# Fastest 120-128 GB SSD on the market



## Ruszli (Jun 3, 2015)

Windows 10 is coming and my current operating system is still running on a HDD (to be specific: WD10EZEX 1 TB). While I found that the 128 GB system partition I reserved is more than plentiful for Windows and every application I use (Still 43 GB is free), I do believe it is time to leave 2005 and join club of super fast boot times.

As of now 1 TB SSD prices are still not competitive enough (or maybe I am just cheap / poor) to be a reasonable alternative to high capacity HDDs This means that for a few more years I will be storing my games and media on this ancient technology.

My problem is quite simple however:  I need a boot drive preferably this month, or at least before I upgrade to Windows 10; yet I do not want to throw away given drive in 1-2 years when I'll be picking up a high capacity SSD. For that I need something that is lightning fast and will *probably* have comparable performance to future drives.

Yes, I am aware that a new breakthrough could render this notion completely pointless, but at least I should _try_ to get the most out of my buck.

So, which SSD should I go with? Is there a single 120-128 GB drive that is measurably better in performance?
Also, can I trust this site?
http://ssd.userbenchmark.com/

According to it, I should just pick up a "OCZ Vector 150 120GB" (highest effective speed in this tier) and be done with it.

TL;DR: I want the Bestest, Fastest, Cheapest boot drive that is "future-proof" by tomorrow!


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## Solaris17 (Jun 3, 2015)

With the amount of advancements in SSD technology a future proof SSD is an impossibility. A beautiful pipe dream. That said I/O has just as much to do with performance as R/W that said people really seem to enjoy the samsung evo drives.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Jun 3, 2015)

Samsung 850 Pro. But if you have an M.2 slot on your motherboard, get an M.2 drive/stick if you want fastest.


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## thebluebumblebee (Jun 3, 2015)

Today, Newegg has a 240 GB SSD for $70 after MIR.  IMHO, it does not make sense to purchase a 120 GB SSD for only a few dollars less.  Apacer predicted that the ~250 GB class of SSD's would be $70 by years end, and they appear to be right.


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## newtekie1 (Jun 3, 2015)

If you are looking at SATA drives, there really isn't much difference between drives.  Even if you go to an M.2 drive, there really isn't a noticeable performance difference unless you are transferring files from one super fast SSD to another.

The raw throughput of an SSD is only part of what makes it "feel" fast and what makes Windows and programs load fast.  The almost zero latency is a major factor, probably more so than throughput once throughput reaches a certain point.  Anything above 400MB/s read/write isn't going to make a noticeable difference in daily use as a system drive.


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## Nordic (Jun 3, 2015)

There really isn't much difference between drives. Seek most reliable, not most speed.


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## Arjai (Jun 3, 2015)

james888 said:


> There really isn't much difference between drives. Seek most reliable, not most speed.


+1!!


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## Ruszli (Jun 3, 2015)

Solaris17 said:


> With the amount of advancements in SSD technology a future proof SSD is an impossibility. A beautiful pipe dream. That said I/O has just as much to do with performance as R/W that said people really seem to enjoy the samsung evo drives.





MxPhenom 216 said:


> Samsung 850 Pro. But if you have an M.2 slot on your motherboard, get an M.2 drive/stick if you want fastest.



I've been thinking about Samsung, since I got the impression that those drives are supposed to be the best. 

On the side note,  I doubt my M5A99FX PRO R2.0 supports M.2 drives.




thebluebumblebee said:


> Today, Newegg has a 240 GB SSD for $70 after MIR.  IMHO, it does not make sense to purchase a 120 GB SSD for only a few dollars less.  Apacer predicted that the ~250 GB class of SSD's would be $70 by years end, and they appear to be right.



Must be great to have US prices, but sadly I am not so fortunate.
In my country, a "Kingston 2.5" SSDNow V300" 120 GB costs* ~56 USD* while the 240 GB counterpart costs *~96 USD*; and that is actually the cheapest 240 GB drive here.

Besides I don't really see a reason for a bigger drive. I'll only store the necessary applications there and the OS of course.



james888 said:


> There really isn't much difference between drives. Seek most reliable, not most speed.



Good point, but can I get some examples? I was hoping someone could point out a specific brand / model.

Without benchmarks I am having a hard time choosing between the drives.


