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

Sounds shady to me. This is not the kind of stuff that I'd want to buy without warranty.

 

indeed, using an AV may create some shortening in the life span of the SSD?
and what about foobaring a lot (both from SSD and ext hdd)? it shouldn't harm it, it is just reading, isn't it?

 

Quick question that I'd like some input on

I have a chance to get a used Intel 160GB G2 SSD from a friend. I have to choose between 2 drives, however. One has about 4TB of host writes and a reallocated sector count of 60. The other drive has around 30TB (yes, 30, that's not a typo) of host writes and a reallocated sector count of 20.

I'm leaning towards the 30TB host writes drive since the reallocated sector count is so much lower. But the 4TB host write drive might be easier to get warranty coverage on through Intel if anything goes wrong in the future.

I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts and opinions on this.

Thanks!

 

I've been doing some testing with Crucial C300. It performs quite well on the ICH9 controller but when multi tasking it looses against Sandforce drives.

I'm probably keeping my Vertex LE and selling the Crucial C300.

 

I'm using TrustPort...best AV I've ever used, and I've used them all paid and non paid. FWIW

 

Agreed. You can save $50-$100 when purchasing the said SSD and lose $500+ when the SSD fails (no warranty).

Wow! So so glad I chose the Vertex 2 over the Crucial C300

ahhh wait time (transit) is killing me

Thanks for sharing.

 

Need some advice. I think my Intel SSD is showing some really bad 4k read/writes. The drive is 50% full right now so I'm sure that is contributing. I'm using the Intel rapid storage driver rather than the msahci one. Any tips to improve the performance?

 

Yeah report it here and there maybe a chance they fix it (most probably a BIOS issue)
Alienware M17x - R2 Killing the SSD performance - Laptop General Hardware Forum - Laptop - Dell Community

 

Just tested my C300 to see how it performs when filled.
84% full:


90% full:


95% full:


100% full:


55% after removing the unnecessary data,numbers will probably return to normal once I let my laptop idle for a while:


Overall, it did better than I thought, the tipping point seems to be around 90%.

 

Didn't we agree it's the PM55 chipset?

 

The chipset is not completely responsible. If it was the chipset only, the speed of the SSD in safe mode and in normal mode with the default drivers should be at least the same. I suspect it has something to do with C1E and the ACPI. Unfortunately our BIOS doesn't have the option to disable either C1E or EIST that I believe is responsible for this low performance.
The thing is that I have sent a PM to Dell-Chris M and responded back saying that he forwarded this matter to the engineering team but I haven't heard of him since then. I honestly don't think they will answer me back and I don't care anymore since nobody else seems to be bothered from this slow performance. I guess everybody else is happy paying hundreds of dollars just to have better performance from an HDD... otherwise they would have done something already

*EDIT*
In the case of the M17x-R2 the best you can do is to buy the biggest capacity of the SSD you can find with the lowest price since the performance will be limited no matter what.

 

I am very bothered by this issue but until today i was under the impression the issue is chipset related and not much can be done.
I saw that you contacted erawneila as well and reported to him too..
Don't see much anybody can do about it right now...

 

What version of IRST are you using ?

You might wanna try the latest one, that you can get by clicking the diskette under DL below:

Pour Chipsets ​	Version	Sous	Pdf	Boot	Whql	Info	Officiel	DL
ICH7R/ICH8R/ICH9/ICH10/i5	9.6.4.1002	Windows 200x/Xp/Vista/7 32/64bits		oui	oui		non

​

Also, you might wanna make sure write cache is enabled and flush cache disabled in windows, going to control panel→device manager→Disk→Strategy...

Last but not least, you could buy my SSDs and RAID 'em; that would boost your your performance no doubt

Good luck anyways !

 

Good luck sorting out that mess with Dell and the MX17. I wouldn't give up all hope though... Apparently some Thinkpad users banded together and cobbled together a BIOS that removes the SATA1 cap n the T/R/X 61. They (apparently) paid a couple programmers to reinvent the wheel, but it can be done.

