Overall this doesn't really seem like all that great of a deal. Sure it's cheaper than other current SATA III drives but you can find deals on last generation drives that have comparable performance that are much better than this. Maybe those deals will get scarcer as time goes by but the current gen drives seem to keep dropping in prices too. For this to be worth considering the street prices will have to be 20% or more below the msrp and will have to keep dropping to stay ahead of the price drops in current drives.
It's gonna have to be better than 20% off for some of the drives. Newegg has the 240GB Agility 3 for $155 (after rebate), so I'd say that the sluggish 256GB v4 would have to AT LEAST get under $150 to even look remotely desirable next to the serviceable Agility 3.
I agree -- if a 256GB can go for less than $150, that would starts to challenge the domain of 10K RPM HDD. For most people other than enthusiasts and gamers looking for top-notch performance, these affordable 3Gbps SSD is what would get them to switch. We will also see more PC makers including these in their builds.
I personally have several 6Gbps and 3Gbps SSDs running on systems with 3Gbps SATA II ports. I have some demanding VMs running on those SSDs, and quite honestly, the performance have just been phenomenal -- so great that I am not considering upgrading my motherboard at this point. Even on a 2 years old SATA II SSD, my VMs have no lag. SSDs simply blows my HDD in RAID-0 out of water.
The bottomline is, value SSDs like this could change the industry more than the high-end expensive SSDs have in the last three years, provided they do not have stability issue.
I can get a 128GB Samsung 830 for $85-$90 on sale. Why would I want to pay $100 for one of these things? If 128GB was like $50 I might consider it for the kids computer, but otherwise I wouldn't be interested...
I almost bit on that Samsung deal, but I have two Force GT 240's at the moment in my main rigs and a OCZ 60GB in my tester box. Wish I had a need for it :)
comparing MSRP vs sale prices isn't really fair. I got a 42" Panasonic 1080p plasma for $198 on sale 2 years ago. Should I be bashing at all new 42" and under TVs coming out that isn't better than my TV and retails for way more?
the retail price (as per samsung's site) for 128GB Samsung 830 is 229.99 FYI. so I won't be surprised if this V4 is like 50-60 dollars on sale.
I agree with your statement, but the thing is that you can find a sale on 6 Gbps every single day that approaches the price of these drives. Hence, its not that special, even though most drives are not the same.
I think his point is that you might find these on sale too, sometimes. If they sold the 256GB model for $150 I'd consider it for lappy. I need decent capacity, and ANYTHING is a huge step up from a conventional 2.5" HDD. I'd like to get a Samsung 830 with that kind of capacity for $150 but that might be a little bit. I'm also considering a Momentus XT - the latest models in that series are supposed to be pretty decent, and it definitely would have the capacity and then some.
Newegg had some amazing deals for Samsung 830s recently, e.g. the 256GB version for $190 which had a MSRP of $420-something last I looked. I want to beef up two machines with a SSD and this looks about right for my netbook. The laptop will get a faster drive though.
Looking at the 256GB model, for the same price you get up to 48,000 IOPS 4KB Random Read and up to 85,000 IOPS 4KB Random Write from a Agility 4 SATA 3 with speeds up to 420MB/s. If it would be 50$ less... maaaaaaybe, but you must consider the fact that the controller is not a "standard" one, the performance is waaaaaaay under what you find on the market today and for about 20$ more you can get the top of the line Vertex 4 which blows everything out of the water. Just think about it before buying this.
I hate being ultra-conservative when it comes to new technology, but given the history of the SSD market, I'd be *very* leery of any new chipset that hasn't had at least a year of exposure in the real world (and even then, I believe we've seen significant bugs still crop up on chipsets more than a year old). Let someone else debug the firmware and risk data loss.
At the moment, these drives are selling on Newegg for $47 (32GB), $70 (64GB), $100 (128GB), and $185 (256GB). Those prices are for the bare drives; if you buy a kit you pay up to $15 more.
As for performance, Crucial <a href="http://www.crucial.com/store/ssd.aspx">sug... the V4 for computers bought before 2011</a>, basicly meaning computers with SATA 2 rather than SATA 3, so it makes sense to compare it with older SATA 2 drives. The <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/2742">Indili... Barefoot controller</a> was a a serious contender against Intel's first generation SSDs back in 2009, so that seems a good place to start.