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## Jborg (Jun 3, 2015)

Ruszli said:


> I've been thinking about Samsung, since I got the impression that those drives are supposed to be the best.
> 
> On the side note,  I doubt my M5A99FX PRO R2.0 supports M.2 drives.
> 
> ...


 
Samsungs are good drives.....

I just picked up an 850 PRO myself.... the 840 evo I currently have was giving me some issues with boot up times.... (I am hoping a Windows reinstall will fix this) However just stay away from the Samsung EVO's since they are known to have performance degradation on some of them over time. Just to be safe imo....

The 840 evo originally  had around 10 second boot times....

If you go with samsung just choose the PRO series.


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## Ruszli (Jun 3, 2015)

Jborg said:


> Samsungs are good drives.....
> 
> I just picked up an 850 PRO myself.... the 840 evo I currently have was giving me some issues with boot up times.... (I am hoping a Windows reinstall will fix this) However just stay away from the Samsung EVO's since they are known to have performance degradation on some of them over time. Just to be safe imo....
> 
> ...



That is a bummer. The 850 EVO seemed like the perfect choice price / performance ratio wise. Thing is, you can get a 250 GB Evo for the price of the 120 GB PRO.


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## n-ster (Jun 3, 2015)

Samsung pro drives are usually really expensive. Intel 730 is probably expensive where you are too.

My third choice after Intel 730 and Samsung PRO would be Sandisk Extreme PRO


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 3, 2015)

Plextor SSDs should not be overlooked. They make good SSDs too


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## rtwjunkie (Jun 3, 2015)

Regardless of brand, you are better off going no smaller than a 240 to 256GB SSD.  Smaller SSD's tho cheaper, are generally (not always, but usually) slower.


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## P4-630 (Jun 3, 2015)

FreedomEclipse said:


> Plextor SSDs should not be overlooked. They make good SSDs too



I have a plextor (Lite-On) SSD in my G750JX laptop and it performs just as good as my 840 evo.


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## Nordic (Jun 4, 2015)

Ruszli said:


> Good point, but can I get some examples? I was hoping someone could point out a specific brand / model.
> 
> Without benchmarks I am having a hard time choosing between the drives.


Did you know TPU does ssd reviews? http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/?category=SSD&manufacturer=&pp=25&order=date


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## Ebo (Jun 4, 2015)

Take a look at the prices for Crucial MX100 is they are still arround in your country. Otherwise look at the Crucial BX100.

Those are the best SSD's out there in terms of price/preformance.

especially Samsung have different speeds going from 120GB and to 250GB, that problem does Crucial not have, they have the same speed no matter size.


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## Ruszli (Jun 5, 2015)

rtwjunkie said:


> Regardless of brand, you are better off going no smaller than a 240 to 256GB SSD.  Smaller SSD's tho cheaper, are generally (not always, but usually) slower.



Now this is a reasonable argument that might make me sway to buy a 250 GB drive. Would a Samsung 850 EVO be a decent choice for the time being?



Ebo said:


> Take a look at the prices for Crucial MX100 is they are still arround in your country. Otherwise look at the Crucial BX100.
> 
> Those are the best SSD's out there in terms of price/preformance.
> 
> especially Samsung have different speeds going from 120GB and to 250GB, that problem does Crucial not have, they have the same speed no matter size.



I wanted to buy Crucial first, but then I saw the Write speeds and that made me quite disappointed.


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## peche (Jun 5, 2015)

Crucial m4 drives ... samsumg evo 840....
Regards,


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## Dent1 (Jun 5, 2015)

SSDs are becoming cheaper so I would avoid a 128GB model even if it fulfils your storage requirements today.  I wouldn't get anything smaller than a 240GB SSD for the OS. Because applications are expanding all the time.  You don't want to be caught out in a couple of years.  You've already said you don't want to throw the SSD away in 1-2 years so aim higher storage wise. So many cheap 480GB - 500GB SSDs around too.

Going from any disk drive to any SSD is a huge jump so I wouldn't be too worried about getting the absolute fastest. They are all fast, even the slow ones.


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## Jborg (Jun 5, 2015)

I picked up the Samsung 850 Pro 250g for 150$, its a little pricey.... but its worth it with the 10 year warranty...


