Best SSD for your notebook computer

When I last looked for SSDs, Kingston SSDs were cheaper than the competition based on equivalent speed and capacity. Today OCZ and a few other brands are down at a similar price to the Kingston products. Which is the best choice for your notebook computer?

Low power

Low power is the most talked about issue for notebook computers. Netbook and notebook manufacturers lie about battery life. You might get the claimed 8 hours use if you do not use the computer for anything productive. Disks chew up power and SSDs should use less power.

The OCZ Vertex 2 60 GB is faster than the Kingston SSDNow V G2 64GB and equivalents from other brands but uses far less power. The Kingston SSDNow V G2 64GB consumes power at a rate up there with the less power hungry magnetic disks. The OCZ Vertex 2 uses less than half the power of the most efficient magnetic disk, both when idling and when transferring data. Most other brands are somewhere in the middle. When you battery life is limited, buy the OCZ Vertex 2.

Speed

If you can work faster, your battery does not have to last as long. The fastest SSD per dollar was the Kingston SSDNow V G2 64GB but the OCZ Vertex 2 60 GB is now only a few dollars more and has that important low power plus a speed advantage. Shop around. A $150 dollar SSD can drop $20 one week then jump back up the next.

Kingston sold a slow old G1 version that was an Intel design with limited performance. Now they sell their own design as the G2 and use a much better controller, giving you consistent good speed. The device is always at least as fast as the fastest disk and is often twice or three times as fast when reading data. Some brands bring out a slow SSD then improve the speed through firmware changes. Make sure you get current models when you buy SSDs.

Size also affects speed. When you are looking at 64 GB or 128 GB, the speed is often the same because the internal processing is the same. Drop down to 32 GB and you often find reduced speed. Internally, the controller might access four banks of memory in parallel for 64 GB but only two in parallel for 32 GB. The smaller drives often drop below magnetic disks in speed.

Netbooks can use an SSD but most netbooks are too slow to use the maximum speed of the fastest SSDs. Low power is the critical issue for netbooks, not speed.

SATA 3.0

Your current computer uses SATA 2.0 with a speed limit of 300 Gigabits per second, which works out at 300 MegaBytes per second. The largest Crucial RealSSD can read data faster than 300 MBps and use a new SATA 3.0 controller chip, increasing the speed limit to 600 MBps. If you are buying a brand new computer and it has SATA 3.0, consider paying extra for a large Crucial RealSSD or waiting until 2011 for SATA 3.0 from the other brands.

Price

Kingston was the price leader for a short while. Now A-Ram, G.Skill, OCZ, Patriot, and a bunch of others have similar models at similar prices. If your local shop has one of these devices on sale, look closely at the one on sale.

In the case of A-ram, they have many different models with different speeds and you rally need to look close at which model is on sale. I purchased an A-Ram that was fast and was low in price. A-Ram have several different 64 GB models with different controllers, different prices, and wildly different performance specifications. The ARSSD60GBU2, part of the Ultra II series, had the best write performance and was the cheapest A-Ram 64 GB model. Their guarantee is 2 years instead of 3.

The G.Skill Phoenix Pro 60GB SSD uses the same controller and lists the same performance specifications as the A-Ram Ultra II 60 GB. G.Skill offer a 3 year guarantee instead of the A-Ram 2 years.

The Patriot Inferno 60GB looks identical to the G.Skill Phoenix Pro 60GB SSD and has a 3 year guarantee.

Avoid

The affordable Intel X25-V is slower than a magnetic disk. You have to by the expensive Intel X25-M to get an Intel SSD that is better than a magnetic disk.

Crucial RealSSD is fast when you measure the expensive 256 GB model then the write speed falls off in the smaller models, with slow write speeds in the 64 GB model. The read speed remains the same while the write speed drops from 215 MBps to 140 MBps in the 128 GB model to 75 Mbps in the 64 GB model. Crucial RealSSD is not a good choice in the popular 64 GB size.

Western Digital SSDs are mentioned a lot overseas. They purchased Silicon Image and sell an SSD similar to Kingston and OCZ. The Western Digital SSDs are low power when idle but chew through the power when working. Their price is higher than other SSDs with the same speed, capacity, and guarantee.

Conclusion

OCZ is the best choice in the popular 64 GB size with the G.Skill Phoenix Pro and Patriot Inferno almost identical. Crucial is a good choice if your notebook has SATA 3.0, you want 256 GB, and you want maximum speed.