SSD vs HDD: A Beginner's Guide to SSD Upgrades Discussion

by Philip Bloem

Are you looking for a way to increase the performance of your notebook? Then upgrading the storage is often an easy and worthwhile way to boost the speed of your laptop without buying a new computer. We took an in-depth look at some of the top choices for notebook storage. Should you get an SSD or normal hard drive? Read on to find out.

Read the full content of this Article: SSD vs HDD: A Beginner's Guide to SSD Upgrades

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[meboy]

Good review.
I like how it's geared towards real world usage.

Kind of weird choices for the SSD's though. (The Agility 2 and Vertex LE). The LE is quite old now. It would have been nice to see the Vertex 2 in there.
I guess you were trying to line up prices as much as possible though.

It's also pretty unlikely anyone is going to be looking at 60GB drives as their only notebook storage. Prices and reviews of the 120GB drives might have been more realistic.

[hybrid2d4x4]

Thanks for the review. Judging by the battery life, the review laptop is probably the intel-powered dm3t, right?
Is there any chance you might expand this by adding more SSDs to the mix? So far you have one with a marvell controller (C300) and two Sandforce drives. It'd be great to see some data on the Vertex/Agility 1 based on the Indilinx barefoot controller, the Intel G2 and maybe a budget SSD from Kingston.

meboy > The Vertex 2 is pretty much the same thing as the Agility 2.

[meboy]

Actually the Vertex 2 is closer to the Vertex LE in terms of benchmarking and performance but I get what you're trying to say.
They are both from the same revision family and using the same controller.
The Vertex 2 is faster than the LE in any benchmark I've seen.

[Phil]

Kind of weird choices for the SSD's though. (The Agility 2 and Vertex LE). The LE is quite old now. It would have been nice to see the Vertex 2 in there.

I agree it would have been nice to have the Vertex 2 and Intel G2 too. I didn't have free choice in picking drives though. I had to go with what was available. I was quite happy to have these six drives available.

Vertex 2 should be a slightly faster than Vertex LE, but in real world performance I expect the difference to be minimal.

PS. the Agility 2 tested was a 120GB.

[jasperjones]

Great review, thanks! It sometimes bothered me in reviews from your competitors that no (or just one) mechanical drive was included. So it's good to see that you include as many as three; it makes comparisons so much easier...

[invisible]

I will say that having near instant availability of programs is nice. SSDs are a nice upgrade, and if you have money to burn it's probably one of the best upgrades you can make. However, the rest of us that don't have money to burn should probably wait until SSD prices come down quite a bit.

[kent1146]

Vertex 2 should be a slightly faster than Vertex LE, but in real world performance I expect the difference to be minimal.

The Vertex LE actually uses the faster controller chip (SandForce SF-1500) than the Vertex 2 (SandForce SF-1200). If the Vertex 2 is faster, then it is because of firmware updates that the Vertex LE never got. They only made 5,000 of the Vertex LE's, so it makes sense that they wouldn't bother investing the time and resources on Vertex LE firmware.

[Phil]

The Vertex LE actually uses the faster controller chip (SandForce SF-1500) than the Vertex 2 (SandForce SF-1200). If the Vertex 2 is faster, then it is because of firmware updates that the Vertex LE never got. They only made 5,000 of the Vertex LE's, so it makes sense that they wouldn't bother investing the time and resources on Vertex LE firmware.

I am aware that SF-1500 is rated as the faster controller. Yet most reviews rated the Vertex 2 as faster. And I think you could be right that it can be caused by firmware.

Most reviews that rated the Vertex 2 faster were early reviews. In the mean time OCZ has updated the firmware that fixes some bugs at the account of performance. It's quite likely that the Vertex 2 now performs on almost exactly the same level as the Vertex LE.

Here's a comparison between the Vertex LE and Vertex 2 with early firmware:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/152?vs=138

The story about the slower Vertex 2 firmware (1.1) can be found here:
http://www.storagereview.com/ocz_vertex_2_review_120gb

[Huskerz85]

I will say that having near instant availability of programs is nice. SSDs are a nice upgrade, and if you have money to burn it's probably one of the best upgrades you can make. However, the rest of us that don't have money to burn should probably wait until SSD prices come down quite a bit.

Definitely agree with this. Have been considering a HD upgrade for my Dell for a little while now, but I can't justify forking out $300+ for 128GB of space when 500GB/7200 RPM drives are going for as little as $75.

Here's to hoping those prices will drop......