# Corsair Shatters SSD Affordability Barrier



## btarunr (Jun 19, 2010)

Corsair, a worldwide designer and supplier of high-performance components to the PC gaming hardware market, today announced a new milestone in the affordability of Corsair Solid State Drives. For a limited time, Corsair's award-winning Nova Series SSDs are available for as little as $69.99 after mail-in rebate.

"The 32GB Nova Series SSD is great for streamlined boot drives, netbook upgrades, and even RAID configurations," stated Jim Carlton, VP of Marketing at Corsair. "The aggressive pricing of these drives makes the benefits of SSDs accessible to everyone."






Nova Series of SSDs have been well reviewed the world over for their excellent combination of performance and price. ZDnet said of the 128GB Nova Series, "...among its peers, the 128GB Corsair Nova hits the right capacity/price/performance point and so is our overall choice." And Computerbase in Germany stated, "The Corsair Nova was able to convince in all tests and did not show any weaknesses.... it is one of the most interesting SSDs on the market and has thus earned our recommendation."

Corsair's Nova Series 32GB SSD delivers read speeds up to 195 MB/s and write speeds up to 70 MB/s for outstanding system performance, fast system start-ups, quicker game and application loads for your daily needs. The built-in 64MB cache ensures smooth stutter-free operation for reliable performance. It is supplied with a three year warranty, and is backed up by Corsair's highly regarded customer service and technical support.

*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## RejZoR (Jun 19, 2010)

32GB. Useless. Half acceptable is 128GB for netbooks. Running just OS on SSD is just plain ridiculous if you ask me.


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## EvolvA (Jun 19, 2010)

RejZoR said:


> 32GB. Useless. Half acceptable is 128GB for netbooks. Running just OS on SSD is just plain ridiculous if you ask me.



I absolutely disagree. I have a 40Gb Intel SSD in my netbook and it's more than enough for windows 7 and a lot of aplications and another 80Gb Intel SSD on my main rig with windows 7, lots of software and 5 games (NFS Shift, Assassin's Creed 2, Anno 1404 + Venice, Splinter Cell Conviction) on it and still 16Gb free, and it performs like a bullet...

70$ for a 32Gb SSD is a wonderful price!!


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## slyfox2151 (Jun 19, 2010)

i must agree with evolva,


$70 for 30 is a very respectabal price for a SSD with nearly 200mbps read.  the writes are only 20 % slower then the fastest HDDs and only large sequential files.


this SSD is definetly worth its price..... might even be my next SSD or 2.


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## Yukikaze (Jun 19, 2010)

Better than the X25-V and cheaper, too. Loses 8GB capacity, but writes twice as fast.

I can see myself buying one of those for my laptop. I run linux on it and it doesn't need storage space, at all.


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## mdsx1950 (Jun 19, 2010)

IMO this thing is cool. $69 for a SSD is sweet. But i just can't see myself using a 32GB SSD.


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## Fourstaff (Jun 19, 2010)

RAID 2 of them together and you will get a nice performance and memory space at a reasonable price.


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## TheLostSwede (Jun 19, 2010)

-> after mail-in rebate

So in other words, those of us living outside of the US of A will have to pay a lot more, great...


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## Spamhawk (Jun 19, 2010)

TheLostSwede said:


> -> after mail-in rebate
> 
> So in other words, those of us living outside of the US of A will have to pay a lot more, great...



That's always been the case though. Even if I got mail in rebates, in my country I think I'd still be paying like 15 to 20 € more for that 32 gig drive. All thanks to all sorts of taxes that are added / VAT.


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## lyndonguitar (Jun 19, 2010)

I WANT ONE!!! hmm i wonder when i can buy one of those on my country.


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## cdawall (Jun 19, 2010)

i have been using a 32GB for windows 7 for a while now as a boot drive. its not that bad and was very fast when i had the pair of them in raid


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## Kreij (Jun 19, 2010)

Hmmm ... the PR is a little misleading, IMO.


> For a limited time, Corsair’s award-winning Nova Series SSDs are available for as little as $69.99 after mail-in rebate.


Make it sound like all the Nova's will be discounted/rebated, but it's just the 32GB. (at least for now)

Still a good price though.


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## JoJoe (Jun 19, 2010)

There are 6 models with rebates of varying amounts, at least, according to Newegg.

Looks like grabbing a couple of the 32GB's is a pretty good deal.


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## Mussels (Jun 19, 2010)

$70 sounds fine for 32GB, IMO.

its more than enough for OS, office and such - and its shockproof, durable, fast, and silent.


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## Kreij (Jun 19, 2010)

JoJoe said:


> It's a $20 rebate, which appears to be good on several models, at least, according to Newegg.



That's where I looked when I posted. I still don't see any rebates on other models of the Nova series.

_Disclaimer : I'm old and senile_


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## JoJoe (Jun 19, 2010)

Kreij said:


> That's where I looked when I posted. I still don't see any rebates on other models of the Nova series.
> 
> _Disclaimer : I'm old and senile_



I just downloaded the Rebate PDF off Newegg. The rebate is for several models and for different amounts. Also, in the fine print it says, "Limit one rebate card per product line per household." So... if you buy two of the 32GB Novas, you only get $20 back, rather than $40? The 64GB model might be a better deal than, if you need more than 32, unless you're after RAID performance...


