20% Discount Code, All Refurbished OCZ SSD's from $39.99 - $143.99 (60GB - 240GB) - Must be NewEgg Email Subscriber + FREE SHIPPING!

Sorry OP:Not a Slickdeal when you can buy a NEW drive for somewhere in the neighborhood of .50/Gig if you are patient.

Don't get the revo drive, mine failed 3 times in 6 months. They gave me the Max IOPs one instead.

very confused if to pull the trigger or not
I dont really "need" a drive (but this is not a problem, SD effect happens)
I dont think I will use it for a critical application or data (thinking of upgrading a super-old laptop)
I dont really know when can I get a cheap SSD other than this that other people talk about - since most of the current deals are for 180+Gb drives that I dont think I need. All I need is a 80ish Gb drive but for low cost and 1-2 year reliability at very low use.
what to do

Quote from gfx2 : very confused if to pull the trigger or not I dont really "need" a drive (but this is not a problem, SD effect happens) I dont think I will use it for a critical application or data (thinking of upgrading a super-old laptop) I dont really know when can I get a cheap SSD other than this that other people talk about - since most of the current deals are for 180+Gb drives that I dont think I need. All I need is a 80ish Gb drive but for low cost and 1-2 year reliability at very low use. what to do

I upgraded a 2008 MacBook Pro 15" with an 80 GB Intel X25-M that I got for $42 on sale (AR). It made the machine much nicer to use, especially with the RAM upgrade. That deal is over, but the Vertex 2 should be around the same speed.

Quote from gfx2 : very confused if to pull the trigger or not I dont really "need" a drive (but this is not a problem, SD effect happens) I dont think I will use it for a critical application or data (thinking of upgrading a super-old laptop) I dont really know when can I get a cheap SSD other than this that other people talk about - since most of the current deals are for 180+Gb drives that I dont think I need. All I need is a 80ish Gb drive but for low cost and 1-2 year reliability at very low use. what to do

If you can't wait and don't mind the limited warranty/refurb, then go for it, but decent deals on SSDs do pop up every once in a while on SD. I used an OCZ Agility 1 (60GB) for 2-3 years and it worked great and never had a problem with it and still runs like a champ to this day (although no longer as a boot drive).

There are plenty of things I'm comfortable buying refurbished, but an SSD is not one of them, no matter the price or the warranty period.

SSDs are consumables. They have a limited number of reads and writes, then they're used up. Wait for a deal on a new one.

I ordered the OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III drive for $59.99 shipped. But all this talk about refurbed SSD's not being a good idea got me thinking. I remembered I had a $25 off $75 staples coupon. I found the Kingston SV200S3B7A/128G SSDNow V200 128GB 2.5" SATA for $79.99-25= $55 (Total: $59.45 after tax).

How is newegg's return policy? On refurbs?

Quote from Parhel : SSDs are consumables. They have a limited number of reads and writes, then they're used up. Wait for a deal on a new one.

Normally I'd agree, but Sandforce SSDs are a special case. They have a write amplification of .5 to .6. That's well below the amplification of other controllers. This means the actual amount of data written to the drive is much less due to on-the-fly compression. And, the 25nm NAND in the Vertex 2 and 3 units here is rated at 3000 cycles. That is 4 times as many as the TLC NAND in the Samsung "840 Series" drives that keep getting put on the front page. So, even if someone hit their drive really hard and used up half of the cycles, you still have more than twice as many cycles left as you'd have with a TLC drive.

If you receive a drive with NAND that's very worn you will know that by looking at the data with the OCZ toolbox. You can return it. However, since the lifespan of the 25nm NAND, when coupled with Sandforce, is quite long, if you get one of the large drives in particular you're unlikely to have an issue.

The two most likely reasons for these drives to have been returned are that one chip had a defect (with the rest of the NAND being quite fresh) or that there was a firmware bug or problem. For instance, a friend of mine returned a Vertex 2 240 GB because he tried to update the firmware without having the drive plugged into the SATA 0 port. He fried the drive. The drive itself was fine, but the firmware was hosed. OCZ states specifically that the drive must be on SATA 0 when updating firmware. Whomever gets the refurb will be getting basically a brand new drive.

Thanks OP, been wanting one of the cache drives to pair with my Velociraptor.

Quote from jottect : Thanks OP - ordered and Agility 3 120Gb; decided to test my odds

You're welcome.
In my opinion, your choice was the best of the bunch.

