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

You cannot SE a drive that is frozen. I posted a link a few posts back which described how to SE under linux (i.e. Partition Magic).

Not sure about FW upgrade though as that usually can be done even the drive is frozen(at least that is what I have seen for Sandforce drive).

 

I feel the same as above. Samsung 470 and Intel G3 are the most interesting drives out. And not out

 

Seems I made a mistake, I tried once more and was successfull with SE with Parted Magic. Still no luck with upgrading the FW.

 

You may need to check whether you are in IDE or AHCI mode. Again, I am not familiar with your particular SSD but based on what I have read about OCZ and their Sandforce based drive, their firmware upgrade tools requires a specific mode, you drive may have similar requirement.

 

Lol...





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something new doesn't mean it has to be a product. but at least they will announce new tech when gen3 of intel will be out, or what ever. companies sorta HAVE to do this to at least mentally compete.

 

They have already 'announced' it, the SF2000 with all those fantastic numbers.

 

I tried both modes. Both mode should be supported according to the documentation. Interestingly the Magician Tool recognized the SSD and created from the downloaded FW a bootable USB flash stick. But after booting this the invoked Samsung Firmware update utility found no SSD to upgrade. Maybe my new PM810 SSD is preproduction as it doesn't have the orange corner. I think I will return it.

 

man, I wish my E6400 could support mSATA, so I could get a mini pcie SSD and put it inside as an extra storage.

 

Dave you really have an edge on lately...Whats up with that? You have been running around here for days now pushing away anything but Intel. I am absolutely sure you are as aware as the rest of the subpar footprint that they have already claimed for release.

 

May I ask what do you mean by that ?

 

Really?

Ok...lets start

They have already stated no SATA 3 and, in fact, spoke about doubling present low 4k writes which still puts them well below those out now; and

They can consider the increased sizes that we are already seeing from others but not at a premium. Through their own documentation, you are getting the same size drives for the most part.

Thats actually 3 in two...

Nothing against Intel at all but they stuck their foot in their mouth releasing their footprint months ago anow everybody has trumped them without laying their own cards on the table. This leaves Intel holding what cards they have left hoping for a match and bluff....

 

I thought Intel was releasing a 300GB and 600GB SSD with G3? I'm shopping for best bang for the buck come February 2011 (as long as I have my SB laptop by then), so Intel or Sandforce or even other contender I don't care.

 

Well each of their own. While for reviewers like you those number may mean something, for actual usage, it is the same old 'that depends'.

That said people trust benchmark and reviews, me included(should have done my home work better)

Luckily, there is the 30 days return thing.

For me, I want a drive that don't need TLC, I am not sure which model other than the x25m meets that and still have decent performance. Sandforce is not. The C300 seems to be pretty good which I may consider. The new Samsung, I haven't collect enough information about them yet.

 

People see things in different ways I guess. Myself, I see different in SandForce and how it can get the job done and maintain performance with little deviation from performance over time. I posted my thoughts with the Revo review which were simply that they could have only pulled that off with SandForce because of their ability to overcome TRIM necessity.

Whatever drive you will get will be a winner whether it be SF based, Crucial, Intel or Samsung. If you check my recent reviews, you will see that we are seeing the norm with most drives now becoming what was considered only avail in enterprise drives yesterday with the 50000 IOPS along with very high Vantage returns.

I am by no means an expert in any way and I am sure that a few are saying I am an idiot because of my views on SF. Watch closely in upcoming months when the SF-2000 is released; this company is going big and sits beside Intel and Samsung even now after only had open doors for a year now. I do have an unfair advantage though, in that, I have a very secure inside track and draw from opinion and experience of all sides on pretty much on a daily basis.

 

Les, did you review the REVO yet? I SEE THAT YOU HAVE. I agree with all! Any SSD is a very cool thing. I am the type who wants one that is FATS, does not lose speed over time, is RELIABLE, and one with no "hassles". That pretty much sums it up for me. Hell, the quietness alone of these drives is enough to sell me

For 2011 I want 256GB SSD, whatever one meets above standards A SB desktop AND laptop. 8GB for my desktop (this might actually happen as it will cost me only $75 or so) a Sony Nex-5 camera, some decent monitors, and winning lotto ticket to pay for above

 

Well, we may be looking at different things that.

I don't care if Sandforce is going to be big or not. They are definitely impressive as a new startup with only about 80 people or so and have a very impressive product.

But that product itself is not something I would touch until it stablize, may be another 2-3 rounds of firmware upgrade. Afterall, they are just a software company and all software requires time and test to mature. At this stage though, I feel like beta testing their software.

If their next lineup proves to be great and stable, that would be music to my ear as I have absolutely no brand loyalty.

