Best SSD for SATA II Notebooks?

Thanks phil, your opinion always appreciated.

Btw returning to thread, there is imo a good deal for those wanting to go for the 320s, Intel 320 Series SSDSA2CW160G3K5 2.5" 160GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) $284.99, considering the X25m 160gb still rounding $400 (some places do have $75 MIR), but still at $285 decent deal for a sata II.

 

I bought a 320 160gb from Buy.com when they offered the K version for $299.99. It should arrive today and I'll post some benchmarks.

 

I've just invested in a 600GB Intel 320.

CrystalDiskMark benchmark result


ATTO benchmark result


I have not tried to apply any performance tweaks. According to the Intel specs, the 600GB version has slightly better performance but "up to" means anything less is OK.

The SSD is actually a 7mm thick unit onto which a 2.5mm thick plastic spacer has been added to get the standard 9.5mm thickness. So this SSD can be an upgrade for whatever notebooks exist that will only take 7mm thick drives.

John

 

Actually, if you read their addendum spec, the 600GB has a lower IOPS when benched at full LBA span, random write. Only half of the 300GB(both are low comparing with 8GB span). Though very few people used it for laptop would care about that as it is a completely different access pattern.

 

Here's a benchmark run for my ssd 320 120gb:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 237.772 MB/s
Sequential Write : 125.158 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 176.989 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 128.980 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 15.492 MB/s [ 3782.3 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 25.152 MB/s [ 6140.6 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 139.373 MB/s [ 34026.6 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 66.317 MB/s [ 16190.6 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 29.9% (33.3/111.7 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2011/04/08 17:10:25
OS : Windows 7 SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

 

Here is my 320 160GB:

 

600GB SSD??!

Thats gotta be like the cost of a cheap car.

 

I agree that it's not cheap: It cost about the same as the Dell E6410 that it will go into. I need the highest capacity SSD I can find and, until some manufacturer brings out a combo SSD + HDD (eg 128MB SSD + single platter 500GB HDD) then this is the best I can find.

I was also surprised by the pricing being less than double the 300GB (usually the biggest capacity carries an extra premium) and was available in UK so I decided to grab one in case they disappeared.

John

 

It makes sense actually. All they are doing is adding double the number of chips. Each chip is the same price. But in mechanical drives you have either two or three platters. The only way to get more space is to use higher density platters. The fat platters are newer and are thus more expensive.

 

John,

I just read your E6410 article and was surprised that even though you mention you installed an SSD inside, you didn't elaborate on the difference it made.

Was this the Intel 320 600GB SSD, or another one?

Will you be reviewing the 600GB Intel anytime soon?

Not interested in benchmarks - just want a comparison to the HDD (or SSD) it replaced.

Thanks!

 

The new sandforce 2xxxnm drives are cheaper, has anyone tried them? Aside from Vertex 2 I mean..Specifically either the Corsair F115 and G.skill Phoenix EVO..Although I'm guessing we'll never know how the reliability is since they're pretty new..Anyone use these drives?

 

I don't think other Sandforce 2200 drives are available yet. It seems OCZ has a very good relationship with Sandforce that allows them to release drives before the rest can.

PS. The Corsair Force 115 seems to be a Sandforce 1200 product. The Sandforce 2200 product is called Corsair Force GT.

 

For some reason the G.Skill Phoenix EVO 115GB is available here for a cheaper price than the Phoenix PROs? Wondering if these drives will have better reliability over the older models..I'd also wanna know how they perform compared to other drives if anyone has any idea..

 

Gskill EVO uses a Sandforce 1200 controller and 25nm flash. I wouldn't recommend it, it performs lower than the original Sandforce drives with 34nm flash.

The Sandforce 2200 product is called Phoenix II.

G.Skill and Corsair preparing next generation SandForce SSDs - www.nordichardware.com

 

Uses 6gb/s interface..Alright thanks for the info..Plus we don't know how reliable the 25nm flash based SF drives are yet as well i believe..

 

The SSD mentioned in my E6410 review was a 512GB Kingston V+ (even more expensive than the 600GB Intel 320). Some of the benchmark results have entries for both the stock HDD (+ 2GB RAM) and the 512GB HDD (+ 8GB RAM).

I have just run PCMark Vantage on the Intel 320 after cloning the previous SSD. The overall score has gone up from 8046 to 9090 with the HDD suite score increasing from 12747 to 20020.

WEI's HDD score has a more modest increase from 6.9 to 7.4.

John

 

Could somebody bring me up to speed with the SSD situation. I would like to invest about 300 pounds on an SSD for my SATA 2 notebook and want the fastest possible with capacity around 250GB. Is it worth going for the newer intel 510 etc with maxing out the sata 2 controller in mind??

Thanks

 

From what ive heard, as im on sata II also, in a nutshell....no. its not worth it.......

