Im buying an SSD.,,, Halp!

Greg King

Greg King

I just kinda show up...
Staff member
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2Tired2Tango

Tech Monkey
Well, first of all both your links lead to the same product...

Check the feedback tab... I don't get the impression people like this one very much. Lots of talk about BSODs and power management issues...
 
Optix

Optix

Basket Chassis
Staff member
Corsair = higher theoretical throughput/good for big files
OCZ = more IOPS/good for a lot of small files

That's how I read the specs anyway although neither drive is a slouch in either aspect.

For the sake of 55MB/s different in transfer speed, go with OCZ because it has an MIR putting in well below the Corsair. That's the tightwad in me speaking.
 
Psi*

Psi*

Tech Monkey
I am about to make the same plunge for 3 drives in each of 3 machines. I have routine large files that get moved around between the machines. This is why I was asking Rob to make the drive to drive transfer test across a network a few months ago.

I will be interested in what you end with Greg
 
Greg King

Greg King

I just kinda show up...
Staff member
120GB is in my price range and should be more than enough space for what I need it for. I know I will be limited on games that I can install but whatever. I'm rarely playing more than one at a time at any stretch of time.

I'm leaning towards OCZ, primarily on reputation alone but I'm anxious to hear everyone's opinions first.
 
Optix

Optix

Basket Chassis
Staff member
It's been my experience that 99% of Newegg reviews are a crock written by people who want to believe they know what they are talking about but end up creating more problems because they cocked something up and resort to blaming it on the manufacturer.

Go by honest to goodness hardware reviews from reputable sites.
 
Greg King

Greg King

I just kinda show up...
Staff member
2Tired2Tango said:
Once again, read the fedback tab on the product page... People don't seem very happy with the second one either...
Click to expand...

I don't see many negative reviews for the Corsair. I do see someone bitching about the drive not working but in the same rant, he calls the support engineer at Corsair a moron. This invalidates his complaint in my mind.

There are a few issues explained by some but they seem to be problems that impact almost everyone with SSDs.

I'm with Optix on Newegg reviews. Most people that review things negatively have an axe to grind anyway. It's hard to weed through their negativity to get any useful information. That and I don't trust them. If only I knew of a site that reviewed hardware.... :)
 
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2Tired2Tango

Tech Monkey
Ok... so ya pays yer money and ya takes yer chances.

Personally, when I see people talking about BSODs and system lockups, I tend to shop elsewhere...
 
Tharic-Nar

Tharic-Nar

Senior Editor
Staff member
Moderator
Have to agree with Optix, 'Feedback' is more 'Rantback' than anything. More often than not, it's user error, neglecting the whole RTFM philosophy. People are more inclined to leave negative feedback than positive. There are exceptions of course.

SSDs are still a new technology, a rapidly evolving one, but still new. Constantly running into issues, but keep on top of firmware and you'll more than likely be fine.

Went in doubt though, RMA. It's a hassle, sure, but the only thing you'll lose is time. Just don't use the SSD as main storage, keep regular backups of important stuff.... yadda yadda yadda....
 
Optix

Optix

Basket Chassis
Staff member
I've been running the one in my sig since January and haven't had a single problem. I've noticed that performance has started to drop a little bit but settled down to a standard level but that's to be expected as the drive is used. It's still well beyond anything a mechanical drive could do though.

Both companies have insane tech support so don't worry there.

If you're going on price alone, go OCZ.
 
Doomsday

Doomsday

Tech Junkie
OCZ! They gave up their entire Ram business and have put all their efforts into SSDs! Must be better, no! :D
 
Kougar

Kougar

Techgage Staff
Staff member
Alright, I had to do some research as I wasn't too familiar with the Force GT drives, those are the latest drives on the block.

Both the Agility 3 and Force Series 3 drives utilize asynchronous NAND, while both the Vertex 3 and Force 3 GT drives both use the faster, but slightly more expensive synchronous NAND. So both drives you're looking at are identical in base hardware. To the best of my knowledge Corsair uses the SandForce firmware releases, while OCZ may be tweaking its own firmware. This hasn't ever been confirmed as much as assumed due to OCZ's past history and constant use of its own custom PCB designs.

The warranties are the same, so honestly I'd go with the cheaper drive, the V3, but that's because I don't mind rebates. If we are talking about the price of the Force GT, I would instead recommend this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227714

The 120GB V3 and 120GB V3 MI have a larger performance difference than that seen in my review of the 240GB drives... I attempted to explain it on the first/last page of my review, but in a nutshell the 120GB V3 MI is easily worth $10 over the Force GT. If you plan to use this SSD and never upgrade it for the next five years, or you don't plan to use the MIR at all, then I'd say just spring the $30 difference and get the V3 MI over the base V3.

---------------

As for the reviews and problems in general... it does seem there are issues going around. The first negative review I read the user mentioned a Marvell controller... as Rob can personally now attest himself, I strongly advise against buying a SATA 6Gbps drive for a Marvell (or even Jmicron) controlled port. The driver has problems and the performance is so bad a user is better off with an Intel SATA 3Gbps port.

I understand there are genuine users with genuinely serious problems with SSDs, but there always have been. If there's a specific, single issue with a product that'd be something else, but so far nothing has been shown regarding any of the three drives mentioned. I'd personally use any one of them in my system. (in fact, I already do.)

Now, back to Marvell. I just did these tests a few days ago when Rob, I, and Dave were hashing out some performance issues he noticed on HIS X58 motherboard. ALL of these tests are on 6Gbps ports using a 240GB Vertex 3 Max IOPs (the X58A test is a normal V3, but shouldn't matter here)

P8P67 Marvel: http://bit.ly/oWmbNK
X58A Marvel: http://bit.ly/o5K8Zq

P8P67 Intel port http://bit.ly/qBVfvM
 
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