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

I'd wait for the G3 as well. I'm not longer freaking out about minimizing writes to my SSD and would love to have been able to afford a larger capacity.

Put on it what you want to run fast. I have, so far, about 10GB photos scanned in from 35mm film. I'm not even halfway done. I like the Sony Picture Motion Browser that came with my VAIO. There is a considerably noticeable difference in performance when the photos are on the HDD.

So. SSD get's everything you want quick access to. HDD gets storage and things where IOPS and speeds don't matter so much.

 

anyone on my question? My SSD's becomming slow over time... what can i do to speed it up? Got a 128GB C300...

 

The new firmware 1.24 is available for SF based SSDs.

 

Has anyone managed to flash this new firmware onto anything else than an OCZ drive?

I wouldn't mind flashing my Patriot Inferno with 1.24.

 

I don't think you can. I have read some where that OCZ was the first vendor to make Sandforce based SSD and there are some special arrangement between them that OCZ can get newer firmware faster.

If you can just take OCZ's firmware and applies it to other brands, the whole scheme would be meaningless to OCZ.

And I don't expect you would get anything in the performance department. Sandforce is still busy fixing the bugs I believe. So if you have no issue with your SSD, what is the point of update ?

 

Thanks chimpanzee for the quick reply. I too don't think it is possible, but there are smarter minds than mine here.

As to the text I've quoted: lol... yeah - I have huge issues with all the SSD's I've tried - including the Inferno.

 

Oh I meant stability issue, not dropping performance issue

Sandforce DuraWrite is not targetting your specific usage pattern(in other words, it is unlikely to be changed).

 

Okay, we agree.

But to me, continually dropping performance is a form of stability issue.

I just can't bring myself to trust a drive like that.

 

Same here and why I ended up with x25m. It may be slower but I know how to keep the baseline performance via simple steps rather than the Sandforce's 'the NAND life is more important than your productivity'. That IMO is utterly nonsense.

And comparing with things like BSOD, drive suddenly disappeared, 'automatic freeze state', dropping in performance cannot be classified in the same 'stability issue' category

 

Yeah? It can when a client is remarking over your shoulder that the system seems 'frozen'. Compared to a lower-end platform sitting a few inches away with a - gasp! - mechanical HD (XT).

 

Is it that bad ? I read that it would slow down but didn't read that it is kind of 'freezed'

 

Well, when running AS SSD benchmarks (and you see the numbers updating with each test iteration) I've seen 'scores' as low as 2.5MB/s and lower - the final 'score' may be in the 60's or 70's MB/s, but as we all know, the minimum's are what rule for real world use.

Again: I'm a hard user of my storage subsystems - MLC SSD's are obviously not matched to my work load - but neither do SLC based models offer the capacity I need either (yet). Come on 2011!!!

 

eek and thanks for that.

I can rule out Sandforce then as minimum is something that matters to me.

 

SandForce isn't fixing bugs. Their latest f/w release which is being kept very quiet moves the performance of your 1200 series SSD above that of the 1500 series.

The bandwidth cant be bettered as they are at the top of the SATA band but the performance is definitely seen on Vantage scoring. I just tested a new Memoright and Renice, both of which had almost identical Vantage scores just above that of the Super Talent FT2 with the SF-1500 in it.

The Memoright and renice were almost twin scores which does alot to confirm that the firmware was released. The only catch is who is privy to it as I am not aware of its release as an update, but rather in new SSDs.

WE all know ehere we can find those tests but here.




As for the special arrangement between SandForce and OCZ, yes it does, or rather, did exist where OCZ was privy to early release of firmware updates. That didn't play too well in their favour IMHO because it appears they were putting out f/w updates to correct the f/w problems from newly released f/w. Some other oems sailed through with a great rep with no updates.

SandForce is doing very well and, again IMHO, watch for it because they are on a steep rise and I thing the SF-2000 series is going to cement their position.

Oh...the Vantage HDD Suite scores on the drives above ranged from just under 4200 points to just under 4400 points and I have never evaluated even close aor seen higher which might just make these the top dogs on the block right now. Funny part is the Renice sits as high as a 25 cent piece and 4 times as long. Its def the smallest for that power.

 

Unless I am mistaken, OCZ is still the major player of Sandforce(if not the largest) and based on what I have seen, the three firmware releases they had so far are all bug fixing.