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## Ruszli (Jun 5, 2015)

peche said:


> Crucial m4 drives ... samsumg evo 840....
> Regards,



I don't think you can buy m4-s here. Is the 840 is actually better than the 850? I don't see anyone recommending that.



Dent1 said:


> SSDs are becoming cheaper so I would avoid a 128GB model even if it fulfils your storage requirements today.  I wouldn't get anything smaller than a 240GB SSD for the OS. Because applications are expanding all the time.  You don't want to be caught out in a couple of years.  You've already said you don't want to throw the SSD away in 1-2 years so aim higher storage wise. So many cheap 480GB - 500GB SSDs around too.
> 
> Going from any disk drive to any SSD is a huge jump so I wouldn't be too worried about getting the absolute fastest. They are all fast, even the slow ones.



Cheap is a very relative notion. Keep in mind I live in the EU so prices are already higher (about 15-30% more) and in a country where the average wage is like 2-3 times lower than for example in Germany.

Given that, I still have a reasonable amount of disposable income. I'd say the 120 GB drives are cheap while the 250 GB drives are reasonably priced. Anything above that is a push.


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## R00kie (Jun 5, 2015)

Ruszli said:


> Is the 840 is actually better than the 850? I don't see anyone recommending that.


840's have been phased out as soon as 850's came out, so you might actually be able to snag an 840 pro or an evo for cheap somewhere.


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## Nosada (Jun 5, 2015)

Like many have mentioned before me. Don't go for 120gb, you'll regret it later on. Crucial MX100/MX200 and Samsung Evo 840/850 are my go-to drives for builds. If you are on a platter HDD right now, go for one of those.

If you already have an SSD and are looking for an upgrade, wait for reasonably priced nvme drives, they promise to be the first really substantial upgrade over current SATA SSDs.


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## rtwjunkie (Jun 5, 2015)

Ruszli said:


> Now this is a reasonable argument that might make me sway to buy a 250 GB drive. Would a Samsung 850 EVO be a decent choice for the time being?
> 
> 
> 
> I wanted to buy Crucial first, but then I saw the Write speeds and that made me quite disappointed.



Speed is a relative term with SSD's.  In real life, you will rarely notice the difference in any of them (Unless you buy a small one).  Why?  Because they all destroy HDD speeds.  Against each other, you're likely to only see it in benchmarks.

Because they are all close my advice is get one of the two major brands, either Samsung 840/850 or Crucial MX100/MX200, whatever one is cheapest at the time.


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## newtekie1 (Jun 5, 2015)

Even the smaller ones won't be a noticeable difference.  Usually they are like 50MB/s at most slower, its like 450MB/s vs. 500MB/s.  You won't notice that difference in real world.


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## Ruszli (Jun 5, 2015)

So lets be specific.

I am really not impressed by Crucial, but here is a list of 120 GB SSD-s that more or less cost the same and have the highest rated speeds:
Samsung 2.5" 850 EVO
Kingston HyperX 3K
Intel 2.5  530  
Toshiba 2.5" Q Pro
OCZ 2.5" R7
OCZ Vertex 460A
Geil Zenith S3
SanDisk Ultra II 
Silicon Power S70


But given the suggestions, I guess I will just go with a Samsung 2.5" 850 EVO 250 GB instead. Should be an optimal choice given my needs.

Other alternatives:

*Crucial 2.5" MX200 *

Kingston 2.5" HyperX Fury 
OCZ ARC 100  
SanDisk 2.5" Ultra II


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## rtwjunkie (Jun 5, 2015)

What's not impressive about Crucial?  Our very own W1zzard rated the MX-100 one of the best SSD's he has ever tested!  And the MX-200 improves upon it in nearly every stat.


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## Ruszli (Jun 5, 2015)

rtwjunkie said:


> What's not impressive about Crucial?  Our very own W1zzard rated the MX-100 one of the best SSD's he has ever tested!  And the MX-200 improves upon it in nearly every stat.



I was talking about the 120 GB tier. The 250 GB is a different story, hence why made "Crucial 2.5" MX200" bold.


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## rtwjunkie (Jun 5, 2015)

Ruszli said:


> I was talking about the 120 GB tier. The 250 GB is a different story, hence why made "Crucial 2.5" MX200".