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## Kreij (Jun 19, 2010)

Thanks JoJoe.

For those who don't want to grab the pdf ...


> Purchase any of the following products at newegg.ca or newegg.com and receive a Rebate Card by
> mail:
> Product Amount
> CMFSSD-256GBG2D $100.00
> ...


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## FreedomEclipse (Jun 19, 2010)

Mussels said:


> $70 sounds fine for 32GB, IMO.
> 
> its more than enough for OS, office and such - and its shockproof, durable, fast, and silent.



$70 is roughly around £50GBP compared to which isnt bad at all - given that a Samsung F3 1tb one of the fastest hard drives next to WD's Raptor series hard drives is around £70 but

but for £50 i would actually consider getting a 32Gb - it seems amazing value when compared to other SSDs & not hard drives (bleh!)


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## d3fct (Jun 19, 2010)

im rockin 2 patriot 32gb ssd's in raid 0, payed $150 for the pair used, makes a fine addition to my system, plenty of room for games and apps, and lightning fast. for the price they seem like a pretty nice deal, buy 2 and raid them, you wont be dissapointed.


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## alucasa (Jun 19, 2010)

If they really want to break "Affordability Barrier", bring 128gb class SSDs into more affordable range.


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## mdsx1950 (Jun 19, 2010)

alucasa said:


> If they really want to break "Affordability Barrier", bring 128gb class SSDs into more affordable range.



Or do the opposite and break the Unaffordable barrier by making SSDs over 2 grand


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## Ripper3 (Jun 19, 2010)

I've got a 64GB Nova in my laptop. Handles OS X, Photoshop CS5, a Win XP VM for Uni (so I don't have to worry about destroying my main system), Office, and some essentials (I run a light setup on my laptop anyway), and still have about 40GB free. 
The real advantage is that it loads OS X in 29 seconds (to usable desktop, not just to the wallpaper showing on screen), and shuts down in (quite literally) 2 seconds. Opening Photoshop was a horribly long process on the WD that inhabited my machine before, but now it's very fast.
The worst offender was loaded my XP VM, it could take upto 3 minutes to give me a usable XP system if I had left it in a suspended state. It now starts to a semi-usable state within about 20 seconds. I need to upgrade RAM to 4GB (I would have done that before getting the SSD, but my HDD decided to start clicking randomly, so I figured it was time for a change), and then I'll see how much faster XP VM loads

I would recommend an SSD to anyone that doesn't need a massive amount of storage, doesn't do too many writes, and instead needs massive read speeds, and reliability against shocks.
Basically, this tends to cover almost anyone with a laptop as a secondary machine or mobile work machine, and just anyone unhappy with their HDD.
I store all of my media on a 500GB portable drive now, which is used quite rarely, as my iPod has all my music on it already, and I tend to ignore watching movies and TV shows on my laptop.

32GB is a fine amount, and as suggested, if you need more performance and space, get two. For that price, you can probably get 64GB of space, and better performance than most 60/64GB SSDs, for cheaper too, even if you have to wait for the rebate.
If you can't nab this, the Intel 40GB SSD-V is also a great choice, and not much more expensive.


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## lemode (Jun 19, 2010)

i tweaked my intel ssd so much and i still have 52 gigs left on an 80 gig intel OS drive. i don't know if i'd be comfortable getting anything below 40 gigs for an OS drive. regardless...that's a good price (after rebate) for an ssd.


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## PCpraiser100 (Jun 19, 2010)

This will be nice if used with an enclosure.


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## RejZoR (Jun 19, 2010)

Such small SSD's just for system drive IS useless. Do you ppl reboot system so often that it makes whatever sense? My system boots in under 1 minute and i put it to Hybrid Sleep most of the time.
It takes 5 seconds to start system from that. For everything else, there is absolutely no difference worth mentioning.


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## TVman (Jun 19, 2010)

32GB for 69.99 is still a pretty bad, atleast they are trying


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## Completely Bonkers (Jun 19, 2010)

TheLostSwede said:


> -> after mail-in rebate
> 
> So in other words, those of us living outside of the US of A will have to pay a lot more, great...



Couldnt agree more. Someone in the US tell me all about mail-in rebates. What is the scam? The cost of processing and the time wasted is just silly nonsense. Is it a marketing trick? Is to an accounts window-dressing trick to make sales look bigger? Is it based on the fact that 50% of people dont bother with the mail-in rebate coupon, therefore they can advertise a low price but actually get a higher price on average? Is it a cashflow scam? Take the money now, but give some money back in 3 months? Is it a grey-market roadblock; only eligible if you live in the US, therefore screw canadians, mexicans, and the rest of the world?

Really, someone tell me why and how the economics of mail-in rebates.


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## Disparia (Jun 19, 2010)

btarunr said:


> “The 32GB Nova Series SSD is great for streamlined boot drives, netbook upgrades, and even RAID configurations,” stated Jim Carlton, VP of Marketing at Corsair. “The aggressive pricing of these drives makes the benefits of SSDs accessible to everyone.”



Mention RAID and the rebate can only be used once per household? Go eat a bag of hell!