 

Thanks but doesn't really answer my question. I want to upgrade to the fastest SSD whether or not it is Sata II or III doesn't matter so long as it is quick, reliable and 250GB. Would prefer a sata III one though if it gives better performance in things other than seq reads and writes. A drive that basically truly maxes out the Sata II bandwidth..

 

I think Vertex 3 240GB is the fastest SSD on sata II for light workloads.

The Crucial m4 (Micron C400) SSD Review - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

 

But with an unjustifiable premium. If you can afford Vertex 3 money, then you can afford SATA III money.

 

Thanks Phil. I read a few reviews on the web for this drive however it seems that the general consensus is that under sata 2 there is a performance drop compared with previous generation top tier drives eg vertex 2. Is there truth in this?

Is vertex 2/vertex 2 pro faster under sata 2? Would be nice to see some user comparisons

 

Where did you read that?

As far as I know it's not true. Vertex 3 and Intel 510 beat the SATA II competition, also when they're connected to SATA II. This is confirmed by all the benchmarks I've seen.

 

HEXUS.net - Review :: OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD review : Page - 8/8

Here is the reviews from hexus. I can't find the other at the moment.

"The Bad

Fetches a hefty premium over Vertex 2
Struggles to match last-generation drives over SATA 3Gbps"

drew my attention.

Do you have links to the benchmarks you have seen? Would love to get a broader idea.

 

Actually it was only the benchmarks on Anandtech that I've seen.

PCMark Vantage, that Hexus and Tomshardware use, seem to give bad performance for the Vertex 3 on SATA II.

 

I think I have narrowed down my choice of drives to either the vertex 3 240GB or the C300. Which will give better performance under sata 2?

I guess pretty similiar although the vertex 3 should boast higher write speeds than 215mb/s...

 

C300 known to be slower than Sata2 SSD's on Sata2 connection.

Hmmm... I'm left in the uncomfortable position of saying that the V3 will be better on Sata2.

 

As far as I've read, SATA 3 native drives rely on the SATA 3 interface to deliver maximum/optimum performance..When downgrading to SATA 2, the performance is somehow not as great as SATA 2 native drives..Not sure on the newer drives though..The C300 was the best example but I believe the new firmware fixed this issue. If I had a SATA 2 interface though, I don't think I'd get a SATA 3 drive though cause the price premium outweighs the benefits with SATA 2 native drives..

 

I was one of the people saying that going by the Storagereview review and my own review, that only included the 64GB.

However SR benchmarks aren't really real world imo. And my results may have been low because it was the 64GB.

Laptopmag has been posting real real world benchmarks showing that the C300 performance on SATA II is actually very good.

What's the price difference?

I doubt you'll notice the difference between the two.

The high write speed of the Vertex 3 is only reached with compresible data.

 

Phil,

Thanks for the updated 'view' of the C300.

Off to read that link now.

 

There is about 100 pounds difference between the 2 drives. Is the vertex 3 worth that extra money? (280 vs 370 odd)

Off to read your link too.. thanks!

 

On SATA II? no way imo.

 

Phil...in the UK....YES WAY! price wise.....

 

To clarify: I answered the question "Is the vertex 3 worth that extra money?" with "No way" meaning it's not worth the extra money in my opinion, on SATA II.

 

Sorry, i thought you were meaning price difference.....us poor folk in the UK are always shafted for more cash.......and i concurr....no, its not worth it for sata II, price wise.

 

so Sata II can do 300mb/sec right?

a Sata III SSD on a Sata II port will only be bottlenecked on sequential writes?

4k is only like 80MB/sec and that's what is important for bootup and system performance so why not get a Sata III SSD?

Debating on what to get for my 3820TG and it's got Sata II.

 

On my laptop it's more like 250MB/s.

 

A SATA 3 -6.0 Gbit/s- drive on a SATA 2 -3.0 Gbit/s- controller will just run the drive at a max of 3.0 Gbit/s. So, in theory this drive shouldn't be any different than a SATA 2 drive on the same controller.

So, you first need to decide which drive/size would provide the best performance on your SATA 2 controller. Once you have that then take into account the price. SSD prices vary from region to region. So if you can get a SATA 3 drive for the same price/performance as a SATA 2 drive, then go for it. If however, SATA 3 drives are 10% or more in price (and you have no intention of using the drive in a SATA 3 machine), then I say save your money and invest it into something else.

IIRC, 300MB/s is a theoretical on the SATA 2 interface, but actual speeds vary from drive to drive.

 

Sequential reads will be bottlenecked too. 4K performance and sequential performance are both important for real world performance.

Vertex 3 and Intel 510 don't seem to be worth the premium on SATA II.

Get a SATA II drive or Crucial C300 if you can find a good deal.

 

SATA II has a theoretical limit of 300MB/sec. With overhead, I believe real numbers are about 260-270MB/sec or so. Regarding random 4k speeds, yes, those are the "feel fast" speeds. So, if all you cared about was a snappy feeling machine, then I suppose SATA III is a justifiable premium to pay on a SATA II bus.

