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

I was hopping to see intels own design, now im not too sure to go with it, or wait for C400 since its also Marvel controller.

 

which benchmark you are referring to ? I am not familiar with the Marvell controller but Intel's G2 controller is very consistency in performance unless you fill it to the last drop. I would assume their team would preserve this in the 510 line, though that very much depends on if they just do minor tweak to the Marvell firmware or have done major customization.

 

The Intel G2 looses very little if any speed when filled up.

 

I think we will see more reviews late today, StorageReview Started their own, Intel SSD 510 Review (250GB), no benches yet, but something interesting, as previous gens with intel, the lowered size also is slower.

Also intel released some vidoes, here is one,

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it's not a lot of disk writing. less than reinstalling and then copying over the files.

 

I'm new to SSDs. Frankly, I don't know what this means. I thought you could just use an SSD like a regular hard drive. I guess there's more to it.

 

You can. Some people just like to get every extra last bit of performance they can get out of their SSDs, so they run all of these optimizations. It's like the difference between someone that just buys a car to drive, and someone that buys a car and then starts putting on all sorts of aftermarket accessories to make it "better".

 

Has anyone had any power management issues or hibernation or sleep related problems? I have an intel x25 120gb drive and a Dell studio 1558 i7 8gb ram. I have had a ton of video card issues (BSODs and lockups) but have gotten better with driver updates, dell replaced the mobo twice and still have occasional BSODs but whats worse now is my PC will very rarley "wake up" after I close the lid, its strange the screen will usully come up and I will login with my credentials, THEN it just sits at a dark screen (you can tell its still on) and I have to hard power off and restart. Happens very frequently. Also sometimes when I push the power button it turns on, but again nothing on the screen (but screen is on) so I push off and on a few more times, sometimes it will start to boot other times I have to hold in power to kill it, then power on again..
Only reason I am thinking SSD related is I put the OEM 72k 500gb hard drive back in with stock OS (from dell) and it seems to resume every time!). I DID to an OS reload and still have issues. Only difference on OS is win7 pro is on the OEM drive while Win7 Ultimate is on SSD and used my MS license on it... Again, it USED to be just fine (aside from video card issues)...

 

looks like some driver issues that are fixed by dell on the default installation. definitely not an ssd thing.
how about imaging over the oem hdd version and check if that still fixes the issue?

 

Thanks. I understand. I have another question. How mature is this technology? Would a new a laptop ordered with an SSD and hard drive be as reliable as one with a hard drive alone?

 

4k sequential reads/writes yes, but this is not what we are normally talking about and what we normally care about (and reason why atto isnt the best to use unless you're just after sequential speeds)

as per the specs:

•Random 4KB reads: up to 20,000 IOPS = 80MB/s
•Random 4KB writes: up to 8,000 IOPS = 32MB/s

As you can see, quite a difference from the sequential speeds

 

The technology is very mature. If there is anything wrong, it is firmware bugs rather than the technology itself.

If you are ordering a laptop from a reputable vendor and they allow you to choose SSD as an option, there isn't much to worry about as they would do their own validation process.

Now trying to buy one from newegg etc. and upgrade youself, you need to be more careful and personally I would stick with tried and trusted brand/models.

 

Definitely better with reads than the G2, but not writes. My current 120GB is 24MB/s read, 47 MB/s write using CrystalDiskMark

 

How do vendors configure the preinstalled software on laptops that come equipped with both an SSD and hard drive? Is everything installed on the SSD or is it split between drives? For example, where do the put the Windows 7 Documents and Pictures directories? What about the restore partition? Are there any standards for this?

 

A SSD is no different from a HDD.

 

There are no real standards, no. Most of them _probably_ just do their "regular" image to the SSD, and maybe initialize the hard drive but leave it empty.

 

Benchmark results for the new Intel 510 series SSD in both SATA 2 and 3. Nothing to get excited about IMHO:
Intel SSD 510 Review (250GB) | StorageReview.com

 

more reliable actually. at least the part of the ssd is not prone to randomly die because you physically moved the laptop (which you will do, it's a laptop).

the technology is just as mature as hdd technology, and the reliability is actually better than for hdds.

 

Haven't been keeping track of the forums lately so this may have been posted before...

Nice review by Laptopmag, Samsung 470 comes out tops.
SSD Battle Royale: Which Drive Will Speed Up Your Notebook the Most?

No Vertex 3 or Intel G3 included though.

 

So what do you think - if a laptop owner was about to buy a ssd for his laptop should go for?
It's very general use - attending college and also do some gaming in the sparetime.
Right now i'm looking into either buying the Intel X25-m 120gb or the Samsung 470 128gb
Right now i'm looking into buying it from amazon.de and the difference is 40€ , the Samsung being the most expensive.

