New CULV: Corsair F120, Intel X25-M or Seagate Hybrid?

So I've ordered a Fujitsu PH530 as my new beater, as I wanted something more compact than the 13-inch machines I have but wasn't prepared to go with the 11-inch Barbiebook Air, especially as I think it has every chance of getting bent pretty soon in the use I plan for it.

The Fujitsu comes with your bog-standard 320Gb 5400rpm HDD. Realistically speaking it is highly unlikely for me to go over the 120Gb mark in the uses I'm expecting for the machine. More is always better of course - but not if it involves an undue performance compromise.

So it's a toss-up between three drives at the moment.

My 'default' choice is the Corsair F120 120Gb. It's pretty cheap for an SSD, and it appears to be fast enough to make it worthwhile.

Next choice for some reserve storage while sticking with SSD is the Intel X25-M. I have these in use already, they're fine, but they don't appear to be hugely faster than the Corsairs while costing 75% more for 40 more Gb.

Finally, the Seagate hybrid. 500Gb will probably never be used, but I guess I can stick my entire lossy music library on there. Concerns are fragility in use and real-life speeds. If we're talking 'almost SSD' real-life performance, I'm sold. If it's more 'better than HDD', then I'll go with the other two. Ditto if there's a significant impact on battery life.

Costwise, for reasons of sanity I'd like to keep it under the 128Gb Air with 3-year Applecare (£1278) - and the i3 Fujitsu with 3-year warranty + Corsair F120 is well under, at ~£870.

Which should I pick? Or do you have another suggestion?

 

I have the Seagate Momentus XT and another laptop with similar specs but with an Corsair Nova V128. The SSD is noticeably faster booting and launching applications. The Momentus is half the price and still faster than any other HDD I have used but not true SSD speed.

Go for a real SSD if you can afford it. Which one really depends on your budget and storage requirement.

120GB is at a good price currently. 160GB costs a lot more. So I would get the 120GB and then if you ever need it you can always store extra data you dont need all the time on an external hard disk or usb sticks. I know some people that have a 60gb SSD and need extra space use a 32gb sd card for extra storage.

 

They do have a 120GB X25-m...
Personally, I would go for the Samsung 470 series 128GB.
Samsung 470 Series 256GB SSD Review - TechSpot

It seems to have the best power usage so you should get more battery life with it...
I haven't read too much about it on the forums which kind of surprises me as from what I can gather, it's the best of the lot.

 

Well, the XT supposedly takes more power. I mean, you bought a CULV for long battery life, so adding a power hungry disk drive seems counterproductive in my opinion.

 

Vogelbung,

You'll be basically using the computer how I now use my U30Jc with a 100GB SF based SSD (Patriot Inferno).

I love the XT's but I have to agree with the others here; get an SSD for this usage scenario.

If you're really going to use 120GB of capacity, I wouldn't recommend a 120GB drive. The Intel 160GB is your best choice, I think. Think of the extra cost for the Intel's as the price we pay for reliability (I've read many posts with problems with the Corsair Force drives).

For the fastest experience, the Samsung 470 256GB SSD would be where I would be most inclined to lean towards (simply because of the free space it will have) - but of course, that might blow your budget out of the water.

SSD - definitely. 160GB or larger would be my guiding choice.

Good luck.

 

I don't really see myself using more than 120Gb. Taking the Lenovo's as an example, they're now in full use and on 60Gb. The beater will be for work too, and maybe I'll cache a few current Spotify tracks on it but I don't see anything else storage-intensive happening. Most of my work is up on my own private cloud, and I've rationalised my Exchange Store for my main accounts, so now they're not taking up more than ~8Gb or so.

Any pointers to potential issues for the Corsair drives? I thought they were getting a good rep...

 

All Sandforce based drive have compatibility issues with some motherboard/bios combination. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the market (Sandforce is small so they don't have extensive testing of every possible combination and is very reluctant to release such information and the SSD vendor like OCZ/Corsair are box movers and would not do that either as it would benefit their competitors), no one knows which one works or not.

In a sense, if you are sure it works for your particular model(people using it happily for over 6 months) and you don't anticipate banging it with lots of incompressible stuff, get one(be it Corsair Force or OCZ '2' series or other brand of choice).

 

I see. Hmmm. Perhaps best to go Intel after all...

 

Yeah I'm looking to get an Intel SSD too but G3 are coming out so it's playing the waiting game

 

I'd go with a real SSD. A SandForce-based SSD like the Corsair F120 or the OCZ Vertex 2 would be an excellent choice. The 120GB size for those drives is currently the sweet spot for price/capacity, so you're definitely looking at the right drive capacity.

As you mentioned, things tend to get pretty pricey when you look at capacities above 120GB. But to be honest, there really is no reason NOT to get a SandForce-based drive if you are shopping for SSD's.

I would stay away from the Seagate Momentus XT hybrid if you are considering SSD's That drive is really intended for people who are unwilling to accept the lower storage capacities and higher prices of SSD's. But it sounds like you are willing to make that trade-off to get the performance benefit of an SSD.

