SSD Thread (Benchmarks, Brands, News, and Advice)

Of course I am referring strictly about writes not reads. But perhaps with TRIM it isn't an issue, maybe without it too. I dunno, but thanks for your clarification.

 

Optical drive ssd's are here.

 

Now that is a good idea.

 

More and more laptops are loosing the optical drive.

I'd like to see a 500GB HDD combined with a 40GB SSD in a 2.5" form factor.

 

It's not losing the optical drive. It's a combination of SSD and ODD, though, granted, the ODD will be slot, not tray. But, in any case, you'll get the best of all worlds: An SSD, a HDD, and an ODD.

Looks like there will also be a Bluray version, as well.

 

Of course I understand what the product is about. The picture is pretty obvious in that regard.

I said more and more notebooks are loosing their optical drives. Like all the netbooks, Asus UL models, Acer Timeline models, HP DM1, DM3, Macbook Air, etc.

 

That optical drive with SSD is a good idea. However, that's what I've suggested for hard drives. Built in SSD, but not hybrid tech. For optical drives it's fine for most 14" and larger notebooks, but even 14" and smaller are eliminating them in order to reduce size and weight. I'd say integrate it in with the hard drive where it belongs. And with the hard drive you could opt to use some of the SSD storage as a read/write cache for the hard drive like the Seagate Momentus XT does.

 

I don't know why they haven't made it yet. It should be fairly easy to squeeze one 375GB platter and a 64GB SSD in one 2.5"/9.5mm form factor I would think.

 

Right. Depending on what they can fit on that PCB, I'd be fine with 40GB even. Might need to sacrifice a little bit of performance, but it'd still be much much better than no SSD.

 

I personally don't like the idea of an combined optical drive with an SSD. The main reason is that the optical drives fail far more often than an SSD and I wouldn't like to send both of them in for just replacing the optical drive.
A combined SSD and an HDD (not a hybrid, two separate drives) would be more interesting though...

 

Not holding my breath for one of these either. Yawn.

 

I don't like 2 in 1, so I think 2.5" HDD and 1.8" 50-80 GB SSD would be perfect.

 

How are the new 128GB Samsung mainstream SSD's? The upgrade from a 500GB 7200RPM HDD to the SSD is $100, is it worth it?

 

not as good as the intels or ocz around.. i would save ur money and upgrade to an intel by urself.. much more easy... and better.

 

Something new at Anand's. OCZ Announces SandForce Based PCIe RevoDrive SSD - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

 

I have Intel SSD 160GB G2 in my laptop. Why is my random 4K read value lower than random 4K write value? Is it normal? What can I do to rise this value?

 

It's normal for the 4K read to be slower than the 4K write when the Queue Depth is only 1 in the Intel drives, I believe. Your figures seem fine, on the whole.

I've seen better results for the G2 in 4K random writes with QD=1, as much as 60MB/s, but I don't know if it matters, really.

 

This is normal, as I know. And I think that You can't do anything about it.

 

Nice review by Anand that shows what happens when you replace the HDD in a notebook with a SSD (OCZ Vertex):
ASUS U30Jc Revisited: Adding an SSD - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

 

I finally got my second Vertex 2 SSD installed in my Macbook Pro. Here you can see the numbers..

 

Just found a really detailed defrag tool even for SSDs, PerfectDisk 11 Pro. Should be useful for those trying to shrink their drive and can't because of system files' placement. I'm about to use it to shrink the remaining 50GB of space in my drive because of a stupid cluster with MFT, metadata, etc sitting 50GB away from the rest of my drive data lol.

Home Disk Defragmentation Software | PerfectDisk 11 Professional
If you look through this PDF user guide pay attention to the sections about SMARTPlacement and the Drive Map. All PerfectDisk11 guide http://ftp.raxco.com/pub/download/pd11/UserGuides/PD11_UserGuide.pdf and all user guides are here http://www.perfectdisk.com/support/user-guides

I attached a zip of the windows help htm pages of the specific sections w/pics.

 

Did you benchmark to see if there were any differences in performance before and after?

 

I've always been taught that there is no need to defragment a SSD ever.

Was I taught wrong?

