[Gogfumble]

I have decided my computer REALLY needs upgrading... it does NEED it... it isn't a want by any means.... oh no.

I have most of the components I am buying picked out but unsure about what SSD to go for. Being my first one, I have no experience of them.

I was thinking around 120GB which should be big enough for Windows and I have masses of HDD storage space.

Is this one any good? http://www.ebuyer.com/268244-ocz-120...t3-25sat3-120g

[flagpole]

yes it is.

thing about ssd is they are all more similar than they are different. there are differences between them and they do affect real world performance. but the gap between them all and hdd is so much bigger it doesn't, in relative terms make that much difference. more important to go bigger than faster, in the sense that being able to install more stuff to it, to a point, will be the biggest advantage.

check your computer has ahci enabled or can be enabled. and if you don't feel like reinstalling your OS then you could look at a cache drive.

[Gogfumble]

I am getting a new mobo and processor too so was going to reinstall the OS as I haven't done so since W7 was released so it's about time I had a good clear up!

ta

[flagpole]

what you getting?

[Gogfumble]

not 100% decided yet but was thinking

Intel Core i5 3450 3.1GHz - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/349022
and
Asus P8Z68-V/GEN3 Socket 1155 DVI VGA HDMI 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/291652

My mum just did an Amazon order and she very kindly added on 16gb of DDR3 ram on to it too.

[ClarkF1]

People have had problems with OCZ SSDs including me.
It'd only last a week before freezing.

Ditched it and got a Samsung 830 128GB

Still going without a hitch after 4 months

[Gogfumble]

too late I'm afraid, ordered the OCZ earlier for delivery tomorrow along with everything else.

You get people having problems with every brand out there though nothing is going to be 100% reliable.

Will keep it in mind though

[flagpole]

Originally Posted by Gogfumble

too late I'm afraid, ordered the OCZ earlier for delivery tomorrow along with everything else.

You get people having problems with every brand out there though nothing is going to be 100% reliable.

Will keep it in mind though

in general they are less reliable than hdd. OCZ had some problems a while back. but they are as good as any one now.

since you have plenty of storage and it's only 120GB you'll be able to take regular backups.

wait till you have to upgrade the firmware. you'll shit yourself.

[ClarkF1]

Originally Posted by Gogfumble

too late I'm afraid, ordered the OCZ earlier for delivery tomorrow along with everything else.

You get people having problems with every brand out there though nothing is going to be 100% reliable.

Will keep it in mind though

Enjoy the new build.

[Gormond]

Originally Posted by ClarkF1

People have had problems with OCZ SSDs including me.
It'd only last a week before freezing.

Ditched it and got a Samsung 830 128GB

Still going without a hitch after 4 months

Been using this for about 2 months now, it's a fantastic drive!

[Sexbomb]

Originally Posted by flagpole

wait till you have to upgrade the firmware. you'll shit yourself.

Why would upgrading the firmware want to make me shit myself?

[Gormond]

Originally Posted by Sexbomb

Why would upgrading the firmware want to make me shit myself?

It causes the drive to produce the brown note

[Sexbomb]

Mines a crucial M4

[whoever,hey]

I had an OCZ vertex 2 18 months ago but it died a month ago. It was however in warranty so i sent it back and got it replaced with a new ocz agility 3.

I've bought an M4 instead.

[s2k]

I've got the 128GB Crucial M4 in my new build and its super fast (my mac has finally been retired after ~6 years service). I upgraded the firmware as one of the first things, so not precisely sure how much difference that makes but according to comments online it gives notable speed improvements.

[Loobster]

Originally Posted by Gogfumble

too late I'm afraid, ordered the OCZ earlier for delivery tomorrow along with everything else.

You get people having problems with every brand out there though nothing is going to be 100% reliable.

The problem is the OCZ 3rd gen SSD issues were not isolated to a few odd ones, there were massive issues with the Sandforce controller at first release.

They mostly sorted it out with firmware upgrades, but it was too late for a lot like myself who swore off them and switched.

