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

Very true, Samsung was and is very good in real live tasks.

 

at least the older samsungs really had that issue of "just feeling like a harddrive". but in a good way. not the wow effect i got from mtron or intel, but they where nice.
as i care about the wow effect, i never considered samsung again. but it's definitely a good quality product. they are the company nobody cares about, but they're always there, delivering a good nice ssd sidebyside while others like ocz spit out crap after crap, getting much more publicity (and sales?).

anyways, samsung is nice anyways. and growing. my phone is samsung (omnia 7), my dads tv now is a samsung. they sure do good products.

and i still hadn't time to plug in my intel 320

 

Samsung, Intel and Crucial (Micron) are the top dogs in flash memory (thus SSDs) because all of them DO INDEED control their product(ion) from A to Z, meaning the flash nand cells, and the controller.


Samsung makes their own flash cells, as well as their controller.

Intel makes their own flash cells (in joint-venture with Micron), and their controller.

Micron makes their own flash cells (in joint-venture with Intel), and their Marvel controller.

So basically, the flash cells in an Intel SSD are the exact same as the ones in a Micron (Crucial) SSD; the difference is the controller.


The fact that those 3 guys control the entire process of their products allows them to provide reliability, because they're just one door away to fix any problem while, other guys like OCZ and others, who OEM (ODM) some (or all) of their components (cells or controller), have to rely on another company to fix it should any problem arise, which takes longer and sometimes might just be a serious puzzle to work with.

All in all, I would trust much more a manufacturer who do have the entire control of it's product over another one who OEM this, ODM that, put everything together and pray for the components to work well together...

Micron, Samsung and Intel all fall into this category, where they have the entire control over their production.

 

Maybe I felt that wow effect with 2nd gen Samsung just because I was replacing 4800 rpm HDD in Dell Latitude D600, but it definitely was best upgrade ever.

Actually going from D600 (P4M 1.6 Ghz, 1 GB DDR1 at 266 MHz) and 2ng gen Samsung SSD to D620 (Core Duo T2300 and 2 GB DD2 667 MHz) and HDD at 7200 rpm was really disappointing.

 

Hi there,
I am new in ssds world I actually have one samsung ssd pm810 in my laptop but I have two questions:
1-Sholud I change sata drive from Raid mode into AHCI mode? any differences
2- Can you give me some advises how to speed up my ssd?

 

yes you should be running in AHCI.

Please post CrystalDiskMark 3.0 3x 100MB after, then we can say if it can be speeded up.

 

You can run one SSD in Raid mode, but it only makes sense if you plan to add another SSD to your laptop in the future.
If you stay with one SSD then run it in AHCI mode.

 

Hey peeps, sry to post this amongst the other questions, but I was wondering.
Ive recently started playing Black Ops again, installed it on my 160GB intel x-25 ssd, got like 60GB of free space left.
Now when it starts loading, it loads fast, untill its almost 100 procent, and you hear the sound just before the screen changes to the "select the weapons" screen, just before that, its stuck on the loading screen for about 10 seconds, its really weird... I don't recall that being there before..
Normally when it gives that sound, the 'ping', it's supposed to show me the game instantly... If its not clear enough, i can always take a screen, or record it to show you guys what i mean..
thanks !

 

i also have black ops installed on my 120 gb x25 and in my situation, levels load fast but it stops at the end of loading bar to sync with server, but for only 1-2 sec.

Black ops is famous for freezing sometimes, if you have this problem with only this game, i think it's due to steam or game engine.

UPDATE FOR OCZ FANS: read here

http://www.overclock.net/ssd/1044233-dont-forget-give-vertex-3-one.html

 

Who in their right minds would be an OCZ fan? lol

They dig their own grave with all of these issues that are happening to their SSDs and the way they treat their customers. OCZ is pathetic

 

lol...my friend all new VTX3 just gone mad and decide to stop working. I don't know hat's wrong with OCZ. my guess is their validation process is pretty poor.

 

Yeah, it usually backfire when they decide to let the customers betatest their drives

I find it hard to believe that they would first see the problems after releasing the drives to the public, but not when they tested the SSDs themselves. Or did they?....

 

Validation process ? Based on what I have seen between the lines on their forum, there is NO SUCH THING. If their supposed to be 'senior/experienced' staff once asked question like 'Can't you find a Dell model that doesn't use Intel chipset', it tells you something.

 

Tom's Hardware: Can You Get More Space Or Speed From Your SSD? : Optimizing Precious Solid-State Storage

 

Have there been anymore studies on the System Restore/TRIM issue. The degradation indicated in the above link all seem to stem from one source. It would be nice if there were some other independent verifications - I could not find any, maybe someone else can.