 

I actually told people about this a long time ago, and even posted benchmarks as well:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/5524748-post479.html

It's in this very same thread. I was using Perfect Disk 10 then, but Perfect Disk 11 still works great too

So...what you are doing with Perfect Disk is erasing all data on free or marked deleted blocks so they do not have the erase before write speed penalty. To help the drive free up space you need to consolidate free space which will increase write cycles to the drive much like GC FW does...Then you run AS-Clean to reset all those now free blocks. So Perfect Disk is more like manual GC than TRIM really.

You will get an instant speed up by doing this...BUT you have to make it part of your SSD weekly/monthly care regime for it to be most effective.

So...you run Perfect Disk and after a week the drive slows down again...why?

Windows writes randomly with often tiny fragments of data, when a small fragment hits a block it gets written to it, but in order for that block to see another write it has to erase first...hence the drives slows down once all free clean blocks have been used. This is why regular maintenance helps keep drives fast

I personally feel for those using drives or raid with no TRIM or GC Perfect Disk is a real bonus, make it part of a weekly care program and the system will not see a slow down.

 

Phil you are correct, there is no need for defragmentation.
That's from the wiki
Solid-state drive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Defragmenting the SSD is unnecessary. Since SSDs are random access by nature and can perform parallel reads on multiple sections of the drive (as opposed to a HDD, which requires seek time for each fragment, assuming a single head assembly), a certain degree of fragmentation is actually better for reads, and wear leveling intrinsically induces fragmentation.[25] In fact, defragmenting a SSD is harmful since it adds wear to the SSD for no benefit."

I don't see any other reason to defrag an SSD except from saving some space as long as TRIM works properly.

 

I was only posting this program as a way to shift around (consolidate) system files for people having trouble windows drive shrinking their drive size when there's still plenty of free space. Mine was stuck with a 50GB gap because 1 cluster at the end of the 50GB gap was NTFS metadata. Aside from that it allows file by file defrag.

My file fragmentation grows 10%/week. We're talking about 2 different types of defrags. Physical SSD block fragmentation is handled by TRIM or your SSD manufacturer's optimizing tool, and logical file system fragmentation which is uneffected by TRIM or your SSD manufacturer's optimizing tool. I seriously can't imagine that a fragmented file (file system fragmentation) has no significant effect on SSD performance. There are users around that have proven there's a hinderence despire manufacturer claims

 

What's the best strategy to keep write performance (i.e. no degradation) on XP? My dad sorely needs an SSD for work, but the software he uses hasn't been "upgraded" for Vista/7. Don't worry, I've looked for alternatives. Unfortunately, being a physician, the programs are highly specialized.

SSD Toolbox? This PerfectDisk 11 + AS Cleaner with FF? Secure Erase every month?

It's probably going to be a single 160GB Intel G2 or possibly RAID 1.

Thanks,

~Ibrahim~

 

For an Intel G2, the Toolbox is the best way.

 

So I finally got an SSD but it seems I have a problem with it.

My read speeds seem fine at 220 Sequential speed, but my write speeds are terribly low.

I have a Kingston 128gb SNV425. In this review, they are getting 174 in the sequential write, but I only got 21.31!

What could the problem be?

 

Sweet, thanks Forge!

 

How about running the program in XP compatibility mode of Windows 7 HP? It's working very well here.

 

the reason why I personally wouldn't suggest defragmenting an SSD is that the controller spreads data across the NANDs so they wear in a uniform way. If we choose to defragment an SSD it will wear much faster (copying the data to a temp location and then back to another) and most probably in a non uniform way. If we do this in a regular basis it will reduce the lifespan of the SSD significantly for a small in my opinion performance gain.

 

anyone with ocz vertex on the M17X R2? performance is 50 mb/sec less than it was on the R1. thus i have two ocz vertex ssds on my system now and both have reduced speed from 200mb/sec (On R1) to 150mb/sec (on R2) or less. so its not performance drop due to usage. one is months newer than the other one and i have done sanitary erase and re-entered 1.51 firmware.

any clues?

i think intel mishandles ocz ssds (wouldnt be suprised..)

 

Remove the Intel drivers and use the MS ones like on the R1

 

from a search i ve made this didnt work. i ll myself too. my next option will be the rapid storage technology.

 

What's the story behind a 96GB Vertex 2?
OCZ Vertex 96GB | Hardware.Info Nederland

I thought they were going to give the 100GB more space, not less.

This 96GB Vertex 2 is very interesting. Only 9 % more expensive than Intel G2 80GB and 20% more capacity.