Unfortunately, <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/669?vs=150&... V4 is slower than the Indilinx by more than a factor of 3 on both the Anandtech heave workload and the Anandtech light workload</a>. This is comparing a 128GB Indilinx against a 256GB V4, which slants the comparison in favor of the V4, but given the lopsided results that hardly matters. Looking at the synthetic benchmarks, it appears that the problem is the V4 random read performance. This is a weak spot for the Indilinx, which scored only 37.5MB/s on the Iometer 4KB random read benchmark, but the V4 gets only 10.1MB/s.
Instead, we have to go back in time to before Intel entered the SSD market. Back then, you'd be happy if your SSD outperformed a mechanical hard drive, and I beliave the V4 can do that (though I don't have any mechanical hard drive benchmarks results to prove it). It's one thing to build a product designed to give you the performance you would have gotten one or two product generations ago. But the V4 taks us back to when there barely was an SSD market at all.
(My previous comment got messed up because the Anandtech comment system doesn't like hyperlinks. This is a repost with the hyperlinks converted to footnotes. Sorry for the duplication.)
Anandtech doesn't seem to have reviewed of this drive, but they have benchmarked it.[1]
The bright point for the V4 is power consumption. It has the lowest idle power consumption of any SSD tested on Anandtech.[2]
As for performance, Crucial suggests the V4 for computers bought before 2011 [3], basicly meaning computers with SATA 2 rather than SATA 3, so it makes sense to compare it with older SATA 2 drives. The Indilinx Barefoot controller[4] was a a serious contender against Intel's first generation SSDs back in 2009, so that seems a good place to start.
Unfortunately, the V4 is slower than the Indilinx by more than a factor of 3 on both the Anandtech heave workload and the Anandtech light workload.[5] This is comparing a 128GB Indilinx against a 256GB V4, which slants the comparison in favor of the V4, but given the lopsided results that hardly matters. Looking at the synthetic benchmarks, it appears that the problem is the V4 random read performance. This is a weak spot for the Indilinx, which scored only 37.5MB/s on the Iometer 4KB random read benchmark, but the V4 gets only 10.1MB/s.
Indilinx was clobbered by Sandforce in 2010,[6] so there's not much to say about the matchup between the V4 and Sandforce's slowest controller.[7]
Instead, we have to go back in time to before Intel entered the SSD market. Back then, you'd be happy if your SSD outperformed a mechanical hard drive, and I believe the V4 can do that (though I don't have any mechanical hard drive benchmarks results to prove it). It's one thing to build a product designed to give you the performance you would have gotten one or two product generations ago. But the V4 takes us back to when there barely was an SSD market at all.
The V4 had very BAD firmware apparently. My 256GB V4 failed after 13 months and was excruciatingly slow over time. Crucial has better firmware, I believe it came out in February, but you'll have to wipe the drive. Do it... or it will fail. Crucial sent me a refurbished M4 to replace it under warranty, so I'm getting it installed now. I suspect it will be in a different league altogether than the bad V4 with old firmware. Hope this helps anyone else unfortunate enough to have bought the V4 like me.
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esteinbr - Tuesday, July 31, 2012 - link
Overall this doesn't really seem like all that great of a deal. Sure it's cheaper than other current SATA III drives but you can find deals on last generation drives that have comparable performance that are much better than this. Maybe those deals will get scarcer as time goes by but the current gen drives seem to keep dropping in prices too. For this to be worth considering the street prices will have to be 20% or more below the msrp and will have to keep dropping to stay ahead of the price drops in current drives.ImSpartacus - Tuesday, July 31, 2012 - link
It's gonna have to be better than 20% off for some of the drives. Newegg has the 240GB Agility 3 for $155 (after rebate), so I'd say that the sluggish 256GB v4 would have to AT LEAST get under $150 to even look remotely desirable next to the serviceable Agility 3.gamoniac - Tuesday, July 31, 2012 - link
I agree -- if a 256GB can go for less than $150, that would starts to challenge the domain of 10K RPM HDD. For most people other than enthusiasts and gamers looking for top-notch performance, these affordable 3Gbps SSD is what would get them to switch. We will also see more PC makers including these in their builds.I personally have several 6Gbps and 3Gbps SSDs running on systems with 3Gbps SATA II ports. I have some demanding VMs running on those SSDs, and quite honestly, the performance have just been phenomenal -- so great that I am not considering upgrading my motherboard at this point. Even on a 2 years old SATA II SSD, my VMs have no lag. SSDs simply blows my HDD in RAID-0 out of water.
