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

a) i wish.. would mean full access to all their stuff, which would be awesome

b) besides an intel ssd, i have 2 samsung ssds of different generation, and two mtron ssds (and one asus eee fitting ssd that ed up in minutes, and an oooold samsung ssd that was complete crap). so no, i'm no intel-only guy.. so far i just lack an indilinx based one "to have them all".

 

Glad to hear that Newegg seems to have these things in stock. Newegg has been shady with these things, but they slightly undercut the MSRP. I dunno, I'll just enjoy my drive.

I'm sorta leaning towards clean install if I can backup my fallout3 games with no hitches

Now the real question... restore to XP (Lenovo's XP disc is free of bloat), use the install of Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 that M$ gave me for attending a conference, or go Windows 7 (Trim...)

Good luck. Little advice, I wanted them to knock me out because I didn't feel comfortable being awake for that. At least with my oral surgeon, that meant I didn't really feel much pain or discomfort until that night. I think all the meds last way longer after surgery than laughing gas. I imagine laughing gas is fun and I know a lot of people who chose that one (they complained of pain like an hour after getting home).

 

Hey davepermen,

Quick question. Is your Intel X18-M casing silver in color?

 

yes it is.

 

If I clone a Win7 drive to my new SSD, do I still need to align it?

 

first: most ssds don't need alignment, they work at around the same speed. that was a fix for crappy ocz.

second: depends on the software. if it does a 1:1 copy, no. if it doesn't, yes, maybe.

 

There are very few programs that 'respect' the drive alignment when restoring an image.

Acronis will keep the drive alignment, but only if you're restoring to the original drive you cloned from. This doesn't help in most (SSD) situations coming from a mechanical drive.

My advice is always clean install - Windows will always set itself up differently depending on the hardware (CPU/RAM/VIDEO/SOUND & now SSD) it detects at install time.

 

while, as i said, it doesn't matter for actual ssds, i still agree on the clean install. but for a different reason: it's hella fun i just had to install office 2010 on a hdd and it was soooo boring, took sooooo long. on an ssd, it was a matter of 1-2 minutes max. so it gives you a great out of the box experience on how fast it is

 

Yeah, I eventually plan on a clean install as I want to go 64 bit, but I have so many programs with so many passwords etc that it is actually a bit problematic to re-install everything, so a cloning I will go I have already deleted 5 GB or so of crap in preparation

 

go the clean way, it's more fun..

only that way you will be sure to not have any crap afterwards.

 

How I wish that the Newegg deal was for the 80GB and not the 160GB...I just don't need that much room so the extra $200 is a waste for me

 

Gonna clone at first. I know there is a slight performance hit, but as long as it is slight, I can live with it. I am hitting the computer pretty hard for work and cannot afford the extra downtime of a fresh install at this time. Last fresh install cost me over $200 as I had to update my CS3 dreamweaver to CS4 as 3 would s9mply not load on the new computer So, 3 hours on the phone with Adobe who did not help, and had to upgrade as a last resort.

 

LOL.. I just did an install of Windows Small Business Server 2008 on VMWare.
This is just for testing and playing around with it.
The whole install took me about 15minutes.. compare that to about 45+ minutes on a regular server.
SSD's have definitely brought the fun back into computing for me.

 

I'm not surprised the 80GB sold out first at the $215 USD price point... Course... You can never have enough room!

Cheers,
Kermee

 

well, adobe sucks, but we all know that. other than that, there shouldn't be a problem this time. os installation: 8 minutes. office 2010: 3 minutes.. cs4 took i think around 10 minutes here..

so take half an hour and you got most your stuff running to continue work

 

Davepermen, I know that You was saying how doing anything on PC results in small random writes, so I don't understand why You say that there is no need for disk alignment.

I know that no one would feel any difference, but does anyone want for their controller to do extra work?

You don't need, it would work fine, but it would work better if You do.

 

good controllers adjust the alignment themselves. by noticing where the write-parts go to.

at least i thought they do.

and, other than that, i always use clean installations (or home server restores, which stay aligned as it doesn't work on a file base anyways), and never touch xp again => it is all aligned here

 

I know this is more for desktops but... 1TB/sec!! Oh yeah

http://www.nordichardware.com/news,10272.html

 

and one sexy card

 

Yeah, wright, controllers even check spelling when You save documents to good SSD and I'm Marilyn Monroe.

 

While quite a bit less than 55,000 disk drives, 6 racks still takes about 500-1,000 sq/ft of computer room space. Thats saying a little bit more than, "for desktops".

 

Hello fellas

I`m new to the club

I just added to my new Acer 1810T an Intel X-25M G2 80gb SSd!

Absolutely amazing results comparing to my old 320 WD Blue Scorpio

Thing is, i did some benchmarks and im noticing low read/write speeds at 4k

What could be wrong?
I`m using Win 7 HP 64bit with AHCI mode, defrag and system restore disabled

Thanks!

 

True, but 6GB/sec almost maxes out PCIe 2.0 x16 after overhead for a single card in a desktop.

 

The only thing I see wrong is your 4k random read score is a little low, the sequential and 512k writes are in line to above specs. The 4k random write is what is important and that is looking good. Your 4k random write is more than double #2 Indilinx and 5-6 times better than #3 Samsung.

 

I hope mine comes tomorrow. I will clone it first. Want to see how that works. Then, maybe later I will fresh install. It is not the time to get the programs on but the time to setup all the little settings and stuff the way i like it and since that is already done, I can do my work faster, which is what pays for the drive.

