SSD Upgrade

[Damax]

I currently have a Corsair Force Series GT CSSD-F120GBGT-BK 2.5" 120GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) and I wish to upgrade...

the speed isn't the issue but the space 120gigabyte seems to be easily filled with my drivers, programs and world of warcraft (which will get removed for another game of same-ish size)

this leaves my SSD with 11gig left and countless games installed on my 2TB Seagate hard drive. which btw runs fast too but still less than a SSD.

Fast loading time are addictive and thus I'd like to have more games on my SSD as switching them around on a daily basis wouldn't solve anything. I was aiming for a ~256 ~512 GB SSD or more but I'd like a drive that runs as fast or faster than my current 120 GB one.

Budget is 500$, country is Canada. I started looking around but I'm having time constraints currently and soon surgery for a broken bone that healed badly

[Deleted]

Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB $229
Crucial BX100 500GB $229

Both excellent and reliable drives for the money. Tiny edge in favor of the Crucial drive in my opinion because the firmware hasn't been as tight on the EVO series for Samsung but nothing to worry about.

[Evildeffy]

I would rather get the MX200 instead of the BX100 due to the controller difference.

MX200 uses the Marvell controller instead of the Phison controller used in BX100... which (truthfully in my opinion) has not reached any form of reliability record.

Or you could get the Plextor M6 Pro or Intel SSD 750 if you want premium drives.

[Deleted]

Crucial BX100 (120GB, 250GB, 500GB & 1TB) SSD Review

In a nutshell, I have nothing but positive things to say about the BX100 for its price point, especially when it comes to the higher capacities. The performance is good for all workloads, the power efficiency is top of the class and most importantly, the overall value you get is simply outstanding. If you are on the market for an SSD right now, especially for laptop, I would highly recommend the BX100 even if your workload happens to be heavier than average.

If you agree with Evil then:

Crucial MX200 500GB

The price is practically the same.

[Evildeffy]

Crucial BX100 (120GB, 250GB, 500GB & 1TB) SSD Review

If you agree with Evil then:

Crucial MX200 500GB

The price is practically the same.

It's not really about the price and yes Anand Tech gave it a good review ... but the review is only a single moment in time not endurance.
The Marvell controllers with Crucial drives have consistently proven themselves ... that's what I was referring to Phison not having proved themselves yet.

Also, ignoring that, considering the price difference I would go for MX200 for the features alone even if I were never to use em!

[Damax]

It's not really about the price and yes Anand Tech gave it a good review ... but the review is only a single moment in time not endurance.
The Marvell controllers with Crucial drives have consistently proven themselves ... that's what I was referring to Phison not having proved themselves yet.

Also, ignoring that, considering the price difference I would go for MX200 for the features alone even if I were never to use em!

internet reviews are full of bias and possibly corruption for good reviews (rub our back we will send you goodies style often) it is very hard to trust in these day and ages. Let alone most reviews are done within a week of usage often too limited to prove anything.

Honestly I had been looking at the Samsung evo in the past but I've read somewhere they had issues with speed due to firmware which was surprising me since I never doubted or had reason to doubt any Samsung thing I bought in my life so far. (tvs,tablet,hard drives, etc...)

there's basically no difference between BX100 and MX200 to my eyes, lots of people keep talking about the unreliable status of my SSD that I've yet to experience. I often buy things people say are untested and unreliable and it ends up being the best freaking sweet deal I made. price is also very similar imho.

I've time to shop and I'll keep all three in minds trying to spot a deal through my various ''coupon'' emails I get unless someone comes out and prove me its a bad idea to keep them on my list.

Intel seems way overpriced IMHO its okay to pay a little more for a brand but when its almost double the price meh 500 bucks for 400 GB vs 229 for 500GB

keep em coming :P (suggestion that is)

[chazus]

While it's not exactly a 'track record' yet, I've purchased about 7 BX100 drives and they've all worked fantastically, especially for the price. I'm usually picking up the 250gb models for about $75 on sale

[Evildeffy]

[QUOTE=Damax;34140971]internet reviews are full of bias and possibly corruption for good reviews (rub our back we will send you goodies style often) it is very hard to trust in these day and ages. Let alone most reviews are done within a week of usage often too limited to prove anything.[quote]
Not from Anand Tech in general and there are a few who really are completely like that, not everything is a conspiracy.