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## buggalugs (Jun 19, 2010)

RejZoR said:


> . For everything else, there is absolutely no difference worth mentioning.



LOL, You obviously havent tried one.


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## kyle2020 (Jun 19, 2010)

$70, or £100+ once it gets here.


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## Mussels (Jun 20, 2010)

RejZoR said:


> Such small SSD's just for system drive IS useless. Do you ppl reboot system so often that it makes whatever sense? My system boots in under 1 minute and i put it to Hybrid Sleep most of the time.
> It takes 5 seconds to start system from that. For everything else, there is absolutely no difference worth mentioning.



you're just thinking desktop, arent you?


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## RejZoR (Jun 20, 2010)

I had Intel 80GB and Kingston 128GB. For desktop, completelly useless. For system drive you don't need it. For anything else it's too small. For notebooks, most have just 1 slot and again, the drives are just too small. Even for netbook that i had. 32GB, you can't store anything useful on it.
Unless you use it for browsing and mail only. And some music. But then again, for not that much more you can get Seagate Momentus (and XT) drives that are really fast and offer capacity of 500GB.


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## zAAm (Jun 20, 2010)

mdsx1950 said:


> Or do the opposite and break the Unaffordable barrier by making SSDs over 2 grand





Personally I think 32GB is a tad small for everything you'd want to store on an OS drive (my Windows 7 and basic programs weigh in at around 34GB), but RAID0 two of them together and you'll probably be fine. Also, what people tend to forget is that the strong point of SSD's is they have excellent small file transfer rates (and latencies). This is what speeds up the OS - which tends to write thousands of smaller files instead of huge chunks of data. 

Also, I've never understood the whole "mail-in rebate" system? Why? I'm pretty sure America is the only place where they dreamed up this thing. Ok, we'll give you a discount, not immediately so you can avoid having to pay the entire amount, but you can send us some form by post and we'll give it back in a week or something...? Now THAT'S convenient. 

EDIT:


Completely Bonkers said:


> Couldnt agree more. Someone in the US tell me all about mail-in rebates. What is the scam? The cost of processing and the time wasted is just silly nonsense. Is it a marketing trick? Is to an accounts window-dressing trick to make sales look bigger? Is it based on the fact that 50% of people dont bother with the mail-in rebate coupon, therefore they can advertise a low price but actually get a higher price on average? Is it a cashflow scam? Take the money now, but give some money back in 3 months? Is it a grey-market roadblock; only eligible if you live in the US, therefore screw canadians, mexicans, and the rest of the world?
> 
> Really, someone tell me why and how the economics of mail-in rebates.



I missed your post, but have the exact same sentiment!


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## Mussels (Jun 20, 2010)

zAAm said:


> Personally I think 32GB is a tad small for everything you'd want to store on an OS drive (my Windows 7 and basic programs weigh in at around 34GB), but RAID0 two of them together and you'll probably be fine. Also, what people tend to forget is that the strong point of SSD's is they have excellent small file transfer rates (and latencies). This is what speeds up the OS - which tends to write thousands of smaller files instead of huge chunks of data.
> 
> Also, I've never understood the whole "mail-in rebate" system? Why? I'm pretty sure America is the only place where they dreamed up this thing. Ok, we'll give you a discount, not immediately so you can avoid having to pay the entire amount, but you can send us some form by post and we'll give it back in a week or something...? Now THAT'S convenient.
> 
> ...




My win 7 + all installed programs is also 34GB, but thats with an 8GB hibernate file and the page file on the C: drive. i could easily free up 10GB, and move the my documents folder to a mechanical drive to save even more space.


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## zAAm (Jun 20, 2010)

Mussels said:


> My win 7 + all installed programs is also 34GB, but thats with an 8GB hibernate file and the page file on the C: drive. i could easily free up 10GB, and move the my documents folder to a mechanical drive to save even more space.



I'm not saying you couldn't, but it will not necessarily live up to your expectations. My 34GB is just my Windows folder and both Program Files directories, but I guess I could move some of my programs to another drive - although that is likely exactly what you DON'T want to do. I suspect a normal user will be fine using a 32GB SSD, but I'm not a normal user. Which also begs the question of why a normal user would NEED an SSD... 

I do see a number of uses (a cheap car pc with linux immediately came to mind), but I stand by my statement that you'll probably be better off with something like 64GB - or in this case 2 of them in RAID0.


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## Taskforce (Jun 20, 2010)

Wow some a you guys sound like suckers saying 32GB for $69 after MIR is a deal.


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## Mussels (Jun 20, 2010)

Taskforce said:


> Wow some a you guys sound like suckers saying 32GB for $69 after MIR is a deal.



find me some SSD's cheaper, kthx.


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## Frick (Jun 20, 2010)

It is pretty cheap, but 30GB is too little imo. For a netbook or something it would work nice though.


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## Kreij (Jun 20, 2010)

Completely Bonkers said:


> Really, someone tell me why and how the economics of mail-in rebates.



Retailers use mail-in rebates because it makes the price of their product look extremely competetive, and about 80% of the people who purchase the product either...
A) Don't bother to send in the rebate.
B) Forget to send in the rebate.
C) Fail to follow the rules of the rebate (sometimes quite obnoxious) and are denied the rebate.