 

No. All we know is that the first internal version was seeded sometime last week. I wouldn't expect it for two months or so.

For what it's worth, however, I do know that the Intel 160GB G2 holds up very well without TRIM. Not sure about the other drive. I personally have a G2 in my Macbook.

 

Have to make a decision today.
Any opinions?

(BTW, anyone know how many sectors are in the reserve space on an Intel G2 160GB drive?)

 

For Macs, the Intel G1 drives might be a good choice since their GC routines are optimized to work without TRIM.

Check out the 2nd paragraph under the TRIM heading of this article.
PC Perspective - Intel X25-M 'G2' 34nm 160GB SSD Review

 

Does the test size of the test matter with Crystal Disk Mark? Because if I do 100MB I get much better results than 1000MB. Could it be from the disk cache? Wouldn't it be best for people to run the 1000MB benchmark to avoid any influence from the cache to get more of a true performance of their drive?

 

This is my first day in a forum, so please bear with me if the location or nature of my question is inappropriate.

I am trying to ascertain whether my old Lenovo T41 is compatible with an SSD running XP Pro SP3. If so, are there limitations as to size? What drivers or other support considerations might there be? I would like to install the SSD in place of the standard SATA 7200 rpm Hitachi 60 Gb HD. I think the T41 may have some sort of size limitation for hard disks, but am unsure about that.

Venders just say plug in any SATA SSD and it will run great with no conditions.

Hopefully someone here with will know the answers to these questions with some certainty.

Thanks in advance.

 

Does it even use SATA? I'm thinking it uses PATA. Also, if the chipset is really old, there might be a 133GB limitation? What's the spec on your T41?

 

f4ding --

Thanks for your reply. You are making me work a bit to find the information you requested, which is a good thing. I am having a hard time finding complete specs for my T41 notebook.

The hard disk is a (Hitachi) HTS726060M9AT00, 60 Gb nominal, and you're right, it's shown as ATA / ATAPI. Maybe that kills the possibility of an SSD right there, as I suspect they are all SATA.

The largest HD's that were available for the T41 were 80 Gb in 2005, but I couldn't find a limitation on size anywhere I looked.

The chipset is an Intel i855PM, about which I know no-thing (lol).

Please add any comments you might have. Your initial ones helped a lot.

 

I didn't get much info (didn't try very hard either) on the Intel i855PM, but the T41 does use PATA hdd. Some people are reporting problem with IBM T4x series being finicky with hdd, but mostly it's for T43 owners.

In short, there are PATA SSDs that you can use, but I'm not so sure about the capacity limitation. Some are talking about the IDE limitations that I mentioned above here: forum.thinkpads.com • View topic - Hard drive maximum size.

 

f4ding -- You mined a lot of information for me. I see that SSD PATA drives are available, after all. I might try one of intermediate capacity for my notebook and hope the vender exchanges it for SATA (for my desktop) if unsuccessful, or a smaller PATA. It looks to me that as large as 160 Gb might very well work, so I would get something safe like 100 or 120 maybe. I don't absolutely need the largest capacity; but with greater speed and useability, I thought I would upgrade to the largest size practicable (and affordable) so I might utilize my laptop more. Now I just use it as a last resort, or when I'm away, or to support my larger PC; in other words, not very much. The S - L - O - W speed really bugs me (I'm spoiled, I guess). Anyway, thanks very much. You did great. Seth

 

Yes.

1. There is a possibility that the cache influences the synthetic speed tests. That is why it's better to use the 500MB test to bypass the typical 64 ~ 256 MB of cache the SSDs holds.

2. I don't know of ANY MLC SSD that will show CONSTANT numbers ALL OVER their NAND cells. For instance, when you run CDM, you go with their default suggested 5 passes test, right ? Lemme ask you: Why 5 passes ? Well, simply because some cells will respond faster than others; therefore, using a 50MB test will show less accurate result because it might happen that the few cells that have been tested do not represent accurately the average of the speed all cells may deliver.

