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

yeah... I just don't like mess with DVDs. It is key factor.

 

Haven't use DVD for may be 8+ years.

I use a temp USB drive to store the image and use W7 installation on USB for the restore. No DVD needd.

 

I have a headache now. I will ask you later for detailed article about this. Please be prepared

 

Another important question.
I like to watch movies a lot. And I see HDD Led indicator lights oftenly while I watch video. Does it mean that when I watch 4-5 GB movie at the end of it I made 4-5 GB of writes on SSD??? Also Haali Splitter says that it doesn't use system cache so it uses buffer on disk. I set it to 0 instead of 8MB.

Crucial SSD M4 has cache. But is it DRAM cache or NAND?

I set Temp folder on HDD.

 

There's no need to worry about writes. Your SSD will easily outlast 10 years.

The cache on SSDs and HDD is usually like DRAM. Only the Seagate XT uses NAND for cache.

Wouldn't recommend it. Just leave it as it is. The more of your OS is on your SSD the faster your OS will be.

The whole idea of minimizing writes comes from a couple of years ago when SSDs were new and not that reliable.

 

Thank you Phil. I removed Temp folder after while installing 1 app it increased from
30 Mb to 2GB. I decided that it is just waste of writes. But I do really understand what you are saying.

What I can say that even when it was on SSD I saw not a big benefit comparing to my slow but tweaked by RamDisk and eBoostr 640GB HDD.

All I can see is:
- significant decrease of RAM usage thanks to disabling all that ...fetches. From 2.7GB to 1.7GB.
- Faster boot tomes (18 seconds not including time before BIOS loading versus up to 2 minutes on HDD from cold boot.)
- Multitasking. When I open couple apps while SSD is still busy I see no stuttering which I hate. It is still fully responsive.

Disadvantage. After I disabled indexing now when I type smth in Start it doesn't show me what I am looking for. I used to type some file name and it gave me results. I usually type cpu-z which is situated in folder of all my exe. installs.

Do I really need to disable indexing? Could you tell me what does it give? I know that because SSD is so fast I likely don't need it if I search something but when I search through Start I have no search function at all.

 

No you don't.

Actually there's no need to change anything except defragging, if Windows didn't disable that in the first place.

 

+1 on this. All the other "tweaks" are not necessary and up to the individual.

 

I just purchased a Corsair Force 3 120gb SSD for my Sony Vaio CW VPCCW26FX Laptop.

So far everything has gone smooth but for some reason I cannot get maximum performance out of it.

I have downloaded many hd benchmarking tools (hd tune, atto, crystaldiskmark, sissandra soft).

Crystal disk mark is pegging my sequential reads at 200mbs and my writes and 148 mbs consistantly. My 4k randoms are low but I expected that.

Since my computer utilizes a Sata II interface I would expect reads and write closer to 250 mbs especially since the Corsiar Force 3 is a 2nd gen SandForce drive and has been shown all over internet to be capable of 400+ mbs read/writes.
Any help/ideas would be appreciated.

My Scenario:
Clean install of Windows 7 64 bit.
Verify AHCI and TRIM enabled.
Updated Force drive firmware to latest 1.3.2 version.
Disabled hibernation file.
Disabled defrag.
Disabled prefetch/superfetch
Disabled indexing.

I am aware some of those tweak do not affect drive speed but rather are more storage space and drive wear benefits.

So I am confused as to why my drive wont read/write at faster speeds.

 

What are your 4K???

Scenario: How To: Improve Low SSD Performance in Intel Series 5 Chipset Environments | StorageReview.com
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...ries-4-5-965-chipsets-stamatisx-tweak-13.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...-intel-series-4-5-965-chipsets-jjb-tweak.html

You will have 220-250 MB sequential I guess.
Enable write cache (2 boxes) in Properties

 

Only in ATTO you will get top speeds. What did you get in ATTO?

 

Around 250-260 mbs. But since it was the only test that gave me those figures Im thinking that maybe its testing interface speed reading/writing straight from the drives ram cache and not from the actual flash memory.

Reads feel fast enough but installing anything it sure does not seem very fast. Installed office, origin, battlefield 3 beta, custom nvidia drives and they all did not seem to install very fast.

 

Read: ~18 mbs
Write: ~40 mbs

Multiple runs fluctuate up and down from there around ~5mbs but those are averages.

 

@ cknobman please post a screenshot of AS-SSD. (no need to run the benchmark)

Seems that is performing as it should. The reason why you get those scores only in ATTO is that ATTO uses 0 fill data.

Sandforce drives only reach their quoted speeds with 0 fill data.