Quote from superstition : No. 1. Update the firmware if it is not yet up-to-date. 2. Look at the drive data if you want to know the condition of the NAND. 3. Don't run benchmarks. 4. Be sure to back up your data. That poster's recipe is just going to wear down the NAND for no reason.

Exactly.

Quote from superstition : Because of the low write amplification of the Sandforce controller, the NAND on the 240 GB models will probably last longer than a new TLC Samsung drive. If any of the NAND was faulty, OCZ would have replaced that chip. The rest of the NAND would more than likely be good. What is more probable is that the now resolved firmware bugs were the main source of these drives.

Repped +4 for having the intelligence to know what the hell you're talking about.

Quote from bigmace : Do people really store mission critical data on a single SSD drive?! Most of my data I could survive without but just in case my main rig has everything backed up to a local WD green drive and then about once a month I backup everything to my media/file server (looking to automate this) which in turn replicates the data to other hard drives in the server. I am not paranoid about losing my data at all but it is just so easy to back up now days.

More people should follow your process.

Quote from jonny4 : Thanks OP, been wanting one of the cache drives to pair with my Velociraptor.

No worries. Happy to help.

And, also..........THANK YOU to kris259 for rep points number 3,500.

Is the vertex 3 best value here? Someone else here thought the Agility 3 120GB was the best of the bunch. I was comparing the passmark scores [harddrivebenchmark.net] and the price per GB and It seemed the vertex 3 was the only one with a higher score than the Kingston SV300 deal that's at Staples now (OOS at my Staples),

rating rank price/GB PPGB
OCZ-VERTEX2 1561 275 40/80 $0.50
OCZ-VERTEX3 3014 92 60/60 $1.00
OCZ-VERTEX3 3014 92 71/120 $0.60

OCZ-AGILITY2 1428 308 70/120 $0.59
OCZ-AGILITY3 2160 186 56/60 $0.94
OCZ-AGILITY4 2058 204 80/124 $0.65

KINGSTON SV300- 2814 111 72/120 $0.60

Quote from baili : Is the vertex 3 best value here? Someone else here thought the Agility 3 120GB was the best of the bunch. I was comparing the passmark scores [harddrivebenchmark.net] and the price per GB and It seemed the vertex 3 was the only one with a higher score than the Kingston SV300 deal that's at Staples now (OOS at my Staples), rating rank price/GB PPGB OCZ-VERTEX2 1561 275 40/80 $0.50 OCZ-VERTEX3 3014 92 60/60 $1.00 OCZ-VERTEX3 3014 92 71/120 $0.60 OCZ-AGILITY2 1428 308 70/120 $0.59 OCZ-AGILITY3 2160 186 56/60 $0.94 OCZ-AGILITY4 2058 204 80/124 $0.65 KINGSTON SV300- 2814 111 72/120 $0.60

The Vertex has synchronous NAND, which is better for write speed.

TU for you OP! Been looking for a cheap (not $/GB, absolute $) ~60-120GB drive to use for test OS installs.

Am absolutely tired of watching a #**&$*( obsolete 120GB mechanical drive chug away when you're constantly rebooting your OS to test OC stability, etc.

I just ordered a hdd/SSD caddy to replace my laptop DVD drive; now I'm ready to get a small SSD to run Windows 7. Got questions, need answers:

First: I have a Lenovo y560; i3 processor, 8gb RAM, 500gb HDD, switchable 1gb graphics. I use it mostly for productivity (word processing and spreadsheets) and web browsing; photo editing and management; and occasional light gaming (Portal 2 is as extreme as I get).

1) Currently I run windows and programs on a 90gb partition. I'm using only about 60gb and could easily drop down to 40-45 or so without any problems (some programs I could delete if I needed the space). So that sets the minimum SSD size. I've heard that SSDs work best when they're less than 2/3 full. Anyone have any input on the minimum size SSD I should be using?

2) Anyone have any opinion on which of the options here would perform best in conjunction with the HDD currently in my laptop? I looked up the difference between the Agility and Vertex (vertex=micron chips; agility=any other chips); and the difference between the 2nd and 3rd gens (I'm going for 3rd gen). Found a page that describes the "synapse cache" but I am, frankly, too stupid to understand it: http://www.storagereview.com/ocz_...ssd_review.

3) If I decide to upgrade to windows 8, does that change the size or choice of drive (probably not going to happen, just curious).

Thanks in advance for advice.