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

will i gain anything, by buying a SATAIII when my laptop only support SATAII ? i know sata III is downward compatible, but does it maximize the speed? or is there any issues about this.

im thinking of buying the intel 320, but thinking about the 520 for future use.. so which one to choose? is it not worth the money`?

 

Yes the Intel 510 will be faster even on SATA II.

And no it's not worth the money imo.

 

Could someone suggest me an SSD please? I'm using a Vostro 3300 (SATA II), live in Europe (the prices should be roughly the same all around Europe), my budget is about 150€ max, and size doesn't matter much as long as it is 50GB or more.

 

Kingston V+ 100 96GB Kingston SSDNow V+ 100 96GB, 2.5", SATA II (SVP100S2/96G) | Geizhals.at EU
Intel 320 80GB Intel SSD 320 Series 80GB, 2.5", SATA II (SSDSA2CW080G310/SSDSA2CW080G3B5) | Geizhals.at EU

Or if you don't mind spending a bit more:
Crucial C300 128GB Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB, 2.5", SATA 6Gb/s (CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1) | Geizhals.at EU

The Kingston has the most bang for the buck in my opinion.

 

Anyone know how Crucial handles RMAs? Does it require proof of purchase from a reseller, or just the serial and SSD itself?

 

I'm seeing some benchmarks of the 120GB Vertex 3 MAXIO at the moment. For the people that are considering this drive: sofar performance looks like a regular Vertex 3 120GB.

Edit: I take back everything I said
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...st-benchmarks-ocz-vertex-3-maxiops-120gb.html

 

great benchmarks, good job OCZ but for the people who just bought a normal vertex3 is quite a pain, for some extra euros they could have bought this.
A serious company like Nvidia, Ati, Intel, AMD and others paints a roadmap of their product, this new type of vertex3 was a sudden bolt in the clear sky

 

The only thing that would make me regret it if the 240gb version's performance is big compared to the normal version. I hope not.

 

When I RMA'd my C300 11 months ago, all I had to do is fill out this form and send the drive in. A week later, maybe less, I got a new one, and still using that same one to this day.

 

So, who's seen this? Coding Horror: The Hot/Crazy Solid State Drive Scale

 

Just read it. Guess the guy got unlucky. Or maybe he's writing terabytes per week. Or maybe something else is causing it.

In general SSD reliability is better than hard drives:
French Retailer Data Offers SSD Failure Rates | News | The Mac Observer

 

btw, none of my ssds failed so far in all their differing usages (i've more than that guy). except my very very first one (it was a samsung, but way before even samsung went into big ssd business 20MB/s readwrite it had, i think? well.. died while installing vista). so for me, they're good on the hot/crazy scale. but yeah, non-theless. backup. nothing matters more than backup. because no matter how hot and not crazy something is. if there's something important on it, prevent loss.

and when the hot/crazy ratio goes towards crazy, one would be crazy to invest into ocz. their hot/crazy is definitely on the line, or on the crazy side of it.


btw, in other news, i just found out how to install windows home server 2011 (min requirement. 150gb hdd) onto one of my mtron 64 ssds. so i can start to get my home server to ssd only, too.. only 5tb of old ssds to go

 

Dave, did I mention I got an Intel 320 160GB? Yep! And I am up and running and it is fast enough for me.

I like it, and the "peace of mind" factor of having Intel!

