Samsung SSD vs. Kingston

[samuelf92]

Going to buy a new SSD for my MBP early 2011. Been recommended Crucial M4 and Samsung 830. Think I'm going to go for the Samsung. Thing is, in DK, the 256 GB Samsung costs $300. I can get a 256 GB Kingston SSDNow V200 256 GB for $150 (been used for only 2 weeks.)
I'm going to replace my 500 GB HDD with the SSD, and put the 500 in the disc drive slot. I already have 8 GB kingston RAM and I edit video and music.
What do you say guys, is half price worth the Kingston or should I buy the Samsung?

 

[T5BRICK]

The Samsung drive has almost double the read speeds. It's up to you, but I'd spend the money on the Samsung unit.

 

[sweetbrat]

Samsung and Crucial have the best reliability as far as SSDs go. The Samsung drive is faster, but it's not something that most people would really notice in their day-to-day usage. If you're looking for a combination of reliability and price, why not give the Crucial M4 a try? It's usually cheaper than the Samsung, at least here in the US.

 

[clyde2801]

Newegg has the 256gb Samsung 830 for $229 with free shipping. And I'd look up reviews for both drives on newegg and amazon and see what other MBP owners have said about them.

I opted for the 512gb Crucial M4 (found new recently on ebay for $380) and I haven't regretted it so far.

 

[JTToft]

If the lowest price you have found in Denmark for the Samsung 830 is $300 (1800 DKK), then you haven't looked very hard. I just ordered it yesterday (received it today and am about to install right now) for barely over 1500 DKK (equivalent to 250 USD).

 

[robvas]

Kingston makes SSD's with many different controllers. Intel, SandForce, JMicron...The V200 is a JMicron drive. It's not as good as the Samsung drive but 95% of the time you'll never notice the speed difference, and it's been on sale for reaaallly cheap lately.

 

[samuelf92]

The Samsung drive has almost double the read speeds. It's up to you, but I'd spend the money on the Samsung unit.

Kingston makes SSD's with many different controllers. Intel, SandForce, JMicron...The V200 is a JMicron drive. It's not as good as the Samsung drive but 95% of the time you'll never notice the speed difference, and it's been on sale for reaaallly cheap lately.

I'm confused. If I should believe robvas, then the money is well spent on Kingston.

If the lowest price you have found in Denmark for the Samsung 830 is $300 (1800 DKK), then you haven't looked very hard. I just ordered it yesterday (received it today and am about to install right now) for barely over 1500 DKK (equivalent to 250 USD).

You're right, found out now it actually costs as much as the Crucial

 

[T5BRICK]

I'm confused. If I should believe robvas, then the money is well spent on Kingston.

Then go ahead. Personally, I'd spend the extra and buy the faster drive.

How do the warranties between the two compare?

 

[samuelf92]

Then go ahead. Personally, I'd spend the extra and buy the faster drive.

How do the warranties between the two compare?

Yeah, you're probably right, plus, it won't be second hand
Warranties are the same: 3 years

 

[T5BRICK]

Yeah, you're probably right, plus, it won't be second hand
Warranties are the same: 3 years

Good luck! I wish I could afford a SSD right now.

 

[Orlandoech]

Samsung without a doubt.

----------

Yeah, you're probably right, plus, it won't be second hand
Warranties are the same: 3 years

He is right.

 

[noodile]

I'd pay the extra and get the samsung. if you're gonna get a Kingston, then make it the Hyper X or the Hyper X 3k.

 

[CausticPuppy]

Good luck! I wish I could afford a SSD right now.

Keep checking the prices on newegg. They can change on a daily basis and occasionally there will be deep discounts on one model.

A couple weeks ago they were selling the 128GB Crucial M4 for $89 so I snagged one for my old macbook pro. No brainer! The next day it was back up at $129.

 

[terraphantm]

Most of the perceived benefit of an SSD isn't entirely due to the read speeds - instead it's due to the extremely low latencies. I went from a raid 5 that could easily read at 450-500mbps to a single 160GB Intel SSD on my desktop - it feels significantly faster even though the actual read speed is probably a little slower. The latencies and random operations are the reason.

So from that perspective, a Kingston SSD would probably be well worth the money if you don't care for the slight e-wang increase having 500mbps reads gives you.

 

[alphaod]

Samsung designs and makes their own SSDs. With their latest products they use their own controllers and chips.

Kingston is and has always been just a middle-man. They buy other SSDs, rebrand them as Kingston and market as their own. I'm not saying they are inferior or counterfeit mind you, just that they don't make or design their own stuff. Therefore they are likely to have variation before products, have different hardware from a variety of manufacturers in their product lines.

 

[derbothaus]

FWIW as a boot drive I can tell no difference going from 260MB/s to 550MB/s. It's all just fast. Mac Pro 3G link 6G SF-2281 to MBP all 6G same SSD. It's running faster by benchmarks but real world not so much. 4k writes on sandforce are worth getting the SF-2281 though. Don't buy the 3G stuff. They are 3x slower at 4k and QD32 4K writes. You do feel that (a little anyway)

 

[T5BRICK]

Keep checking the prices on newegg. They can change on a daily basis and occasionally there will be deep discounts on one model.

A couple weeks ago they were selling the 128GB Crucial M4 for $89 so I snagged one for my old macbook pro. No brainer! The next day it was back up at $129.

Yeah, I saw that the 128GB Samsung drive was on sale for $89 today. Unfortunately, I need more space than that. I'm just waiting on the prices of the 256 and 512GB models to come down.