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

Ah sorry didn't know what happened yesterday.

Did you uninstall the Intel Matrix Storage Manager too when you switched to MS driver before the OS messed up?

 

Yes removed everything.

After I did the clean install I did not reinstall Intel Matrix Storage Manager.

 

FYI, the speed difference in my experience is not nearly as drastic in OS X as it is in Windows.

 

Okay that might have caused the mess. It happened to me once when I tried to uninstall my IMSM just to see if I will gain more speed then ended up reinstalling the OS

Thanks!

 

I just like looking ahead for what I might try next. I know only one thing for sure... it will be SSD. No more spinners except for external storage for me.

Vertex 2 seems to be coming up very well in the reviews I have read, and it is a totally different approach than the Corsair, so I am curious to see if I will notice a difference, should I try one.

 

Below are the test results we got on our Macbook pro with a Photofast 128GB Gmonster V5 SSD. Its really maxing out the SATA II performance! Very happy...

QuickBench(TM) 4.0 Test Results provided by http://SSDEurope.com
©2000-2007 Intech Software Corp.
Test file created on Saturday, 13 February 2010 at 1:04:08 AM
Test Volume Name: Macintosh HD
Test Volume Type: MacOS Extended
Test Volume Size: 118.866 Gigabytes
Test Volume Free Space: 100.835 Gigabytes
Allow Disk Cache Effects: Disabled
All reads and writes performed asychronously

Standard Test Results

(Cycles: 1)
< Insert Chart Here >Seq. Read Seq. Write Ran. Read Ran. Write
4 KB 32.614 48.968 20.434 13.812
8 KB 56.697 77.155 34.574 25.033
16 KB 88.731 119.016 44.284 45.152
32 KB 115.463 155.975 63.561 134.74
64 KB 136.965 182.837 101.411 177.767
128 KB 179.885 187.517 140.491 194.787
256 KB 210.113 205.482 184.06 204.226
512 KB 230.805 210.527 185.285 212.605
1024 KB 243.02 204.727 192.608 215.497
Standard Ave 143.81 154.689 107.412 135.958


Large Test Results

(Cycles: 1)
< Insert Chart Here > Read Write
2 MB 257.999 216.208
3 MB 259.729 217.304
4 MB 259.78 217.767
5 MB 259.968 218.052
6 MB 260.545 218.344
7 MB 260.375 218.444
8 MB 260.777 213.295
9 MB 260.95 214.605
10 MB 261.048 215.732
Large Ave 260.13 216.639


Extended Test Results

(Cycles: 1)
Read Write
20 MB 258.831 217.383
30 MB 258.414 215.351
40 MB 258.205 215.338
50 MB 258.786 215.347
60 MB 257.958 211.856
70 MB 258.527 215.354
80 MB 258.497 215.337
90 MB 258.503 215.344
100 MB 258.261 216.492
Extended Ave 258.443 215.311


Custom Test Results:
Transfer Size: 1000 Megabytes
Transfer Count: 2
Contiguous File Only: No
Custom Test Cycles: 2

Custom Read Custom Write
Max Speed 258.454 215.883
Ave Speed 257.648 215.502
Min Speed 255.293 214.709

 

So should I run this Intel Storage Manager?

If it's not beneficial for performance I'd rather not. I'm using the ICH9 driver from Intel.com. (SSD = Intel X-25V)

 

I am on ICH9 as well and tested bot the MS and Intel on both my OWC and Intel drives. There was no performance gain whatsoever either way.

 

Is this a decent SSD for the money?

WESTERN DIGITAL 128GB SATA Solid State Hard Drive 2.5IN SiliconEdge Blue : Storage, Drives & Backup | Dell

I'm still acquainting myself with these as I've ignored them waiting for a general price drop thanks !

PS: Minimum storage I want is 128 gbs.

 

your difficulty is going to be getting the 128gb for the price u want. All ssds are decent and will amaze a new user but I might consider the Intel 160Gb since it has been dipping in price lately.

 

thanks....yes, 160 would be perfect....is this one on the Dell site you know offhand? I need to put it on my business account. Naw....looking at newegg....

 

I am not sure if Dell sells it but it is the most trusted and most popular... Intel X25m 160Gb ssd.

