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What's a good SSD under $200?

C

Chiuy

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 24, 2011
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NorCal, Bay Area
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I'm trying to upgrade a friend's Harddrive to SSD but he has a limit of $200.
Any recommendations?
Mostly like to prefer 128gb.
 
You can grab a Samsung 470 series 128gb for around 210$. You can grab a Micron C400(which is basically the Crucial M4) for 195$ from superbiiz.
 
I have a 120GB Corsair Force3 I'm trying to get rid of for 180 shipped if you are interested. Was only used for a few weeks.
 
Are there reasons why there are some big price difference in SSD?
Different speed?
Like, intel brands, they're more expensive than kingston, samsung, etc.
 
KJmoon117 said:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/

Their 115GB SSD is $199 and their 120GB SSD is $209.99.

The difference in price comes from the type of controller they use and just how the company wants to market it really.

Not to mention some SSDs will use sync SSD which I've noticed raises price by a lot.
Click to expand...

This. I just recently bought it for $199 (128GB). $209 is still a good price. Note: this is virtually the same thing as OCZ Vertex 3.
 
What do you guys think?
I'm also planning on upgrading to SSD soon so I'm also shopping for myself and my friend.

Do you think I need 128GB?
Or will 80GB suit me fine?
I got an external with 750GB where I store all my movies/photos/etc.

But I plan to use that 80GB for Adobe Photoshop and Premiere CS5.
World of Warcraft
And probably music. (Aprox 3GB)

You think I'll survive?
Currently using 120GB of diskspace.. most of it is movies/photos, but I'm about to transfer over, so I'm actually using like 40-50GB.
 
nizmoz said:
:rolleyes:

There will be NO DIFFERENCE in lasting longer for performance between a larger or smaller SSD of the same spec.
Click to expand...


You say that but I'd much rather have 78/128 GB used than 78/80.

When I bought a lower capacity SSD for my Dell the higher capacity drives (64, 128) did have better read and write performance than the 16 and 32. That might be brand dependent but it's not a straight up lie as you make it sound.
 
nizmoz said:
:rolleyes:

There will be NO DIFFERENCE in lasting longer for performance between a larger or smaller SSD of the same spec.
Click to expand...

Sorry man but that's just wrong... a larger SSD has more NAND and can handle more writes.

ssd-kingston,L-F-237939-3.jpg

Source: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/kingston-ssdnow-ssd,2550-2.html

And of course larger SSDs perform better then their smaller brothers. The net is filled with examples.
 
Philflow said:
Sorry man but that's just wrong... a larger SSD has more NAND and can handle more writes.

Image
Source: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/kingston-ssdnow-ssd,2550-2.html

And of course larger SSDs perform better then their smaller brothers. The net is filled with examples.
Click to expand...

Just like how you say your XT performs just as good as a SSD in performance? LOL Like anyone will believe you.

The XT is still a mechanical HD with a nice large cache. You have no control over that and it will become slow at times while a SSD will always be fast no matter what you use the computer for.
 
nizmoz said:
Just like how you say your XT performs just as good as a SSD in performance? LOL Like anyone will believe you.

The XT is still a mechanical HD with a nice large cache. You have no control over that and it will become slow at times while a SSD will always be fast no matter what you use the computer for.
Click to expand...

Yeah nice try. Change the topic. You can't change the facts though.

The facts about the Seagate XT can be found in the other thread.
 
Philflow said:
Yeah nice try. Change the topic. You can't change the facts though.

The facts about the Seagate XT can be found in the other thread.
Click to expand...

There are no facts. You have over the past few weeks/months been spewing BS with others correcting you but you refuse to listen. You are now known to do that by others on this site and people are warned to not even listen to you.

Between sizes, of same spec, if you really THINK you as a human will notice a difference between them you will need to seek some help seriously.
 
nizmoz said:
:rolleyes:

There will be NO DIFFERENCE in lasting longer or performance between a larger or smaller SSD of the same spec.
Click to expand...

Performance and Endurance is definitely affected by capacity of SSD. Below are the official specs of the Vertex 3 and the Crucial M4 from their websites, you can go check.
Crucial M4 tech specs -



vertex 3 tech specs -



While differences are not so drastic on the Vertex they are pretty big on the M4 esp for the 64 to 128gb jump.
 
Last edited:
nizmoz said:
There are no facts. You have over the past few weeks/months been spewing BS with others correcting you but you refuse to listen. You are now known to do that by others on this site and people are warned to not even listen to you.

Between sizes, of same spec, if you really THINK you as a human will notice a difference between them you will need to seek some help seriously.
Click to expand...

I will stick to the facts again.

Untitled-15.png

Source.

The Samsung 470 256GB comes out significantly faster than the 128GB and 64GB.

The Intel 510 250GB is about 20% faster than its 120GB brother.

25.png

The Crucial C300 256GB is twice as fast as the 64GB with copying files.

53478.jpg

The Vertex LE reviewed is a 50GB Sandforce drive, the Agility 2 is a 120GB Sandforce drive.
 
Last edited:
EOD

Random Read/Write Speed
This test reads/writes 4KB in a completely random pattern over an 8GB space of the drive to simulate the sort of random access that you'd see on an OS drive (even this is more stressful than a normal desktop user would see). I perform three concurrent IOs and run the test for 3 minutes. The results reported are in average MB/s over the entire time.

23007.png





Random read/write performance is abysmal. You can't really make out the numbers here but that's 0.7MB/s for reads and 0.3MB/s for writes compared to 40MB/s+ for the SSDs. It's the poor random access performance that ultimately prevents the Momentus XT from feeling like an SSD most of the time.

23008.png


This is where it all counts if you want a HD to perform FAST period.
 
nizmoz said:
:rolleyes:

There will be NO DIFFERENCE in lasting longer for performance between a larger or smaller SSD of the same spec.
Click to expand...

The bigger size Vertex 3 have proven to be performing much better in speed than the smaller sizes actually in benchmarks. ( review and benchmarking was done by engadet I believe )

Not sure how it holds up for other SSD brands.
 
nizmoz said:
EOD

Random Read/Write Speed
This test reads/writes 4KB in a completely random pattern over an 8GB space of the drive to simulate the sort of random access that you'd see on an OS drive (even this is more stressful than a normal desktop user would see). I perform three concurrent IOs and run the test for 3 minutes. The results reported are in average MB/s over the entire time.

Image



Random read/write performance is abysmal. You can't really make out the numbers here but that's 0.7MB/s for reads and 0.3MB/s for writes compared to 40MB/s+ for the SSDs. It's the poor random access performance that ultimately prevents the Momentus XT from feeling like an SSD most of the time.

Image

This is where it all counts if you want a HD to perform FAST period.
Click to expand...

Why are you going off topic, i thought the point was about the performance differences between small ad large capacity SSDs, nothing to do with the XT. You are trying to go off topic to cover up for the fact that your initial statement was wrong. :p
 
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