Best SSD setup in my price range?

I'm a graphics designer and video game programmer and I'm about to upgrade my personal laptop computer to an Envy 15, I always had a problem on my current laptop and even on most desktops running photoshop because I would be frequently saving and loading 5+ GB PSB files (those are the large format photoshop files) which pretty much take ~5 minutes on my 5400 rpm HDD, very annoying.

I have a small specialty shop ordering a HP Envy 15 for me and customizing it.

They can order from HP:

160GB 1.8" HP SSD $300 each
640GB 1.8" HP HDD 7200 rpm $300 each

I found this deal online if it helps but feel free to suggest something better:

SAMSUNG 256GB SSD 3gb/S SATA 1.8' FRU MMDPE56G8DXP - eBay (item 170505279102 end time Jul-25-10 11:44:36 PDT)

SAMSUNG 256GB SSD $450

I have $900 or slightly more to spend total on storage and I want the fastest speed I can afford and at least 500 GB of storage. I can have one SSD and one HDD as long as I have at least 100GB on the SSD work with. RAID is an option.

What is the fastest hardware setup for what I need?

 

SSD: Crucial C300 256GB for $699 (crucial.com)
HDD: Seagate Momentus XT 500GB or wait for 7200.5 750GB.

I'm not sure why your shop is saying those drives are 1.8". "640GB 1.8" HP HDD 7200 rpm" does not exist. It exists only as 2.5" HDD, but I would not recommend it.

 

The 640GB 1.8" is only available from the HP parts catalog.

The Seagate Monmentus XT is a 2.5" drive, I believe the Envy 15 can hold 2 1.8" drives or one 2.5" drive.

Also what do you think about a RAID option?

 

Not that it's really important but I'm pretty sure that a 7200rpm 1.8" 640GB does not exist.

I know too little about RAID to comment.

 

Depends on what RAID level you're talking about. Looking at your initial post, it looks like you do a lot of work with large data files, so I would be inclined to say that if you do wish to invoke RAID, that it be a RAID 0 array. This allows data to be striped across two drives, essentially making your two disk drives appear as one logical drive in your OS. This in turn will increase the performance of your system.

However, you did mention using SSD, and with that, I would buy the biggest, fastest SSD you can afford and forgo RAID using mechanical drives. A single SSD will handily smoke a RAID 0 mechanical hard drive array any day.

 

I think you are right that the Envy 15 can either have 2x 1.8" drives or 1x 2.5" drive. (see here)

With the 2x 1.8" drives you're not going to get to 500GB, so you have no other option than one 2.5" drive.

500GB SSDs are over $1000.

Seagate Momentus XT 500GB might be an interesting product for your situation. In the mean time you can wait for 500GB SSDs prices to fall.

 

Agreed, but I am not sure how much benefit the OP will get out of 4GB of SSD on that drive. The stuff is read only, and the files he's writing are 5GB+ which will be deferred to the mechanical side of the hard drive, not the SSD.

 

Right, for those files there won't be any benefit.

Booting his system and launching Photoshop will be quick though.

I think the OP could consider if he really needs 500GB storage. Going SSD will be much better for his situation.

 

Indeed. Although moving from a 5,400RPM hard drive to a 7,200RPM (like the Momentus XT) will still offer a nice bump in performance, plus you get the capacity you want and 4GB of available SSD.

The problem is that the OP wants performance and capacity in the same solution but with his budget and available technology, he's going to have to decide which feature is more important to him and choose accordingly.

 

2x 256GB Samsung 1.8" SSD would also work.

I'm just not sure how fast this Samsung is and if it supports TRIM.

 

If he Raid0's those for a 500GB soultion then I don't think we have a controler yet that passes the TRIM commands...........

 

True, I did not think of that.

The best solution then is to get a fast 2.5" SSD like the C300 and an external hard drive connected through eSATA.

 

I do a lot of the same type of work for school and I was put in the same boat as you. I just ordered an Envy 14 on the day it was released with the 160GB SSD for a few reasons, but mainly it's that even if I had 1TB internal storage it wouldn't be enough (I have lotttts of Media), and if I have the money I should get the speed and an external.

