SSD purchase help required

[Grnfinger]

I can get a pair of these (4 month used) 30GB OCZ Vertex SSDs for 125-130ish depending on shipping for the pair...

Should I pull the trigger or spend a little more for version II? or is there something else I should be looking at?
I'm a complete fucktard on SSD's I have done no homework and know very little about them atm... this deal just fell in my lap this morning via MSN and dont know what to do. I wasnt really looking for drives but dont want to pass on this deal if its worth it.

[0xygenthief]

The problem with buing a used SSD is that you have no idea what the previous owner did with the drive. They could have been running an app that excessively wrote to a certain section of the drive over and over again, who knows.

There are very few components I wouldn't buy used, hard drives of any type, especially SSDs are at the top of that list.

My advice is to grab an Intel V series SSD or two. The V series is probably the best low cost ssd drives out there. When Raided they perform exceptionally.

However, if you have your heart set on this deal the OCZ vertex are good drives. I own two 128 GB G.Skill falcons which are essentially vertex drives rebranded. Again, I just couldn't bring myself to buying used.

[Kuro]

I have to agree with you Oxygen. My friend offered to sell his SSD to me, but SSDs being so temperamental as it is I didn't think it was worth the risk.

[Mikecdm]

You can also buy a single 60gb vertex II for around the same price as. I bought one the other day for $135 after MIR.

[ND40oz]

If you can get the Vertex 2 go for it, RAID is a pain and TRIM doesn't work with it, so going single drive when possible is definitely a better option.

[Grnfinger]

thanks for the heads up guys, I guess I'll pass on them and wait for a sale on a new drive.

[DanishDevil]

I've gotten all my SSDs from reviewers. I get it cheap because the warranty is usually gone after they pryed them open to take pictures of internals, but I know that the drives weren't written for hours upon hours. Get a nice deal that way.

As far as SSD choice, IMO you've really only got two choices. A Sandforce drive, or a RealSSD (if you have SATA 6GB/s).

[Grnfinger]

I know the drives were used for benching and I dont think he is selling cause the drives are going bad, he's looking for money for a plane ticket to attend a event.

With that said I was considering them cause of the price, I could have toss'd one in my wifes rig to speed up her 8400 cpu and I could use one for benching myself, so I thought a 130 bucks was a gift but like I said I have done no research on them as it was something I was not considering untill my GPU upgrade

[DanishDevil]

It's a decent price if they're in good shape. If being able to split them up is appealing, and you can fit your high-priority stuff on 30GB, then I say go for it :)

[Grnfinger]

4 months 4.5 tops of use
He has some nice benchmarks in raid0 that are very impressive.
Its tempting but I dont want to buy crap... wonder if he will let me try b4 I buy

[Overclocking101]

I know the drives were used for benching and I dont think he is selling cause the drives are going bad, he's looking for money for a plane ticket to attend a event.

With that said I was considering them cause of the price, I could have toss'd one in my wifes rig to speed up her 8400 cpu and I could use one for benching myself, so I thought a 130 bucks was a gift but like I said I have done no research on them as it was something I was not considering untill my GPU upgrade

if you know the guy well, know he didnt EVER defrag the drive or run hdtune over and over etc they are worth it. you see ssd's lifetime is seriously like 10 years. you will toss or sell the before they go bad. but certain things over exert ssd's like defrag (you never defrag) hdtune certain bench apps etc. if you were to buy them I would raid them the budget drives perform much better raided. and while they are shipping to you, do a ton of reading there are certain tweaks and shit that help and allow more performance. also do they support trim?? if not I wouldnt get them trim is seriously great it cleans the driver to save space and boost performance

[Grnfinger]

I'll inquire about trim support

not sure about defrag so I guess I will ask at teh same time

[DanishDevil]

Vertex drives should support TRIM.

[voklskier4452]

Vertex drives do support trim, OCZ was one of the first to support it. I would not however buy those. I would go for a mushkin callisto deluxe. It is only a bit more for 60gb and that new st-1200 sandforce controller is an absolute beast.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226151&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Solid+State+Disk-_-Mushkin+Enhanced-_-20226151

[1Day]

There are a few things you need to keep in mind when thinking about SSD.

The most important one is that the medium of data storage is nand. The data does not get written to a platter like the old style hard drives but burned to the nand. Now that is important because each nand has a very set number of times data can be burned to it. Now don't stress in normal everyday use you will get a full 5 years use from your SSD. BUT doing a format will do squat except shorten your SSD life span, doing heaps of speed benchmarks will shorten the life of your SSD. Doing multiple SE (secure erase) will shorten the life of your SSD to months.

How SSDs Work

The building block of NAND flash is the N-channel MOSFET:

http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/storage/Intel/SSDlaunch/mosfet.png

Each "cell" is made up of one of these transistors. In a single-level cell (SLC) flash device, one of these transistors can hold 1-bit of data. You write data to the cell by electron tunneling; apply a high enough voltage to the gate, create a powerful enough electric field, and electrons will tunnel through the oxide and into the floating gate. Remove the voltage and the electrons will remain in the floating gate. Apply the voltage across the channel instead of the gate, reverse the bias and the electrons will go in the other direction. Simply put, that's how flash works - you've got two states, 0 and 1, and the state is preserved even if the cell has no power, making it ideal for a storage device.

Programming flash is an iterative process. The controller will apply voltage to the gate (or the channel), allow some electrons to tunnel and check the threshold voltage of the cell. When the threshold voltage has reached some predetermined value, it’s now programmed and your data is stored.

Read the full article HERE (http://www.anandtech.com/show/2614)

[1Day]

Vertex drives do support trim, OCZ was one of the first to support it. I would not however buy those. I would go for a mushkin callisto deluxe. It is only a bit more for 60gb and that new st-1200 sandforce controller is an absolute beast.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226151&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Solid+State+Disk-_-Mushkin+Enhanced-_-20226151

And only OCZ have the fully functioning sandforce 1200 driver at the moment. Vertex 2 is Sandforce. The sandforce firmware that the other manufactures are using is currently not up to speed. Call it a crippled version of the sandforce 1200 drivers.

[Grnfinger]

There are a few things you need to keep in mind when thinking about SSD.

The most important one is that the medium of data storage is nand. The data does not get written to a platter like the old style hard drives but burned to the nand. Now that is important because each nand has a very set number of times data can be burned to it. Now don't stress in normal everyday use you will get a full 5 years use from your SSD. BUT doing a format will do squat except shorten your SSD life span, doing heaps of speed benchmarks will shorten the life of your SSD. Doing multiple SE (secure erase) will shorten the life of your SSD to months.

How SSDs Work

The building block of NAND flash is the N-channel MOSFET:



Each "cell" is made up of one of these transistors. In a single-level cell (SLC) flash device, one of these transistors can hold 1-bit of data. You write data to the cell by electron tunneling; apply a high enough voltage to the gate, create a powerful enough electric field, and electrons will tunnel through the oxide and into the floating gate. Remove the voltage and the electrons will remain in the floating gate. Apply the voltage across the channel instead of the gate, reverse the bias and the electrons will go in the other direction. Simply put, that's how flash works - you've got two states, 0 and 1, and the state is preserved even if the cell has no power, making it ideal for a storage device.

Programming flash is an iterative process. The controller will apply voltage to the gate (or the channel), allow some electrons to tunnel and check the threshold voltage of the cell. When the threshold voltage has reached some predetermined value, it’s now programmed and your data is stored.

Read the full article HERE (http://www.anandtech.com/show/2614)



Thanks very much, you have given me exactly what I was looking for