Ask Engadget: Best SSD under $150?
By Darren Murph 
posted November 26th 2009 11:11PM
posted November 26th 2009 11:11PM
SSDs still aren't cheap, but the smaller ones have definitely come down quite aways in price. Anyone got a particular 32GB or 64GB platter that they're hearting at the moment? Go ahead, let your crush be known."I'm looking for a solid state drive, around 32 to 64GB, for use in my web server. The drive will contain my web sites and the operating system, either Windows Server 2008 R2 or Ubuntu. Large storage is handled by a separate RAID array, so capacity is not an issue. Rather, I am looking for the fastest, longest-lasting, and most reliable drive under $150 that is suitable to my application. Any thoughts? Thanks!"
Kingston SSDNow V Series 40GB
Intel based, cheap, better than anything else you will get in this price range.
@a12ctic Um, no. The SSDNow V series is a JMicron-based product. The JMicron controller is known for its stuttering because of a lack of DRAM cache; Kingston claims to have fixed this but I would still steer clear.
@eddieck I believe that the SSDNow 40GG is based off the Intel Controller. The 64GB uses the older Jmicron controller.
@ScienceProUSAcom You're right. I remember seeing SSDNow V's having the JMicron controller but it looks like they're just a reduced capacity Intel-based drive. In that case, not a bad option.
@ScienceProUSAcom
Yeap, it just uses half the number of chips as the 80GB version, which is why the throughput is slower. But its latencies and random reads should still be excellent resulting in stutter free use as an OS drive. This or a 30GB Vertex are probably the best options for the root partition on a home server where you just don't need SLC. Just don't use a swap partition/pagefile, which you really won't need with a decent amount of RAM.
The 40 gig kingston SSD now uses the intel controller with half the input chips. I bought one of these drives and I love it the 4kb random read speeds are awesome, I suggest reading a review its a great little drive.
@a12ctic
Agreed. I have one of these and it definitely feels fast. Boots up Windows 7 in half the time it takes me using my old hard disk.
@a12ctic Yah, the Kingston is the best choice by far. Good write and review here: http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=818
@(Unverified)
Bless you.
Just bought a Kingston SSD 64GB for $160 at a Fry's in Dallas. Worth every penny.
@donthedev That is an excellent choice. The Kingston SSD Now E series are the same performance wise as Intel's flagship X25-E. Unless you really need the extra capacity it's probably the best choice.
src: http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=736
@sinusoidal
That's about $10 over the guy's budget, unless it's on sale for less for Black Friday and/or Cyber Monday. I doubt anyone would care about a $10 difference, but I'm going by the exact wording of the question.
@(Unverified)
Damn you.
@(Unverified)
Love you.
There are two types of SSDs: MLC and SLC. MLC offers higher capacity at a lower cost, with the disadvantage of performance and reliability (compared to SLC, at least; MLC is still faster than a standard hard drive and more reliable). Most consumer SSDs on the market are MLC.
Considering your $150 price range and capacity requirements, SLC is out of the question. Using prices from Newegg as of today (might change with Black Friday), $150 will buy you at most a 16GB SLC drive that performs worse than a good MLC SSD according to its rated speeds. (Rated speeds are not always accurate but I wouldn't expect rated speeds to be less than the actual speed in most cases.)
Regarding MLCs, there are a few controller manufacturers: Intel (only in the Intel X25 drives; Kingston sells rebranded Intel SSDs for a little less than Intel themselves but they are the 50nm model and you cannot use Intel's firmware), Samsung (what most OEMs use), Indilinx (pretty good), and JMicron (total crap; cheap controller that performs worse than a standard hard drive due to lack of DRAM cache).
There is only one SSD I can reasonably suggest for $150, and that is the Corsair Extreme Series 32GB MLC drive which is $150 at Newegg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227460). It uses an Indilinx Barefoot controller, so it should be pretty good.
