120GB SSD for £40, but is it any good?

[Dos_Box]

I have to admit that I have ordered this for a family friend whoes creaking 2 core Turion laptop needed some pep adding. As the HD seemed to be the biggest point of sluggishness (an old 5400 drive) I said I'd hunt around for a replacement and found that Scan are doing these 120GB OCZ SSDdrives for £40: OCZ 120GB Vertex Plus SSD - Solid State Drive - OCZSSD2-1VTXPL120G - Scan.co.uk

My question is this though. Are they any good? I've already ordered it (before they sell out), and for £40 it's not the kind of expensive mistake we sometimes make, but for a 2007 laptop whose SATA version I can't ascertain and the fact the owner doesn't use much local storage (he's in the cloud now!) is this going to make the grade?

[synaesthesia]

Just make sure you've got backups!

In fairness they're not the failforce controllers so you probably won't have a problem. Performance isn't through the roof but that money for a 120GB drive, you can't go too far wrong. It'll sure as hell be better than a hard drive though and will make a huge difference to a laptop regardless of SATA version.

[LosOjos]

I read somewhere that OCZ SSD's have the highest rate of returns by quite a margin, but as you said, for £40 it's hard to see a good reason not to try one...

 

EDIT: This article makes for interesting reading: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-reliability-failure-rate,2923-3.html

Although the OCZ drives dominate the return rate tables for SSD's, they're still much better than standard HDD's in terms of reliability!

[localzuk]

I read somewhere that OCZ SSD's have the highest rate of returns by quite a margin, but as you said, for £40 it's hard to see a good reason not to try one...

 

EDIT: This article makes for interesting reading: A Peek Into SSD Reliability : Investigation: Is Your SSD More Reliable Than A Hard Drive?

Although the OCZ drives dominate the return rate tables for SSD's, they're still much better than standard HDD's in terms of reliability!

 

Indeed they are, however, all the stats are for the 2 range (Vertex 2, Agility 2 etc...), and from what I've seen and heard the 3 range is a lot more reliable overall. Their return rates in their earlier drives were atrocious - stats from one study I saw had them pegged around 9%.

[synaesthesia]

The majority is down to sandforce - I certainly wouldn't recommend the use of *any* manufacturer Sandforce based drive.

[Dos_Box]

I had read that you have to ensure you had flashed the SSD firmware first with OCZ before you use them. Lo! And behold, OCZ have one for this drive

[Dos_Box]

I also note that many of the bad reviews are from users who have either not flashed the drive before use, or have flashed it and not backed up their data/imaged their drives beforehand. Everyone else seems quite happy with them. Edited September 10, 2012 by Dos_Box

[zag]

You can get an Intel 60gb for 60 quid.

 

60gb of space is easily enough for most people who are not storing large media files on a pc.

 

The intel SSD's simple don't fail....ever

[apeo]

Just make sure you've got backups!

In fairness they're not the failforce controllers so you probably won't have a problem. Performance isn't through the roof but that money for a 120GB drive, you can't go too far wrong. It'll sure as hell be better than a hard drive though and will make a huge difference to a laptop regardless of SATA version.

 

LOL failforce.

[Dos_Box]

You can get an Intel 60gb for 60 quid.

 

60gb of space is easily enough for most people who are not storing large media files on a pc.

 

The intel SSD's simple don't fail....ever

 

He still wants to travel with it tough and it will need room for piccies and other 'stuff' that 60GB won't cater for. Besides, let's do the math. 60GB for £60 or 120GB for £40? Even if it proves to be a turkey we can get a refund. I'm in the 'nothing ventured, nothing gained' camp on this one.

[VeryPC]

OCZ have done a very aggressive push on their SSD lines - It's a little confusing as they have Petrol, Octane, Agility and Vertex product line. There are also AGility/Vertex , 2,3 and 4 series all floating around the supply chain.

 

The latest OCZ Agility and Vertex 3/4 Series are good value - Though I cannot vouch on long term failure rate .

 

I would recommend staying away from any of the low end OCZ petrol and Octane branded SSD.

 

120GB Intel 330 or Crucial M4 are the drives I would go for if budget can stretch - Otherwise look at the latest agility / vertex 4 product .

 

The intel are also warranted for 20GB of write/day which instils a degree of confidence .

 

 

Andy

[Dos_Box]

Following on this thread. I have just seen that Scan also have this baby on sale: Sandisk Extreme 120GB SSD - Solid State Drive - SDSSDX-120G-G25 - Scan.co.uk for £59.99

[Arthur]

I have just seen that Scan also have this baby on sale: Sandisk Extreme 120GB SSD

The only thing to be aware of with the SanDisk Extreme SSDs is that TRIM doesn't work properly. SanDisk are meant to be releasing a firmware update later this month to fix the issue.

 

Corsair and Kingston have already released updates for their SandForce-based drives, so hopefully SanDisk aren't too far behind.

[penfold]

@Dos_Box - did you install this drive in the end and if so how was it?

[pshuttle]

Bought this drive and am now running it in my PC at home. Seems rapid and very pleased with the result. However, as has been said above, the drive may fail so we will just have to see.

 

I figured it was worth the risk for £40.

[Dos_Box]

@Dos_Box - did you install this drive in the end and if so how was it?

 

I brought 3! (2 for other people). The only problem I found was that the first one I got was installed to a 6 year old Acer TravelMate (not mine!) with an AMD chipset. I re-imaged fine and ran it for about 4 days flawlessly. Then it came up with a boot error and a quick run of chkdsk had it correcting file system errors for an age before refusing to boot again. I then tried a second drive with the same result. Even a fresh install resulted in the drives not being recognised by the windows installer, and yes, AHCI was enabled. Both drives worked fine in a 5 year old Acer with an Intel controller btw. I don't know what went on, but it was like a transplant patient rejecting an organ.

I have one installed on my home laptop and it's working very well indeed, so no complaints there. Just ensure you get the latest firmware on board (3.55) before you use them. Oh, and you will have to suffer the joys of the OCZ firmware boot disk which doesn't have drivers for SATA and USB CD\DVD drives built in! Thankfully I had an old legacy system in the office with an IDE DVD drive to hand.

What I shall say is that they are a bargain so long as you have a modern-ish chipset to run them from.

[penfold]

Can I ask for an update on this? 1 year on how did those drives fair? Just wondering with a hands on experience of an OCZ drive.

[Dos_Box]

They're running fine as far as I can tell. The older chipset laptop still would accept the drive, but in the more modern devices they are running sweet. I sort of know this as I've not been asked to fix any of them in this time!