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

If anybody could get the data back it would be the NSA. The real tech-heads work for them. The FBI is a bunch of bungling idiots with oversized egos and the CIA isn't much better.

 

Not actually SSD related, but it could be in near future:

Samsung Now Producing 20nm-class, 64-gigabit 3-bit NAND Flash Memory

 

Where do you get your information, hollywood?

The FBI would be the best at data recovery, they do it far more often than the other two combined.

 

I don't know wether this is the right thread for this, but I'll give it a shot since it's not worth opening another thread.

I currently have a GM965-based laptop (Sony Vaio CR21S) with 5400rpm SATA-I HDD. I'll be upgrading to a Huron River-based laptop next year if all goes according to plan. I've had this laptop for almost 3 years now and am considering upgrading the HDD with an OCZ Vertex 2 60GB SSD and Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit. That should get me through the upcoming months.

As far as I can find the GM965 chipset does have a SATA II connection, the question is wether or not the SSD can make full use of it's bandwith.

Will the upgrade be worth it or not?

 

If you care about booting and lauching programs much quicker an SSD will be worth it.

Also consider Seagate Momentus XT. Close to SSD performance at a much lower price per GB.

 

IMHO definitely. The upgrade is like working with a new environment for the most part.

 

Thanks guys, much appreciated!

I completely forgot about the Momentus XT, thanks for the suggestion. Since it will be a upgrade that will last me shorter than a year, I guess I'll go with the Momentus XT 250GB and Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit. After it's use in my CR21S, I'll probably put it in an external HDD enclosure so I can use it as a data drive for my new laptop.

 

Well if you're going SSD or Momentus XT you may just consider backing up your data, wiping the drive and sticking it in your new laptop. Odds are it'll be a better drive than what comes stock with your new laptop anyways and I don't see a huge jump in performance coming ssds

 

We'll see by the time I have my laptop, which could take some time... I do plan on getting an SSD for my new laptop that makes good use of the SATA III (6Gb/s) interface of the Huron River platform.

I'm back at square one; deciding between SSD and Momentus XT. Upshot of the Momentus XT is it's price/Gb and the possibility of using it as a data drive later. However, a similar-priced SSD is still faster and has lower power consumption (which is important since my Vaio currently doesn't last longer than 2 hours!).

Was looking around my favorite webshop and am now deciding between an Momentus XT 250GB (€86), OCZ Agility 2 40GB (€100) and Kingston SNV425-S2 64GB (€106). Based on this review, the Kingston looks like a steal.

 

If your current VAIO with 5400rpm drive doesn't last longer than 2 hours, all a SSD can do is give you 10 minutes more. The other components draw too much power.

You could also check the health of your battery.

The Kingston SNV425 has (relatively) very high power consumption.

 

Was hoping for a bigger improvement, I was under the impression that the lack of any moving parts would lead to at least an half-hour on top of the current battery life. Too bad...
The Momentus XT has to juggle the temporary data around, so it should be slightly less efficient than a traditional hard drive. Am I making sense here?

Replacing the battery is another option, but I don't want to spend too much on upgrading this old machine. We're wandering off... let's stay on topic, Phil.

Mmm, that just made it even more complicated... what to do? I'm getting dizzy...

 

I vote for 250GB XT. I like not to have to worry about free space.

 

I'm about to buy an SSD, and I've narrowed it down to:

60GB OCZ Vertex 2

60GB Corsair Force

Which would you buy?

 

Between those two I'd go with OCZ Vertex 2. I know that it uses Intel memory (not sure about the Force) and OCZ has excellent online support imo.

 

I thought the Vertex 2 line used Sumsung memory, while the Agility 2 was a tossup between Intel's NAND and Toshiba's?

 

Onyx uses lower grade memory while Vertex 2 and Agility 2 use Intel NANDs. At least that's what I understand from Tony's posts.

 

oops


Thank you very much!

 

Right, I've gone for the Vertex 2.

I'm just hoping SSDs are what they're cracked up to be.

 

I hope that they are (in your eyes).

I haven't run one yet (that I've loved).

 

From what I've seen the vast majority of people who have bought one are very satisfied, and this is repeated in professional reviews. So, I'm hopeful, but more than willing to DSR it back to Scan in the event that I'm disappointed.

 

Was pleased with my Intel SSD for my Sony FW - so much so was the first upgrade to my netbook (I know - netbook and SSD...) anyway bought a basic budget one for it and still massive improvements. It is now as fast or faster than any of our laptops systems at work (and for many of them - faster)
Here's the biggest impacts - the computer responds - it now waits for you vice the other way around. The spinning wheel waiting for something is seldom seen, programs launch instantly.
You'll will notice the impacts and difference - Enjoy.

