SSD Recommendations

Hello. I am new to forum and am looking for some pointers on SSD's! I am looking to upgrade my laptop mechanical HDD (I know right?) and am looking for a 256GB SSD. I remember watching one Tek video where manufacturers are releasing SDD's that don't degrade over time, so would like some recommendations on those please. At this point any SSD is an improvement over my HDD, but, I am looking for one that has a good price performance ratio and track record.

So, the laptop this SSD will be going in is a Dell Studio 1747. They are only limited to Sata II bandwidth so I do think that a high bandwidth SSD isn't really that necessary because of the bottleneck. I am actually looking at this unless I can find something better? https://www.mightyape.co.nz/product/256GB-Adata-XPG-SX900-25-SSD-550MB-Read320MB-Write/21439278 (and yes they are usually that expecsive here) Any help?

Alternatively, I would even go as far to import an SSD from Amazon Prime with a global warranty and shipping included if I would save a few bucks.  

General thinking is stay away from SandForce controllers if possible. They used to have issue a few years back and some people still don't trust them, although they seems fine today.

Most commonly recommended drives are Samsung. Mostly because Samsung make both the controller and the flash chips inside them, so they can eek out everything the drive has to give. 840 EVOs if on a budget, 850 PROs if you have a bit more cash. I myself will be getting an 850 PRO soon. 

As for Sata II that will slow the drive down, on Sata III they top out around 550 560 Mbps. This is the limit of Sata III speed pretty much. Sata II on the other hand is limited to 275-300 Mbps. The Max you will see in day to day use will be 275.

That is almost definitely faster than any mechanical drive you will have in a laptop so it will make the system faster. And if you intend on putting the drive in another system later that has Sata III you will get and instant almost double the speed.

After that the option is up to you.

I have heard about Samsungs good track record with SSD's, except for the 840 series and the firmware issues they had that degraded them. Has that been fixed yet?

Also, I am not willing to pay above $1 per GB, and this is as good as I am gonna get with prices here, can someone recommend one of these? http://pricespy.co.nz/category.php?o=produkt_pris_inkmoms&m=s197541735 

Still interested in the SSD's that don't degrade though...

You could look at the 850 EVO as well, they use 19nm 3D TLC nand for that one if I remember correctly, and it's quite a bit cheaper than the 850 pro. You get a 5 year warranty with that one as well.

I would just stay away from "Samsung Magician", their SSD utility. I've had not-so-great experiences with it personally.

Hey thanks. 

And according to HWiNFO, my laptop does support Sata 3; so that solves the bottleneck problem.

Guess I'll just pick a few and look at benchmark comparisons.

850 EVO is on my list, Crucial MX100 series would be my alternative budget option.

840 Evo, 850 Pro, Crucial MX100 all of these are good. Just nothing with a Sandforce controller. It isn't a matter of trust. Its the compression shit. Sandforce dynamically compresses and decompresses data that is being written and read to/from them. Sounds good as it increases speed and reduces write cycles. That's why some sandforce SSDs are rated at 550 MB read/write. Except you will.never see those speeds. A majority of things, especially things that really help with responsiveness and performance, are noncompressable. Meaning you'll see speeds that are a fraction of what they are rated. The 850 Pro which is rated at 550MB/sec+ will always see those speeds. It won't depend on what the data is. 

Ohh and just to clear somethingup about SATA II. I know you have SATA III but this is for anyone who may not. The performance difference is non existant between II and III. Only in benchmarking will you notice. Start up and shutdown times will be within .5 a second of each other. Same goes with opening programs. It is slower but in the real world you won't notice it. 

Cool did not know the reasonings. Only the numbers. Thanks man.

Hmm, I'd probably stay away from the Crucial MX100, looks like they have issues: http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Crucial-SSDs/MX100-will-not-boot-sometimes/td-p/158815/highlight/false/page/5

This is a real shame, because to the price performance ratio does seem good. 

IDK I have three of them. All fine.

Maybe it was just a select few that were defective, or it was a firmware related issue?

Anyway, the Crucial MX100 256GB version sells for about $160 here, and the Samsung 840 Evo 250GB sells for around $170. Would Samsung be more worth getting in this case?

Thanks.  

i wanne add Adata SX900 / SX910´s to the recommendation list.

I personaly have a Samsung 840 PRO, these are one of the best SSD´s out there, better then the EVO series, but yeah you gonne pay the premium price for it.

Well the cheapest Samsung 840 Pro 256GB I can find here is worth $250 (jeez really?) and the Adata SX900 uses the SandForce 2281 controller, and according to Zibob I should avoid any SSD using those at all costs, unless the SandForce problems are non existent now?

OK screw it, I've decided to go with the Samsung 840 Evo. They seem good across the board as far as price/performance ratio and track record goes. I might get an 850 Pro 512GB at some stage as well, since the more you pay per gigabyte seems to be cheaper.

Oh, and my laptop is only Sata II (3Gbps, damn this crap gets confusing sometimes) but would hardly matter I think.

Thanks for the input everyone.  

To late, already bought and paid for. And it's only a $17 dollar difference so I'm not that worried. And I plan on getting a new laptop at some stage anyways, the one I have has some sort of power related issue that comes and goes (probably just needs a new ribbon/cable), so it can go in my new one. Either way the improvement is gonna be breathtaking, can't wait. Might consider a larger MX100 for my future lappy though (but have heard that you can't mix certain SSD's, so we'll see).

Thanks anyways.

You may call me a hardware maniac - when it comes to SSD's I'd always like to test/buy something different. Overall Samsung SSD's are darn good, the only drive of them that disappointed me was the 840 basic. Those write speeds are a full disaster. The 840 pro/evo and also the 850 pro/evo series are superb.

 

For my mini-itx gaming rig I'am going with the Hyper X 3K from Kingston (240GB). I've never purchased a Sandforce-based SSD so I have to see that on my own. I will not doubt what users are saying about Sandforce-SSD's. On the other hand, I know some folks who are happy with Sandforce-SSD's.

 

I think Logan always recommended SSD's from Adata in the past (XPG 900/910) and also the Hyper X 3k series from Kingston. We will see.