 

I'm going to have to give WHS 2011 a go. I only touched it briefly in a virtual machine, but not sure how well it will like my 2TB WD Caviar Green drives. I only have a spare 32GB SSD, and that will probably go in my kids' computer

 

happy you enjoy it. can't wait for my 320. i considered a 510, but with the current money constraints, not really a possibility. the 120gb 320 i've ordered was dirtcheap. i think i'll clone my current setup from the g2 to the 320. the g2 will then go into the laptop of my gf (80gb should be enough for her web+itunes needs)

it likes my caviar green drives, but has naughty performance issues currently (yesterday, 100% of my ram was used, without showing any process that consumed much). and for the drive on which the os is on, the caviars greens might not be a good choice (they have, in my case, huge random latency spikes of up to 1second (yes?!) maybe i need to chkdsk them..).

well, i'll install it on my mtron that weekend (using cgi.ini on a usb stick with those two lines in:
[WinPE]
CheckReqs=0
) and see if that improves something. then i'll check my hdds.

so far i just have no clue what to do about the loss of DE. i really don't know. i have a huge amount of data that should be duplicated, but right now isn't. wellwell..

in the summer, i move to a new place. there i get a faster internet connection and will most likely set up over the web synching with a friends home server. so i might not need duplication anymore by then

edit: i should have duplication before actually moving, though..

 

I thought with WHS 2011 it was intended to set up in software RAID, and the OS managed that? Apparently not? And I have a WD Caviar Black 1TB for my OS drive, then 7 2TB WD Caviar Green

 

no, the os does nothing. it just creates shares that can be on one of the drives, that's it. if you want, you can create some sort of raid (hw, sw) and then create your shares on that.

but besides the clientbackup it's mostly just a nice looking os that does what you could have done yourself: creating shares on it. without DE, it's magic is completely lost.

still i explore it as its free for me, and i want to know my enemy. but i guess the same could have been set up with just another windows 7 installation and some shares. if one has a nice client backup solution, that is, of course.

 

@Dave, so they still left out the disk Expander on WHS2011? so now i have to raid it to have a big volume? this was one of the things that draw me to WHSv1, still does.... not sure if ill change to 2011 or when.

 

I don't want to keep taking this OT, but I guess I'll have to do a mock setup and see if I like it. I have two 1TB WD Green, one 1TB WD Black, 1 640GB WD Blue, and a couple 320GB drives. I was going to set those up for my parents WHS using their old computer since they got a new one, but maybe I'll use it for a bit with WHS 2011 and see how it goes.

This is really not looking good though. Sounds like it's more of a gimped Server 2008 package then.

I thought there were going to be some third party add-ons to include their own DE. Maybe I'll just wait a while and see how it all pans out.

 

yes there are third parties working on it. i like those: StableBit DrivePool

this one's another option (not liking the ui): Drive Bender

but yeah, it's offtopic.

it's still quite interesting for ssd owners, as there the small-system-drive + big-nas-storage-pool like setups are more common.

i just hope s gets back on track and adds a simple de like drivepool back to whs3. i really really really hope so.

 

Dave, I seriously considered the 510 as well. Figured I would go 320 and so far, so good. I also like the tool box. So basic, but so many SSD do not come with it.

 

Has anybody been able to find or read what the new changes are in the Samsung 470 F/W update? I recieved a message today that there is an update available. I am using AXM08B1Q NOW, and now AXM09B1Q is out. I can't seem to find anything anywhere.

 

so, finally got one of my mtrons up and running on my whs2011. at first, it performed at terrible 20MB/s (sequencial). then i installed intel rapid storage drivers, and now it performs about as expected:

 

I'm having trouble installing a C300 128 GB SSD on my G73jh:

G73jh factory setting in BIOS: AHCI
Crucial 300 updated with firmware 7 installed to P4
Seagate 500GB installed to P0 (factory)
Version 10.1.0.1008 of IRST installed
v9.2.0.1030 of Intel chipset INF installed (is this even relevant for this problem?)

In AHCI mode, only the Seagate is recognized. I have to switch to IDE mode in BIOS for the C300 to be recognized. When it is recognized, everything is OK - CrystalDiskMark shows good results (can't paste results because I am in AHCI mode right now and did not save last test).

What am I doing wrong?

 

p.s. As a first exercise, I am just installing the SSD as a secondary HD for running FSX. If I succeed and things are reasonably stable, I am probably going to convert it into an OS SSD and install it on P0.