 

thanks Les...I found this on newegg.....looks nice:

Newegg.com - Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDSA2MH160G2R5 2.5" 160GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

I guess that's the animal? thanks again

EDIT: I ordered it.....I've got less than 160gb on my 500 gb HD now with games, VM's, et al...I want to use the 500gb platter for data/videos/etc so I guess I should set up in ACHI and install the OS and programs on the SSD ...but first update the firmware on the SSD, or can I flash it later? .I guess I need to read up on these now

 

How much you get it for? With Bing on it's way out at the end of July I'm going to make the most out of Bing with some mad eBay purchases.

 

Not sure if you saw it but measured withn HDTune pro there's a clear difference in IOPS with random file sizes:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...ands-news-advice-post6334904.html#post6334904

So yeah I'm also running the Intel ICH 9 driver. But I meant to ask if there is any point in running the Storage Manager on top of that?

 

Just straight off Newegg as listed. Put on company account Had to grab it before the money evaporated.....

 

Nice. You won't be disappointed at all. Plus it being "cheap" and everything, haha.

 

OCZ released two business versions of the Vertex 2: Vertex 2 Pro and Vertex 2 EX. The Pro is MLC while the EX is SLC. Both have identical performance numbers delivered by the SandForce 1200 controller. I imagine they have an expensive MLC version so they can get away with charging an obscene amount of money for the SLC.

Article reads like a press release from OCZ
OCZ Releases Super Speedy Vertex Solid State Hard Drives - PCWorld

 

Just installed the Vertex 2 - pretty happy with the results so far, but need to update the firmware yet, and tweak the drive a little more.....surprised at how much quicker applications respond!

Speed test times (in seconds):
Boot Up - HDD - 28.5
Boot Up - SSD - 21.7
Opening PhotoShop CS4 - HDD - 11.1
Opening PhotoShop CS4 - SSD - 3.4
Opening Word 2008 - HDD - 9.1
Opening Word 2008 - SSD - 2.4

Heres a video showing the unboxing, install process, and basic testing.....

YouTube - MacBook Pro 240GB Vertex 2 SSD Unbox, Upgrade & Testing

Not sure if updating the firmware would increase the performance much more, but Im hoping Apple bring an update along with better support for SSDs!

 

My performance is really bad on my samsung drive here are my results from diskmark my question is how do I invoke TRIM?

Code:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

           Sequential Read :   169.782 MB/s
          Sequential Write :    20.437 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :   154.151 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :    19.052 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    12.398 MB/s [  3026.9 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :     0.718 MB/s [   175.3 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :    26.876 MB/s [  6561.4 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :     0.748 MB/s [   182.7 IOPS]

  Test : 1000 MB [C: 14.8% (35.3/238.4 GB)] (x5)
  Date : 2010/06/11 23:56:53
    OS : Windows 7 Home Premium Edition [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

http://img697.imageshack.us/i/captureor.png/

 

edit
NVM i saw your link that shows CrystalDiskInfo and it says TRIM is enabled.

did you try running: fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify
in the commandprompt. If it returns "DisableDeleteNotify = 0" then that means TRIM is enabled by the operating system

 

Yes, But how come my read/writes are so poor and my disk health is only 91%, this drive is not even 3-4 months old.

 

Mkelliny, it doesn't matter if your SSD is one week or 4 months old. If TRIM is not working and you run for instance lots of benchmarks or transfer lots of data, you will experience performance degradation. Your may have to update the drivers

*EDIT*
Your firmware supports TRIM

 

Code:

fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify

Will only tell You if TRIM is enabled or disabled in Win 7, and Crystal Disk Info if SSD supports TRIM or not.


So if You disable TRIM in Win 7 using

Code:

fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 1

and run Crystal Disk Info it will still show You that TRIM is supported by Your SSD.


I still didn't found how to check if TRIM is working or not.
If anybody knows how please tell us!

 

Couple things...

Does the OP above have System Restore enabled because I still stand by the fact that this, in many if not all cases, severely restricts if not eliminates the functionality of TRIM.

We all know as well that the fsutil command ONLY lets you know that the TRIM command is being passed from the software to the hardware and NOT that it is working, as in the case with the System Restore example where you can visibly watch your performance decline while restore points accumulate.

Crystal Disk Info will also tell one that the commands are being passed from software to hardware.

 

System Restore is disabled, doing backups few times a week.

As I said before, Crystal Disk Info will tell You does SSD accept TRIM command.

Test it by disabling TRIM in Win 7

Code:

fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 1

and running Crystal Disk Info.

 

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Les I followed your SSD optimization guide when i re-installed windows so I turned off Disk Defrag Dropped my page filing down since i have 8GB and superfetch and windows search are all off. I dono what the problem is.

