »

for now, I just wanted to see how the SSD compared to the normal disk

Answer: AMAZEBALLS!

Honestly, I think SSD's are the best piece of PC technology to roll around in the last few years. I have a total dog of a laptop here with a fairly crappy SSD and it really zips along. I just love them.

Trojan

I put a RunCore SSD into my old MacBook Air and it just blazes along now - and that's a low end spec to start with. Incredible performance enhancer. I always knew HDD was a bottleneck, but didn't realise just how much of a difference it would make.

I have an OCZ Vertex 3 in this machine, and it's bleedin' fast. But it does BSOD - got them down to one every couple of days from once every 20-30 minutes with the old Intel RST drivers. That said, when a cold boot of Windows 7 Ultimate takes 19 seconds from power-on to usable OS, the BSOD doesn't piss you off half as much.

Edit: OCZ Crystal Disk Mark:

vibe666

did you check for an updated firmware for that Vertex in the last few weeks?

apparently sandforce finally tracked down the cause of the BSOD's on a lot of the problematic SSD's with sandforce controllers.

Overheal

If you disable the windows splash logo (google it) you can probably cut that 19 seconds in half.

Hijpo

the_syco wrote: »

Looking to get a SSD for BF3

Anyone know how long ssd drives last from being accessed so much by running games off them?

Overheal

Hijpo wrote: »

Anyone know how long ssd drives last from being accessed so much by running games off them?

Whatever the case, Intel's 320 series has a 5-year warranty on them.

So plenty-long.

ED E

In the US over christmas, would the saving be worth the inability to easily RMA?

the_syco

ED E wrote: »

In the US over christmas, would the saving be worth the inability to easily RMA?

Check the warranty online if you can: you may be able to send it back to a european one?

Khannie

ED E wrote: »

In the US over christmas, would the saving be worth the inability to easily RMA?

I'd take that punt myself. Having said that I've only ever owned 2 SSD's and had to RMA 1 of them (though it was in the very early days of SSD's).

Trojan

Overheal wrote: »

If you disable the windows splash logo (google it) you can probably cut that 19 seconds in half.

Awesome, thanks - think I knew about this back in the days of Win2k but had forgotten completely. Here's the instructions (says XP but same for 7).