I'm prepping my computer, built in 2012, for an upgrade so it can run Win 10 and Sonar Platinum. It currently has a 128GB Samsung SSD, which has served me well, and was the best SSD to get at the time for the money, but is too small for my needs now. What's the best SSD at the moment I should be looking into?

I think Samsung has been a winner for sometime now, especially the EVO range and should serve you very well. My next upgrade will also be a larger OS SSD drive and planning on getting one of these.
 
Some more info on best SSD's: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9799/best-ssds

Yep, the Samsungs seem to be more popular than the others by a wide margin (At least, going by their mention on audio forums).
 
Aside from the size, the other important consideration is whether to go EVO or PRO.  I chose to go PRO for my O.S. drive, for a bit more robustness and the longer warranty (10 vs 5 years).  I use an EVO to house my most-used Kontakt libraries.
 

Not all SSD is the same.  The two main types in the consumer market are MLC and SLC (Multi Level Cell vs Single Level Cell).  MLC tends to be less expensive per GB, but it is not as stable as SLC.
 
The EVO's are a great product, but are MLC.  SLC's are usually out of most people's budget, but I'd just say becareful if you are recording to a MLC SSD, you will want to back it up regularly.
 
Just know that MLC wears out over time, and  you will see reduced write speeds and/or data loss.
 
Again, nothing wrong with MLC, it's what I have, but I only use it for OS/Applications.  I use a good old 7200rpm to record to, it works fine and is plenty fast for recording.  YOU can certainly record to a MLC, just have a backup solution in place and do it regularly.
 
Also agree that the Samsungs are a great product for the price.
 
Good luck!
 
 

but even with MLC wearing out quicker than SLC they still have a lifespan that's much greater than any disk and platter.

I concur with Beagle on this issue.  I read multiple articles over the past few months, and the conclusions reached is that there is no particular advantage in spending more money for a high-end SSD versus a more reasonably-priced one.
 
The more expensive ones did not end up with any significantly longer lifespan (MTBF) than the less expensive ones.
 
I had an $800 500 GB SSD fail within a few months, back when those first came out - 2011 or 2012, but the manufacturing quality across the industry vastly improved since then, and nowadays I routinely pick for price when buying and installing any new SSD's.
 
Even these cheaper ones last a long long time, and I myself am completely comfortable spending less money.  I take regular backups in any case, so I don't see an issue of exposure to any potential loss of data.
 
Bob Bone
 

robert_e_bone
I concur with Beagle on this issue.  I read multiple articles over the past few months, and the conclusions reached is that there is no particular advantage in spending more money for a high-end SSD versus a more reasonably-priced one.

 
I agree. These are consumer drives, and are no more likely to fail than the equivalent mechanical HD, with normal usage. Like all drives though, you should be backing it up.
 
The PNY 960Gb I just bought is full-speed SATA III 6.0Gb model, comes with a three year warranty, it's from a known vendor. They go for $249, but you might be able to catch them on sale.
 

In my day job I'm an engineer for a storage company.  I didn't mean to say spend more money on higher priced SSD's.  The biggest failing point for mechanical drives is in laptops where they are dropped, which throws usage statistics off for longevity.  I test on server farms where we are writing constant I/O streams far more than even a power user would perform, even higher than most Enterprise data base systems would write.  We have mechanical drives that have been used well more than 5 years.  Enterprise storage systems like EMC, IBM, Hitachi are nearly all mechanical.  They are slowly introducing SSD as enterprise solutions and even some of that is MLC depending on how it's used.
 
Again nothing against SSD's they are the future, and I love them and use them.  I think how you use them to get the most out of them.
 
SSD's do fail and it's not about longevity it's that they fail differently than mechanical drives.  When an SSD fails your data is likely gone for good.  On a mechanical drive the data is usually recoverable.  Where mechanical drives biggest failure point is someone dropping something, a SSD is more likely to be damaged via power spikes, overheating, etc.
 
Segate's hybrid SSHD is a great technology is combines the best of both and is great for data.  You can get the read write speed because the cache on the drive is  a large SSD, usually 8 - 32GB NAND.  It also has an onboard database to store recently used files on the SSD as a copy, so you work with the files as an SSD and it transfers it back to the HDD.  The files are on the spindle and your data will usually be recoverable.  Plus the price advantage for SSD is unbeatable.
 
For an OS drive MLC is a no brainer, price for performance.  I would not recommend MLC SSD for long term data storage, unless you are backing up to mechanical or cloud.
 

I use Intel SSD's and so far they have been great. I do a weekly backup to a spinner just to be safe. I'll never go back to spinners for my drives, SSD all the way.

denverdrummer
For an OS drive MLC is a no brainer, price for performance.  I would not recommend MLC SSD for long term data storage, unless you are backing up to mechanical or cloud.

 
Good advice. I'm now using the SSD for OS/Programs/Content, the mechanical drive for user projects, and a USB3.0 drive to backup the two up to on a weekly basis, using Windows backup. Actually, I've got Windows 10 file history on too - so modified project files are backed up on an hourly basis. I think I'm covered.....