 

I do wonder if that'll change a lot with the release of the newer drives though ._.

And is the Vertex 2 the 34nm or the 25nm variant?

 

on a laptop without sata3, not really no. on ane with, i guess yes.

 

Hello again guys,

I was wondering which one of these you guys would pick for a gaming laptop:
- 80GB Intel G2 X25-M Solid State Drive (Up to Sequential Read 250MB/s - Write 70MB/s SSD Serial-ATA II) ( + 162 )
- 90GB OCZ Vertex 2 Sandforce Solid State Drive (Up to Sequential Read 285MB/s - Write 275MB/s SSD Serial-ATA II) ( + 182 )
- 120GB OCZ Vertex 2 Sandforce Solid State Drive (Up to Sequential Read 285MB/s - Write 275MB/s SSD Serial-ATA II) ( + 218 )
- 128GB Crucial C300 Solid State Drive (Up to Sequential Read 265MB/s - Write 140MB/s SSD Serial-ATA III) ( + 248 )

My gut is telling me the 120gb OCZ vertex 2 sandforce for $218 is the best choice. Anyone got some advice/tips?

 

Hi Guys, I would like your advice.

I ordered a Dell XPS 17 (L1701x) and would like to add a second HDD (SSD) as a boot drive. The included 500 gb HDD will be used to store data and be used for the Windows swap file.

I want to get a 60-64Gb SSD, as I think it will be just what I need to hold Windows 7 OS, Office and some other software. I read a lot of reviews and bechmark but most of them are done with higher capacity SSD drives which are proved to be more more performant notably in "write" tasks...

What would be the best drive in the following 60-64Gb capacity range. These are in my current wish list:

1) Samsung 470 series 64Gb
2) Crucial C300 64Gb
3) Corsair F60


The cheapest of the three is the Samsung which I could get at 119$CDN and the Crucial is the most expensive at 133$

Thanks

 

OCZ would be a good choice, but right now because of the recent false advertising fraud ocz consumers are being faced with, your better off avoiding them. They are selling the 25nm version of their OCZ vertex 2 ssds as the 34nm ssds with no change in model number or price... and the problem is that they dont perform as well as the numbers you posted (those are the 34nm performance numbers) so stay away from them as there is no way to know which version you will get.

Might wanna look into the 120gb Intel G2... or the crucial is a solid drive but a little expensive.

GEt the samsung. Hands down.

 

I don't understand why they compare 120GB drives with 256GB drives. Makes no sense to me. Larger drives are typically faster anyhow.

In any case if you look at the results they're very close to each other, within several seconds in most cases, compared with the hard drive. So it's a win-win all around. I didn't see anything pulling away from the pack by any significant amount.

Also one thing I've realized is it's not only the performance of the drive, but the reliability, customer support, firmware update frequency and ease of applcation, plus available tools. In those categories Intel wins hands down all around.

 

Is there any way to check ssd f/w version without installing the OS first?

Thanks.

 

Ubuntu LiveCD? First thing that came to my mind .

 

I'd think most of the toolkits that the manufacturers put out for the drives should be capable of that, as long as the drive is hooked up. No OS install required.

 

need help choosing a SSD.
will be using on my SATA II Thinkpad and want either a 120gig or 160gig, preferably under $350.

whats the popular opinion as the best in that price range/size?
doesnt have to be a SATA II, i'm also considering the intel 510.

thanks

 

Intel G2 120GB or 160GB
Corsair Force F120 or F160
Samsung 470 120GB

These are some of the best SATA II SSD out there today. I've been using the Intel 160GB G2 for about a year now, performance is very good, I've never had any problems with it, firmware upgrades can be easily done with a USB stick. Intel 510 may be hard to get for the time being.

 

I'll second that, but the G3 are coming out soon...so that might change everything.

 

yeh crap, i think i'm just gonna wait.

i mean, i have been waiting for months now waiting for the G3s. but i'd thought i'd be seeing higher capacities at the same prices and i'm not.

 

Since Your laptop is limited to SATA II, I don't think You would notice any difference in performance in comparison to G2 or other SSDs mentioned above (unless Intel improves 4K random reads/writes DRAMATICALLY). The only noticeable difference would be in writing speeds, which, for an average user, do not matter that much (unless You do some heavy photo/video editing, of course).
I don't think we'll be seeing price drops related to smaller manufacturing process either (vide intel G1 to G2 transition).

 

thing is though, i may end up throwing it into a new pc if i upgrade in the next year.

 

Thanks. I was able to install the unformatted ssd in the ultrabay adapter and Samsung's utility showed the current f/w. Looks like it already has the recent update.

 

This makes a lot of sense, bear in mind that there will ALWAYS be something better on the horizon .