I actually watch quite closely(no insider track) on when I would see a tier 0/1vendor to qualify their drive (say NetApp/EMC and the like) as a gauge to the stability. This I don't really need insider information though as they would blast all news media and given that they are private, knowing it a few months later or early would not make a difference to me anyway.

They will be there(as they just got another round of funding not too long ago) given time, not now though.

 

Just bought a Nex-5 for my son...AMAZING!

 

Wicked jealous! It seems like quite a camera!

 

well, so far there yet has to be an ssd that shows for the typical use cases (os and apps on it) MORE ACTUAL PERFORMANCE.
intel doesn't life from those devices, so they don't have to sell them to you with awesome numbers that are over the top. they can instead focus on a balanced device.

because having >250MB/s will increase your application load times and other things.. well, not really besides maybe a scientific measurable difference.

you have NO prove for the premium.

we don't KNOW if they will present that. could have been a fake card. but fact is, what they have presented is a very nice ssd, and plans for very nice prices. might not be the high end ultra thing for the geeks that need the best of the best, but great actual device for the ordinary consumer who wants to invest a bit into a greatly enhancing tool.

and where does that differ to intel? all of my intel gen1 (no trim) and gen2 drives where NEVER taken care off, they just get used daily, with ZERO performance loss over the YEARS by now. don't give the sandforce credit for stuff that is nothing special for them.

and that's what i mean: it doesn't matter what device, they have diminishing returns in real life. and as those results diminish, other values come in: trust in a brand, trust in reliability, trust in them knowing how to handle problems. there, intel showd VASTLY superior behaviour to, say, OCZ. this, too, is very important for businesses. would you trust a tiny company that no one ever heard of like sandforce for a big investment? or intel, where you know they exist since tens of years, and won't just die out if a problem occurs.

i still wait for a single reason why i should get a sandforce over an intel. i have gaven you the points on why i don't.

• if you say performance, then i say show me a performance DIFFERENCE between the two that matters.
• if you say price, then i say, again, show me a difference there.
• if you show me reliability, then i say no chance there.
• if you say numbers you can trust in, then i say durawrite fails on mpeg4 video compressed data, so i can't calculate with performance numbers. the intel numbers are numbers that one can rely on, the durawrite numbers vary depending on the data.
• if you say company brand, then i say no.
• if you say company trustability in knowing what they do, i say, again, no. intel knows their flash very well, they produce it since years.

anyways. you put sandforce above intel. this is a failure, but it's your choice. you'd have to put them at least equal.


and besides, on why being so one sided against sandforce? why you're so onesided for sandforce? we know why anandtech is, at least. he gets supported by them/ocz quite a bit for marketing reasons. as i hate one sided people (that don't have real reasons) i just take the opposite side by default. especially when it makes sense.

i might suggest sandforce for a gamer geek. but i will always suggest intel to those people that i want to give a device that i can trust in. my dad, my friends, people in here.

 

I really think Intel may have some surprises in store. They are a very smart company and I think they may have underplayed their hand. They had to KNOW that others would have another round of updates so they went low with their specs.

And Although for myself I would try others, for clients, I could never be fired for recommending Intel. they have heard the name, where they have never heard of any of the others. Sometimes, with clients, one wants to play it safe, for sure.

 

indeed. and as you know your customers will use the drive for years, you know the company will still be there if something goes wrong.

sandforce is like the new mtron. they deliver something great, but no one knows about tomorrow. mtron isn't there anymore. zero support, zero anything.

 

samsung and Intel, well established name.
i am still waiting for Intel G3 before I decide if I should get samsung OEM 470 from DELL.

 

UPDATE

Ok well today i finally upgraded my drive to the TRIM version VBM19C1Q. I have done a few clean installs recently but obviously had to do one again to upgrade my FW. With other SSD's that i've used in the past without TRIM in other ultraportables the performance seemed to stay pretty much the same but the performance decrease with the P128 was quite a lot which surprised me a little especially given the following.
Like i wrote before i have not really used this SSD very much at all and leave it near empty and have hardly used this computer much in the past year.
This drive is pretty old but it's still being sold and is basically the 2.5 PM800.
It seems like my problem is solved.
I've upgraded to W7 64bit this time as i thought i might as well to take advantage of TRIM.
Anyway, things are what they should be now more or less.

 

While Intel may still be there, I won't put much weight on whether that has anything to do with their product that is selling now. They sold off their XScale(i.e. StrongArm acquired as part of Digital) to Marvell, the Turbo Memory stuff is now discountinued(though one can still download driver from them which was dated 2009) and I am sure there are other unsuccessful products that disappeared.

