Absolute best SSD?

its in the title. Currently i have a OCZ Solid 3 and am looking to upgrade.

I recommend the Samsung 830 series SSD's, preferably the 256Gb or larger since they have faster write speeds. I now own 5 of these drives and they are by far the best ones I've tried. I also have AData, Kingston, and OCZ SSD's. I would personally stay away from the OCZ drives because they perform terribly. There's a reason they're the cheapest SSD's on the market. Anyway, the Samsung 830 series SSD's don't have the best specs on paper, but their real world performance and benchmarks are very good, and Samsung makes quality stuff. Having said that, if I had to choose something other than Samsung, it would be the Intel 500 series SSD's. Apple themselves either use Toshiba or Samsung SSD's in their new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro Retina.

Dil83

Edit: It looks like OCZ may have redeemed themselves with the Vertex 4 SSD. It seems to have great reviews and is very fast also, so I have to agree with t0m3k380. It seems that would be a good SSD upgrade also.

I have the OCZ Vertex 4, bought it back when it was about 60 dollars more (3 months ago grumble grumble) and it's been an excellent drive for me. Boots my mac up from Post to desktop in about 25 seconds. Every time I check they seem to have a bigger discount.

I've got a Samsung 830 series for OS X, its very fast (I don't even see the spinning loading wheel on the boot screen). Also as the retina's are using the same controller using Trim Enabler is a fairly safe. Anandtech rate them as them as the best SSDs for Macs.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6005/apples-new-ssd-its-fast

"Samsung's PM830 is quite honestly the best behaved SSD controller I have used under OS X, it is no surprise that Apple chose it."

There is no "best SSD"... Users have personal prefences and review site results are often misleading. The best drive for you is based on what apps you use and what you expect from the drive...

I only trust crucial and samsung. Ocz was crap for long period of time, I would give their drives some time to see how they hold up.

I only use OCZ, allways have. I hav 2 OCZ Vertex 2 SSDs in my Mac Pro 2006 and been there allmost 4 years without a single issue. My newest build had 2 OCZ Vertex 4 SSDs and they were amazing, I recently upgraded to 2 OCZ Vector SSDs and even better performance. As long as you do't install trim OCZ drives are great. OCZ don't need trim and trim can actually cause issues with them.

OCZ gained a terrible reputation with early Vertex 3 and, most of all, the Petrol series (up to 30% RMA'd), but I bought a reliable Vertex 2 and C300 that died in 24 hours, so don't think you're absolutely safe with any brand.

About performance, I'm not sure the price premium for high end SSDs are worthy for the average Joe. 100k IOPS over 80k are meaningless but for server use.
If you're on a budget, the Sandisk Extreme offers a very good price/performance ratio. I've got one 120GB for Windows, and it rocks.
If money doesn't count, OCZ Vector, Samsung 840 Pro, Corsair Neutron etc are what Sata III can offer best, and perform about the same. Preferably 240/256GB and over. Smaller capacities usually mean lower performances (especially writing ones).

To some extent, it depends on your needs. Certain drives do better with different types of data. I recently bought a Samsung 840 Pro. It's up there performance-wise with the Vertex 4, but serves my video editing needs a little better.

Best SSD OTHER than PciE ones is the Samsung 840 Pro. Second fastest benchmarks, behind OCZ Vector, but I bought it because I wanted assured capabilities and compatibility with the Mac OS.