Funny though, I have been able to delete MUCH crapola that didn't need to be around at all. Which will be a good start for the clone and the re-install later. Less crap = more fun!

 

Newegg charged my credit card but still no word about shipping

 

i got a new x25-m g2 a month ago and cloned it and my bench marks are pretty good. Using CrystalDiskMark I get 257 read 89 write @ seq. 201 read and 89 write @ 512k. 17 read and 35 write @ 4k.
And this is still using xp pro. I have windows 7 ultimate but decided not to upgrade until next year. Im waiting for all drivers to mature

 

WOW, mine has shipped. I hope my expectations are not too high

 

you don't look like her.

but factual is, ssds don't care about your alignment in most cases, as they virtualize and remap all the data sent to them to arbitary cells anyways. the logic to remap non-aligned writes to aligned cells is about the same, then. so it's definitely doable without problems. and as the alignment or misalignment stays constant for a partition (so most likely constant during the whole use of the whole ssd), it doesn't pose any additional work, then.

it's not like that is magic.

 

I am counting the hours!

 

no, your expectations are definitely not too high *smile*

 

What could cause low benchmarks on the G2 80GB Intel on OSX? Any ideas? I think it might almost just be the benchmark program.

 

incompatible drivers, or a stupid benchmark program that fails to measure the parts the ssd is big in.

 

Another news for Non-OCZ indilinx SSD users:
Since Indilinx 1819 firmware is unstable, so Indilinx will release another new frimware 1848 (maybe change the name later)soon, est. in Dec. My friend just sent the sample 1848 firmware to me and I flashed to my Corsair X256, all the degradation is recovered. I am pretty excited that I can eventually used X256 as a backup hard drive.
hha, off topic stuff, when I post this firmware info to corsair forum, the big man just simply deleted my post and said it was off topic coz it didn't related to SSD product... ..WTH???

 

I am really trying to temper my expectations, but I also feel like a kid a Christmas

I know one thing for sure, it will be quiet. I like that. Really alot.

 

that's why i suggest you a clean installation. gives the most chrismas kid feeling (like building your new lego castle you just got, or similar )

 

I completely understand and agree. However, I cannot risk any downtime due to lost passwords, etc etc, putting back all data carefully, etc. Need to get it up and running. I can fresh install at ANY time. I need all my stuff to be available just the way it is so I can maximize my work efforts. Besides, it will be a super test of my Acronis True Image Home 2010 to which I just upgraded. I bet it works just fine.

 

Cape, you look so excited about your new intel SSD!!!
enjoy it !!

 

Just got myself a X-25M G2 160GB. So happy; and damn it's fast. I got a few questions though... sorry if these have been answered; I tried the search.

Is it worth it disabling page file?
Is it worth it disabling system restore?

Only thing I turned off so far is disk defrag and indexing.

Anymore advice is grateful. thanks!

 

say yes to disable page file.
but I keep the system restore in windows 7, there was a time that i crashed the system by installing a software, and the system resoting saved my time coz I have 70G program installed in my drive C.

 

no, no, no, and no.

page file is useful and never hurts.
system restore is useful and doesn't hurt much (you can adjust it's size, though). i have it disabled ONLY BECAUSE I HAVE WINDOWS HOME SERVER
disk defrag should still be on, it does then defrag all disks except ssds (=> it would defrag an other external disk f.e. automatically if it would be always plugged in).
indexing should be on, it's great and useful, and never hurts.

don't just tweak out of nothing. tweak if you have a PROBLEM.

 

Doesn't page file degrades the SSD faster?

 

yeah, like, never, but yeah..

page file only gets used for useful stuff like preventing apps from crashing if you're low on ram, and such. then, yes, but what do you prefer? some mb written on your ssd, or your system to start crash? if you even have to think about that, you're doin it wrong.. very wrong

ssds don't degrade. at least not because of such a thing. they degrade if you put them to abuse daily and mess around with them. other than that, you have a gen2, which has yet, or will soon with an update have trim support. degrading performance is then a 100% non-issue.

 

Only if it is frequently used. But you really need it for some programs to work properly.

More RAM is the best solution to reduce page file usage.

Tweaks that are a good idea? Disable superfetch, disable indexing.

 

superfetch gets measured by win7 and disabled if unneeded. interestingly, it doesn't disable it on my intel gen1, so its still beneficial.

disabling indexing is reducing functionality of your os, arbitarily cripling it. so, no, don't.

 

Thanks for the info guys!

 

Woke up and checked my email. There was the shipping confirm and when I checked the tracking website I discovered my package is 1 hour away from me (2 hours ago). I suspect delivery is today with tomorrow a possibility barring that. "Out for Delivery Scan" is a good thing right? Damn this is awesome.

 

hehe lots of happy neworsoon-ssd-owners around here.. looks like the ultimative geek present for christmas

 

soo.. killed my mtron raid0 today. now gonna use one of the disks in my main pc, and one in the media center. that hdd in there is driving me nuts

 

Last week I made an image of the OS on my SSD using the Windows 7 create an image tool. I went ahead and tried it out a few minutes ago and so far, it works perfectly. I put the Windows installation disk in, removed partitions and formatted my SSD. Selected restore image and it took 6 minutes and I was back up and running from start to finish. I ran the Windows experience index and my disk score actually went up from 7.0 to 7.1.