Meaning they are selling more product at the normal price, and only taking the rebate hit on about 20% of the rebated items sold. Not to mention that they can take however long they want to send the rebate, so they are making interest on your money until the send the rebate check and you actually cash it.

Pretty lucrative actually.


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## PVTCaboose1337 (Jun 20, 2010)

I am getting this for my netbook.  I have a 160gb drive and I think this would be a good upgrade for it.  Very cheap!  I cannot wait till I get one for my desktop!


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## scaminatrix (Jun 20, 2010)

These would be PERFECT for an AV editing rig...
One for your pagefile, one for your save files, etc. Where performance is important but space is not.
I've been trying to get a small HDD for just my pagefile, with maximum performance, low cost and small size. The best I've found is the WDC Black 640GB SATA3 6GB/s (about £55). 640GB is TOO big for just a pagefile.
This Corsair Drive's looking like a good choice for some people...


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## RejZoR (Jun 20, 2010)

PVTCaboose1337 said:


> I am getting this for my netbook.  I have a 160gb drive and I think this would be a good upgrade for it.  Very cheap!  I cannot wait till I get one for my desktop!



Cheap but useless. I had 80GB and 120GB SSD drives for my netbook and they both filled pretty fast. The speed was not all that better at all. There was a heat and noise improvement (and slight battery), but apart from that, nothing else.
Seagate Momentus 500GB is just as fast. I'll use SSD for sure when they make 512GB version for 200 EUR. Until then, not for sure.



scaminatrix said:


> These would be PERFECT for an AV editing rig...
> One for your pagefile, one for your save files, etc. Where performance is important but space is not.
> I've been trying to get a small HDD for just my pagefile, with maximum performance, low cost and small size. The best I've found is the WDC Black 640GB SATA3 6GB/s (about £55). 640GB is TOO big for just a pagefile.
> This Corsair Drive's looking like a good choice for some people...



Ever thought of going the "more RAM" bandwagon instead of buying dedicated HDD/SSD's for slow and useless pagefile? You can have the fastest array of SSD drives in RAID and they'll never be as fast as the slowest DDR1 RAM from 5 years ago. Remember that.


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## Baum (Jun 20, 2010)

if it would be a rebate every where and not only us :-(

me want 32Gb for 80€>....


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## scaminatrix (Jun 20, 2010)

RejZoR said:


> Ever thought of going the "more RAM" bandwagon instead of buying dedicated HDD/SSD's for slow and useless pagefile? You can have the fastest array of SSD drives in RAID and they'll never be as fast as the slowest DDR1 RAM from 5 years ago. Remember that.



I don't use RAID on my PC, I'd just get 2/3 of these drives, and one HDD for the save files.
Just a few of these (not in RAID) would be perfect in certain situations (like mine - budget!), where AFAIK enough RAM to avoid a pagefile is not an option.
But, I'm not an expert. Correct me if I'm wrong but I didn't know you could avoid using a pagefile when editng HD videos (whether or not using RAID)?
Like I said, only perfect in CERTAIN stuations, not for everyone


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## RejZoR (Jun 20, 2010)

Well, if you have more RAM, the OS doesn't need to use pagefile because it can do stuff inside super quick RAM. If you're working with videos professionally, it's worth investing into a i don't know, 12GB or 16GB system backed up with 2x 2TB drives in RAID for speed.
This way you'd have:
a) loads of working memory
b) still quick access to HDD's
c) 4TB of working soace to store massive HD videos
d) all this to be relatively affordable compared to just buying super expensive SSD

I can't deny it, it's a step into the right direction, but it's still just not the time for mass usage of SSD's. When we'll be able to buy 256GB SSD for around 200 EUR, i think it will become more logical. They will still be expensive but would make more sense. The space is semi acceptable, the price is acceptable as well and the speed would be over 200MB/s for sure. At the moment, we are like half way there really. If everything goes well, one more year. I wanted to say 6 months, but if the current trend continues, 1 year makes more sense.


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## scaminatrix (Jun 20, 2010)

RejZoR said:


> Well, if you have more RAM, the OS doesn't need to use pagefile because it can do stuff inside super quick RAM. If you're working with videos professionally, it's worth investing into a i don't know, 12GB or 16GB system backed up with 2x 2TB drives in RAID for speed.
> This way you'd have:
> a) loads of working memory
> b) still quick access to HDD's
> ...



No, I'm not doing it professionally, that's where our wires are crossing... I'm talking about being on a proper budget.
Can you edit HD videos without a pagefile? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you can't? And 12 - 16 GB of RAM for me is too expensive anyway!
I know RAID is best, but I don't need it, even with HD video editing. I've got everything running perfect without it.
I only work on 2 videos at a time max (only a hobby) so don't need 4TB for anything. 3 of these would be cheaper than 12GB of DDR3 (what I'm running, in sig).
Don't want to hijack this thread, just stating reasons why these SSD's would be great for some people.


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## Shyska (Jun 20, 2010)

scaminatrix said:


> Can you edit HD videos without a pagefile? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you can't? And 12 - 16 GB of RAM for me is too expensive anyway!