 

So true. I love my SSD. Cut boot time in half and programs launch so fast.

For example. I'm in the process of scanning in about 100 rolls of film, with my film scanner. Since I have the storage space on my Hitach 7K500, I'm scanning color photos at 15MB and b/w photos at 5MB. So far, I've got 8GB of photos. So... when I load Picture Motion Browser, it has to load the photos into its window. Sometime it can take minutes to get all of the thumnails from the HDD.

I decided today to use some more of my available SSD space. Moved the pictures over and pointed PMB to look there instead. ALL of the thumbnails were loaded so fast I couldn't even think to time it.

 

I don't see that kind of speed improvement on freshly imported images into LR, Bibble Bridge or Capture One.

Are you sure the thumbnails weren't generated/cached already?

 

Were they cached already, then I wouldn't have had longer load times while the 8GB+ of photos were on the HDD. When PMB is given a new location, it analyzes every image (time consuming regardless) and also builds a new thumbnail cache. If the photos are moved from the HDD and replaced, you would assume that PMB wouldn't know better (like iTunes). But, it cannot connect the cached thumnails.

Anyway... tell you what... I'll move the files back to the HDD. Clear temp files and time PMB w/ a stopwatch.

Will then move things back and time it again.

 

Ok, here's what I've got:

My system specs are below in my sig.

The data used in this experiment are 867 .tif files @ either 5MB or 15MB in size, with about 5 files @ 135MB.

Folders were set up on both C:\ (SSD) and D:\ (HDD) containing the exact same content.

Program used: Sony Picture Motion Browser. Imported photos go through 3 processes; the importing of the photo, the building of the thumbnail library, and the seperate analysis of each photo for details/faces. The deep analysis process was not considered in this case. But can be, if someone wants to compensate my time by baking me cookies.

PMB was loaded and its library deleted. Then the library was created, timed, deleted, recreated, and timed again for verification. This was done for both drives.

HDD:
1st - 1min 4sec to import the photos, the thumbnail library built simultaneously and was done at the same time.
2nd - 1min 1sec.

SSD:
1st - 7sec to import the photos and an additional 30sec to finish building the thumbnail library.
2nd - 7sec to import the photos and an additional 36sec to finish the thumbnail library.

I don't plan on builing my library daily. The issue I was noticing before I decided to move my photos to the SSD was this. Sometimes... when launching PMB, I would have to wait for all of the thumbnails to be loaded. This was taking more than one minute as it had to grab the info from each file (I think). Upon moving the photos to my SSD, this process is so fast that the thumbnails are compiled before I can grab the scroll bar and drag it down all the way.

 

my 80GB intel G1 is still chugging along great! love it!

 

intel IRST 10.0.0.1046 driver: intel drivers pour Raid/Sata/Ata/Ahci

no glitch.

 

Hmm. I'm still on 9.6.4.1002. Let's see what improvements I get, and whether my external drives act funny.

 

Hmm. I saw some advice saying one should move the temp files off the SSD. Some others suggested the RAMDisk. Well, I just set up a RAMDisk and it works fine for that. At least nobody can complain about the performance..

 

If you ever have to unrar or unzip something, you might run into problems moving the temp files to your ramdisk.

 

The performance is great - the capacity is what limits me from using a RAMDisk.

A single (edited) image can use 30GB or more of a 'Scratch Disk' in PS CS5.

As to using a RAMDisk instead of an SSD to point temp files to - I don't see the point of that (when maximum overall system performance is the goal - RAM is more valuable to the O/S and apps than it is to dedicating 1GB's worth for temp files).

I was on 1043 (beta) and moving to 1046 I can see much less lag in the Inferno's performance (real use).

Benchmarking shows the opposite though: CDM write speeds are slower and even AS SSD benchmarks shows the read and write latencies to have increased (mostly the write latency to almost .5 ms).

Good thing I don't judge by benchmarks. The notebook seems much snappier now.


BTW, thanks vostro1400user!

Thanks for taking the time to do this.

Just something to think about:

With Bibble, no matter if you rename, move or copy a file to a different drive/partition/folder it 'knows' that it is the same file (and doesn't build another thumbnail for the same image).

If PBM that you're using is the same as Bibble in this regard (re: thumbnails) - it may make a difference that you tested the HDD first (if the order of tests is indicated in your posts)?

Either way, with these operations you saved between 18 to 27 seconds vs. the HDD.

As to your issue with waiting for your thumbnails to be loaded when launching PBM, see if that happens when your library is on the SSD for a few days.

Using LR3.2, I think it is slow loading the thumbnails too (from the Inferno vs. the XT) - but I haven't tested this fairly yet.

You may want to try the latest IRST drivers vostro1400user posted on the last page - I definitely see my Inferno pick up in the 'snappiness' department.

