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    Whats Faster - 120GB SSD or Raid ZERO

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by terrain, Oct 27, 2008.

  1. terrain

    terrain Notebook Evangelist

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    Picked up a great deal on a 1730 with a 128SSD and 320 2nd drive - Does anyone know if the 120 will be faster than if I were to go with 2 7200 rpm drives? The price difference for the SSD is "UP THERE" so I at least want to know if its as fast as a conventional 2 hard drive raid zero approach.

    Also does anyone have any links to spec's for the Dell 128SSD? Is it the Memoright 128GB. Any info would be appreciated!
     
    terrain, Oct 27, 2008
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  2. shoelace_510

    shoelace_510 8700M GT inside... ^-^;

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    Hm... well if I were you I would first look over the SSD buying guide here:
    http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4661

    That being said, it is entirely possible that an SSD would be faster than a RAID 0 setup. Plus, having an SSD brings the advantage of lower power usage, silent operation, longer lifetime, and being more shockproof! :)

    Hope this helps! :D
     
    shoelace_510, Oct 27, 2008
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  3. terrain

    terrain Notebook Evangelist

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    shoelace - Thanks for the link to the guide I did not see that. I read the review on this site for the Memoright 128 and was at first thinking the Dell unit was that one but not sure at this point. It looks like the newer 128SSD's have 16m cache which appears to make a real difference.

    Just need to know what brand/model Dell uses so I can run the specs.
     
    terrain, Oct 27, 2008
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  4. dseo80

    dseo80 Notebook Consultant

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    Dell's 128GB SSD is Samsung Drive I have reviews of it in the new SSD thread.
     
    dseo80, Oct 27, 2008
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  5. terrain

    terrain Notebook Evangelist

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    Can you point me to the page in the "EPIC SSD Thread" - where your review is.... Is the drive good or is it a turd?
     
    terrain, Oct 27, 2008
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  6. PhoenixFx

    PhoenixFx Notebook Virtuoso

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    True, but do they really matter with a power hungry desktop replacement gaming machine like M1730? With a typical battery life of less than an hour, going for a SSD won’t make a difference more than a couple of minutes, with dual FANs I dont think you can notice the noise difference either, and since it is more of a desktop replacement I don’t think shock resistance has much importance anyway.

    I think performance is the only concern.
     
    PhoenixFx, Oct 27, 2008
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  7. terrain

    terrain Notebook Evangelist

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    I just would like to ensure that it is at least as good as a raid zero 7200RPM setup - due to the price increase etc... I would use the 128 for the OS's.
     
    terrain, Oct 27, 2008
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  8. PhoenixFx

    PhoenixFx Notebook Virtuoso

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    Here are some benchmarks taken from tomshardware.

    On the left you see single drive benchmarks of various SSD drives, on the right you see RAID benchmarks of SSD and Standard drives (Seagate Savvio 10k and WD Raptor). Compare the left side with right side’s Segate and wD RAID benchmarks.

    NOTE that the standard hard drives used in this test are high performance 10,000RPM 3.5 desktop hard drives, therefore standard 7200RPM standard notebook hard drives will perform slower.

    [​IMG]
     
    PhoenixFx, Oct 27, 2008
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  9. terrain

    terrain Notebook Evangelist

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    Thanks Phoenix,

    From what I can tell there can be a large performance difference between the high end SSD's and the lower end SSD's.

    In reviewing my order details - it appears I have 2 of these coming my way (Module,Solid State Drive,128 S2,2.5,Samsung,Extreme Performance System ).... Not sure how they will work in a Raid Zero - perhaps its over-kill and I'll use the 2nd one for another 1730....
     
    terrain, Oct 27, 2008
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  10. FrozenDarkness

    FrozenDarkness Notebook Deity

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    can't deny my jealousy, you have TWO 1730s and TWO SSDs?
     
    FrozenDarkness, Oct 28, 2008
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  11. terrain

    terrain Notebook Evangelist

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    Well we will see - just got a shipping notice so for now just the wow ed :-0. Look forward to seeing the difference the SSD's make!
     
    terrain, Oct 28, 2008
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  12. dseo80

    dseo80 Notebook Consultant

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    Samsung SSD has great performance.
    Even I dont want to look for my own post in that thread heh.
    Basically ~700 Iops/s @ random 4k writes
    latencies ~30ms average for random 4k writes
    seq read/write = 90/70
     
    dseo80, Oct 28, 2008
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  13. terrain

    terrain Notebook Evangelist

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    Sounds great -

    Can you buy these outside of Del - if so how much do the 128's cost?
     
    terrain, Oct 28, 2008
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  14. Renegade0721

    Renegade0721 Notebook Consultant

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    Yes you can buy from outside of dell just google "128gb solid state drive" you will find some OCZ 128Gb SSD which are rebranded samsungs i think.
     
    Renegade0721, Oct 29, 2008
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  15. terrain

    terrain Notebook Evangelist

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    Is AHCI enabled from your Dell factory load of Vista?

    Do you have any of the stuttering in Outlook (if you are running outlook)?

    I read that the OCZ are not re-branded Samsungs - in fact from what I have seen the Samsungs have better performance. Problem is knowing the exact model number in order to compare properly.

    Some good notes in the newegg review this guy did....



    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...+State+Disk-_-OCZ+Technology++Inc.-_-20227345
     
    terrain, Oct 29, 2008
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  16. Renegade0721

    Renegade0721 Notebook Consultant

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    1. I dont know about the AHCI because i never checked did a clean install to vista 64 bit
    2. Dont use outlook
     
    Renegade0721, Oct 29, 2008
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  17. eleron911

    eleron911 HighSpeedFreak

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    My RAID 0 with 2 320 7200 drives, pretty much the fastest you could get in hdds in the 1730, makes read speed in HDTune at around 100MB/s average.

    Installing games is twice as fast as a standalone drive though :D
     
    eleron911, Oct 30, 2008
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  18. FrozenDarkness

    FrozenDarkness Notebook Deity

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    samsung SSD's (not MLC's) have an average upwards of 150+ MB/s read time, if you could raid two SSD's i'm sure you'd have one crazy machine.
     
    FrozenDarkness, Oct 30, 2008
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  19. terrain

    terrain Notebook Evangelist

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    Nice - If I decide to wipe and re-load I"ll use both of the 128 ssd's in raid zero to see how it goes.
     
    terrain, Oct 30, 2008
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