The bottomline is, value SSDs like this could change the industry more than the high-end expensive SSDs have in the last three years, provided they do not have stability issue.
Taft12 - Tuesday, July 31, 2012 - link
"Serviceable" indeed... by OCZ's RMA dept!! AMIRIGHT?jontech - Tuesday, July 31, 2012 - link
Not sure what they are trying to accomplish here with SSD prices plummetingsdsdv10 - Tuesday, July 31, 2012 - link
Agreed.I can get a 128GB Samsung 830 for $85-$90 on sale. Why would I want to pay $100 for one of these things? If 128GB was like $50 I might consider it for the kids computer, but otherwise I wouldn't be interested...
jontech - Tuesday, July 31, 2012 - link
I almost bit on that Samsung deal, but I have two Force GT 240's at the moment in my main rigs and a OCZ 60GB in my tester box. Wish I had a need for it :)menting - Tuesday, July 31, 2012 - link
comparing MSRP vs sale prices isn't really fair.I got a 42" Panasonic 1080p plasma for $198 on sale 2 years ago. Should I be bashing at all new 42" and under TVs coming out that isn't better than my TV and retails for way more?
the retail price (as per samsung's site) for 128GB Samsung 830 is 229.99 FYI.
so I won't be surprised if this V4 is like 50-60 dollars on sale.
sudokill - Tuesday, July 31, 2012 - link
I agree with your statement, but the thing is that you can find a sale on 6 Gbps every single day that approaches the price of these drives. Hence, its not that special, even though most drives are not the same.Alexvrb - Tuesday, July 31, 2012 - link
I think his point is that you might find these on sale too, sometimes. If they sold the 256GB model for $150 I'd consider it for lappy. I need decent capacity, and ANYTHING is a huge step up from a conventional 2.5" HDD. I'd like to get a Samsung 830 with that kind of capacity for $150 but that might be a little bit. I'm also considering a Momentus XT - the latest models in that series are supposed to be pretty decent, and it definitely would have the capacity and then some.rrohbeck - Wednesday, August 1, 2012 - link
Newegg had some amazing deals for Samsung 830s recently, e.g. the 256GB version for $190 which had a MSRP of $420-something last I looked.I want to beef up two machines with a SSD and this looks about right for my netbook. The laptop will get a faster drive though.
Cezar` - Wednesday, August 1, 2012 - link
Looking at the 256GB model, for the same price you get up to 48,000 IOPS 4KB Random Read and up to 85,000 IOPS 4KB Random Write from a Agility 4 SATA 3 with speeds up to 420MB/s. If it would be 50$ less... maaaaaaybe, but you must consider the fact that the controller is not a "standard" one, the performance is waaaaaaay under what you find on the market today and for about 20$ more you can get the top of the line Vertex 4 which blows everything out of the water. Just think about it before buying this.tonytopper - Wednesday, August 1, 2012 - link
Per Newegg reviews, it would seem the Agility 4 has reliability issues.Metaluna - Wednesday, August 1, 2012 - link
I hate being ultra-conservative when it comes to new technology, but given the history of the SSD market, I'd be *very* leery of any new chipset that hasn't had at least a year of exposure in the real world (and even then, I believe we've seen significant bugs still crop up on chipsets more than a year old). Let someone else debug the firmware and risk data loss.KAlmquist - Wednesday, August 8, 2012 - link
At the moment, these drives are selling on Newegg for $47 (32GB), $70 (64GB), $100 (128GB), and $185 (256GB). Those prices are for the bare drives; if you buy a kit you pay up to $15 more.Scour - Sunday, August 12, 2012 - link
Looking for a SSD with low power consumption, anyone knows how the V4 is?lookit77 - Monday, August 13, 2012 - link
Plextor M3 and M3 Pro have low power consumption. The new Plextor M5 is not as low, at least with current firmware. :(KAlmquist - Monday, September 24, 2012 - link
Anandtech doesn't seem to have reviewed of this drive, but they <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/669"&g... benchmarked it.</a>The bright point for the V4 is power consumption. It has <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/305">th... lowest idle power consumption of any SSD tested on Anandtech</a>.