But, for most people, I'd suspect that it just seems kind of pointless to have a drive that's capable of 500-600MB/sec in sequential read/write but be limited by the bus. Just, something wouldn't sit right. Especially after paying such a hefty premium.

Using a SATA III drive in a SATA II system would probably make more sense two years from now. Because then, the drives would be so cheap that it'd be worth it just to boost up the slow feel of an older system. But, hey if you're in America, it's a semi-free country, so you can do as you please, sometimes.

 

voltron,

Let me re-word my post. Placing a SATA 3 drive on a SATA 2 controller is not necessarily going to max out your SATA 2 bus. The drive is going to act like other SATA 2 drives. In other words, while the worst SATA 3 drive may be capable of handling more throughput than SATA 2, it may or may not be better than an average SATA 2 drive on a SATA 2 controller. It would depend on how that drive handles dropping down to SATA 2.

For example, really go over these bench numbers of the Intel 510, Crucial C300, and OCZ Vertex 3 (scroll about 1/3 way down). They tested the drives on SATA 3 controllers and SATA 2 controllers. Although each drive is capable of SATA 3 connectivity, they didn't saturate the SATA 2 bus at the max (theoretical or w/ 8b/10b overhead). For example, while the Intel 510 is capable of 315+MB/s on SATA 3, it only achieves 235+MB/s on SATA 2. Same drive, but different controller. In fact as you look over the numbers each drive had its strengths and weaknesses on SATA 2.

So, as mentioned above, you need to look at what the drives capability on SATA 2 controllers, and then look at price as spending more on SATA 3 may be throwing money away when a SATA 2 drive may give you better performance.

HTH

 

Thanks for the detailed reply. You cleared quite a few things up. I have got one question though.

I am currently using a laptop with sata II interface, with no plans of up gradation in near future.

How do I find a SSD drive that is most optimized for use with my SATA II controller. All new SSDs come with the SATA III interface which I don't really need.

Any personal recommendations from your side?

 

If you're looking at the newer Gen 2 drives, then that may be the case, but I'm pretty sure you can still find the older GEN 1 drives still for sale. Just make sure the drive supports TRIM, and you use it in a TRIM enabled OS - Win 7, OS X 10.7 (when it is released) or newer distros of Linux.

You should investigate and read all the reviews for SSD drives - anandtech.com, storagereview.com, thessdreview.com (others may want to chirp in on their fav review sites). See how each one performs in a configuration as close to your setup as possible. Besides performance numbers on SATA 2, you also need to consider SSD space, and then price (or price and then space depending on your budget).

If you use something like newegg.com or amazon.com, you can also see what people are buying and read any reviews from users - but remember not to trust everything you read on the internet.

When I bought my drive, there were very few 200+GB SSD drives on the market. The Crucial C300 was one of the few which didn't break the bank. It was one of the first drives with SATA 3 (so it is an older drive today), but in my case (SATA 2 controller), that didn't matter. I needed the space, and something that performed decently on SATA 2. The reviews I uncovered had performance numbers on both SATA 2 and SATA 3, so that was a huge help. In any case, that is how I ended up picking the C300.

HTH

 

I'll also say C300 can be one of the best deals at the moment.

It's a SATA III drive that costs about the same as the fastest SATA II drives. It seems to be reliable and it's fast.

 

Sorry for butting in, so if I can get my hands on a C300 it'd be a good drive even on a SATA 2 interface? How's real world performance compared to G2 and sandforce? I haven't seen any real world tests on the C300 on SATA 2..If I remember correctly I couldn't find any..Most reviews we're on SATA 3..Plus it was only synthetics and I believe it was with the older firmware..I've been hearing the new firmware bumped up the performance on SATA 2..

 

Crucial's RealSSD C300 solid-state drive - The Tech Report - Page 5

Intel SSD 320 (300GB) Review - A Review of the Intel SSD 320 (300GB)

 

Look at the link "bench numbers" from my post above - http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...est-ssd-sata-ii-notebooks-20.html#post7366334

In regards to the [FW], I can say moving to '0006' from '0002' did vastly increase my SATA 2 WRITE speeds. Here are my last run of benches:

 

Read the reviews and it seems the C300 performs just as good as the sandforce and samsung..Although what I noticed first in these reviews was how far off the performance of the x25-m G2 is in some tests..Some tests show the momentus XT and Velociraptor performing better than the G2..The time it took to install Adobe is also a shocker..This could be a bad for my usage as I will be installing/uninstalling games often..Too slow when compared to the other drives..I didn't it think the performance would be that far off from the others..

 

I think it's an eror with their drive. X25V does better than X25m in that review.

PS. I don't think installing Adobe is included in the review.

 

My bad,the worldbench thingy is what I was talking about..It's waaaaaay below the pack in CS2..And I mean even below the hard drives..I mean that can't be right..Plus the map loading times..Some hard drives even did better than the G2..