You can do without pagefile. But you need loads of RAM. 
As for prices - RAM is ~500.000 times faster than SSD, so you can do the maths to figure how much SSD should be lower in price to compete 

At the end, no matter what you buy for a pagefile it is a total waste. Always.


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## lemonadesoda (Jun 20, 2010)

32GB is more than enough for ALL corporate laptops that SHOULDNT have data on them anyway, but store the data safely and securely locked up on the corporate server.

That goes for most small businesses and SOHO too were the laptop is the SECOND machine; with a desktop or NAS holding key data.

IMO it's fine for netbooks too. They are supposed to be "cheap" and also semi-disposable. Keep your important data on a NAS or keystick.


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## Deleted member 24505 (Jun 20, 2010)

Such a shame these wont be no were near $70 in the uk.


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## Thrackan (Jun 21, 2010)

Still well over $2/GB, and after MIR. This isn't "shattering" anything by a long shot.


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## Mussels (Jun 21, 2010)

Thrackan said:


> Still well over $2/GB, and after MIR. This isn't "shattering" anything by a long shot.



compared to last years prices, it shattering.


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## Thrackan (Jun 21, 2010)

Mussels said:


> compared to last years prices, it shattering.



I couldn't agree Moore  A year in computer hardware terms is half a lifetime.


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## scaminatrix (Jun 21, 2010)

Shyska said:


> You can do without pagefile. But you need loads of RAM.



This is what I'm saying. Why would I buy a ton of RAM, have to buy a new mobo to support it and most likely CPU/s, when I could just buy 1 of these?
12 - 16 GB of RAM probably won't do it as my project files vary from 25 - 50 GB of imported media.
25 - 50 GB of RAM to avoid using a pagefile is NOT cost effective for me.
1 of these to use as a pagefile is.


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## Mussels (Jun 21, 2010)

having tons of ram doesnt mean shit, if the files are IN ram. SSD's are faster to load from, so they're better than HDD's to load files from when they arent in ram.


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## TechnicalFreak (Jun 21, 2010)

Is this offer only for residents in the US, or does it apply to countries in the EU? Because over here, if you want more than 1 of them SSD disks you have to have a thick wallet..


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## brandonwh64 (Jun 21, 2010)

Is this drive already out for sale?


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## Fourstaff (Jun 21, 2010)

brandonwh64 said:


> Is this drive already out for sale?



Corsair Nova CSSD-V32GB2-BRKT 2.5" 32GB SATA II In...

All gone


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## brandonwh64 (Jun 21, 2010)

70mb sequential? doesn't that suck?


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## Shyska (Jun 21, 2010)

scaminatrix said:


> This is what I'm saying. Why would I buy a ton of RAM, have to buy a new mobo to support it and most likely CPU/s, when I could just buy 1 of these?
> 12 - 16 GB of RAM probably won't do it as my project files vary from 25 - 50 GB of imported media.
> 25 - 50 GB of RAM to avoid using a pagefile is NOT cost effective for me.
> 1 of these to use as a pagefile is.



You lost my point here.
No matter what you have for pagefile, it will be many thousand times slower than RAM anyway, so no big difference. The goal is to stay instructions away from pagefile as much as possible.

But if you have 50GB of data to load to RAM at once, than


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## Frick (Jun 21, 2010)

Shyska said:


> You lost my point here.
> No matter what you have for pagefile, it will be many thousand times slower than RAM anyway, so no big difference. The goal is to stay instructions away from pagefile as much as possible.
> 
> But if you have 50GB of data to load to RAM at once, than



When you're working with HD movies you fill out the ram pretty fast. 

And as for filling up a netbook, ya well they're not meant to be a desktop replacement anyway so that's really a personal reference. I've had the laptop in sig for a year now, and i still have about 25GB free.


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## Shyska (Jun 21, 2010)

Frick said:


> When you're working with HD movies you fill out the ram pretty fast.
> 
> And as for filling up a netbook, ya well they're not meant to be a desktop replacement anyway so that's really a personal reference. I've had the laptop in sig for a year now, and i still have about 40GB free.



We'll I don't work with video, so can't argue that.

Still 
If you need to go from town A to town B. You usually drive motorway and some 120km/h. If you run out of gas, there is no real difference if you push your car at 0.01km/h or 0.02km/h 

P.S. seems like we are getting off topic here...


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## xu^ (Jun 21, 2010)

when u can buy a 1tb ssd for a similar price of a normal hdd is when i'll buy an ssd , until then , they can charge what they like , cos im not buying


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## n-ster (Jun 21, 2010)

perfect for the access time... some of you guys don't understand what a difference SSDs can make in general performance of the computer... Also, this is a gen 2 drive, not a gen 1, so TRIM!


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## RejZoR (Jun 22, 2010)

Mussels said:


> having tons of ram doesnt mean shit, if the files are IN ram. SSD's are faster to load from, so they're better than HDD's to load files from when they arent in ram.



The only problem here is that we are talking about 32GB drive. USELESSSSSSSSS


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## Mussels (Jun 22, 2010)

RejZoR said:


> The only problem here is that we are talking about 32GB drive. USELESSSSSSSSS



no it isnt. i'd love one of these for an OS drive, with a mechanical drive for everything else. makes the system quieter when just web surfing, and makes it snappier too.