Honestly I had been looking at the Samsung evo in the past but I've read somewhere they had issues with speed due to firmware which was surprising me since I never doubted or had reason to doubt any Samsung thing I bought in my life so far. (tvs,tablet,hard drives, etc...)

I have worked with Samsung SSDs in the past and i've had issues (strange as hell) with Samsung 840s and 850s (EVO and Pro) which I couldn't explain..
Hence why I would rather have Crucial over Samsung.

there's basically no difference between BX100 and MX200 to my eyes, lots of people keep talking about the unreliable status of my SSD that I've yet to experience. I often buy things people say are untested and unreliable and it ends up being the best freaking sweet deal I made. price is also very similar imho.

In practice you will notice little difference, but it helps to know what's under the hood.
And SSDs are needed to be reliable because when it fails your data is gone... whereas with mechanical drives you can recover a great deal of the time.
I would, if I were you, read up on SSD controllers and why they are a very important aspect of SSDs.

I've time to shop and I'll keep all three in minds trying to spot a deal through my various ''coupon'' emails I get unless someone comes out and prove me its a bad idea to keep them on my list.

Intel seems way overpriced IMHO its okay to pay a little more for a brand but when its almost double the price meh 500 bucks for 400 GB vs 229 for 500GB

keep em coming :P (suggestion that is)

Well... it depends on the class of drive... for example.. I have the Intel SSD DC S3700... highly overpriced but it has tangible benefits to use it over a "standard consumer" drive.

[Damax]

internet reviews are full of bias and possibly corruption for good reviews (rub our back we will send you goodies style often) it is very hard to trust in these day and ages. Let alone most reviews are done within a week of usage often too limited to prove anything.

Not from Anand Tech in general and there are a few who really are completely like that, not everything is a conspiracy.


I have worked with Samsung SSDs in the past and i've had issues (strange as hell) with Samsung 840s and 850s (EVO and Pro) which I couldn't explain..
Hence why I would rather have Crucial over Samsung.


In practice you will notice little difference, but it helps to know what's under the hood.
And SSDs are needed to be reliable because when it fails your data is gone... whereas with mechanical drives you can recover a great deal of the time.
I would, if I were you, read up on SSD controllers and why they are a very important aspect of SSDs.



Well... it depends on the class of drive... for example.. I have the Intel SSD DC S3700... highly overpriced but it has tangible benefits to use it over a "standard consumer" drive.

I tend to read the internets too much and reviews are often skewed, things you enjoy are bad next site its great and even news differ from one place to the other. some of the worst things on earth also manage to get good reviews... Maybe Anand's good right now but next time you are not looking they'll sell you something without you knowing.

That is what I heard of Samsung SSDs along with speed issues from various users and friends.

I'm not so scared of a SSD failure, it would means I lost money but not data since all my data is backed up on my 2tb drives (important data) and the most important data is backed up a second time on a USB key (never really needed any of the back ups so far but it became a habit of doing them). I would only have to reinstall

am I ''standard consumer'' though?. I could get a 1000$ 1TB intel SSD, I just don't ''need'' it. I don't really ''need'' a new SSD, if new ssd drive I still have my corsair + 2TB hardrive.

I'm mostly gaming and soon to be computer science student.

While it's not exactly a 'track record' yet, I've purchased about 7 BX100 drives and they've all worked fantastically, especially for the price. I'm usually picking up the 250gb models for about $75 on sale

75 US means 110$ Canadian :P but its still a good deal and an upgrade, definitely an option to consider! I'll be monitoring BX100, MX200 in both formats but often when one is in special the other is too.

P.S. Just read up information on controllers and what they do, still nothing to tell show bad from good they all aim for good.

[Deleted]

(1) internet reviews are full of bias and possibly corruption for good reviews (rub our back we will send you goodies style often) it is very hard to trust in these day and ages. Let alone most reviews are done within a week of usage often too limited to prove anything.

(2) Honestly I had been looking at the Samsung evo in the past but I've read somewhere they had issues with speed due to firmware which was surprising me since I never doubted or had reason to doubt any Samsung thing I bought in my life so far. (tvs,tablet,hard drives, etc...)

