Recommend A Decent Internal SSD?

Lazermonkey · Mar 20, 2013

I am looking to install an SSD on my new system build, and am curious as to what a decent SSD is without breaking the bank?

128GB will suffice, also nothing over $125-150 at the most.

Also. Are they easy to get up and running? as in, plug and play and load my new copy of windows?

The Motherboard this will be connected to is an MSI 970A-G43.. if that helps?

Thank for any and all answers/recommendations.

Peter1986C · Mar 20, 2013

Good choices are the Samsung 840, Kingston SSDNow! V300 and the Crucial M4. Please not that the latter has relatively low write speeds, but has overprovisioning ("reserve" memory chips) if I remember correctly. There is a "database" of SSD reviews here: http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150954
They are easy to get up and running, as long as you set it on AHCI in the BIOS. Also, preferrably reinstall Windows so that it gets configured as SSD-friendly as possible (it won't hurt though, to check whether defragmentation and MSDOS-style filenames, as well as system restore are turned off).

Lazermonkey · Mar 20, 2013

Chevalr1c said:
Good choices are the Samsung 840, Kingston SSDNow! V300 and the Crucial M4. Please not that the latter has relatively low write speeds, but has overprovisioning ("reserve" memory chips) if I remember correctly.
They are easy to get up and running, as long as you set it on AHCI in the BIOS. Also, preferrably reinstall Windows so that it gets configured as SSD-friendly as possible (it won't hurt though, to check whether defragmentation and MSDOS-style filenames, as well as system restore are turned off).

Okay so as long as I set the system to AHCI in my Bios. It should boot and let me install my new copy of windows?

Also, thank you for the quick response. You are good folks here and help out a lot.

Peter1986C · Mar 20, 2013

You should be fine indeed.

tokyoduong · Mar 20, 2013

Lazermonkey said:
Okay so as long as I set the system to AHCI in my Bios. It should boot and let me install my new copy of windows?

Also, thank you for the quick response. You are good folks here and help out a lot.

You must install the SSD in a working computer first. Format it and everything to make it a drive the computer will recognize. Update firmware if necessary because you cannot update it as a primary drive.

Now you can do a fresh install of windows without problems.

Yes, you must set BIOS to AHCI for SSD to work correctly.

Delta6326 · Mar 20, 2013

I vote Samsung 840 Pro or the 840, they are great quality.

Peter1986C · Mar 21, 2013

tokyoduong said:
You must install the SSD in a working computer first. Format it and everything to make it a drive the computer will recognize. Update firmware if necessary because you cannot update it as a primary drive.

Now you can do a fresh install of windows without problems.

Yes, you must set BIOS to AHCI for SSD to work correctly.

The Windows installer has a formatting/partitioning tool built-in.

Hood · Mar 25, 2013

It's best to unplug all other drives when doing a fresh install of Windows, so it doesn't install the recovery partition on them or set other partitions as active.

Widjaja · Mar 25, 2013

Hood said:
It's best to unplug all other drives when doing a fresh install of Windows, so it doesn't install the recovery partition on them or set other partitions as active.

Yes this is what I did prior to installing windows.

Lazermonkey · Mar 25, 2013

How about the Samsung 830?

I saw a good deal on a 256GB and it seemed to get good reviews.

Would be nice to hear what you guys have to say abut the 830 series.

Thanks again for all of your helpful information

Jetster · Mar 25, 2013

I really like the Samsung Magician software that comes with the SSD I bought. It will test and automticly set the drive up for what ever you want it to do. Very nice touch. No guessing with what to turn on and off. I bought the Samsung 840 250Gb and got it for $135 on sale

Lazermonkey · Mar 25, 2013

Jetster said:
I really like the Samsung Magician software that comes with the SSD I bought. It will test and automticly set the drive up for what ever you want it to do. Very nice touch. No guessing with what to turn on and off. I bought the Samsung 840 250Gb and got it for $135 on sale

Which series did you buy?

ruff0r · Mar 25, 2013

Lazermonkey said:
Which series did you buy?

Jetster said:
I bought the Samsung 840 250Gb and got it for $135 on sale

read carefully.

Lazermonkey · Mar 25, 2013

ruff0r said:
read carefully.

doh!

Widjaja · Mar 25, 2013

I have had no issues with my Samsung 128Gb 830 SSD.
It is primarily just an OS drive.
Stays around 43GB of space on average with Far Cry 3 installed.

Lazermonkey · Mar 25, 2013

Widjaja said:
I have had no issues with my Samsung 128Gb 830 SSD.
It is primarily just an OS drive.
Stays around 43GB of space on average with Far Cry 3 installed.

Nice.

I have a 2TB WD Green to use as a storage device.

I am looking to do something similar. The OS and maybe a couple of games on the SSD.

Widjaja · Mar 25, 2013

If you are planning on using the SSD as a games drive as well, I would suggest a larger capacity SSD.

I mainly use my 1TB WD Black as the games and other programs drive with my 2TB Green as a media/storage drive.

I have to agree with the people who mentioned Samsung Magician Software being great.
While Windows 7 is supposed to setup it's services to cater for SSDs automatically, it appears it does not always do so.
In my case Samsung magician reported certain services which were meant to be turned off, as still active.

Lazermonkey · Mar 25, 2013

Widjaja said:
If you are planning on using the SSD as a games drive as well, I would suggest a larger capacity SSD.

I mainly use my 1TB WD Black as the games and other programs drive with my 2TB Green as a media/storage drive.

I have to agree with the people who mentioned Samsung Magician Software being great.
While Windows 7 is supposed to setup it's services to cater for SSDs automatically, it appears it does not always do so.
In my case Samsung magician reported certain services which were meant to be turned off, as still active.

Probably something along the lines of a 250-256GB... is what I am thinking?

I will have my Steam acct. and a couple of games on the SSD. Nothing too major.

The WD Green will be for basic storage.

Widjaja · Mar 25, 2013

Lazermonkey said:
Probably something along the lines of a 250-256GB... is what I am thinking?

I will have my Steam acct. and a couple of games on the SSD. Nothing too major.

The WD Green will be for basic storage.

256GB should be sufficient.
None the less games still should run fine on the Green drive, just in between load times maybe slower.

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Processor	AMD FX-8370 Black Edition
Motherboard	MSI 990FXA Gaming Board
Cooling	Corsair H-105 liquid cooler
Memory	Gskill ripjaws 16GB 1866 RAM
Video Card(s)	EVGA GTX 980 Ti FTW
Storage	Samsung 840 250GB SSD/ Samsung 850 EVO 500GB Storage
Display(s)	Acer 25 inch 2560x1440
Case	Corsair 760-T
Audio Device(s)	onboard
Power Supply	EVGA Supernova Full Modular 750w
Mouse	CM Storm
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System Name	desktop \| Odroid N2+ \|
Processor	AMD Ryzen 5 3600 \| Amlogic S922X \|
Motherboard	Gigabyte B550M DS3H \|Odroid N2+ \|
Cooling	Inter-Tech Argus SU-200, 3x Arctic P12 case fans \| stock heatsink + fan \|
Memory	Gskill Aegis DDR4 32GB \| 4 GB DDR4 \|
Video Card(s)	Sapphire Pulse RX 6600 (8GB) \| Arm Mali G52 \|
Storage	SK Hynix SSD 240GB, Samsung 840 EVO 250 GB, Toshiba DT01ACA100 1T \| Samsung 850 Evo 500GB \|
Display(s)	AOC G2260VWQ6 \| LG 24MT57D \|
Case	Asus Prime 201 \| Stock case (black version) \|
Audio Device(s)	integrated
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