I I thought you meant the physical size, which I thought was strange because most SSD are 2.5" that are SATA, lol.


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## peche (Jun 5, 2015)

I have been using a crucial m4 64GB, for more than a year, no problems at all, pretty fast… and yes it stil expensive for a 64GB drive,


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## Dent1 (Jun 5, 2015)

Ruszli said:


> I wanted to buy Crucial first, but then I saw the Write speeds and that made me quite disappointed.



Don't be disappointed. Read and write speeds quoted are often under the best ideal conditions. You are limited by  the quality of your SATA/IDE controller, drivers and configuration so you will never get exactly the same speeds at the back of the box or in the reviews.

Also consider the read and write quotes are based on sequential performance.  The random read and write performance can be 1/3 of that.

Write speed isn't solely a good indication of SSD performance. The operating system doesn't write to disk often (usually RAM) and when it does its on background activities like writing to registry etc. - Its un-taxing and isn't a system bottleneck.

The activities which are user executed are mostly read and latency based (boot time, game loading, applications loading, virus scamming etc). This is where you will notice the biggest improve over a regular HDD on a daily basis.

The latency for random access is going to be <0.1ms whichever SSD you purchase so its really not going to make any difference. Get the largest capacity you can afford.


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## Nosada (Jun 6, 2015)

This is a very personal opinion, but the only spec I look at when purchasing an SSD is RANDOM 4k READS.

The reason? This is what your OS disk is doing about 95% of it's time. Fast writes are pointless on a system disk, which should be mostly static data. Sustained reads are mostly good for copying large amounts of data or streaming HD video, but why you would be doing either of that from an SSD unless you have money to spare?

Loading that next dll, booting that next exe or quickly finding that next texture file are things that happen at a rate of a lightyear a minute when you are screwing around in windows or playing a game, which is where you'll feel the largest impact of using an SSD.


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## CrAsHnBuRnXp (Jun 26, 2015)

Ebo said:


> Take a look at the prices for Crucial MX100 is they are still arround in your country. Otherwise look at the Crucial BX100.
> 
> Those are the best SSD's out there in terms of price/preformance.
> 
> especially Samsung have different speeds going from 120GB and to 250GB, that problem does Crucial not have, they have the same speed no matter size.


I can vouch for this. I have put 2 Crucial MX series SSD's in my brother's girlfriends laptop and my mom's laptop and those boot from the Windows logo to desktop in 6 seconds. I have a mushkin 120GB SSD and it takes 14-20seconds. Makes me sad :-\


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## Ruszli (Jun 26, 2015)

Thank you guys for the insights! I will be picking up a Samsung 2.5" 850 EVO 250 GB next week. 

Unless there is a reasonable objection of course.


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## Ebo (Jun 27, 2015)

If you buy that, just make sure you DL Samsung software and update your firmware, otherwise you will see slow preformance on your disk within a few months.


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## Bo$$ (Jun 27, 2015)

Ebo said:


> If you buy that, just make sure you DL Samsung software and update your firmware, otherwise you will see slow preformance on your disk within a few months.


only the 840 EVO suffers from that problem, but yes get samsung magician, it's quite a nice program


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## jboydgolfer (Jun 27, 2015)

1- Go with a "good Brand"  Samsung/Crucial/Sandisk/ etc....
2- Buy a 250Gb variant ATLEAST , its better to have too much room & not need it, then to need it & not have it.
3- the "pro"/"extreme"/MX , versions will cost more , because they are for those who dont mind paying 20% more for 5% more performance. 
4 -You dont need the drives mentioned above, go with Evo 850/ bx100 / ultra II / etc....
5-and finally , common sense, and a little research is Your BEST defense when buying ANYTHING. read Reviews.

and remember, even the SLOWEST SSD will make a platter drive seem slow by comparison, so...shoot for quality NOT speed.


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## Aquinus (Jun 27, 2015)

I find Crucial to be very reliable and cost effective lately. In all seriousness, SSDs are fast because of their low latency, which is why more bandwidth doesn't yield all that much more performance. Even with my two SSDs in RAID-0, I don't notice a difference except when I copy or do synthetic benchmarks. Your best bet is to find the most reliable bang for your buck SSD.


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## Bo$$ (Jun 27, 2015)

Samsung offer a 5 year warranty


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