If you really have 900 to spend, I'd go for the C300 with an ESata external. The speed of a real SSD will really benefit your type of work. If you really desperately need 500 internal than your choice is pretty much made for you and you should get the Momentus XT, but if you can manage 256GB internal and carry a small external, do that.

I personally shy away from having 2 hard drives not in RAID in any of my computer setups because I hate having to click around and find where things are and organize where I save them - Win7's libraries fix this a bit but if your work files aren't on the SSD (I'm assuming a 160GB SSD and 500-640GB HDD setup) then you're not even getting the benefit, then what's the point?

A Raid-0 setup of two 160GB's SSD upgrade from a 5400rpm HDD will absolutely blow your mind, but the C300 would be great.

 

Thanks for all the help guys. I did some research and it turns out that even though the trim command is not supported in RAID 0 something called Garbage Collection is. Trim is where the OS immediately demands that the deleted file be trimmed, Garbage Collection is where there is a driver running in the background that interfaces with a special controller, and when the computer is idle the deleted files are trimmed. The idea seems to be to support trim by driver, instead of trim by OS.

OCZ is the main company that uses Garbage Collection, in fact they are the only company that has developed specific drivers tuned for RAID with SSD's.

Another solution that many seems to use is only formatting 80% of the drive, this leaves clean sectors to be written to so the drive doesn't slow down.

It looks like my only option is a one SSD one HDD or twin non-raid SSD combo. I do currently use a two 1 TB archive HDDs.

I'm now considering the OCZ Vertex 2 1.8" 240GB model and a cheap 250GB 1.8" HDD. The OCZ Vertex 1.8" 240GB has speeds in the neighborhood of the C300 and only costs a few hundred more, it actually has a faster write speed but a slower read speed and allows a second hdd in this computer. Obviously I couldn't buy two of these, even though this is pretty much exactly what I need, because they're around $800 each.

I'm thinking that I would run off a single Vertex 2 and then wait until the price drops to $400, which might be up to a year based on current trends but hopefully earlier. This would give me ~300 mb/s initially and ~600 mb/s a year later which would work nicely. It's also worth noting that OCZ announced this SSD just 12 days ago.

If anyone has any comments, I'm looking forward to hearing more.. It shouldn't need to be stated that this isn't trivial.

Thanks again so far guys.

 

I'm still looking for some more input, thanks.

 

Comparing SSD on sequential speeds does not give an accurate picture.

To see how the C300 scores against Vertex 2 look here:
Hard-Drive Roundup June 2010 - File Copy Tests

 

That test is way out of line of the manufacturer specs. I'm actually a little baffled.

I found a test of the Vertex 2 in raid:

OCZ Vertex SSD RAID-0 PerformancePerformance Speed Benchmark Test

It's definitely worth it to raid Vertex 2 drives at least based on the test software, but if in fact the C300 is actually this much better than the Vertex 2, it would almost be pointless to go through all the trouble and expense. These results which have the Vertex 2 as 66% as good as the C300 don't mirror some tests. For example this one:

Micron RealSSD C300 256GB SATA 6Gbps SSD Review - The Test System - Legit Reviews

Now I'm confused.

 

Here's another good review between C300 and Vertex 2.
Crucial's RealSSD C300 solid-state drive - The Tech Report - Page 3 (several pages)

 

C300 is best IMO.. somemore its SATA 3 so once u get a SATA 3 laptop , u get extra speed and not get limited by SATA 2 drive..

 

Yeah the C300 seems to destroy everything in the real world, I think the major flaw in these tests is the file copy function. The C300 just seems to be good at duplicating it's own files. In every other test it performs about 50% better than the Vertex 2. I think the issue is that when you're copying a file the performance is BOTH read and write, so even though the C300 is 50% better overall, that adds together and results in 100% better performance when reading and writing. I'm guessing this i because SSDs are not writing in a continuous fashion but they writes stops write stop etc every few milliseconds, this result would be characteristic of a device that functioned like this.

 

Do you guys think they will be coming out with a 1.8" C300, or a 500GB version any time soon?

