Wait for Intel's slow butts, or go with an Indilinx?

[synergy]

I'm seriously looking into getting an SSD. I've been holding out as the price/GB is still super high, but the numbers show that even the worst SSD is loads better than the fastest mechanical. This helps justify it a bit for me. Additionally, my Raptors are starting to fail. Rather than try to salvage, or work with almost 6 year old drives, I've decided to move on.

Intel is acting like their SSD's are diamonds. They are keeping retailers out of stock so they can keep their prices higher as the Indilinx (OCZ Vertex/Agility, Super Talent, Patriot) drives bust into the arena with some serious competition. The Intel drives have much slower sequential write speeds, but the random writes are, in contrast, much higher. As I figure the majority of disc use is random writes it seems that the Intel will offer the better performance. That being said, even an Indilinx will give me much better performance over any mechanical and will still be a great upgrade, plus they kill Intel in sequential write performance.

Anyway...history aside, what would you guys do? Would you wait for the Intel to come in stock (80 GB X25-M G2, $290) or go with an Indilinx (OCZ Vertex 60 GB, $235 or 64 GB Patriot Torqx $250)? I seriously am getting impatient, but I think the higher random write speeds and better Intel controller could be worth the wait, but I just wanted your guys' opinions.

Here are the numbers from AnandTech.
Sequential:

Random:

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[Yami]

Re: Wait for Intel's slow asses, or go with an Indilinx?

I would wait for the Intel, personally. But not for longer than a month.

 

[Nubbleet]

Re: Wait for Intel's slow asses, or go with an Indilinx?

I would wait for the Intel, personally. But not for longer than a month.

+1

5char

 

[farinha]

Well depends on the urgency of getting the SSD. If it's urgent then buy the Indilinx, if not then wait for the Intel.

 

[synergy]

It's not hugely urgent as I have Win7 installed on a secondary drive for the moment.

I just ordered one from a sketchy site: FuturePowerPC.com. They said they have 8 in stock, but I'm extremely leery. I pulled the funds from my account so the charge will decline and I'll have to call them to verify stock before they can charge my card again. We'll see...if they have it awesome, if not I guess I'll wait for the Egg.

Yea, if this site doesn't work out and the Egg doesn't get them in in a week or two I'll just go with and Indilinx. Newegg had an ETA of yesterday, but obviously that didn't work out

 

[synergy]

Sure enough, they canceled the order...no stock! WTF is up w/ these sites advertising stock, but not having it (had the same problem with Mwave...that's why I pulled the funds.)

Anyway...it might be best to wait a few weeks anyway. Intel is having issues with the latest firmware that supposedly supports TRIM. Users are updating and getting bricked drives
Without TRIM an SSD is meh IMO. There are tools that will "TRIM" manually, but that seems like a PITA.

Any "changed" opinions after this news? Would you guys go for an Indilinx now? I'm seriously considering it at this point.

 

[Slaymate]

I'm running a OCZ Agility 120GB SSD and I'm Luving it. It may not be the fastest available but compared to my old 7200rpm drives it's screaming fast. Personally the Intel drives are just to expensive for me, if hard drives speeds impacted my system performance more then I might of considered Intel as a choice.

 

[Muffin Man]

well, i think this is the same intel ssd as the one youve linked from the egg, their model/part #'s are the same. this ones $265, in stock too.
http://www.ncixus.com/products/41732/SSDSA2MH080G2C1/Intel/

 

[synergy]

Thanks Muffin! I checked them the other day and they were out of stock too. I just ordered it, so we'll see.

I was out at dinner and got notification from Newegg that they were in. By the time I got home to purchase it they were already sold out. I should've just ordered it from my iPhone, but it was cheaper from NCIX anyway.

 

[globalkiwi]

I just bought an Intel X-25M from Linke Computer for $239 - available & $50 cheaper than newegg.