G73JH SSD for a Newb

[Yiddo]

Yes, well, umm, err, Ok. My JH Needs an SSD.

So far this week I have had to reinstall my OS 3 times because of just randomness, things crash all the time, my burst rate is non existent, I ask it to load a couple of things and 30 seconds later they all load at once and crash the system, I am getting a lot of whirring sounds and HDD Tune gives me a quarter of the sectors red. I would assume my old boy 7200RPM that came with this laptop is shot. I would rather make a purchase this evening so that I can continue playing World Of Tanks because I have just got my Maus and now im stranded with constant lag. Luckily Firefox still works.

The bad thing is I have no clue at all about SSD's I am in the UK and I need one ASAP I doubt this hard drive will survive much longer and my spare is full to the brim with all the stuff I have salvaged from this depleted drive.

I understand with the JH I need a Sata II 2.5 inch etc I assume the JH cannot handle Sata III or show any gain from it due to not having a sandy.

I am looking for 100gb but rather 128gb if possible for the best price vs power but there are far too many on ebay to look from. Help. OCZ, Intel...

I dont mind spend out a bit to get the good stuff there is no point upgrading to an SSD for only a 50% gain over my 7200RPM I want at least double.

[BumbleBoner]

Intels are reliable but not the fastest on the market. But you're in SSD territory so a few MB/s less isn't much of an issue.

And no worries, any old SSD would more than triple the performances of your 7200rpm drives.

[ValkerieFire]

Pretty much any SSD will kill any HDD. Do want to get a SATAII or SATA III? II is your limit for the JH, but III would give you futureproof if you upgrade one day.

I had G Skill Phoenix Pro 120gb in my JH (same thing as a Vertex 2). It was a good drive, but the first was DOA. I would strongly consider a Crucial C300 or M4 (I own one of each and they are good). They are pretty much the same drive, but the C300 has better 34nm NAND, and the M4 has better firmware. Both have outstanding reliability, probably better than Intel. Check out newegg.com and see the reviews. Get a 120gb drive, 64gb drives are slower due to the lower number of devices per channel (except for sandforce drives like the phoenix pro or Vertex 2). I would stay away from the vertex 2 unless you can get the 34nm version, they switched from 34nm to 25nm last winter and tried to pass it off as the same drive.

I would get any of the following, C300, M4, Agilty/Vertex 2, Intel G2, Intel 320, or similar. Honestly most drives are very good. Performance differences in real world usage are not noticeable. Get what you can afford. If you buy used be sure the manufacturers warranty is still in effect, also check the health stats on Crystal Disk Info to be sure it isn't worn. Most manufacturers warranty for 3 years but only if you have the receipt.

[Daverish]

If I had to do it again, I'd have gone with a sata3 drive like a M4 or Vertex3 for using it in a newer machine. AND for less degradation overtime. I see lots of recommendations for C300 (and what C400???)

I'd stay away from the Intel 320 for fear of Intel 320 8mb firmware glitch. Yah, when SSD's fail its catastrophic but still.

Still go for what you can afford and don't get smaller than a 120/128GB drive.

[jm821]

In my experience with my G73JW (essentially the same as your G73JH), I have tried OCZ Vertex 2 120gb and it was "good". Speeds are incredible, writes are incredible- overall speed is hands down, kills any 7200rpm and 10000rpm (3.5" desktop) drives. You're on a total different level with SSD's.

Now I say the OCZ was "good" (keyword there) because (and you will hear and read this everywhere on the OCZ forums) of the missing boot drive errors (along with the many hard locks/freeze). About 2-3 times a week (had the OCZ for a good 8 months), I would cold boot and would load up to the "missing boot mgr" screen and would have to hard shut down/restart my G73JW to boot into windows. BIOS recognized 50/50% of the time this would happen and would have to repeat the hard shut down/restart method to boot into windows. Finally I gave up on OCZ and after reading all the horror stories about it, I RMA'd it, got my replacement drive and just sold it.

In the process of the OCZ RMA, I bought 2 Intel 320 series 160gb SSD's and love them (apprx ownership so far= 2 months). Feels just as fast the OCZ and loads just as fast as the OCZ and not one single boot error or hard lock yet. Easy to maintain software (intel toolbox) and honestly, you don't hear that many horror stories because of the reliability of intel. Yeah, on paper, the spec comparison between the OCZ and Intel are pretty close in read but write comparison the OCZ wins. But overall, I do not notice a difference in the write comparison between the 2 SSD brands.

So you gotta ask yourself 2 questions:

1) Do you want faster read? Or write? Because thats what it boils down to. But honestly, you won't see the difference because which ever SSD you get, it will be freakin fast compared to mechanical drives.

2) Storage space- figure out your most used programs and tally up the space required to install those programs and tailor your decision based upon the install space, then shop from there. Keep a mechanical drive for scratch, media, and cache (if you prefer) in your 2nd bay and then you wouldn't have to worry about space as much.

In my opinion, the reads and writes are insanely fast compared to mechanical drives that once you start dipping into the 200mb barriers with SSD's, you just won't really notice the difference on anything faster than that, maybe 250mb barrier will shave a 1/10 of a sec but your eyes won't notice that.

I would go with reliability over the failure rate- I chose Intel and glad I did and there are just as many claims/blogs/word of mouth/statements to justify that.

[Tim4]

I agree with previous post. Sandforce is nice and speedy chip(It's used in OCZ, Team group...) But after migrating to Intel 320 series SSD, I happy at last. 320 series SSDs are very reliable ones.

[@tilla]

Yeah, really good points here. After the 320-8MB-Bugfix the Intel is still recommendable.
Crucial's (C300 & M4) are a bit touchy on some systems.
You won't feel any difference between a good Sata II and III SSD at normal notebook usage (OS workflow, starting games).

[Yiddo]

All good information at the moment but there is a lot of conflicting information it seems people have had different experiences.

I am pushed towards the C300 but it comes with a hefty price in the UK and the OCZ seems to have very good speeds. I can get the OCZ Vertex 2 with 100Gb for £100 which seems like a very good deal.

Pretty good deal going for £125 or $200 for a brand new C300 on Ebay with a reliable seller. Still in the sealed bag from purchase.

Good deal ^^? 3 years warranty.

Will this fit in my normal HDD caddy?!!

[PFL]

Yep, Vertex 2´s are cheap, here´s why:

The OCZ Vertex 2 Conspiracy: Lost Space, Lost Speed? : Is There A Problem Here, Sir?

I had a 60 G Vertex 2 as the OS drive on my PC, it died after 2 weeks...

From the OCZ Tech forum:

Support Question New (2 weeks old) Vertex2 80GB Dead

IMO they are unstable, get the Vertex 3 instead... or Intel.

[Yiddo]

Had to make a purchase and thank you for all the warnings it prevented me making a bad choice for a lot of money I just have no need for that much space and the price for one new was just too much so I made my decision.

96Gb Kingston V+100 Read 230MB/s Write 180MB/s

30gb OS and 60gb games.

New with 12 months warranty £80 total bargain if you ask me and all the review I have read say its a good mid range SSD and reliable. I cannot afford another £100 just for 32gb more and faster speeds.

This compared to my 7200RPM should own will update once I get it. Thank you for all your advice will be adding rep shortly.