More SSD options
HotHardware has a new round-up of six SSDs, including Corsair, OCZ, Crucial, and Patriot drives. Jumping right to the conclusion, three of the drives win "Editor's Choice": OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS, Corsair Force GT, Patriot Wildfire. They are matching in that all of them use the new SandForce SF-2281 controller, and synchronous NAND flash memory. Looking at price / GB, the Crucial drive wins, but only by a small margin.
These drives are available from Digitec, however, it is not always clear whether it is the same models, as some of them are listed with SF-2200 controllers. Prices are as follows:
Corsair Force GT 120GB : CHF 279.-
Corsair Force3 120GB : CHF 229.-
OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS 240GB : CHF 579.-
OCZ Agility 3 240GB : CHF 449.-
Crucial m4 SSD 256GB : CHF 429.-
Again, Corsair comes out amongst the top drives, which underlines an earlier conclusion by Anandtech from November 2010. My only problem with these drives, is that the 120 / 240 GB drives comes at a rather high price, and is perhaps more than you'd need for just a boot drive. Luckily, their younger brothers in 60 GB are also available at a more palatable price:
Corsair Force GT 60GB : CHF 149.-
Corsair Force3 60GB : CHF 119.-
OCZ Vertex 3 60GB : CHF 143.-
OCZ Agility 3 60GB : CHF 129.-
Again, it is unclear which specific SandForce controller sits in these drives, the SF-2281 or SF-2200. However, based on marketing and technical specifications from SandForce, it seems 2100/2200 is the general series, while 2281 etc. is the specific part number.