Thanks,
Harvey

 

My Vertex 3 120GB review has been posted: OCZ Vertex 3 120GB Review

 

I'm not seeing that. I'm running an 160gig Intel G2 and 4% System Restore. I just now ran the Toolbox Optimizer for the 1st time in 3 months and it took all of 2 seconds to complete.

 

Sorry to get a little off topic, but:

I'm kind of limited on choices since it's my parents planning on buying me my SSD for my birthday. I have narrowed it down to these 2 SSD's:

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0355833

and

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0352941

May push for this one if it's worth it:

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0364545

Both within the price point they said they were welling to spend $200, will the Kingston will be after rebate. The issue is they only wish to go to a brick and mortar store (no amazon or such) Microcenter is about an hour away. If anyone can help me in deciding it would be greatly appreciated.
I was looking for something around 100GB or more within the $200 range and these are what I came up with. Thanks for your input.

 

Samsung 470. That specific Kingston is a power hog and will diminish battery life if that's important to you. Crucial is nice too though if you can swing it, but I wouldn't stress over it. Real-world you couldn't notice a difference.

 

Thanks, I was kind of going for the Samsung, I heard they make really good SSD's too, I don't know if that's true, but I think I'll find out. Again, thanks, and Oh, I love the picture for your Profile, it's funny!

 

Samsungs are reliable and overall a great performer.

 

As a Samsung 470 128gb owner, I certainly have to recommend. It's quite fast, snappy and overall it has been super reliable, not giving me any probs in the 2months I've had it now.

 

+1 for Samsung 470.

Unless you have a SATA III notebook and don't care about battery life, then the Crucial M4 would be the best choice in my opinion.

 

I've done a few more test on it, so here it is, overall, certainly faster than an hdd, I'm definitely done doing anymore test. I've done quite enough and dont really want to put any more stress than i need to. :>


Samsung 470 128gb SSD

• Pictures Folder(926mb)copy/paste:2.93secs
• Videos Folder(6.60gb)copy/paste:2min 23.90secs
• ^^Transferring to ssd:1min 7.35secs

Seagate 750gb(7200rpm)(32mb cache) 2.5" HDD

• Pictures Folder(926mb)copy/paste:7.16secs
• Videos Folder(6.60gb)copy/paste:3min 1.39secs
• ^^Transferring to HDD:1min 21.22secs

 

dkillone, from where were You transferring to HDD/SSD?

BTW: +1 for Samsung 470

 

Will I don't think mine is SATA III, it's the Sandybridge, but the new revision, which may have been Asus pulling the SATA III's and replacing everything with SATA II since the SATA III had some issues in the original Sandybridge. Curse me and adopting early tech, if I had waited maybe a little bit I might have gotten one that had SATA III. Oh well, I like the Samsung one as dkillone (sorry if i misspelled), pointed out to me that the samsung had 2 controllers. (honestly i don't see how that would help and if someone could enlighten me, that would be wonderfully) Anyhow the Samsung also seems to be the one that is most within my range of original picks. Specially if my laptop is SATA II.

 

You have to have SATA 3 ports if you have Sandy Bridge. The chipset issue with Sandy Bridge was for SATA 2 ports, and all laptops had to either be recalled (to switch board), be built with the new (fixed) boards, or they could be left alone if they were only using SATA 3 ports (which few were since most have at least HDD+Optical+ESATA=3). Desktop boards were all switched and recalled.

There may be confusion regading SATA revisions. Sata I (or 1) is 1.5GBp/s max transfer speed, Sata II (or 2) is 3GBp/s max transfer, Sata III (or 3) is 6GBp/s max transfer. I cringe when I see people referring to SATA 6, since it doesn't exist

 

Pretty much what was said above, the G73SW has 2 SATA3 ports which are the 2 hdd slots, if i remember correctly.

<s>As for the 2 controllers, basically it helps with multi tasking. Say your transferring some files to the ssd, and your opening programs like photoshop, firefox, etc while it is still transferring. There wouldn't be as much slow down since the second controller can pick up the slack. I'm a big multi-tasker, so I definitely see it shine a lot.</s>
EDIT: Sorry ignore that, it has 2 cache chips, not controllers.


@Tomy B.
All the test were done on my G73SW, with the hdd being in the right bay, ssd in the left, looking at the laptop from the front.

 

Hi. Just to clarify SATA specs a bit further...

SATA I (or 1) is 1.5 Gb/s (Giga bits per second) or 150 MB/s (Mega Bytes per second). GB/s technically is Giga Bytes/second - I look forward to that day

SATA II (or 2) is 3 Gb/s or 300 MB/s
SATA III (or 3) is 6 Gb/s or 600 MB/s

Obviously, we never actually reach full spec speed in reality, but get very close on Sequential reads/writes (at least for SATA I/II)...
SATA I we get around 135 MB/s
SATA II around 275 MB/s
SATA III around 550 MB/s

 

That's interesting, because the 4K 32's are not that high... I'd have thought they would be... any ideas?