As for performance, Crucial <a href="http://www.crucial.com/store/ssd.aspx">sug... the V4 for computers bought before 2011</a>, basicly meaning computers with SATA 2 rather than SATA 3, so it makes sense to compare it with older SATA 2 drives. The <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/2742">Indili... Barefoot controller</a> was a a serious contender against Intel's first generation SSDs back in 2009, so that seems a good place to start.
Unfortunately, <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/669?vs=150&... V4 is slower than the Indilinx by more than a factor of 3 on both the Anandtech heave workload and the Anandtech light workload</a>. This is comparing a 128GB Indilinx against a 256GB V4, which slants the comparison in favor of the V4, but given the lopsided results that hardly matters. Looking at the synthetic benchmarks, it appears that the problem is the V4 random read performance. This is a weak spot for the Indilinx, which scored only 37.5MB/s on the Iometer 4KB random read benchmark, but the V4 gets only 10.1MB/s.
Indilinx was <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/2899">clobbe... by Sandforce in 2010</a>, so there's not much to say about <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/669?vs=196&... matchup between the V4 and Sandforce's slowest controller</a>.
Instead, we have to go back in time to before Intel entered the SSD market. Back then, you'd be happy if your SSD outperformed a mechanical hard drive, and I beliave the V4 can do that (though I don't have any mechanical hard drive benchmarks results to prove it). It's one thing to build a product designed to give you the performance you would have gotten one or two product generations ago. But the V4 taks us back to when there barely was an SSD market at all.
KAlmquist - Monday, September 24, 2012 - link
(My previous comment got messed up because the Anandtech comment system doesn't like hyperlinks. This is a repost with the hyperlinks converted to footnotes. Sorry for the duplication.)Anandtech doesn't seem to have reviewed of this drive, but they have benchmarked it.[1]
The bright point for the V4 is power consumption. It has the lowest idle power consumption of any SSD tested on Anandtech.[2]
As for performance, Crucial suggests the V4 for computers bought before 2011 [3], basicly meaning computers with SATA 2 rather than SATA 3, so it makes sense to compare it with older SATA 2 drives. The Indilinx Barefoot controller[4] was a a serious contender against Intel's first generation SSDs back in 2009, so that seems a good place to start.
Unfortunately, the V4 is slower than the Indilinx by more than a factor of 3 on both the Anandtech heave workload and the Anandtech light workload.[5] This is comparing a 128GB Indilinx against a 256GB V4, which slants the comparison in favor of the V4, but given the lopsided results that hardly matters. Looking at the synthetic benchmarks, it appears that the problem is the V4 random read performance. This is a weak spot for the Indilinx, which scored only 37.5MB/s on the Iometer 4KB random read benchmark, but the V4 gets only 10.1MB/s.
Indilinx was clobbered by Sandforce in 2010,[6] so there's not much to say about the matchup between the V4 and Sandforce's slowest controller.[7]
Instead, we have to go back in time to before Intel entered the SSD market. Back then, you'd be happy if your SSD outperformed a mechanical hard drive, and I believe the V4 can do that (though I don't have any mechanical hard drive benchmarks results to prove it). It's one thing to build a product designed to give you the performance you would have gotten one or two product generations ago. But the V4 takes us back to when there barely was an SSD market at all.
[1] http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/669
[2] http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/305
[3] http://www.crucial.com/store/ssd.aspx
[4] http://www.anandtech.com/show/2742
[5] http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/669?vs=150
[6] http://www.anandtech.com/show/2899
[7] http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/669?vs=196
v4faulty - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
The V4 had very BAD firmware apparently. My 256GB V4 failed after 13 months and was excruciatingly slow over time. Crucial has better firmware, I believe it came out in February, but you'll have to wipe the drive. Do it... or it will fail. Crucial sent me a refurbished M4 to replace it under warranty, so I'm getting it installed now. I suspect it will be in a different league altogether than the bad V4 with old firmware. Hope this helps anyone else unfortunate enough to have bought the V4 like me.