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Fastest SSD (Solid State Drive)The fastest SSD is about 3.5 times as fast on reading and writing as a basic SATA hard drive. That being said, the performance you get may differ somewhat. There's a few caveats that determine the real world speed of any data storage device. The new solid state drives are starting to finally come down in price and even showing up in many laptops and a few high end desktops. The fastest SSD is probably the OCZ's Vertex 3 at 240 GB with 6 Gb/s performance. And although a bit pricey at around $200, it is worth the cost to many power users of software like AutoCad or Photoshop. That being said, your computer and OS can have a big impact on how much speed you gain on everyday operations. But for the bang for the buck, this model really makes a huge improvement in reading and writing data to a storage device. If you are planning to upgrade a laptop model. there's also a bonus factor in battery usage. My laptop got about another 45 minutes of operating time. Since the SSD uses less power, there is less battery drain which extends the life of any laptop battery. I've also noticed my fan rarely comes on anymore so there appears to be less heat produced. So an SSD in a laptop also runs cooler and is much more quiet, both of which are a very good thing. The latest operating systems from both Microsoft and Apple can take advantage of all the technical bells and whistles. Without spouting a bunch of highly technical terms - the typical file size, CPU chipset, amount and speed of ram, and if you have 6 GB SATA support built into your motherboard are all contributing factors. If you have a newer Windows 7 or Apple iMac computer with an Intel I series processor, you will see a major real world difference. What I have seen on my own equipment is that the boot times went from about 1.5 minutes to 20 seconds. Moving around videos or MP3 files is really fast, along with any software installations. I often do video editing and when I go to save in different formats now there is no hesitation. In fact I often go look to makes sure the file is there it's so fast compared to my old SATA 7200 rpm hard drive. If you have a MacBook, you can go here to see how to upgrade to an SSD hard drive here: SSD Hard Drive for MacBook. My next choice for fastest SSD would be the Crucial Technology 256 GB Crucial RealSSD C300. The only reason it is my second choice is the price of $400. It's got all the same features of the OCZ model but costs a $150 more. Seems to be a little more reliable but still has some of the same issues already mentioned. And my third choice for those who don't have the ability to run the 6 GB SATA transfer speeds (older motherboards will be limited to the 3 GB transfer size) is the Kingston SSDNow V+Series. You will not see the performance of the SSDs that use the 6 GB transfer rate but you will see a huge difference from normal SATA hard drive. This is the best units for those of you still hanging on to XP or an older Apple OS. The 128 Gig model sells for around $220 but the 256 Gig model can go for as high as $800 so I would stick with the 128 Gig and keep your data on another drive. OK, now the caveats about SSD speed and being on the bleeding edge of technology. Early on there were problems with reliability, motherboard configurations, and updating firmware (it's at best a nightmare even now). Only the newest computers usually have the 6 GB SATA support, and some of the computers don't play well with the newer SSD Sandisk controllers. On my Sony VAIO with an Intel I5 chipset and Apple iMac with same, I had no problems. But with some other brands and chipsets I never managed to get the same performance. I did get a good solid increase in performance but more like 2 times rather than the 3.5 times on my equipment. There are several other brands that have similar features but have a lot more problems. I think that the bottom line on SSDs is you need to be prepared for some bumps in the road when installing any of the popular units. I've also learned that the Windows 7 image backup works fine with the drives I've installed, no need for third party software like Norton Ghost. But even the transfer of your current OS image can have issues due to some cluster size issues. So upgrading to any SSD is not for the faint of heart but the increase in speed is worth it. |
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