If you're willing to up your budget to $200, a 30GB (which is actually 32GB, however 2GB is used by the controller; same with the Corsair drive, just OCZ rates it more honestly) OCZ Vertex Turbo should offer a bit better performance for $190 ($170 after MIR): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227468. This drive also uses an Indilinx controller.
In my opinion, the best drives on the market are the Intel X25 drives, which starts at $290 for an 80GB version and a little under $700 for the 160GB version - both outside your budget. The X25 drives offer the best read performance but at the expense of some write performance - a decent tradeoff in my opinion, not to mention the Intel brand.
@eddieck Thanks for listing the various controllers. If I'm not mistaken mTron makes their own controllers but they're only available in their drives and they are exclusively SLC. They're not very en vogue but I thought it was worth a mention.
@(Unverified) Sorry, Mtron has been dislisted on Stock and dishonored few month ago.
After a quick survey of Newegg, the 32GB Corsair Extreme looks like the best deal for (just) under $150. It has the fastest speed ratings of any 32GB SSD below $150 and has an Indilinx controller, so you won't run into the performance problems that the JMicron-based SSDs have.
I have a gskill 64gb I got for $150.00 had it almost a year now, fast and great
I have a nice one on sale for 60 bucks. My dog chewed on it, cosmetic damage only.
Let me know.
@Poop Chef
Your dog chewed... your SSD? DA HELL?
@(Unverified) Fuck you!
Newegg will have an Ocz 30GB MLC SSD for BF at $100 after $30 rebate. I just bought an Intel 80GB SSD yesterday, so I am anxiously awaiting that.
A X25-G2 can be had for $215. Plus cashback.
Don't waste your money otherwise.
@(Unverified) poop you
@MJGAMER 1991 XBL nice avatar man
INTEL X25 G2
DO NOT BUY ANYTHING OTHER!!!!!!!
I'd get the OCZ Vertez 30GB, currently 144.99 at Newegg after $20 mail in rebate. The Vertex series (and OCZ drives in general) have been well reviewed, and this hits your price point nicely.
Black Friday sale: this drive is now $129.99 after rebate!
At the price point mentioned in this thread the kingston 40gb SSD now is the way to go, its a great little boot drive.
Look X25 G2 is amazing but it's clearly beyond the $150 price point. If you're pinching pennies then the Kingston 40GB mentioned earlier is great.
I can't see the point of installing a SSD on a web server...
@lautaro
The same reason you'd put one in a workstation or gaming rig,
Speed, performance, reliability, etc.
Especially if your web apps are server side intensive (i.e ASP.Net)
@lautaro Random access.
I'm with lautaro - I don't see how this would make a huge difference on a traditional web server. It'll boot, fire up httpd and then from that point, it's not really hitting the system disk that much - just reading/writing from/to the network and processing stuff (PHP scripts, etc) in CPU. The large storage (where I presume the web content is) is on an separate disk so that's not in play. I'm assuming that's also where a database would be - running a database on SSD sounds like a bad idea since it's probably a lot like swap - lots of small changes that will really reduce the life of a SSD drive.
lautaro is right, the performance increase for SSD should be very minimal if the web server has enough RAM to keep a proper cache.
@hellfroze
Try reading the question the next time. The guy specifically said the SSD will store the OS AND the web files. Other than your false assumption, you and lautaro have a valid point about it not making a difference. It would depend on the rest of the configuration and it's use.
@lautaro
SSDs with good random read and write performance (i.e. the sort that usually cost more than $150, with some exceptions) should generate huge performance increases for databases used by webapps, particularly if the database is larger than available RAM or if there are frequent writes.
Of course maybe there are not so many webapps with a database that fits in a 32GB drive but does not fit in RAM...
SSD won't make much performance improvement to serving static files (again unless memory/disk cache is ridiculously low).
@lautaro
SSDs use less wattage and run silent. Useful if one is running a tiny web server somewhere in the house and would like it to run quietly and with little power.
