Can someone explain SSD's to me? noob here

Okay so I'm shopping around looking to buy a gaming laptop, and sites like xoticpc allow you to customize your own laptops. I'm basically overwhelmed by all those options and I have no idea what's good for what.

Mostly I'm confused about SSD's and mSATA and RAID etc... all those weird words.

From what I know SSD's are drives that are supposed to perform better than traditional hard disks? I heard they were faster and such, and I've been hearing how great they are and how I absolutely have to get one.

But SSD's are like separated into categories? As far as I can tell, you can have one piece of SSD in your laptop, but those are very expensive, and are usually contain only very small storage space compared to those 1TB hard drives. And then I've heard of something about merging SSD's with your hard drives, that's what I see in those customization options, supposedly it lets you enjoy the speeds of an SSD while having access to 1TB storage space? Is that right? If so what's the difference of doing that vs just using a SSD (I've heard Samsung Evo 850 is good)?

What I'm just trying to say is I'm looking for an in-depth guide about SSD's and customizing them... so if somebody could link me to one it'd be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

 

The most common options are these:
1. Single or dual (raid or non raid) HDD - the slowest, but cheapest option offering the most storage.
2. Small caching SSD (32-80GB)+large HDD - faster option offering both the faster performance as well as enough storage while not being too expensive
3. Proper mSata or SATA SSD - the fastest possible option, but it is the most expensive of them all, while usually offering lower capacity due to the cost

It's not a guide by any means, just a quick comparison.

 

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/05/05/support-and-q-a-for-solid-state-drives-and.aspx

 

Well, if you want to know what makes SSDs tick, here's a good piece on that: http://arstechnica.com/information-...revolution-how-solid-state-disks-really-work/. Note that this article is more about the tech SSDs use and is quite technical, but if you ever find yourself lost about terms like wear leveling, overprovisioning, etc. it'll get you to understand what those things are.

About the various form factors: http://www.techspot.com/guides/768-ssd-form-factors/

It won't necessarily cover the various formats such as M2, mSATA, using a small SSD as cache and all that though.

The thing that you gotta remember is that aside from being entirely different from hard drives in terms of physical hard drive, to the OS they behave like any other drive, aside from sign a SSD as a cache. So, if you've ever used a system with more than one hard drive or a system with multiple partitions, then you basically know how to use a system with a SSD for the OS and programs and a traditional hard drive for data.

 

It seems cost and capacity are of major concern for you, so I'm going to suggest you purchase a good 1TB HDD and a 64GB mSATA or M.2 SSD to cache it (depending on your SATA ports). It will give you SSD-like performance and a 1TB storage capacity for 50%-75% less cost.

 

I'd go for at least 128 GB, ideally 256 GB nowadays. 64 GB is a tad cramped.

 

Talking about SSD-caching. Not primary OS drives. 64GB is the maximum cache size.

 

Reading comprehension fail on my part, I agree with the 64 GB cache.

 

SSD-caching... a way for manufacturers to get rid of the junk in their warehouses...

Anything less than ~500GB capacity is not worth spending your money on today. Throwing money away on a cache drive is not the way to performance (an storage subsystem does not increase performance of the system one iota - it can only increase the 'snappiness' for very specific scenarios, mainly: bootup/shutdown and installing/launching programs - everything else will be effectively the same except for a few percentages) what will actually increase the performance (work) a system does is upgrading the cpu to the fastest QC or higher on the latest platform available AND maxing out the RAM AND clean installing the latest Windows O/S (Win8.1x64Pro currently).

OP, your current notebook will determine what form factor of drives you can fit into it. Learning about 'all' of them won't help much.

See:
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Catego...4b67&Sort=PriceDesc&PageSize=40&ViewMode=Icon

The above link breaks it down pretty neatly for you. Check out the Interface options (on the left) as well as the Form Factors too to see the width and breadth of the SSD landscape currently. As you narrow down the search results, you will see (in pictures) the differences between different form and interfaces.

What do you need to know?

PCIe 3.0 x4 is needed for the highest performance today. But you can forget about this in any current notebook - too much power needed (22W+), too big and no connections even if you wanted it sticking out with a 12" fan to cool it... The highest examples of these types of drives have controllers with up to 18 channels enabled for the nand chips and offer performance not possible even with multiple RAID0 arrays of SATAIII 2.5" SSD's.

2.5" SATAIII is a drop in replacement for the drives you (probably) have now in your notebook. Watch out for 7mm vs. 9.5mm (or larger) drives' Z heights - but basically, take out the old drive, put in the new one and do a clean install of the O/S (Win8.1x64Pro) and you're golden. These are the best performance buy with the maximum controller channels available (typically 8) with drives ~500GB or higher.

mSATA drives seem too good to be true and that is exactly what they are (for boot, O/S + Program purposes). They generally have less than half the controller channels available and just as bad, less than half the nand chips of the best 2.5" SSD examples too. That affects performance in two ways; with half the channels, the performance is hardware capped (sustained, over time) no matter how much capacity the SSD offers. While the one or two nand chips per controller limits the performance again vs. SSD's that can be optimally interleaved on each channel which increases the sustained performance over time substantially.