This being said, not sure you need to test with 1000MB; this will reduce the life span of your SSD, especially if you're a Control-Freak, but shall surely deliver more accurate results. All in all, it's a matter of how often and what for you test your drive; higher amount of written MB shall always show more accurate results; and degradation of the SSD is the price to pay for such accuracy.

Hope this helps a bit.

 

Where did you get this driver? I Can't find this (9.6.4.1002) driver from Intel site

 

Just click the diskette...

 

This driver is NOT Intel OFFICIAL (officiel); it's WHQL certified though...

 

Yes. I tried but its coming from stationdrivers(dot)com not Intel

Is this the latest from Intel?
Ver:9.6.0.1014 Date:3/23/2010

EDIT:

certified by Intel?

 

Depends: are we talking latest OFFICIAL driver ?

Intel's latest official shall show on their website;

Intel's latest NOT OFFICIAL would be this one (9.6.4.1002)

Taken from the pdf file above:


Revision History

Date
Driver Revision
Build Number

21 June 2010
9.6.4.1002 Production Version
1002

08 March 2010
9.6.0.1014 Production Version
1014

17 March 2010
9.6.0.1014 Production Candidate
1014


Hope this clears up things a bit

take a look at the pdf file attached; this pdf file has been put together BY Intel...

 

Okay.

By the way, what's the purpose/advantage of this (9.6.4.1002) driver?

Thanks

Can I ask why you opt to use IRST than MS driver?

Looking to try IRST on my Vertex 2 since it doesn't show any improvement vs my Samsung

Crap! Not what I'm expecting from Vertex 2

 

NP Pal.

I tried to copy/paste from the pdf file to answer your question, but it renders garbage html code.

Please take a look at the pdf file, everything's in there.

I know you did not ask this question to me, but I'll answer it anyways: I use the IRST because I'm in RAID, and that's the driver that provides me with best results so far. As an FYI, I use this Intel NON-Official driver since a couple of weeks and it works great, be with Sammys or Intels.

Cheers !

 

Alright. Gonna check the pdf for more info.

Yep. IRST for RAID is better than MS driver What I'm wondering is for those who use IRST for 1x SSD set up.

Cheers!

 

As far as I know, WHQL certification means

Windows
Hardware
Quality
Lab

So, certification would be from Microsoft, not Intel...

 

Thanks for the insight. I wouldn't think running a 1000MB test periodically would do much towards reducing the life span of your SSD. I was getting near fresh performance numbers @ 100MB, but greatly degraded with 1000MB.

I'm talking 20-30% values of what it was fresh with the HP Samsung 256GB, doesn't support TRIM. I read that it was supposed to be "self-healing" so was testing this theory. I basically filled the drive completely just to make sure pretty much most blocks were written to. Deleted the folder. Shut down. Booted up and left idle overnight.

At first run 8 hours later there was no marked improvement. I let it idle for about 24 hours, making sure the SSD stayed on in the power plan and laptop didn't sleep. I used the laptop a little bit during that time, but not much, just checked email and such. Well another 1000MB run and performance was returned to near fresh state.

I just wish Samsung would publish some info on this "self-healing" tech so we can know what to expect. How much idle time is needed, etc.

 

htwingnut,

self-healing? Are you referring to GC?

 

he surely is

I agree with you that Samsung should provide at least guidelines on how ITGC works, so we could be settled on that. But you're right; there's no such clear statement about it.

When I was using my two Sammys in RAID, I used to do that too. Obviously because TRIM is still not supported in RAID mode; if the ATAPI-8 standard can come out, we'll see TRIM supported in RAID; can't wait...

I was not saying that if you run 1000MB tests once in a while will kill your SSD; however, thing is that if the drive needs to write data on a block that is partially written, your disk has to:

1. Read the already written data off the block;

2. Write the said data into RAM;

3. Delete the data from the block;

4. Write both what was already there and what you needed to write.

This is a 4 cycle writing instead of only 1; see the ridiculous time wasted ?