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## Papahyooie (Jun 22, 2010)

All you people naysaying on using this as a pagefile drive, youre not taking into account the fact that no matter how much ram you have, you could have 128 gb of ram, and windows will still actively use a pagefile. It's simply built-in and can't be changed. Not to mention the programs being used are likely built to use it. And it doesn't matter how much ram you have, the files are going to have to be stored eventually when the computer is shut down. And video editing would be a perfect niche for these drives. The files could be saved and read from the drive, then when either finished or backed up, would be moved to a mechanical HD.


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## Thrackan (Jun 22, 2010)

Papahyooie said:


> All you people naysaying on using this as a pagefile drive, youre not taking into account the fact that no matter how much ram you have, you could have 128 gb of ram, and windows will still actively use a pagefile. It's simply built-in and can't be changed. Not to mention the programs being used are likely built to use it. And it doesn't matter how much ram you have, the files are going to have to be stored eventually when the computer is shut down. And video editing would be a perfect niche for these drives. The files could be saved and read from the drive, then when either finished or backed up, would be moved to a mechanical HD.



The page file can be disabled and removed. Currently running without one.


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## scaminatrix (Jun 22, 2010)

Shyska said:


> You lost my point here.
> No matter what you have for pagefile, it will be many thousand times slower than RAM anyway, so no big difference. The goal is to stay instructions away from pagefile as much as possible.
> 
> But if you have 50GB of data to load to RAM at once, than



No, I get your point. I know L3>L2>L1>RAM>HDD. It's beginner's stuff.
And your other point... I said that I didn't want to waste a 640GB HDD on a pagefile. If this SSD comes to UK in the same price region as the 640GB WDCB 6GB/s, then I'd rather have the SSD. I'd be stupid not to. 
I can stash it up in my PC case easier than a HDD, it's quieter, it won't make me feel like I'm wasting 600GB, etc. It's not just the performance factor, these appeal to ME for a lot of reasons.
I've got a Silverstone Raven 2 and I've run out of space for HDD's. Had to order an Evercool Armour to make use to the 5.25" bays, with a total of 6 HDD's in there but not enough space for more... SSD's to the rescue!
But, as brandonwh64 pointed out, that write speed does look a bit gammy.

My point to RejZoR is that it's impossible for ME to avoid a pagefile without an extra £1000 spare.
Or I could just get 1 of these drives and save £900.
That reason alone makes this drive far from useless for ME

Where's TIGR when you need him? This is his area of expertise!


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## Shyska (Jun 22, 2010)

scaminatrix, you should try and see what is your RAM hit rate. I suspect that your pagefile is not used that much if the PC is not crawling.

Use perfmon (just type to start bar) and add counter memory->Pages/sec. This will show you memory hard faults (when data needs to be retrieved from pagefile rather than cache). There are also counters that will show you real pagefile usage. 

And it's L1>L2>L3>RAM>HDD 

All I'm saying is that there is a common misunderstanding that a pagefile should be put on a fastest storage available. As in fact there is very little difference if it is on a 200MB/s drive or on a 50MB/s. There will be no noticeable difference for the user - if the hard fault rate is high, the system will crawl anyway.
So at the end - use the fastest store for useful stuff like OS files, program files or even documents first. And only then, if there is still space available, pagefile.


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## scaminatrix (Jun 22, 2010)

Shyska said:


> And it's L1>L2>L3>RAM>HDD



:facepalm: @ me. Can't beleive I just did that! Been drinking a bit... 

I know, I understand, we're just on slightly different wavelengths. Even if I get no performance gain, I can stick this SSD nicely away in my case and maybe actually have some room for my card reader. There's more than one reason I'm considering getting 1/2 of these!


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## Shyska (Jun 22, 2010)

Sure, I would love one too


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## TIGR (Jun 22, 2010)

"Affordable" is a relative term. At ~$2.16 per GB, they're 43 times more expensive than the $0.05 per GB I usually pay for HDDs. Read/write speed has no impact on my perception of this SSD's value, since, with RAID 0, a few HDDs can whoop this SSD in that area while _still_ being $0.05 per GB. For $0.10 per GB, I can have completely redundant data storage with RAID 1. Or, with RAID 10, completely redundant storage _and_ higher read/write speeds.

Then there's noise, power consumption, and heat. The difference between any decent HDD and an SSD will be going from "very quiet" to silent, and 5-10w of power consumption per HDD, and a couple degrees of heat dumped into the case per HDD. The degree to which these things matter will vary from system to system and user to user, but to me, a couple degrees, several watts, and the elimination of an already-quiet noise from the computer is not worth paying even double the price per GB, much less 43 times. And of course, most systems out there that have SSDs will still have an HDD as well, because most of us have more data to store than we can fit on any SSD we can afford.

Which leaves us with latency, the SSD's "killer feature." It makes things "feel snappy." Very nice, but can latency alone increase your gaming FPS, multimedia conversion/encoding/rendering performance, data compression rate, encryption/decryption/file copying speed, or any other kind of performance other than making things that already only take a few seconds, take a few milliseconds?