 

K... Im going to go on a limb here but the drop in performance seems to be a symptom that TRIM, although enabled, is not working on your drive. Im going to believe that your System Restore is now off but has it been off since you did a FRESH install brand new? You did do a fresh install didn't you because if you say know here Im gonna puke eheheheh.

As well, there is no Optimizer for that drive (similar to Intels) but can anyone advise if there is a way (Tony TRIM/Securerase) that he can breath new life and start the drive new again?

 

Check the alignment

 

Thanks for the video, that was way cool!

 

This isn't in RAID, but IDK how to do that. How do you do that?

 

download and run AS SSD
http://www.alex-is.de/PHP/fusion/downloads.php?cat_id=4&download_id=9

 

^^^^
How accurate is this application?

 

Not accurate at all. it is just to check misalignment

 

Hey guys. I created a 60gb OS partition (30gb still free) on my 160gb X25-m G2 (the rest of the drive is unused atm), and did a HDTune test but it shows around 160mbs maximum read. Is the read speed limited by the small partition?

What could be causing such low performance benches? I'm in high performance power mode btw.

 

Is it in alignment ?



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SSD Guru's....I'm short on time this weekend, but I've got a intel X25 160 gb to be here on Montag (Lunes, Monday) .....basically I'm going to do this in the following order:

Pull my 500 gig 7200 rpm drive
Install the SSD in the drive 1 slot on this Precision Laptop
Install Windows 7 etc (ACHI is enabled in the BIOS right now)
Then put the platter drive in Slot 2 and format it...

then check it my firmware for the SSD is current.

Am I missing something? thanks!

 

UPDATE!

Im not sure why, but after a little usage my SSD performance has INCREASED!!

Boot up with the HDD was 28.5 secs
Boot up with the SSD was 21.7 secs.

Suddenly my boot time has now reduced to 16.9 secs!!

Im not sure how this has happened, but Im loving it!

Im uploading a new video as I write this - I will post a link as soon as its uploaded.

 

that's the basic way to do it. Don't know if u need to backup anything from the old drive but you can do it before reformatting it. Also there lots of os tweaks that are recommended with ssd.

 

Since you've just aligned it properly, you can do a fresh install.

 

Here is the new video, showing my new boot time of around 16.9 secs.

YouTube - MacBook Pro 240GB Vertex 2 SSD - Part 2 - Performance Increase!

VERY, very happy with this drive now!!!
Its blisteringly fast!

 

I would check firmware first.

 

Hi everyone, I've got a problem with my SSD, the Crucial C300 256gb.

I had been using it for about 3 weeks with no problems whatsoever, but yesterday, windows crashed on me, OK normally not a problem, until I restarted.
Well my laptop never moves from the BIOS splash screen, so i tried restarting again, no result.
At this point, I figure I'll removed the battery and memory and hold down the power button, re-seat the memory and try again, again nothing resulted from this.
So, now I remove the cpu and gpu and re-seat those, again nothing changed.
Next up, is the ssd, so i remove it and boot, and to my surprise i was able to get past the bios splash screen and get into the bios.

I think there may be something wrong with my ssd, since i put in a regular drive that i had windows XP on to test if i could "see" the ssd in windows, and it is not visible.
Basically the drive is no longer recognized at all, and even freezes the boot sequence of my laptop.

This really is very disappointing since i cant access the data i have on that drive and i never backed it up either.

Any ideas?

 

Try to boot with a live CD like Ubuntu and hot plug the SSD (at your own risk, I am not responsible if something bad happens). See if it is recognized and able to retrieve your data. If the controller is off, you stand no chance though.

 

Thanks, I gotta try that for sure.

 

Intel to Use Enterprise MLC in Next-Gen Enterprise Solid-State Drives - X-bit labs

For those wondering about the mainstream G3 Intels and enterprise G2 Intels. A bit of a downgrade for the enterprise drives since they're using eMLC instead of SLC but at the tradeoff of lower cost and higher capacity (and possibly speed?) in Q1 2011, while the mainstream gets a big boost in capacity in Q4 2010 with their 1.8" counterparts following in Q1 2011.

 

That worked, was able to get all my data off it, thanks.
+rep

 

Man, that was a helluva dangerous maneuver
Good to know it can be done

 

Samsung's high-speed 512GB SSD to begin volume production next month

• 30nm
• SATA 2
• 250MBps Max seq reads
• 220MBps seq writes
• 256bit AES encryption

 

Nice. Been waiting for Samsung to refresh their lines.