[(mirror)52-D.S.L.]

ok, so I have been thinking of getting 60-64GB of SSD to run my operating system off of. would it be better to raid two 30GB's or one 60GB drive.

budget $120-130.

also looking for recommendations for good SSDs

 

[rui-no-onna]

Get one 60GB SSD. As far as I'm aware, not only will 2x30GB drives cost you more, the ones that are available also tend to have crappy controllers so you'll be compounding the problem of no TRIM with poor or non-existent garbage collection.

 

[coelacanth]

This is a great SSD. It's a rebranded ADATA S599 with the Sandforce 1222 controller.
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0351760

Note that it's pretty heavily overprovisioned, and formatted it will give you ~55.7GB.

 

[(mirror)52-D.S.L.]

Quote:

Originally Posted by coelacanth;13027538
This is a great SSD. It's a rebranded ADATA S599 with the Sandforce 1222 controller.
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0351760

Note that it's pretty heavily overprovisioned, and formatted it will give you ~55.7GB.

what do you mean Overprovisioned?

 

[coelacanth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by (mirror)52-D.S.L.;13027572
what do you mean Overprovisioned?

Quote:

SSD Over-Provisioning is a technique used in the design of some flash SSDs. By providing extra memory capacity (which the user can't access) the SSD controller can more easily create pre-erased blocks - ready to be used in the virtual pool.

2 beneficial effects of Over-Provisioning are:
1) faster overall write IOPS, and
2) better reliability

The latter case - is because another use of the extra capacity is to replace bad memory blocks - which occur at both ends of the bathtub curve.

That drive is 13% overprovisioned, which is why out of the 64GB of flash on board, you only get to use ~55.7GB when formatted.

 

[(mirror)52-D.S.L.]

Quote:

Originally Posted by coelacanth;13027676
That drive is 13% overprovisioned, which is why out of the 64GB of flash on board, you only get to use ~55.7GB when formatted.

dam thats a good answer, here some more rep.

thanks for the help. I'll be ordering one of those soon!

 

[coelacanth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by (mirror)52-D.S.L.;13027707
dam thats a good answer, here some more rep.

thanks for the help. I'll be ordering one of those soon!

Cool. I have 3 of them in RAID 0 (the ADATA branded drives) and I love them.

The Micro Center G2 is $99 right now while the exact same ADATA branded drive is $124 today! (Newegg, Amazon).

One more thing that you should know about the drive, it uses 34nm flash, which is faster and more durable than the 25nm flash used in the newer OCZ SSDs.

 

[rui-no-onna]

Quote:

Originally Posted by coelacanth;13027538
Note that it's pretty heavily overprovisioned, and formatted it will give you ~55.7GB.

I wouldn't call that heavily over-provisioned. That's actually pretty standard among Sandforce drives. The original Vertex LE/2 SSD's (50GB, 100GB, 200GB) have 27% over-provisioning.