 

My laptop is limited to Sata II. While it looks like the C300 256GB handily trounces the Sandforce 2 It doesn't look like such a clear picture for the 128GB version at the below link on Sata II.........

Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB Solid State Drive Benchmarks - HD Tune Pro :: TweakTown USA Edition

 

As you probably know HDTune Pro says very little about real world performance.

PCMark Vantage is a bit better but still synthetic.

 

PCMark Vantage is there as well.
Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB Solid State Drive Benchmarks - PCMark Vantage Hard Disk Tests :: TweakTown USA Edition

 

I saw it, that's why I said it's still synthetic. Without real world testing the relevance of a review is rather small.

Funny thing in their Crystal Mark results: the C300 Sata 3G has faster 4K reads than the 6G.

Edit: new review: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=25308&page=1

 

In PcMark they show the X25-m 160GB trouncing the C300 and even the Sandforce2. They show a total score of 44,644. I don't rememeber seeing that high of a score else where though.

I have to wonder looking at all these sites if some of them are done by "FanBoys". It sometimes seems they carry a theme towards one drive/manufacturer or another.

I am begining to think the Intel's X25-m, especially the 160GB, is so fast that even with these faster drives you would barely be able to tell the difference unless they were side by side and you are once of those people that can go for hours on end without blinking..........

 

Going from any HDD to even a "slower" SSD like Samsung, Toshiba or Indilinx, is going to feel like a massive change. Comparing the three above to Intel, Sandforce, and Marvell, won't be very much difference and for majority of tasks, you would only notice the difference if side by side. IMO it's all about the best deal you can get for your budget since they all perform pretty much equal in most real life situations.

 

Agreed, they show some very strange results.

Most other sites show Marvell and Sandforce > Intel G2 160GB.

 

I have confirmed that the Envy 15 DOES support SATA III. Looking at those tests, it looks like the C300 128GB is not very good, but I'm not interested in it exactaly.

I think I have a few choices at this point:

1.) Wait for the Vertex 2 prices to come down, get 2 Vertex 2 1.8" 240GB drives, RAID 0

Advantages:

Potential for 300-450 mb/s write speed
Already Exists

Disadvantages:

Garbage Collection is less consistent than Trim, potential for future updates to pass Trim through the raid.

2.) Wait for the C300 512GB 2.5"

Advantages:

Trim, more consistent than Garbage Collection.
Very Unlikely Potential for more than 300mb/s

Disadvantages:

Doesn't exist
300mb/s write speed likley

3.) Other

If one of you guys were in my shoes, which way would you go?

 

I'd get a WD5000BEKT for now and wait for some good >500GB options. Maybe Sandforce, Marvell or Intel G3.

Those tests are all synthetic and not a very good indication of real life performance. To accurately evaluate the performance of SSDs you need real life tests, like Techreport does.

 

where have u read this? Currently all laptops are SATA II..

 

I was told this by the customer solutions department, after it was escalated to a tech guy.

 

Don't trust HP customer support with regards to hardware specs or performance. They don't know anything. I've asked "Does this laptop have switchable graphics?" and they've replied with the monitor resolution. I clarified the question, they asked a supervisor, and told me "yes." The answer is actually "no" as confirmed by many owners.

 

Don't forget that the phrase "SATA 3" is also a horrifically imprecise statement, especially if you're saying the phrase over the phone, as it can mean both SATA Revision 3.0 (SATA 6 Gb/s) or SATA 3 Gb/s (SATA Revision 2.0). Officially, SATA Revision 3.0 is supposed to be referred to as SATA 6 Gb/s or with the full revision title, but people are lazy.

 

umgh.. only one thing i can say about hp.. horrible customer servicde and stupid service ppl don't know what they're talking and the laptop.. don't want to say..

 

I specifically asked if it had SATA III 6gb/s and the answer was yes, the tech also added that it was backwards compatible with SATA II.

Should I trust this information?

 

I'd definitely distrust it, unless it was backed up on a reliable website.

For an accurate answer it would be better to ask an open question instead of a closed question. For example: What SATA standard does the Envy support?

 

it uses intel PM55 chipset which only has SATA II support... now get crucial C300 and close thread