As for the 1500 series, again I am very confused. At least on the OCZ forum, they are giving out very confusing information. When people asked about how suitable the 1200 is for enterprise usage(due to its requirement of regular idle time needed for GC to work), they throw out the 1500 term. Then when asked where one can buy them, they throw out their 'enterprise' line which surprisingly is not available to mass market.

I am not saying Sandforce is not doing well but that there is a big caveat emptor of stability(incompability) and its performance is usage pattern dependent.

 

You are confusing OCZ with SandForce. You cannot compare an OCZ to most other identical drives with differing firmware alone because, well.....

Hmm dont we see a relationship in the fact that OCZ drives are particularly sensitive to critical problems during their first week of use or after f/w updates and the fact that they have a relationship where they are able to get f/w from SandForce before others and, well it is a fact that they can get f/w and complete testing on it themselves.

OWC has a great rep and had no (O) f/w upgrades whatsoever until just recently.

I don't know... I dont see the hype with OCZ drives especially with all the horror stoies that are still popping up.

SF-1200 drives are now fine with server and enterprise applications and I just recently received a phone call from a software company in Tennessee that installed 36 in their latest SQL server and were about to buy 50 more... Wait lets see if I can dig up a pik? Hows that for a nice setup...36xSF-1200 drives.

 

What do you mean by confusing ? As far as I know, OCZ and Corsair are the two major vendor for SandForce based drive and both their product show surprisingly similar problems. There is no reason to believe that other smaller vendor's stuff is problem free. More likely, they are too small so they didn't hit the large enough pool where the problem would show up.

Your sample is too small to determine whether it is working fine in the server and enterprise application.

 

I asked the above question a few minutes ago. (What, it's been Hours?)

I decided that I would try to answer it on my own Inferno.

Backed up everything via GBLan in a few minutes and downloaded and found out that the update utility did not see my Inferno in it's list of drives.

Reading a little more - IRST 10.xx is not supported - ah! Uninstalled until I was at the default MS AHCI driver v1.0.

Running the update utility now, it can see the drive - yes!

I come back here and see Les posting some good info about the new firmware - even better!

I do a reboot - let the system settle for a couple of minutes and proceed to do the firmware update. Finds my drive - but - no go... The drive is not supported by this firmware. Whew!

I start breathing again. At least I didn't kill the Inferno.


Why would I want to attempt this though to a 'working' SSD?

Here's the best the drive can do with the Patriot (default) firmware, MS AHCI v1.0 and the JJB's and stamatisx tweaks - and 23% free space.

SSD's are nowhere near prime-time for my use.




But Hey! That must mean I'm ahead of my time.


Edit: And here is the IRST drivers installed again.

 

Why aren't you doing a Secure Erase?

Your 4K write performance looks seriously below average. Not even Durawrite explains that.

 

OCZ launches a new SSD with Indilinx controller: The Vertex Plus.

OCZ Vertex Plus Preview: Introducing the Indilinx Martini - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

 

No time yet! But, stay tuned... :^)

From what I've seen, it's not the 4K write that is making the computer feel sluggish - the sequential speeds hitting single digit (and lower) numbers are what is giving the system 'pauses' and other hiccups (programs time out...).

This is why I didn't care if I killed the Inferno attempting to update the firmware with the OCZ .pkg file - the drive is pretty useless as-is (along with >$400 down the drain too, in less than 3/4 months).

 

One more review about Samsung 470 SSD.

 

I'm having a hard time understanding how/why 4k writes are so much significantly faster than 4k reads

 

That's very strange to me too, from Intel G1 and Indilinx Barefoot that's only thing I couldn't understand.

 

How does the 500 GB Seagate Momentus XT perform? Anyone have it?

 

It reaches SSD speeds on your most used tasks, like booting and launching a couple of apps.

Other than that it's a very fast 7200rpm HDD. Check the review in my sig for details.

 

Cool.
Power useage seems pretty good. Is the temp of the drive usually around the same as a HDD or is it a bit less (like less then 33c... that seems to be the norm).

 

I gotta say though, the power measurement in my review is not the most accurate one. I've done some more measurements, it's not as good as it looks there.

The 7200rpm drives are about 39 C in my notebook.

 

BUMP on this.. no answer anyone?

