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IS A DEARER SSD A BETTER SSD?

idata
Esteemed Contributor III

Can you help

 

I fitted a OCZ ssd to my desktop last year but it has failed.. OCZ are going to replace it but I am reluctant to use the replacement as OCZ does not have a great name for reliability.

I am told INTEL ssds are very reliable and was getting set to buy either a 335 or a 520.

Then somebody said that a 320 was a better choice for reliability as it had parts in it that were more resistant to switch on voltages and power failure.

Looking at suppliers prices the 320 160gb is quite a bit more expensive than either the 335 180gb or the 520 180gb.

I can't figure out why as 335 and 520 are the latest , fastest etc.

Is it because retailers paid more for the 320 when they bought them and don't want to lose money by selling then on cheap or is the 320 basically a more reliable ssd. 

 

9 REPLIES 9

UHans
Contributor

It seems the 320 series of drives are no longer produced in large quantities and it is now mostly popular in data centers. When its intended successors (520 and 33x series) were introduced and began a steady decline in price, the 320s did not follow, instead more or less keeping its price for some unknown reason.

As for reliability, they at least earned the reputation of being very compatible and predictable performance-wise (no sandforce-style on the fly compression). I still run 320s and their predecessor, the x25-m on different systems and have never had a single problem. That said, some people on this forum have experienced serious data-loosing incidents with the 320s (search for the 8mb bug).

For a very compatible, proven reliable and still cheap drive, you could also consider a certain SSD series of Southern Korean origin, if you know what I mean.

idata
Esteemed Contributor III

Oken ...Thanks for your reply.

idata
Esteemed Contributor III

Hi Demto, note that the 520 series of Solid State Drives is one of the latest additions of the Intel(R) families of Solid State Drives, it depends actually at the SATA controller that you have in your system if you have a SATA III port then it is a good idea to get a 520 series otherwise if you have a SATA II you might want to consider the 320 series, note that the 520 is backward compatible as well with a SATA II port, you can find more information at the following link:

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/solid-state-drives/solid-state-drives-ssd.html http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/solid-state-drives/solid-state-drives-ssd.html

idata
Esteemed Contributor III

Thanks for your reply

My motherboard is SATA 11 so I know I can't get the full performance out of a SATA 111 SSD but I am primarily

interested in reliability so I would buy a whichever is thought to be the most reliable ssd. I am not bothered if this is SATA 11 or 111. For me its reliability that counts.

My real question is whether the 320 is inherently more reliable than the 520 as I was told that

only the 320 contains parts that are resistant to power failures. {power safe capacitors, and ability to store information correctly in event of a power failure, i think]

According to the person who gave me this info other Intel ssds including the 330, 335 and 520 series do not have this ability and therefore can't always take a power failure and continue to work once the power is restored. Somehow the power failure can corrupt information on the ssd and can kill the ssd unless it is a 320. Is this true, partially true, or just plain false... I haven't got a clue. Can anybody shed any light on this.?

I