With any current SSD solution, Anand Lal Shimpi recommends at least 25% OP'ing (Over Provisioning) and I personally have found that 30% OP'ing or greater is needed for the best balance of capacity vs. sustained performance over time. To OP, you simply need to leave 'unallocated' capacity of the indicated percentage on the drive. Preferably when you are first doing a clean install to the drive. This is over and above any OP'ing provided by the manufacturer (they simply do this to ensure the drive makes it to at least one day past the warranty period).

SLC nand is the best quality you could buy (at one time) - but today, MLC has surpassed it in many important areas, namely; price and capacity. The older drives using this type of nand were good for their time - today, they are just a curiosity (mostly because of their small capacities).

MLC nand is the best you can buy today. TLC is best avoided (especially the Samsung versions).

See:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1507897/samsung-840-evo-read-speed-drops-on-old-written-data-in-the-drive


As for customizing SSD's? Beyond OP'ing them; use them till they give up the ghost on a current O/S (Windows, of course). Anything else done to an SSD is a joke (i.e. Samsung Magician).

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...b-samsung-850-evo.772091/page-3#post-10022371


Hope some of this was useful.

 

It's not only during bootup/shutdown and installing/launching where caching helps. In hybrid drives, this is more so. Basically, while it may be most beneficial to those areas, it's still better than a standard HDD in others.

Caching is most affordable for the OP, as he/she is worried about storage capacity. Purchasing a large capacity SSD will cost hundreds. But if he/she can afford it, go for it. This is the best option.

 

"Throwing money away on a cache drive..."

Anyone else get a chuckle out of the unintended pun?

Or was it just me?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Better than a HDD doesn't mean much. It is simply not worth it.

Even Anand did an article that stated even with a 256GB SSD (on a mac) the caching effect was not enough. Anything less is just like putting racing stripes on your Camry.

 

I'm seeing more than 400MB/s with my cached storage HDD. So, not sure what you mean by, "not worth it."

 

With what synthetic benchmark?

 

I transferred files of 6GB+ and Windows actually showed 406MB/s in the details.

It's like $40 for this caching SSD. Most laptops come with a stock HDD. So, $40 for this performance isn't worth it? Don't think that's the best phrasing to use in order to explain the situation. Maybe it's not worth it to you.

 

You make it hard to get any info from you, lol... Windows may show that as a peak or even avg. speed, but when did it actually finish the transfer?

What type of files and from where to where did you transfer? What O/S? How much RAM? What interface was used between the two drives?

 

Windows 8.1. It was a video file from recording game-play. You can see RAM in my signature. The HDD is accelerated using IRST "Enhanced" caching mode.

Before I added the caching SSD, videos would transfer at around 98MB/s - 122MB/s.

 

Don't do sigs (they become irrelevant over time). So, RAM? Drive transferred to (and interface type)?

 

"32GB (4x 8GB) Kingston HyperX Impact DDR3L @ 1866MHz"

 

Yeah, sorry. Went out for lunch. He posted the RAM.

Not sure what you mean by "interface." I recorded video with ShadowPlay and dragged it to my HDD for storage (to be uploaded later). Before the caching SSD was added, maximum transfer speeds were roughly 120MB/s. Now it's well over 400MB/s. So, it seems it does help a bit more than just with launching programs.

I'm not saying it's better than a primary SSD. Just saying it's not fair to blatantly suggest "it's not worth it." Maybe to you it's not worth it.

 

Okay, 32GB of RAM and ShadowPlay records to RAM (even if it doesn't it would be in RAM anyway...)?

So, the 6GB file gets transferred to the caching SSD at 400MB/s+ but it is not actually saved until it ends up on the HDD at less than 90MB/s (real world - not what Windows indicates when copying from RAM).

Sure, it may seem like it is faster, but it's not (if you pull the plug at that point... uh, the file won't be there).

$40 towards 'nothing' is nothing (paraphrasing an old song - SW).

Not trying to knock what you have - just trying to let you know what you actually have and what you have not.

 

Think you misunderstood what I was saying... 'Cause that doesn't make any sense. The file was edited and already compiled using a video editor. RAM doesn't really have anything to do with it at this point.

All I'm doing is simply moving files from one drive to another. Not recording and saving it to the HDD while recording.

 

Okay, lets try one more time. Which drives and over what interface?

 

I'm moving videos from my SSD to my storage HDD (which is accelerated by a cached SSD). That's it.

Without the caching SSD, it's around 120MB/s maximum transfer speed. With the caching SSD, it reaches over 400MB/s transfer (and stays up there).

 

Okay, from an SSD to the SSD cached HDD. Thanks.

I'm assuming all drives are internal (native SATA) connections then.

My point still stands then. The caching drive may receive the file at an indicated 400MB/s but it still needs to be put on the HDD at less than a quarter of that speed.

If you had a workflow that did this continuously, you would see the effective speed be less than the speed of the HDD on it's own. That is why I say it is not worth even $40. But maybe you're right; not worth it 'to me'.

Cheers! And thanks for slowly doling out the required info (eventually).

 

So, I managed to capture a screen shot this time. Here's what I see when transferring multiple GB files to the HDD:



I can immediately run them from the HDD as well, even if they are deleted from the original source upon completing the transfer. Seems to be beneficial to me. The HDD was 4x slower before. If you can't afford a large capacity SSD (e.g. 1TB), spending $30-$50 on a caching SSD is better than resorting to only an HDD.