 

I just got the SF120G and Intel 160G test results from a reliable source.
Its tested by SanFroce people, it shows SanForce SSD is superior on all the testing. Since I don;t have any SF SSD, so I really cant make a comment.
Any idea?
Hotfile.com: One click file hosting: SF120GINTEL160G.pdf

 

Thanks for the link - I just finished reading it and although I can't vouch for the veracity of the numbers reported, I do feel that difference when I was testing the (new) Inferno against the Intel G2.

Too bad SandForce has DuraClass/DuraWrite junk firmware that limits what performance it actually gives in real world use - not reflected in a 3min IOMeter run.

 

It's not true that Sandforce is superior in all areas. Sandforce SSDs only reach their full potential when the data is fully compressible.

Here's are some real world comparisons between 120GB Sandforce and 160GB Intel G2.
HEXUS.net - Review :: Corsair Force F120 SSD - new formula for a fast drive : Page - 8/9

 

I would say Sandforce has a better controller in terms of handling simultaneous random request than Intel. However, this alone cannot offset the stability issue and the DuraWrite(yes, that is a negative to me).

 

Am I right to assume that you're compressing the data on your SSD? How is that working for you? I don't know much about it and what I could find online was 90% naysayers and 10% in favor. I'm curious to give it a try.

 

there is a on die compression/encryption circuitary in the SandForce controller. So if you write say 4096 byte of 0s or 1s, it would be passed through this engine and end up with say 10 bytes that would be written to the NAND.

It is a very effective way for flash as it effectively increase the OP area, have few writes etc.

However, associate with that is the same issue with NTFS compression, it increase the fragmentation(not at file level as it knows nothing about it but at the block level) and the complexity of maintaining them.

 

No I don't and I don't recommend it.

The compressing I was talking about happens on a hardware level with Sandforce SSDs, like chimpanzee explained.

There's no choice involved.

 

Makes sense now. Thanks.

 

New SSDs from Hitachi coming out soon: Ultrastar SSD400S.
Ultrastar SSD400S | Hitachi Global Storage Technologies
They have developed the drives with Intel, so it will probably be a sweet drive


It will be available with 100/200/400GB and the 100/200 will have FCAL 4Gb/s and the 400GB version will be faster with SAS 6Gb/s. Will be available in the start of 2011 from what i have read.

Question: What is FCAL and what is SAS? What separates them from SATA 3?

 

Cloudfire, FCAL is a Fibre Channel Disk Array interface or more properly:

Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop interface.

These do not seem to be targeted to consumers?

I expect the prices to be north of 'insane'.

 

According to multiple sites it is enterprise-class SSD, so yes you are correct. How sad

 

Hmmm... too bad.

Hitachi + Intel is a killer storage combination - maybe we can at least look forward to an 7K750 XT-like model with Intel SSD tech inside?

Why won't 2011 just get here already!

 

Agree with you 100% mate. Really looking forward to that year

 

Oh, that would be so awesome. I love my hitachi HDD.

 

Hi there, I'm new to the SSD world and 756 pages seems a lot to read...
I would like to replace the 7200RPM HDD of my laptop with a 120-200GB SSD.
What would be the best/fastest SSD I can buy? Budget is arround 400$
I was looking at the Intel X25-M G2 and OCZ Vertex 2... any better suggestions?
Thanks!

 

Sparxxx,

What is your usage pattern (be specific, it matters)?

 

Do write a lot of / work a lot with incompressible data?

If not, Vertex 2 is a very good choice.

 

neah... just normal PC usage + gaming (starcraft 2) and moving movies from one partition to another. However I would like to have fast loading times for applications.

 

Quick question because I cant find the answer so I visit the thread of the SSD Gods...

I have had 3 requests now to review PATA drives and I cannot find a PATA to SATA SSD converter or even PATA to PCI/PCIe...

Can anyone assist with this?

Les

 

Yes but there may be a fly in the ointment. When I did the Mini PCI-e review, I found out really quick that a regular MPCIE-SATA card would not work and it HAD to be a SSD MPCIE-SATA card. I am wondering if we are going to run into the same with the PATA-SATA/PCI/PCIE change???

 

just normal PC usage + gaming (starcraft 2) and moving movies from one partition to another. However I would like to have fast loading times for applications.