Edit: Oops it's a Vertex 1! My mistake.

 

Can anyone help?

Apperently my drive isnt aligned correctly from what I understand. What do I have to do to realign it to 4kb?

 

wholy damn! i configured my two 120gb ocz vertex drives to RAID0 in R2 BIOS, installed win7 x64 and then used the controller from intel rapid storage driver.

the results? have a look guys!!!!!!!

http://j.imagehost.org/0836/dual_ocz_120gb_raid0_intel_rapid_storage.jpg

controller.jpg - ImageHost.org

or my eyes are kidding me or this is real! 500mb/sec on a notebook!

by the way with the raid controller of the driver offered by dell performance was only 70mb/sec! half than a single ocz vertex speed.

PS: THE DRAWBACK. this controller does not support trim on raid volumes. Thanks Mandrake for aksing me. i found this here:

http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-031491.htm

 

Interesting idea! I hadn't thought of that...

The only drawback is that it would require a fresh install of Windows, which, if we could avoid, is best. He's not a huge fan of the "new" Windows yet, either, lol.

~Ibrahim~

 

Alright, I finally got a SSD but.... It sometimes won't boot. It will get the windows loading screen and the hard drive light won't be on. If I shut it down, when it starts it gives me two options, start windows normally, or to repair it with a Windows 7 CD, that I don't have. I stalled the hard drive using cloning software the that Kingston provides and left the partitions the same. Other than this, the hard drive runs great. Any thoughts? Do I need to install a driver, or additional software?


By the way I installed it twice and this keeps happening.

The SSD... Newegg.com - Kingston SSDNow V+ Series SNVP325-S2B/128GB 2.5" 128GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

 

Did you clone both times?

My first suggestion would be to back everything up and do a clean install. Wait for a second opinion, though. This might be normal.

 

Why You think Your drive isn't aligned? How did You checked it?

What OS You have?

 

I went to system info and checked the starting partition offset and divided it by 4096. It came out to 7.8 and from what I read if it doesnt divide evenly, then its not aligned. It was probably because I tried to clone my HDD first but then canceled the process and decided to install a fresh Windows 7.

I have windows 7. I reinstalled it this afternoon and it seems to have aligned the drive. It now divides in evenly. My read speeds even went up, but my write speeds have stayed the same at about 20. My read speeds are around 240 but my write is at 20. Thats really weird.

I also followed some of these tweaks for SSDs in windows 7 and they have not helped

edit: So I took out my 320gb 7200RPM drive that was originally in my laptop and put the SSD in that place instead of the second slot. With just the SSD in there, my write speeds went up to 60. Better than 20, but still really low... My read speeds are at 245.

edit again: Well I ran "SSD Tweak Utility" and my write speeds bumped up to 104. Getting there lol, but reviews of it have it getting up to 174.

 

Hi guys please can someone help me first i hope i posted in the right place here

I purchased a Samsung MMDOE56G5MXP 256GB SSD, Firmware version VBM15D1Q but since reading forums i am worried that i wont be able to use this sdd on windows 7 something to do with TRIM? I also read you can update from firmware VBM18C1Q to VBM191QC but wot is the deal with my firmware can i update will i be ok using the sdd on windows 7?

Any advice much appreciated!

 

I'm with Forge if you haven't tried a clean install yet. Their cloning software is good but not perfect.

 

Need help on this.>>
I ran CDM 2.2 and CDM 3.0 and got two different results.I understand that for every run different numbers will show up.My main concern is with the 4K.Why is this divergency ?? Shall I use 2.2 or 3.0 ??

Besides about 1 month ago I inquired on this thread about why after running AS SSD my SSD had 31K BAD and was
told that most likely was alignment.Is there a way to fix this.??

OS = WINDOWS 7 PRO Clean Install
SSD = 64GB SAMSUNG ZIF PATA

TX.

 

@zimbros12

You ran CMD 2.2 at 100MB while the CMD 3.0 at 1000MB. You need to change it to 100MB too if you want to get the same result.

 

Tx I really didn't know about it. Will adjust and do a re-run.
Now will wait response about the 3K BAD to see if it is fixable or not.

 

If you did a clean windows 7 install, the alingment should be correct

 

No it is not.Right after the W7 Clean Install I ran AsSSD and still got 3 K bad
Anyway just to recheck I am gonna do it now and see.
TX