 

As far as I know QD32 doesn't really reflect single user multi tasking.

And besides that, Samsung's QD32 looks pretty good to me.

 

Interesting reading on the Anand Patriot WildFire review:

See:
AnandTech - OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS & Patriot Wildfire SSDs Reviewed


Seems that the SF based drives are not inherently broken (per se) just that there is an issue with these drives with certain combination of systems.

Doesn't make them any more reliable though - Anand still recommends the Intel 510 Series for the best combination of performance and reliability.

(More information in the comments section...).

 

What I found very interesting is that Anand confirms that his benchmarks aren't actually real world:

 

Yeah, what I have been saying here for almost a couple of years now:

Seems this piece by Anand is more of a confessional...

 

Have you changed your mind Phil?...

"The 4KQD32 in CDM is a much better indication of multi task performance than the normal 4K in CDM. Have a look at kingston V+ 100 if you want to verify."
http://forum.notebookreview.com/7568818-post159.html

Maybe a 4KQD4 would be better? It's got to have an impact on multi-tasking, surely?

 

Good point. I was basically wrong.

I think you're right, 4KQD4 is more representative.

 

Thinking about it a bit more... multitasking is going to use a combination of seq read/write as well as randoms (basically a mix, depending on what each app/task is doing)... so QD will have an impact, but reaching 32 (unless you're running a server) is not going to be of much use to anybody else.

So, a QD of 4 or less, for seq read/write? and randoms might be useful.
(you're now about to mention real-world tests

 

It was on my mind but I'll keep my mouth shut

I'd like a CDM version that runs with 50% compressible data and QD4.

Davepermen, can you program that for us?

 

Well, seen as were putting in requests How about an option to include various files used for the test data, and QD control

 

Yea thanks for the right symbol. I meant just what you wrote, but did GBp for some odd reason...

SATA II hits 285+, I hit close to 290 on my Vertex 2 (at least in benchmarking, which we all know is taken with a grain of salt). But either way, your point is well made. Can't wait for GB/s speeds (actually with PCIe controllers and a RAID config, it is possible, but insanely expensive... YouTube - ‪Samsung SSD Awesomeness‬&rlm;)

 

Actually: 1.5 Gb/s = 192 MB/a, 3 Gb/s = 384 MB/s, 6 Gb/s = 768 MB/s

dkillone, what's that with two controllers in Samsung 470? I remember just two chips of cache.

 

I am not sure if you can do the 1.5Gb/8 as there are those start/stop bit things so 1.5Gb/10 is more like it.

 

That is called 'corner cases'. Now imagine the same approach is taken in those softwares in an aeroplane, we are talking lifes

BTW, that was my conclusion after dealing with my first SF and why I adviced people that getting a SF is fine, so long you know someone else using it on the same laptop/pc model of yours and don't have a problem for 3+ months.

 

Yeah, I bet the Vertex tests were with 0/1 fill ... as in no data at all when compressed, which is why those results get very close to the max spec. In reality, you'll never get close to that amount of compression (unless you have large files of nothing ... be interesting to know what a good average compression rate is achievable though! (Not that it will affect my M4). And, yeah, multiple SSD's in RAID - wow!

@Tomy B - yeah, you're correct with the 8 bits to a byte theory, but chimpanzee is right in that it doesn't translate into MB/s of data transferred over the SATA bus...
8b/10b encoding - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

You're right, welp don't I feel dumb . I guess I misread the when reading the reviews. So srry, I should have doubled checked before spouting. Here is some good quotes to back you up.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1532/2


There is also this PDF, which don't feel like pulling quotes, but, confirms more as well as just a good read for anyone interested in the Samsung 470.

http://www.samsung.com/us/pdf/Samsung_Solid_State_Standouts_Whitepaper.pdf

 

Thank for the PDF, haven't read it yet, but it'll make good reading, I plan on getting a 128GB Samsung for my Asus G53SW, and a 64GB Samsung for my older G53VT to give it a boost. Anyone know if the 64GB has 2 cache chips as well? Again sorry if it's in the PDF, I hadn't read it yet.

 

Wow, I lucked out! I just got an email from my college saying that for my classes we need to get the following items:

What to get for class:
Toolkit
100GB+ SSD
40-100GB SSD
2GB+ Ram Laptop
USB Speaker
Wireless Mouse

They will refund upto $600 as long as we follow the agreement. There is a lot of goobily gook on why the 2 SSD's but suffice it to say, part having to do with running a few benchmarks, not many as they understand that that can kill an ssd faster. So i got things to do over the summer that I was going to do and will get a grade already for. (Need proof like screenshots and pictures of me performing the SSD install and such.) I already have a wireless mouse, and usb speaker, so I have pretty much $600 to buy 2 ssd's a computer tool kit and 2GB or more of ram, looks like both laptops (G53SW and my older but just as sturdy G50VT will be getting an SSD upgrade! WOOT!