I have no doubt that SSDs are the future of data storage. I _like_ them and the way they make a system feel. I've used them in dozens of builds and the customers loved them. Their performance and price have both improved drastically over the past few years. I look forward to saying good-bye to HDDs more than I can put into words. _And_ I believe they are priced about as low as they reasonably can be, given today's raw NAND flash memory costs.

But "affordable?" Maybe compared to some other SSDs. But in the cases of myself personally as well as the majority of my customers, these do not offer anything needed, much less at a price that makes them what I'd consider a "cost-effective alternative" to HDDs (single or in one type of RAID or another, as appropriate to the situation).

More power to those for whom these _are_ a good choice; I'm just sharing my own perspective because to me, "affordable" does not apply.


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## zithe (Jun 22, 2010)

Corsair Nova CSSD-V32GB2-BRKT 2.5" 32GB SATA II In...

Surprise, surprise!



RejZoR said:


> The only problem here is that we are talking about 32GB drive. USELESSSSSSSSS



3x32 for 240 in raid 0 or a single 96gb for 250? You don't usually use a high capacity drive for your OS, and you're not going to get better price/performance than this for a while.


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## Papahyooie (Jun 22, 2010)

Thrackan said:


> The page file can be disabled and removed. Currently running without one.




There's several threads here and elsewhere about that. You tell windows not to use one, it's likely still using one. If you did manage to completely get rid of it (which is possible, but not simply through the normal method of changing your pagefile size to 0) then you are actually crippling many programs that are designed to use it (including windows.)


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## RejZoR (Jun 22, 2010)

Mussels said:


> no it isnt. i'd love one of these for an OS drive, with a mechanical drive for everything else. makes the system quieter when just web surfing, and makes it snappier too.



What, 20 sec less on boot time? It's not like i'd have to reboot my system every 30 minutes. Cold boot takes less than 60 seconds anyway. Quieter? I hardly ever hear it and pretty much anything starts up in a fraction of a second. I don't see any point in wasting money on useless SSD. I'd rather buy fast HDD. And i did.


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## Thrackan (Jun 22, 2010)

Papahyooie said:


> There's several threads here and elsewhere about that. You tell windows not to use one, it's likely still using one. If you did manage to completely get rid of it (which is possible, but not simply through the normal method of changing your pagefile size to 0) then you are actually crippling many programs that are designed to use it (including windows.)



Please, enlighten me.


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## zithe (Jun 23, 2010)

RejZoR said:


> What, 20 sec less on boot time? It's not like i'd have to reboot my system every 30 minutes. Cold boot takes less than 60 seconds anyway. Quieter? I hardly ever hear it and pretty much anything starts up in a fraction of a second. I don't see any point in wasting money on useless SSD. I'd rather buy fast HDD. And i did.



Well that's you. People use their computers for things other than just games. Running a (good) dedicated server requires the fastest drives you can get. I'm hosting a gmod server on a less than good laptop and every time someone spawns something not regularly used, everyone connected waits a couple seconds and it can interrupt construction. That's a very specific example, though. If you misplaced a file and you're using a search function it's quicker on a better drive. It improves a massive amount of things. 

High read speeds improve game performance. Sometimes a game can catch no matter how good your cpu/gpu is just because your hard drive spent a bit of time figuring out where a file it needed was. That is extremely common in games like oblivion where it has to figure out plant/npc/etc. placement as you're walking through the map, and I definitely notice it going on.

Also, SSDs have a significantly lower chance of failing. Replacing a dead drive through RMAing doesn't make up for lost data and you spend money on backup anyways.


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## Mussels (Jun 23, 2010)

RejZoR said:


> What, 20 sec less on boot time? It's not like i'd have to reboot my system every 30 minutes. Cold boot takes less than 60 seconds anyway. Quieter? I hardly ever hear it and pretty much anything starts up in a fraction of a second. I don't see any point in wasting money on useless SSD. I'd rather buy fast HDD. And i did.



your opinion will change when you actually use one. you're used to the small delays everything has on mechanical drives so you dont notice them.


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## Thrackan (Jun 23, 2010)

Mussels said:


> your opinion will change when you actually use one. you're used to the small delays everything has on mechanical drives so you dont notice them.



Exactly. Nothing better than programs opening directly when you click 'em


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## NetSurfer (Jun 23, 2010)

RejZoR said:


> 32GB. Useless. Half acceptable is 128GB for netbooks. Running just OS on SSD is just plain ridiculous if you ask me.



Agree with that.
32GB is just not enough for most people, let's create a poll 

*For netbook users


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## Papahyooie (Jun 23, 2010)

Thrackan said:


> Please, enlighten me.



Well I know this isn't exactly a "source" as I dont even know what this website is, but a quick google search returns an article that adequately describes what I'm talking about. 

http://serverfault.com/questions/23...rom-removing-a-pagefile-on-an-8gb-ram-machine

No matter how much ram you have, windows is inherently designed to use a pagefile... its just meant to do so. Taking it away causes panic when you get near the end of your physical memory. Perhaps you never get near the end of your physical memory, in which case you'll be fine for the most part, but it just simply isn't good business. Windows expects a pagefile to exist. 

As for other programs, I suppose you probably don't do any 3DS Max work, or video editing. Try doing that without a pagefile. When active file size (loaded into either real of virtual memory) gets higher than 10gbs at points, good luck having that all stored in ram. If there's no pagefile, then you're going to have MAJOR slowdown, not to mention a ton of hard drive thrashing. That's where this drive would fit perfectly.