My SSDs of choice now are Crucial M4 or Samsung 830.

[ClarkF1]

Originally Posted by Loobster

The problem is the OCZ 3rd gen SSD issues were not isolated to a few odd ones, there were massive issues with the Sandforce controller at first release.

I thought I'd be clever and avoid the Sandforce controller by getting an OCZ Petrol with Indilinx controller.

Still got shafted.

[JeffG1]

Resurrecting this thread because the replacement for my original OCZ drive (which lasted all of 10 months) died after only 4 months. That has been returned under warranty after I failed to persuade the supplier to replace it with a different brand.

I have bought a Verbatim now as a C drive replacement - no doubt I will receive another OCZ drive as well as a replacement, but I will never, ever, have an OCZ SSD as my C drive again. If I can't find a better use for it, I can always use it as a doorstop.

Fortunately most stuff was backed up, apart from the last two weeks of emails, which wasn't too much of a headache.

Now I have reorganised things a bit better so the majority of my data lives on my HDD, with mainly programs on the SSD.

Edit: Any thoughts on setting up a RAID 1 configuration with an identical pair of SSDs as a safety net? Or does RAID only apply to data disks?

[flagpole]

Originally Posted by JeffG1

Resurrecting this thread because the replacement for my original OCZ drive (which lasted all of 10 months) died after only 4 months. That has been returned under warranty after I failed to persuade the supplier to replace it with a different brand.

I have bought a Verbatim now as a C drive replacement - no doubt I will receive another OCZ drive as well as a replacement, but I will never, ever, have an OCZ SSD as my C drive again. If I can't find a better use for it, I can always use it as a doorstop.

Fortunately most stuff was backed up, apart from the last two weeks of emails, which wasn't too much of a headache.

Now I have reorganised things a bit better so the majority of my data lives on my HDD, with mainly programs on the SSD.

Edit: Any thoughts on setting up a RAID 1 configuration with an identical pair of SSDs as a safety net? Or does RAID only apply to data disks?

i've put ssd into raid 1 before. they don't all support it. or they didn't then. they may well do now.

there is little advantage to putting data on ssd anyway. you're much better off with your current set up. probably cheaper than mirroring your ssd in raid would just be to have an automated backup of it to your hdd, it may as well be like daily. it wont take long. then if the drive fails you can just swap it out and image it back.

[JeffG1]

Originally Posted by flagpole

have an automated backup of it to your hdd, it may as well be like daily. it wont take long. then if the drive fails you can just swap it out and image it back.

Can I set up Windows 7 backup to do this? Not really attempted image backup/restore before (as opposed to file backup).

[flagpole]

Originally Posted by JeffG1

Can I set up Windows 7 backup to do this? Not really attempted image backup/restore before (as opposed to file backup).

you can yes. you can also create a bootable dvd/cd that will allow you to copy the image back to a new drive if you need to. the backups are obviously incremental so after the first one it'll not take long.

i'm not overly familiar with W7 backup myself. but that is my understanding.

[kempshott]

Originally Posted by flagpole

... an automated backup of it to your hdd, it may as well be like daily.

Acronis non-stop backup may be a good option - it runs every 5 minutes.

[flagpole]

Originally Posted by kempshott

Acronis non-stop backup may be a good option - it runs every 5 minutes.

it may. prior to win7 it really was the only solution for this kind of thing. but win7 backup does replicate a lot of the functionality of acronis.

the important thing really is that the volume shadow copy service and the acronis equivalent can copy files (including system files,) whilst they're in use, locked and changing.

[whoever,hey]

Originally Posted by kempshott

Acronis non-stop backup may be a good option - it runs every 5 minutes.

Win7 has auto system backup. Mine backs up every sunday, and i dont even notice if i'm using it.

Its been tested as well, because my first SSD died the other month, and i restored my back up onto a new bigger one.

[JeffG1]

Thank you. I found out for myself how to do a Windows 7 image back up, which I did and also created a rescue disk.

One of the rare occasions when the built-in help actually produced something useful.