OCZ Vertex4 vs Agility4 vs Samsung 830?

OCZ and SandForce SSDs have some of the highest failure and return rates in the industry (as evidenced by customer reviews and third party sales numbers); do not walk...run!...from OCZ products. In recent memory there have been near zero problems with the 830 or the M4 SSDs. Get one of those.

 

You're misreading what I wrote...

If you buy an SSD for idle use - sure, the M4 (for example...) is not the first choice when the M3 and the 830 offer significantly lower power consumption (half, actually).

If however, you buy an SSD to use at it's rated speeds for a high percentage of it's 'powered on' state - then I stand by my statement.

As for 'higher power consumption than HDD's'...

See:
Hitachi Travelstar 7K500 Review (500GB) | StorageReview.com - Storage Reviews


This is an older/last gen model with higher power consumption figures (just the first one I ran into in a google search) than any current offerings - but the power consumption is half of the 830 Series SSD's.

To me, this translates to sloppy engineering on Samsung's behalf (or, simply how they're compensating for component/controller deficiencies to increase the drive's reliability) and also indicates to me that this SSD will run HOT vs. other HDD/SSD's (I see a warm/hot running device as inherently inferior - again; poor engineering at work...).

 

You gotta look at things in perspective. Under what scenario will you be constantly maxing out I/O operations (yet prioritize battery life over speed) and can't be bothered to plug the laptop in? Seems like a rather contrived situation to me.

 

Not contrived at all - a hot running device is simply killing the system (unless it is adequately cooled - not possible on a 'stock' notebook) relative to a cooler running one.

I'm not just thinking maximum battery life here - I'm taking a overview of what each device offers to my system in general and what cons are associated with that.

Once again: I'm not interested in buying a high performance storage device to use at 'idle' speeds - I use it to increase my productivity (by actually using it at/near it's limits) - regardless of being plugged into AC or not.

Hope this clarifies my position?

 

Actually, you were talking about maximum battery life. That is why I responded to your post. Regardless, there will be pros and cons to the SSD options one can use. Each individual user will have to prioritize what they think is the best option for their usage plans and goals.

Even with its high energy consumption figures, I don't agree with you that the 830 is a hot running device nor is it a product of shoddy engineering. It isn't killing my stock system and I am not having heat issues.

Check out these temps, I wouldn't call this hot:


Hitachi 7K500-500_Custom Plastic Enclosure by davidc646, on Flickr

Thanks for the source link. I actually own that exact HDD, what are the odds. I wanted to see it for myself and indeed according to the numbers the 830 SSD is consuming more power than that 7K500 HDD during sequential write activity. I think Samsung has some work to do for their next SSD or maybe with an updated Firmware they can manage to lower power consumption a bit in the 830 yet retain performance.

I still consider it one of the best and will continue to recommend it to those in search of a 99.9% reliable SSD.

 

You're going to have to give me a solid example. I can see what you're trying to say, but I don't see any plausible situation that matches the conditions you're given. The only thing I can think of is if you're consistently unzipping files in a place with no power outlets, which is an unlikely scenario at best.

Any other "productivity" situation I an think of would either be CPU bound/non-SSD (e.g. internet) bandwidth bound (and therefore not maxing out the SSD), or not require sustained SSD usage (in which case the faster speed and lower idle power consumption will balance out the load power consumption).

I'm not trying to pick on you or anything... I'm just surprised because you would recommend a CPU .3ghz higher than another (which would be faster but have higher heat output, energy usage like the Samsung 830) for productivity, yet seemingly do the reverse when it comes to SSDs.

 

Why I seem to give the 'reverse' when it comes to SSD's is because they're not at all directly responsible to increase the performance (productivity) of a system, that's why.

As for a specific example? When clients want to order unfinished (as-shot) images - I can convert the RAW image files right there in their office (and usually on battery power) and in a constant write situation like that, the 830 would literally suck (power consumption-wise) and with the high power consumption; the heat generated would be higher than with an M4 (as an example). What is worse is that any extra performance the 830 has is not used when converting RAW image files: that is almost exclusively a function of extra HP (by way of higher cpu GHz clock speed) and more RAM.

Don't take my word for it though that the 830 is stupidly power hungry;

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...ge/613245-samsung-830-ssd-45.html#post8744431

 

Well that's what I mean when I say I can't think of a scenario that matches what you were saying. If your performance depends on CPU, you're going to be CPU bound in in that situation.

So:
1. You're not going to be running the SSD at full bore as what you previously stated.

2. If you're CPU bound with a 35-45w CPU (or even when using a 17w ULV, if you'd use that to convert images) with another 10w of system power, 2 extra watts of power consumption from the SSD really means nothing (and the 2w extra is under 100% SSD load). By the same token, the ever so slight extra heat output means very little since it'll be your CPU that's producing the heat. I mean, why does it matter that the SSD is running at 50.5c instead of 50c while the CPU is 70-80c and everything else is 60c+?

3. Unless your computer is used exclusively to convert images while on battery, you're going to do some less intensive stuff afterwards where the SSD will (be near) idle and/or you'll be able to find a place to charge up.

Anyway, this is off topic and I feel like I'm just nit-picking your statements. My point is that 99.9% of the time the "high" power consumption under load will not be a concern.

Also note that when your system idles at 10-15w, a .3w (e.g. 830 vs m4) difference between idle power consumption is insignificant as well.

 

I don't know why you guys hate the Vertex 4, I've been using it on my ThinkPad W520 for a month without a single issue.

 

I don't think it's hate for the vertex 4 per se, but for OCZ. The Vertex 4 uses a Marvell derived controller so it's probably just as reliable as the m4/830, but the problem is that OCZ has terrible customer service so if anything does actually go wrong, you might get shafted.

Seeing how OCZ treated their customers in the past and how their offerings aren't particularly better than their competetitors', I don't see any reason to recommend them over alternatives that have better customer service.