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## Mussels (Jun 24, 2010)

some programs just crash with no pagefile, so windows always makes one even if you disable it. you cant run without a pagefile in a modern MS OS.


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## Thrackan (Jun 24, 2010)

Papahyooie said:


> Well I know this isn't exactly a "source" as I dont even know what this website is, but a quick google search returns an article that adequately describes what I'm talking about.
> 
> http://serverfault.com/questions/23...rom-removing-a-pagefile-on-an-8gb-ram-machine
> 
> ...



I suppose I never reach my limits then, as I've got 8GB and don't even play alot of modern games  Video editing has been 6 years now  3D work even longer ago...

Damn, I've become an average computer user:shadedshu



Mussels said:


> some programs just crash with no pagefile, so windows always makes one even if you disable it. you cant run without a pagefile in a modern MS OS.



Well, the good thing is I've yet to find a program crashing just because I have no pagefile. Last time I checked, there was no pagefile present on my system.


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## Papahyooie (Jul 20, 2010)

Thrackan said:


> Well, the good thing is I've yet to find a program crashing just because I have no pagefile. Last time I checked, there was no pagefile present on my system.



And that's what I was saying before... Just telling it to have no pagefile will not completely get rid of the pagefile. It will still make one without your consent in windows, and won't even tell you about it in the dialogue to change it. Check task manager, you'll still see that there is one. I would be willing to put up money that you still get page faults even with pagefile disabled.


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## RejZoR (Jul 20, 2010)

Mussels said:


> your opinion will change when you actually use one. you're used to the small delays everything has on mechanical drives so you dont notice them.



I have used one (2 in fact). Intel 80GB G2 and Kingston V-Series 128GB (or was it 120GB).
They were ok for netbook as far as shock durability goes and lower power consumption when idling. But other than that i didn't really see much difference in performance.
Same goes for desktop. I found that Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB and WD Caviar Black 2TB are by far better choices. They are both very fast, very big for its segment and by far cheaper than any SSD half the size. I mean, that Caviar Black 2TB cost the same as some crappy 128GB SSD. And i can store almost half an internet on it opposed to crappy 128GB for these times. Hybrid drives would be much better option today really. I wouldn't mind a WD Caviar Black 2TB with dedicated 32GB SSD SLC cache. For 300 EUR ? Massive chunk of space + speed + ok price = pure win.


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## Thrackan (Jul 20, 2010)

RejZoR said:


> I have used one (2 in fact). Intel 80GB G2 and Kingston V-Series 128GB (or was it 120GB).
> They were ok for netbook as far as shock durability goes and lower power consumption when idling. But other than that i didn't really see much difference in performance.
> Same goes for desktop. I found that Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB and WD Caviar Black 2TB are by far better choices. They are both very fast, very big for its segment and by far cheaper than any SSD half the size. I mean, that Caviar Black 2TB cost the same as some crappy 128GB SSD. And i can store almost half an internet on it opposed to crappy 128GB for these times. Hybrid drives would be much better option today really. I wouldn't mind a WD Caviar Black 2TB with dedicated 32GB SSD SLC cache. For 300 EUR ? Massive chunk of space + speed + ok price = pure win.



There is no way you did not notice improved performance, unless you cloned your OS install straight onto the SSD. No matter what machine you put it in, you will *always* notice a performance boost. That, or you're doing something very, very wrong.



Papahyooie said:


> And that's what I was saying before... Just telling it to have no pagefile will not completely get rid of the pagefile. It will still make one without your consent in windows, and won't even tell you about it in the dialogue to change it. Check task manager, you'll still see that there is one. I would be willing to put up money that you still get page faults even with pagefile disabled.



I'm not at home so I can't check my task manager at the moment, but why on earth would a pagefile be present in the Task Manager while not being physically present *on disk*?


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## Thrackan (Jul 20, 2010)

8 Gigs of memory, 0 pagefile.


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## Mussels (Jul 21, 2010)

i cant read netherlandish.

anyway:












look on your C: drive, and i bet one is there. if its not, run a game/photoshop/etc and check (without quitting the program)


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## Thrackan (Jul 21, 2010)

Mussels said:


> i cant read netherlandish.
> 
> anyway:
> 
> ...



It's not there either, but Sniper: Ghost warrior did crash, together with Firefox, Steam, Portal, Paint.NET, Mass Effect, Visual Studio 2010 and then some 
Left some screen corruption and element garble in Firefox and Visual Studio as well, so I suspect that was a memory issue.

So what we've learned: yes, you can turn the pagefile *completely* off, but no, it's not good practice, not even with 8GB in your system


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## RejZoR (Jul 21, 2010)

@Thrackan
The performance was noticeable for boot time and slightly for initial start of Firefox and Paint.NET.
But since Windows caching mechanisms in Vista kick in automatically even when using HDD, that improvement got limited to boot time only. Which i honestly don't really care with Hybrid Sleep and Hibernation technologies. Besides, cold boot took less than 1 minute on my system with old Spinpoint F1. It takes even less with faster Caviar Black 2TB which is much much faster.


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