I was thinking these SSD's

G53SW SSD: Micro Center - Samsung 470 Series MZ-5PA128/US 128GB 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-5PA128/US

G50VT: Micro Center - Samsung 470 Series MZ-5PA064/US 64GB 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-5PA064/US

But I have a kind of issue, I would rather just clone my G50VT's HDD to SSD and realized after doing some cleanup I still need close to 80GB, anyone have a suggestion? Upto and including even suggesting changes to both SSD's? Please be clear as to which Laptop get's which SSD too please. Other then that, I will be looking at my options at Microcenter as my parents are doing the buying and don't want to order online. (After one of their sales transactions were intercepted and they were robbed of a crap ton of money, they got it back fortunately, but now they don't really trust doing a who bunch of business online). I can't blame them. Anyhow yep, looks like some shopping to do!

 

An 80GB ssd will give your around 74gb usable and a 64gb will give you around 60gb usuable, if you disable hibernation and system restore you probably will get back 10GB+, not sure if that will drop you down into being able to use a 64gb, else just go with 128gb. I think the G50VT has dual hdd slots, so you could just move your hdd to the second slot for storage and just leave apps and programs on the ssd, btw i would do a clean install, specially since your going to be tight on space. On the G50VT i would probably go with Samsung 470, but on the G53SW i would go with Crucial M4 because of the sata III.

 

I wish I was in your shoes!

With all due respect: those SSD choices are okay for the price(s), but you really should be giving your G53SW something serious to stretch it's wings with (SATA3 not SATA2 drives - and also the capacity and internal configuration of the nand chips to fully utilize the SATA3 ports you can use on that system).

Here is my plan of attack:

Buy the Intel 510 250GB SSD for the G53SW.

See:
Intel SSDSC2MH250A2K5 510 250GB Solid State Drive | Intel SSDSC2MH250A2K5 | Computer Storage & Hard Drives | Solid State Drives | Sale Discount Deal - Canada Post Comparison Shopper


Buy the Intel 320 160GB SSD for the G50VT.

See:
Intel SSD 320 Series 160GB Gen3 SATA 3.0 SSDSA2CW160G310 | Intel SSDSA2CW160G310 | Computer Storage & Hard Drives | Solid State Drives | Sale Discount Deal - Canada Post Comparison Shopper


Buy the rest of the tools / supplies you need (if you need them - I would simply use the G50VT with one of the 2GB RAM strips as my testbed...).


Apply yourself 100% to your course to claim the full $600 you're entitled to!

Ask a classmate to use one of your SSD reciepts (for the 320 series...) and give them a $20 for their trouble (they should be giving you ~$260 for your receipt ).

Now, with your course over and full/complete use of your 2 current/high-end SSD's:


Install each into their respective systems (SATA3 to SATA3...) and partition them to the smallest size you need (giving them more spare area and you more consistent performance and longetivity). I would suggest around 100GB maximum partition size (for C: drive) for both systems.

Use the following link to move the users folders to your mechanical HDD (drive (D:') (both notebooks have dual drive bays, right?).

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/win...gramdata-folder-separate-drive-partition.html



Assuming you did a clean Windows 7 install on both systems - this should be the last time you're installing Win7 on either of them.


Additonal 'pro' tips:

Before you start swapping out HDD's/SSD's, backup your DATA!

Use the 640GB, 5400 RPM HDD for your 'D:' drive in your G50VT and use the 500GB, 7200 RPM HDD as your 'D:' drive in your G53SW.

Install the latest drivers on each system and install the latest Intel RST drivers too:

See:
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=20023


Next, install the Intel SSD Toolbox, set the schedule for once a week (as recommended by Intel)

See:
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=18455&lang=eng&wapkw=(SSD+Toolbox)


and...

Enjoy!

 

Well yea, the test was with ATTO, which of course isn't the most realistic out there. Honestly, I was less than impressed with the drive overall. It seems snappier than the RAID 10 it replaced, but not dramatically so. Now my M4 in my laptop, that thing impressed.

My guess is the Vertex issues are holdovers from the issues I had getting the darn thing to work in the first place. It REFUSED to be recognized for Windows install in AHCI mode on either controller (ICHR10 and GSATA). OCZ flat out told me to but a new motherboard (after a week of emails from them telling me to try things I had CLEARLY written in the original email that I had already tried...)...because apparently anything over 3 months old is too old to use their crap.

I got it working eventually in IDE mode and did the registry+BIOS switch. Needless to say I will NEVER buy an OCZ product again, at least not until they stop jerking their customers around uselessly, lying about specs (i.e. Vertex 2 NAND shrink), and overall just being stupid. I apologize to any OCZ fans out there, but they have not treated me well (there was another incident a couple years back with a PSU). Worse than Dell even...