Storage Solutions Buying a SSD. Which one should I?

ithehappy

ithehappy

Adept
I can't resist myself to enter the SSD bandwagon now, after seeing loads of YouTube videos I am sold. Anyway, a 128 GB will do me absolutely fine (there's no benefit in gaming right, in terms of FPS?), and which one will give me best performance, I mean the fastest? I have heard Samsung 840 or something is a vfm one, but is that true? I mean when there are brands like Intel and SanDisk around?
Budget: Don't know. Would like it to be as low as possible. I don't have problems buying from outside or online, if price comes lower than retail.
Oh one more thing, someone was telling me that I would not be getting full benefit from a SSD because my Mainboard is a SATA 2 one, is that right? I have a Sabertooth X58.

Thanks.
 
Thanks. Yes Sabertooth does have two white SATA ports, where currently I have my HDD plugged, lol. And it says 6 GBPS too, so you saying there'll be no bottleneck or anything?
And by 840 you mean the normal one or the Evo?
 
Yes there will not be any bottlenecks.
In performance pro is better than Evo but price difference is significant and that makes Evo appear to be VFM.
One can put it like Pro > Evo > Regular
 
I recently bought an evo from amazon.com. You should be aware that the evo uses TLC instead of MLC as in the PRO. TLC theoretically will wear out faster than MLC but in real life usage of a typical person, it should last long enough.

Couple of interesting articles on the topic:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6459/samsung-ssd-840-testing-the-endurance-of-tlc-nand
http://techreport.com/review/25681/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-testing-data-retention-at-300tb

Last week the evo 120gb was at $90 or $99 and the pro 128gb was doing $124, which wasn't really a huge difference. Of course, now the price gap has increased...
 
Okay thanks. By long enough you mean how long? After 2 years I will be buying a bigger SSD anyway, so I guess it will go without a problem for two years? I mean the Evo.
 
I'm not sure what to make of the data the above articles have collated, however, the 840 and evo's have a 3 year warranty subject to the (tbw) total bytes written threshold. This policy is something like the FUPs we have on our data plans here, and frankly make me uncomfortable with having bought a samsung ssd in the first place.

Quoting from http://www.samsung.com/global/busin...and_840_EVO_Warranty_Statement_English_US.pdf

"SAMSUNG warrants to the original end user customer or purchaser of this Product (“You”) that the
Product is free from material defects and workmanship, subject to the conditions stated herein, for the
shorter of: (i) a period of five (5) years for the 840 PRO Series and three (3) years for the 840 Series
and 840 EVO Series, (ii) the period ending on the date when the SSD has exceeded its TBW (Total
Bytes Written) threshold as may be indicated by Samsung’s Magician Software (for specific
information on this threshold, please refer to the data sheet for your particular SSD product, which is
available at www.samsung.com/ssd, www.samsung.com/samsungssd)"

The data sheet mentioned (http://www.samsung.com/global/busin...ad/Samsung_SSD_840_EVO_Data_Sheet_rev_1_1.pdf) doesn't have jack written about tbw.

See also: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1839498/samsung-840-pro-tbw.html

I guess under normal household pc use, the evo should easily last for 3 years AND stay under 300tb of tbw. If you really want to save money get the evo otherwise to be really safe in terms of warranty (and get a faster ssd) get the pro with 5-year warranty.
 
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