The major problem with the Seagate Momentus XT is that its random read/write speeds are really no better than standard 7200rpm mechanical hard drives. And it is random read/write speeds (not the big-number sequential read/write speeds) that determine how "smooth" your computer feels when loading apps or throwing multiple I/O's at it during multitasking. That "smooth" feeling is really what you pay for when you buy an SSD. And an SSD will deliver the "smooth" experience better than any other drive technology out there.

So, go for the Corsair F120.

 

That samsung 470 looks really nice, reviews say its one of the top SSD's out right now and Samsung is a reliable brand, user reviews have shown that. Also has a standard 3 year warranty. Anyone else know anything about this SSD? Im looking for a 120-160gb SSD and the 128gb samsung is my top choice, does it use less power than the Intel X25 and the corsair? I want to save as much battery as I can. Samsung website says this can save about 30 min battery life..hope its true...

 

The review on StorageReview seem to put the Samsung 470's performance slightly below a SandForce drive. But that difference is not going to be something you will notice in real-world scenarios.
Samsung 470 Series SSD Review 256GB (MZ5PA256HMDR) | StorageReview.com

As for power - I'm impressed by the power consumption. It has the lowest power consumption numbers I've seen for an SSD. Very nice.

And the "can save about 30 minutes of battery life" claim... that is probably an exaggeration, because they use the absolutely most power inefficient hard drive they can find as a comparison. Most people coming from a mechanical hard drive will notice about 10min - 20min of battery life difference if they buy a power-efficient SSD.

However, you probably won't notice any difference in battery life if you already own a power-efficient SSD like an Intel X-25M or a Corsair F120. The difference is so small, it might as well be a rounding error.

Overall, looks like a nice drive. I'm sure you'd be happy with it. Just be sure to get the 256GB version. I read somewhere that the 64GB version has significantly lower performance than the 256GB version.

 

thanks for the advice, I did read the the 64gb has lower right times but the 128gb and 256gb are the same so ill go with the 128gb and then throw in a 32gb class 10 SD card for more storage. Ill get about 150gb which is enough, the SD card wont make much of a difference with power consumption right? I have a 7200 hard drive so if I replace it with this SSD and an SD card, itll balance it out and ill be left with the same battery life?

Also, do you think prices will go lower in January? I have a coupon for the 128gb which will come out to be $244 with shipping and tax, good deal? Or should I wait a month? I know the intel G3 is coming out but reviews say that its not a big improvement

 

There are no reviews of the Intel G3 - just speculation.

 

Why would you bother using an SD card in there?

The SD card will be SLOW.

 

Most class 10 SD cards have an average write speed of 17mb/sec and I think it was 22mb/sec read speed. I think that should be enough since Ill only use to store my music collection and large storage files. Or do you think I should get the Sandisk Extreme which is 30mb/sec write, but at triple the price...

 

Good point. Guess Ill wait till after the holidays.hopefully prices will drop

Is it against the rules to double post? I thought they would auto-merge...

 

My guess is cost and size/weight. SD is tiny and doesn't need extra cable or stick out of the notebook(like USB stick) and it is most likely being used as 'secondary' or 'last resort' storage.

While talking about SD and power consumption, I found an interesting phenomenon. I just got an el cheapo 4GB class 10 SD and used it for readyboost on my Samsung with a Scorpio Black. This machine being 3.5 years old, the fan is getting dirty and would get very noisy after I used it for a while(load then fans starts). With the above changes, the fan seldom spin anymore and even it does, it is at a much lower speed and is much quieter than before. The notebook is cooler too. So SD seems to be very power efficient and while readyboost may not give me any performance gain, it does make my machine cooler(I believe less access to HDD).

 

Ah. Well, it sounds like SD cards would work just fine for you. You are using the SD card to store media (music) that does not require super-fast read/write speeds, and you are aware of the speeds. I do not believe that you need to buy faster SD cards - it would not benefit you.

My only concern was if you wanted to use the SD card for running applications or (god forbid) Readyboost. But since you are not using the SD card for those purposes, and just using it as bulk storage for media, you will be fine.

 

I am using it for ReadyBoost and there are noticeable advantage(see above) even if there is no performance gain(at least I don't notice slow down)

 

^^^ Seconded. I'm using the included 2GB SD Card that came with my Envy for ReadyBoost atm as well. Why not squeeze out all the performance that I possibly can; esp. since i'm not using a true SSD drive.

Whether or not it's doing me any good with my setup as is who knows, but it's comforting to know it's there.

But yea, to the OP, definitely get an SSD.

 

Bearing in mind as I said that I'm highly unlikely to exceed 120Gb, that the installation machine is basically a fancy netbook (so no need for extremely high-performance), and the comments regarding the potential compatibility issues of the Sandforces - I've ordered a 120Gb X25-M, of the existence of which I was unaware of until the earlier post + subsequent search. Thanks for the comments.