(3) keep em coming :P (suggestion that is)

(1) AnandTech is extremely thorough and very reputable.

(2) Yes the EVO series for 840 and 850 have had some firmware issues which should all be fixed now so it's just a minor edge in favor of Crucial as I said. The great thing about them and I believe for Crucial as well (for the most part) everything is more less built and and managed in house and they have a very good track record.

(3) Honestly I would say those Samsung/Crucial drives really are the go to right now for performance, reliability and price. Of course there will be people saying I have 'X SSD brand' and it's working without issues. Unless you know you need a certain speed, IOPS, best suited for certain workloads I doubt you'll see any benefit of paying for for X, Y and Z drives.

[Shifthappens]

OCZ ARC 100 ARC100-25SAT3-240G (cheap, fast 240GB is more then enough for games and windows/drivers) atm my favourite SSD drive and I've had about 7-8 of them in 6 years, I recommend but ultimately its your choice.

[A dot Ham]

If you're really addicted to speed the new Mac Pro actually has the cheapest gb/dollar PCIE SSD set up.

[chazus]

OCZ ARC 100 ARC100-25SAT3-240G

I try to avoid buying hardware from companies that are collapsing into bankruptcy.

[Damax]

If you're really addicted to speed the new Mac Pro actually has the cheapest gb/dollar PCIE SSD set up.

not that addicted to speed as to buy mac stuff for my PC. Looking for SataIII SSD, I thought Sata2 was still around (3Gb/s) but apparently 6Gb/s is now minimum connections and its does make a good difference but irrelevant nowadays. I've looked around in SSD speeds and they all seem rather similar or close to each others and even benchmarks seems to agree.

I guess it comes down to company and controller recommendations which so far seems to be 3 Crucial vote, 1 Samsung, 1 OCZ

[chazus]

I prefer Samsung EVO's all day long... However Crucial's BX pricing has me buying them lately.

MY recommendation, Samsung EVO or Crucial BX, whichever is cheaper at time of purchase.

[Deleted]

Most ppl that tried Ocz especially older models have only bad experiences including myself. From the other hand, Corsair, Crucial, Intel, Samsung no problems so far.

[Denpepe]

I'm using and intel 530 as my OS drive atm and have a Crucial Mx 100 as frequently used games drive and I'm happy with both, price wise there is little difference here between intel and samsung and from what I gathered intel ones are considered to be the most durable ones around.

[Evildeffy]

I'll avoid the whole "OCZ is the devil!!!11oneone" bit as it's been done to death and if people don't know the specifics of it now it will be completely useless to try.

That said I would still recommend Crucial overall in this stage due to track record and quality.. also personal experience.
Crucial has always timely provided fixes for possible issues as well.

That is not to say that f.ex. the Corsair Neutron GTX isn't good or Plextor M6 Pro or... <Fill in proper drive here> is bad.
It's just that the fastest of the fast in current gen is mostly useless as 99% of all con/prosumers won't feel a tiny bit of difference between f.ex. Crucial's SSDs and Samsung 850 Pro or the OCZ Vector 180.

In counter argument to what I said about crucial you have ADATA SSDs on the other side of the spectrum... often fast but.. almost 0 firmware upgrades and their customer support is known to be... less than helpful.

It's all a balance and in general the balance between pretty much everything is swinging in Crucial's way.

[Damax]

looks like its Samsung or Crucial so far! they look like good choices I'll be looking at deals. I hope I don't get a defective one since nowadays consumer service is bad and tends to drive me away from a company no matter their reputation *cough* EVGA *cough*.

- - - Updated - - -

Looks like Samsung has 5 year warranty vs crucial 3 years which is a pretty good safe cushion (assuming they actually do handle their warranties and not just pretend to)

[Gaidax]

World of Warcraft gets nearly no benefit from sitting on your SSD, move it to HDD and save 25 GB.

Also, here you go: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...mark,3269.html

Very nice comparison between the hottest SSDs on the market.


I have Sandisk Extreme Pro 240GB <3 Also dat 10 years warranty. Although I guess Samsung 850 Evo is absolutely amazing considering it's price.