 

tilleroftheearth, please do not post multiple consecutive messages. Instead edit your last post.

I've merged them for you now.

 

Thanks for the thoughts. I don't know of any way of proving that the thumbnails might have been saved. Regardless, the performance increase is marked and that makes me happy.

I just upgraded to IRST 1046 from 1043. I'm not sure, but I think things might be slightly less snappy. Will do a few more tests and give an update.

 

Sorry Phil, I thought if I was quoting, it was best to have seperate posts. Thanks for merging them.

Yes, up to 73% improvement jumps are always welcomed!

Just wish SSD's behaved more consistently (mine is now faster and yours seems slower!) in different systems and usage scenarios.

Will be looking forward to your update. Thanks in advance.

 

Is there anything wrong my 256gb Crucial SSD M225 drive? Just installed it to do some benchmarks

I don't think so. But I'm new to SSDs and benchmarks and wasn't sure...

http://imgur.com/vGtZ1.png

Is this what is expected from a M225? Or is it slower than average thus giving me the basis for a RMA?





This is still light years ahead of the Seagate Momentus XT in terms of performance right?

 

I ran BootTimer 12x over 3 driver installations; IRST 10.0.0.1046 (1-4), IRST 10.0.0.1043 (5-8), and IRST 10.0.0.1046 (9-12). The results are definitive and impressive.

IRST 10.0.0. 1046
17.768 sec
16.114 sec
15.576 sec
15.600 sec

IRST 10.0.0. 1043
18.626 sec
18.626 sec
18.454 sec
18.517 sec

IRST 10.0.0. 1046
17.908 sec
17.534 sec
15.475 sec
15.490 sec

Aside from the noticeable conisistency of ...1043 and it being higher, I find it interesting that ...1046 takes several boots to show a marked decrease in boot times that is consistent across its 2 installations with ...1043 in between.

I had already decided that booting is a better determiner for guaging real life performance, so this indicates to me that ...1046 is better, whereas ...1043 was significantly better than MSAHCI, which I was using originally.

 

This is my 256GB Crucial


I'm running the stock firmware on it (I think it's the latest crucial firmware), a stock windows 7 installation, no tweaks.

Should I fix that?

 

Those numbers look good, especially the 4k.

If you can, would you please edit or crop your images down so that they're not so wide? Perhaps changing the really large image to a thumbnail? It causes the rest of the posts on this page to require scrolling left/right/left/right in order to read them.

 

how's the 10.0146 driver? I'm reluctant to install it untill more try it...

 

Posted this info already yesterday in the Windows forum

http://forum.notebookreview.com/win...rapid-storage-10-0-0-1046-whql-available.html

 

I'm using the 10.0.0.1046 drivers and it has been running fine on my notebook. I even used the BETA RST drivers prior and has been stable without crashing. But even if something goes wrong you can always roll it back to the previous RST driver. Just go to the Device Manager, IDE ATA/ATAPI Devices and just update the controller from there by pointing to the RST files. You don't need to install the additional software if you don't insist on it.

 

Running Beta as well with not a prob...

I saw a claim earlier that someone watch their WEI hd score go up significantly...

Thats the only reported boost I have heard other than a second or two in start time..

 

Please check out my post with boot times for IRST 1046 and 1043 in comparison where 1043 was a marked improvement over msahci.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...marks-brands-news-advice-720.html#post6800136

 

I just wanted to post a huge thank you to everyone here that have enlightened me regarding SSD's. Seems there's still lots to learn not only as a consumer, but for the manufacturer's as well. I must say that the Vertex 2 is by far one of the biggest improvements I have seen in a while for a laptop upgrade.

 

Anybody know why my dos scandisk\checkdisk on my 60gb ssd takes at least 10 times as long as my 500gb hdd, and my sdd read/write speed in Win7 is consistent with manufactures specification, also no errors are detected during the scandisk, I have used my ssd on two different notebooks and both showed the slowdown during scandisk\checkdisk my ssd has been securely erased at least once.

I have an Corsair Force 60GB SSD

Thanks for any help.

 

And it's not the famous Intel series 5 chipset bug?

 

So basically , these beta drivers are beter right... anyways , installing it now.

 

I don't know all our problems with the chipset bug have been in windows not in dos.

 

Notebookcheck posted an interesting review of the Samsung PM800 256GB SSD.

According to their real life benchmarks it's faster than Intel G2 and Vertex 2.

I have my doubts about the validity of their results though. They used smaller versions of the other SSD which may explain some of the results. Also they call the Vertex 2 degraded.

 

I own the mentioned Samsung SSD Drive Model: SAMSUNG SSD PB22-JS3 FDE 2.5" 128GB and can confirm the CDM scores.