However, I see a significant difference between Intel and Sandforce in their approach. Intel being a company with a strong engineering background took a very conservative approach which as you mentioned is a product that is well balanced and the number can be trusted and it is well tested as well.

Sandforce on the other hand is a typical new startup that needs to 'wow' the world and cut corners in various aspects. At the very least, I would say their controller are not well tested.

 

Sandforce only make chip set. Other companies release SSD's based on their chipset, so you still have choice if something goes wrong. Most partners do their own firmware validations, so you have better chance of finding bugs/errors.

 

That is the line of thinking but the reality is, their so called partners(like OCZ) do very little about validation. If you read the various firmware releases by OCZ/Corsair/Patriot, they are basically identical indicating they are using the same firmware from Sandforce(may be with non-critical variations). I doubt these 'partners' have very strong engineering team, at least not my impression based on what I see in OCZ.

In a sense, they just kind of 'order features from a list' and past that to Sandforce then using their own factory(or OEM) with whatever NAND they can get cheap, assemble them, put in a case and done.

OCZ I believe is the major(if not the largest) player in Sandforce based drive and based on what I have read between the lines on their support forum haven't even tested their drive on major brands like Dell/Lenovo etc. Their so called 'test lab' seems to have only geek stuffs like MSI etc.

 

with partners like ocz, you're essentially lost (i used a censored word here). they've proven that more than once, and tried to hide it more than once, and lied more than once.

 

Least we got you out of Vista egad!!!! Now if we can get Dave out of that Intel and the ice age we are ok... He has a real burr for some reason. eheheh (see above again...and again....and again...) and happy holidays!

 

C300 draw tomorrow at midnight (See below). Happy New Year all and good luck!!! I am going to watch Team Canada play hockey than coming back for the draw!

 

as long as i'm still right with all of my points and you haven't brought a counterpoint, you know there's no reason to get me on your wrong path

happy new year. i'll report on a special ssd early next year, too.. once i got it. and it's not an intel! have no clue, could even be a sandforce haha who cares? as always, i buy what's worth buying. i'm not brand-fixed in any way. i would even buy apple if it would fit well (and did). liking/not liking is something for the fanboys. i chose from all the options.

and that's why i chose intel where ever an intel is available

and yeah, it's quite ice age here.. freezing..

 

Forgot about that! Team Canada? You mean you're going to watch the Canadiens live? Lucky you! I'll catch the Red Wings like I do every New Years eve, except on TV (except one year I was there). If I win, it's going in my Sandy Bridge Clevo...

 

Game Piks???? Yup Team Canada and Russia... It was great as you might tell eheh. But you are right... I also got Montreal/Leaf tks for Feb in Montreal which will be great. Oh Good luck with the draw all....

 

Happy new year from switzerland. Yeah I'm out, partying right now. Enjoy 2011

 

Are these drives really the same, inside as claimed?

Maybe this has been answered before.......thanks

 

I miss Mtron! Mtron you were awesome! G3 please, and I want it NOW!

 

Its same，but the DELL OEM one does not provide warranty on it. you can find it around $400 on bey easily.

 

The Firmware of the Dell version isn't upgradable with the current Firmware AXM0701Q by Samsung. One must wait until Dell releases the upgrade.
According to benchmarks AXM0701Q performs better.

 

Thanks for the information. Yes, eBay is where I usualy see these drives, but no mention of DELL

 

Thanks for that information. I guess sticking with genuine has benefits for sure, I think I will buy Samsung branded SSD

 

if u are not in a hurry, just wait for intel G3, then u may have more choices

 

Hi. I am thinking of buying an SSD as a birthday gift for myself (lol), can someone advise me which of these available in newegg is the best? They are all 160gb drives.

Newegg.com - PCs & Laptops,Laptop Accessories,SSD,Intel,160GB

I have an HP Envy 14.

Thank you.

 

New tech comimg from intel some time this year.
Looks like it turns ur SSD+HDD set up into a giant Momentust XTesk type configuration

The Sandy Bridge Review: Intel Core i7-2600K, i5-2500K and Core i3-2100 Tested - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

 

now that sata3 is on all nextgen intel products, i'm curious if the ssds still stay at sata2..

but i guess we'll learn much more that week.

 

They all should have same performance, just go with cheapest one if You need 2.5" drive.

 

I think all the notebook variants still have (only) SATA2?

 

Agreed... and off to CES!!!! Have a good week all and i will try and post a bit from there!

 

enjoy! grab us some presents.. and not pens!

 

Les, have fun! Get some cool stuff! Get me a CASE of Intel G3's please!

 

Oh boy...Les! have fun...

BTW I think AVN is next door...