 

Yeah, I was going to say, might as well install it as the OS drive too.

 

4k Write... OUCH!

 

That looks like a hard drive.

 

For anyone in Europe: Crucial M4 64GB for 99 euro. Bargain.
Crucial m4 SSD 64GB, 2.5", SATA 6Gb/s (CT064M4SSD2) | Geizhals.at EU

 

well, it's an mtron 64mobi. it's 2.5 years old by now. still much faster than a harddrive (now). and silent and rugged. one day i'll might put some "old intel" in there instead. or something. but for now, it serves me better (much better) than the caviar green 2tb drive as an os drive.

 

SSD Experts

I have a question Intel RST vs MS AHCI for drivers.

I had the 4K writes "problem" and did those PPM and Halt State hacks to bring the numbers up but found out the MS Driver also gives a huge boost to 4K writes in my case, but some other stuff goes down.

So looking at these witch would you say is better?

Latest Intel RST


Stock MS AHCI


Most notable is the huge jump for 4K write with the MS drivers, but the loss of QD32 Reads.

I Read more than I Write for sure but I have no clue what 4K QD32 is compared to the standard 4K everybody talks about.

 

most likely the only real answer is: it won't matter.

most likely.

i'm not sure, though.. but the number differences are small enough to make me think so.

 

You could try run MSAHCI for a few days. When I tested (pre Windows 7 SP1) I felt that the Intel RST drivers felt more responsive.

 

Can anybody clarify the difference between the standard 4K reading and the 4K QD32?

As for use; It's probably hard to tell since I have not really paid attention but the Intel did feel better to me for the few things I open.

I'll stick with MS for a day and look close at how things load & open and then switch back to Intel and see if I can notice it.

 

QD32 means parallel reads. that means, reads don't have to wait for another to be processed. can have quite an impact. imagine starting an app that loads a dll (any app does). all those dlls could be loaded serial after each other, or in parallel. parallel would be much faster ready => much more snappy app launch.

 

ViciousXUSMC, it looks like the MS drivers are faster.

To find out if it's true, run a real world benchmark. Preferably something with multiple tasks. Like the scenario in my review below.

Intel RST used to be faster in multi tasking.

 

This ^^^


Benchmarks like CDM don't mean anything if the system feels slower. And with MSACHI they definitely feel slower to me vs. IRST drivers.

 

IRST drivers all the way for me too... I used to get some occasional pauses or hiccups. With IRST I never get it any more. Coincidence or not? I dunno, but I'm not going back.

 

Consumer SSDs To Cost $1 Per Gigabyte In 2012: Gartner Hope so.

 

Good find.

But for mass storage $1/GB is still expensive when 500GB HDD's are the norm for laptops and much larger for desktops. $0.50/GB is more reasonable. I'd pay $250, maybe $300 for a 512GB SSD. But I still won't spend $250-$300 for a 256GB SSD if its primary use is storage. But I think it makes 128GB SSD's for a boot and app drive more reasonable if they get around $100 for performance ones.

 

I predict that unless Gartner starts producing these $1/GB SSD's, nobody else will either.

Didn't they also predict this in 2009, 2010 and for 2011 too?

 

I somewhat doubt they will lower that fast, i feel they gona milk us down for couple of years more. Next gen i expect $1.50 per GB for new products.

 

they could sure go that low by now. but, as abula said, why should they. as long as people pay the price, would you lower it?

 

Samsung develops 64Gb 20nm-based NAND Flash with Toggle DDR 2.0

 

got a package today




joy!

 

Let us know how it goes!

 

Looks almost as good as my 160GB

 

Lol...

Didn't want to point out that it looked kinda small to me.

 

LOL! I am liking my 160GB. It is my primary drive. Got about 80-90 filled.

I am very interested to see how you like yours, Dave.

 

Dave, I see You ordered the right one, not the 310 Series!

BTW: Cape, just to remind You to update Your signature.