So if one continually tests its drive with 1000MB data size, and assuming wear leveling is working properly, all cells will be written to pretty fast and performance will start degrade. thus me saying 500MB test size should be fair enought, especially with CDM. Besides, 500MB is over the max of 256MB SSD's cache use, so this should clear that.

Cheers !

 

Anyone with Vertex 2 would like to share some CrystalDiskMark 3.0 bench test?

Thanks in advance.

 

I read that Tony from OCZ explained that Crystal doesn't work well with Sandforce SSDs. Anandtech has a lot of other benchmarks on his site though.

 

Well, yeah, GC, but in my google adventures it's frequently referred to as "self-healing". I don't know if its a Samsung specific term, or what, or just what the layman started calling it. There's no documentation or guidelines to explain how it works or what the user should do minimally to make sure it works out right.

Ok, thanks for that clarification and taking the time to respond +1. I'm still a little hazy on how SSD's actually work. But starting to understand it a bit. I've dealt with mechanical drives for the better part of 25 years. Hard to teach an old dog new tricks.

I intend on testing the hell out of this Samsung though because HP is sending me a replacement drive that I'm hoping supports TRIM. Newly shipped HP systems are being built with Samsungs with a newer firmware that Crystal Disk Info is indicating supports TRIM. Of course HP didn't bother to update their part number to reflect this change so its a hit or miss if the new drive will have the new firmware. If the new one doesn't support TRIM, I'll volley for another one, and if that one doesn't, well at least I know I can just idle the machine periodically and let it do its thing.

But in the mean time, might as well burn through this SSD with testing since it's getting replaced.

 

Thanks for the heads up.

Another question, shouldn't the Vertex 2 boot fast than the Samsung SSD?
*Same machine, same apps installed & OS fresh install*

I'm clueless as of yet
Stop watch: 23-24 seconds (pressing the power button to desktop)
Windows boot timer: 18-20 seconds

Stop watch: 25-26 seconds (pressing the power button to desktop)
Windows boot timer: 14-15 seconds

Again, same setup/apps/OS/tweaks on both tests.

PS: No problem on the bench tests (Samsung vs OCZ). Vertex 2 beats the Sammy on every bench test.

 

Yes it should boot a little faster theoretically.

Have you done a clean install on the Vertex 2?
Are you running intel IRS driver on both?

 

Yes. Both with fresh install

Nope. MS driver on both.

EDIT: Haven't tried IRS on Vertex 2 (I'm confused with so many drivers to choose from Intel site)

What I don't understand is actual boot time has gained but Windows Boot Timer... slower??

 

Use the Intel® RST Driver Files for F6 Install from Intel.com

Windows boot timer isn't completely reliable in my opinion. Hand timing would be better.

How about another real world test, like duplicating a 4GB(or so) folder.

 

Are these two the same? Just different method of installation?
Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology
64-bit Intel® RST Driver Files for F6 Install

 

I'd get the latter. It's for manual install.

PS. I've read something about Vertex 2 with 1.11 firmware having a small boot delay. Might be your problem.

 

Actually, 1.11 boot a lil faster than 1.10 (less than a sec faster though )

And for the IRS, not needed for Win 7?
The file below contains the Intel® Rapid Storage Technology 9.6.0.1014 files for 64-bit operating systems. They can be used to create a floppy in order to pre-install the Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver during the F6 portion of Windows* setup. The F6 installation method is not required for Microsoft Windows Vista* or Microsoft Windows 7*.

PS: floppy on M15x?

 

I get very different benchmark results in PC Mark Vantage. I'd install them. No floppy needed.

 

Can't find the .exe from the 64-bit Intel® RST Driver Files for F6 Install or how to install

Here are the extracted files

 

there shouldn't be an exe.
you use those files while installing windows, there's a stage where you can press F6 and supply drivers, that's when you use it.

 

How to install Intel Rapid Storage driver. Download from here 64-bit Intel® RST Driver Files for F6 Install. Go to Device Manager, select under "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" the "Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller". Then right click, update driver software. Browse, browse. Now browse to where you saved the Intel Rapid Storage driver. Select the folder and click OK. Reboot required.