In Your particular case I would wait for G3 or Sandforce2200-based SSDs. They should be available really soon. The only concern might be the pricing.

 

Hello guys. I am a big amateur of the field of SSD. After reading a lot of review and benchmark, I am considering finally 2 SSD for my Envy 14.

1. OCZ vertex 2 240 GB
2. Crucial RealSSD C300 256 GB

I have a laptop limited by SATA II, so I won't consider coming out Intel 510 or vertex 3 or C400. I have a lot of question about these 2 SSD:

1. I see on a review that TRIM helps a lot to keep the SSD performance stable. This is the case for C300. And about the TRIM for OCZ one? Does it play an important role in performance for the Sandforce based SSD?

2.Why on some review, people said that Crucial C300 is for windows users, and OCZ VTX2 is for MAC users? I use mainly Windows 7.

3. I read some negatif sides on both SSD:
-about C300, people talk about freeze or latency after a little days of usage even the new firmware. Is this problem common to many users? Is there a fix for that?
-about OCZ VTX2, people talk about some lying advertiser from OCZ. What about that? Why they said that OCZ is lying about the performance of the new SSD? Besides this, do you guy notice other major problems? Does the Vertex 2 suffer from performance dropping after some normal usage?


Personnally I would go with the OCZ because it has faster read/write speed and has a longer life. What do you think? Please help me decideing with your experience? I　really don't want to searching more and make the right decision. Thank you in advance.

 

Are frequent FW updates good or bad thing?

I see it as a bad thing.

 

Can't a firmware update brick a SSD?

 

So shipping a product and NOT offering support for improved compatibility, performance, and bug fixes is good? Ship it and forget it?

Only if you don't do it right. I've had two (Kingston and OCZ) SSD's bricked on their own. That was one of my other points, Intel is quick and painless and doesn't destroy your data.

 

There was an issue with Intel's firmware update (either in 2009 or in 2010) bricking SSDs. Intel however reacted promptly and released a corrected firmware, and replaced the bricked SSDs. You can never be 100% sure, even with such giants as Intel (vide recent SB chipsets problems, but that's a different story). I have updated the firmware on my Intel SSD twice (from 02HA to 02HD to 02M3) without any problems though.

 

1) TRIM is supported by Sandforce, but it doesn't really seem to do much in general. Sandforce has it's own garbage collection routines, but getting it to run reliably seems to be a chore (at least on Windows... they recommend letting it sit at the login screen for it to work). Not sure how GC runs with OS X.

2) See point 1; since OS X doesn't support TRIM, the fact that Sandforce does its own garbage collection helps it maintain performance.

3) I don't know about the C300, but you can read this thread for the flap about OCZ and their "hidden" transition from 34 nm NAND to 25 nm NAND. Some space was lost on the lower capacity drives, and benchmarks are lower for the new 25 nm drives, but real worldl performance tests show no significant discernible difference between the old and new drives. Still, the way this was presented by the company has led to a lot of hate for them. There's still nothing wrong with the product, it's just that people don't like the company.

 

I posted a link to their own support forum which shows compatability issue between Mac(report from multiple users of different models) and Vertex 2.

For those who really really want Sandforce drive(personally I don't like it), may be OWC is a better option as that is kind of sold to Mac owners almost exclusively(well not that they refuse PC but their target market is Mac). That way, at least you get a better community(and tested by more people).

OCZ didn't test their products on many major brand machines.

 

Well everyone should be backing up their data, I think every manufacturer when you download a firmware update they always warn you to backup your data.

Though OCZ disgusts me, we shant turn this SSD thread into an OCZ rant, we'll leave it in the other thread.

OS X as of now does not support TRIM, that is coming this summer with 10.7 codename Lion. Adunno how OS X deals with GC

 

There are problems with Intel SSDs in Macs too, so I think it's more of a Mac issue, really. Pretty much, I see as many success stories of using Vertex 2s in Macs as I do Intel. I suppose if you really want to be sure of compatibility, you can always go back to the OEM Toshibas and Samsung P800s that Apple used to put in their Macs.

 

It is not an OCZ rant but information that IMO that a general discussion of SSD thread should have. Not everyone follows all the thread closely and many new comers come to ask what to buy and it is to their benefit to know the pros and cons(where things like reliability is seldom mentioned in those reviews, for obvious reasons).

 

The Intel SSD 510 Review

 

yup, that is what I would recommend, find a model that is proven to have less/no issue with the particular laptop, be it PC or Mac. The reported cases of OCZ(if you check the popular places) are noticeably higher though.

 

I think those failure numbers are kinda blown outta proportion, doesn't OCZ sell the most SSDs? The more SSD you sell, the higher the DOA/defective rate..