@(Unverified)
NO U
Well, you have really fast internet connections over there… ; )
Seriously, I understand that a web intensive .net application or complex SQL queries (or large amounts of simultaneous users) can take advantage of an SSD, otherwise you will be reading at a speed many times higher than you can transmit. In that case I would recommend investing those dollars in your gaming PC.
I don't know much about SSDs, but I doubt there are many options that would meet those price/capacity requirements. I'm not even sure this guy should get an SSD for his web server at all. It would depend how the rest of the system is configured and what kind of site it's running. Based on the fact that he's not sure whether to use Windows Server or Ubuntu, I would guess that he is not experienced in running web servers. Otherwise, I would assume he would already prefer one OS over the other or he would know which is best optimized for the given task. The fact that he is considering Ubuntu over something like Red Hat Enterprise, Fedora, SUSE, Etc. is also suspect. I'm thinking he'd probably be better off getting 2 or 3 HDDs for the same price or getting 1 HDD and saving the cash. 2 HDDs is safer than one SDD, right?
@CapnShiner
Thanks for your comment...FYI I've been running this server for 3.5 years, currently the OS and web data is on an older 80GB Western Digital, while all of my household media storage is on a 3x1TB RAID 5 Array.
Currently I'm using Windows Server 2008, and I'm looking to upgrade to Windows Server 2008 R2 at the same time that I add this SSD and upgrade from my current dual core to a Quad Core. Currently I'm running 4GB of RAM, but since I'll be moving to 64bit, I may get more.
I want the SSD primarily for fast boot up and quick serving performance; while my Internet Connection will undoubtedly be the bottleneck, I want to know that it's not my system. Also it will make it more responsive when configuring things over RDC.
I'm currently using Apache with PHP and MySQL for the database. I'm not the most knowledgeable but I have some clue what I'm doing :)
@CapnShiner
FYI I'm considering Linux because it might offer better performance, I'm not sure. I've used Ubuntu for about 5 years and am comfortable with it; I've never touched the other distros you mention so I plan on sticking with what I know.
@ScienceProUSAcom
From what you've said, it sounds like you're running the server out of your home for personal use. You said the RAID array is for household media storage, which makes it sound like you're using this setup for a personal media server and I'm guessing the web files are for an HTML interface so you can stream your media through a browser. Either that or it's a torrent tracker. Am I right?
If you're using PHP and MySQL, I would recommend using Linux instead of Windows for your server OS. I used to work at GoDaddy and I would always tell customers that they only need Windows hosting if they are using MSSQL, ASP/ASP.net, or an Access database. Linux does tend to offer better performance and greater flexibility.
If you're comfortable with Ubuntu, that's fine, but do you mean Ubuntu Desktop or Ubuntu server? Those are totally different environments. When working with a Linux server, most things you do are generally through a terminal and a command line interface. Putty is a pretty good tool for that, btw. There are GUI control panels available that you can install but I don't think they are free. My knowledge is only from my experience working for hosting providers and I only did customer service/tech support, but I know that GoDaddy charges extra for a control panel and won't sell a dedicated or virtual dedicated (Linux)server to someone who doesn't know their way around a Linux terminal.
Kingston V 40GB. Best gig/price and best performance/price
Kingston 64GB $119.99 after rebate:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139006
@LeeH That is definitely a JMicron-based drive (only the 40GB SSDNow V is Intel-based). Although Kingston claims to have fixed the problems with the JMicron controller I would steer clear just based on the reputation of that JMF602B controller.
Kingston SSDNow V-Series SNV125-S2BD - 64GB for 120 on newegg... not the fastest, but the best bang for your buck in my book.
Same Kingston 64GB shown above for $79.99
(after $30 rebate) at Fry's... at least here in Bay Area, CA.
Keeps dropping by ten bucks every couple weeks here.
http://newspaperads.contracostatimes.com/ROP/ads.aspx?advid=18196&adid=8629480&subid=27523722&type=