Which SSD drives are people using now?

[bossman]

Hi all,
Just wondering which SSD drives are using now and how much they are paying for them and where from?

Would like peoples thoughts on size of drives they use i.e. 64Gb or 128Gb for desktop.

Any pitfalls we should look out for, we currently use Kingston SSDNOW 64Gb, not the fastest or cost effective hence the post.

Appreciate all comments

Thanks in advance

[Michael]

I've used some Sandisks, they're fine too. 64GB generally should be big enough for the OS and applications. I'd only buy larger as and where required.

[VeryPC_Tom_M]

We've tested a few different brands in house.

Personally, I'd stick with Intel, but where cost is a matter of importance, I'd look at Crucial.

[Arthur]

Mostly Samsung 830's since they are both fast and very reliable, but we have a few SanDisk Extreme's too.

It's probably worth mentioning that the 830's have been superseded by the more expensive 840 & 840 Pro Series now.

Would like peoples thoughts on size of drives they use i.e. 64GB or 128GB for desktop.

We buy 120GB/128GB drives.

[sonofsanta]

Our 100 new PCs over the summer are on Crucial m4s, any new ones we've bought as and when (e.g. upgrading SMT, keep 'em sweet) have been Samsung 830s, which is what I use at home as well. Get 'em while you can as their price right now is astonishing, and as @Arthur says, about to be replaced by the similar 840 or the pricier (better) 840 Pro. The 840, though, uses TLC flash not MLC, so may well wear quicker... too new to tell right now if their controller cleverness keeps the lifespan up, but all things being equal TLC dies much faster than MLC.

Always 128 as well. Our Win7 install is very close to 64Gb so worth the extra money for the buffer. 128gb perform better than 64gb anyway.

Don't forget your SATA3 connections where possible - about double the speed on sequential transfers on a Samsung 830 when I tested it.

[Oaktech]

Has anyone used the Seagate Momentus Hybrid drives yet? I need a drive upgrade for my home laptop and for the price a 750gb hybrid seems like a cracking deal!

[zag]

Wouldnt touch anything other than intel

We buy the 60GB 330 series for £48.99 ex vat from insight.

Intel Solid-State Drive 330 Se... SSDSC2CT060A3K5

Easily enough space for our desktop images.

[jamesfed]

Has anyone used the Seagate Momentus Hybrid drives yet? I need a drive upgrade for my home laptop and for the price a 750gb hybrid seems like a cracking deal!

I've got one in my desktop PC (500GB 4GB flash) works a treat however only as far as OS boot and lighter applications go - things like games and so on just don't benefit from it in the way that it would with a SSD.

[flyinghaggis]

Our 100 new PCs over the summer are on Crucial m4s, any new ones we've bought as and when (e.g. upgrading SMT, keep 'em sweet) have been Samsung 830s, which is what I use at home as well.

I've just ordered a Crucial M4 128Gb SSD for my home laptop so will post an update letting people know how I get on with it once it arrives. How'd you get on with the 100 in your PC's. Any failures/faults?

I really need to update my home desktop actually as it's still running an 80Gb Intel X-25m which is only really good for basic apps and the OS. I'll probably upgrade it to a 512Mb model next year at some point.

[sonofsanta]

I've just ordered a Crucial M4 128Gb SSD for my home laptop so will post an update letting people know how I get on with it once it arrives. How'd you get on with the 100 in your PC's. Any failures/faults?

None so far - not quite as fast as the Samsungs if you benchmark them, but before those PCs were added to the domain (and getting slowed down by the NIC waking up, polices applying etc.) they were booting to desktop in around 12 seconds <3

[Wolfmatty]

I'm using SanDisk really good get a 7.3 on windows index score with the SanDisk SDSSDX-120G-G25 120GB Extreme model

You can get them from amazon link below;
SanDisk SDSSDX-120G-G25 120GB Extreme SATA III 6Gb/s 2.5in Internal Solid State Drive: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

[pcstru]

A mix here of Cruical M4's and Kingston SSD Now. We're finding Win7 on student PC's struggle with 64GB, so have settled on 128GB for those. We have some 256 M4's kicking about for ... err ... R&D purposes.

[Oaktech]

I've got one in my desktop PC (500GB 4GB flash) works a treat however only as far as OS boot and lighter applications go - things like games and so on just don't benefit from it in the way that it would with a SSD.

Thanks for that, I'm only interested in OS files/boot time really, I have lots of photos to store on the conventional drive, it sounds ideal.

[bossman]

@all:

I have been looking at the Samsung 830s and as has been stated they are very fast compared to others, they cannot be beaten on price I don't think, may try a couple first to see what we get.

Thank you all for your comments and for any other people's comments hereafter

[pete]

Crucial M4 (work and personal) and Intel 320s (work) (the now-discontinued enterprise-rated ones with the battery backup onboard).

Haven't had problems with either brand so far, but we've yet to scale out to amounts where I'd expect some attrition due to dodgy batches.