 

Anyone experience with Perfect Disk 12's SSD Optimizer function?

 

I just finished installing the M4 with 0009 on my destkop, really nice drive, does boot faster than my X25m, but in windows feels the same, no freezing and no issues to report, really nice drive, here are some benches.

 

A picture of AS SSD

 

cknobman, yes alignment is ok. I think it's performing as it should. Your laptop has a SATA II interface.

In CDM you can get max. performance by setting it to use 0 fill data.

 

Does 0-fill data means that it doesn't write at all? So I can use this benchmark as much as I want without any affect on SSD?

 

That is exactly what happened on SF. Well, very little has been written to the NAND. Why ATTO is meaningless for SF other than finding out if you have alignment/driver issue.

 

Ok thanks for help.

But reading what others have posted if I set benchmark to use 0 fill data then it wont actually be writing to the SSD? Which in turns means the write speeds wont be true reflections of the drives performance?

 

I think it writes zeros to the drive. But it's extremely compressible so very little will be written.

CDM data is 0% compressible. ATTO is like 100% compressible as far as I know. Real data is somewhere in between.

 

How to secure erase an SSD drive | How To - CNET

Step 7 worries me

Mr. Mysterious

 

No one needs SE except running SF or really want to destroy the content(say resell or decommision). Though it is usually fine and very rarely brick the drive.

 

This is why everybody hates SandForse (it is SF, correct?). If you recently bought then you can easily do it. Send it back in worst scenario.
Next time buy Marvell or Intel.

 

I just placed an order for a 128Gb Crucial M4, so I'm pretty excited.

In my fresh install, should I:

1.) just create one 128Gb C: partition on the SSD for Windows programs and games or;

2.) Would it be better for what I do now: 60Gb partition just for Windows stuff, the rest (68Gb) for the other stuff in a D: drive?

I'll be putting all my data (music, rest of games, movies, *special* movies) on a Raid0 2x Spinpoint F3 1Tb and using a Hitachi Deskstar 2Tb for external backup.

 

I'd go with one partition. Best for performance in my experience.

 

This is without considering the 100mg partition that win7 does for OS right or you dont have that partition either?

 

I think he means to include it because that's for Windows recovery. So it would be Recovery+W7+Extra or Recovery+W7, and he recommended the latter.

 

As others have said I'd stick with the one partition (well plus Windows's 100MB one that it makes automatically). There isn't a real benefit to partitions on an SSD like there is on an HDD.

 

Sure there is. Viruses/corruptions. You don't need to format the whole thing if one of your partitions decides to fail or have something go wrong. Saying partitions don't matter is like saying the OS doesn't matter.

Partitions, like RAID, are there for worst-case scenarios, and organization. They might not provide the same bench-variances or performance hikes they did on HDD's, but they exist for a purpose.

With that said, if these things don't matter to you, go with one partition

 

And with an SSD, usually all that goes on it is Windows and programs. If Windows gets toasted, you have to reinstall 95% of those programs again anyway. Data is usually on another drive. I am all for separating data from OS/Programs, I've been doing that for years.

Perhaps I should have rephrased what I said to mean one partition for all programs and Windows. Or am I still misunderstanding what you are trying to say?

 

No, no, I get you all right. I currently have 60Gb for my C:, then the rest on my 1Tb drive for D:. I install all programs into D:\Programs leaving C as only windows files, windows updates and anything else that can't be moved. All my data (videos, music, games) go into D: too.

So with the SSD it'll just be shifting the install locations of programs back into their default C. Games will go into the SSD too. The Samsung Spinpoint for data only. How's that sound?

 

Personally, I think is a bad idea to seperate program and system to two partition but it is just preference.

 

Yeah, after having to change the directory with everything I installed got tedious after a while. I'll merge them together after I get the SSD.

 

See:
Should You Upgrade? From A Hard Drive To An SSD : Hard Drive Versus SSD


The above article tries to convince people to buy an SSD. Their own tests/results make you come to the opposite conclusion. And, they're testing a dog slow HDD too (instead of a current vRaptor @ 600MB capacity short-stroked and ready to do 'some' damage).

All they can come up with is a 9 second boot-time advantage and 3 second shutdown advantage - along with the 'famous' start up XX programs right after bootup advantage of, wait, wait, wait - yeah a whole 13 seconds faster (third iteration...) - granted, that is almost 3 times faster, but 13 seconds for $$$? lol...

Don't get me wrong, I am for SSD's - but they don't make a good (enough) case for one, imo.

Thoughts?

 

You should read this Anandtech review then..

 

Older review. Both reviews are mainly written from a desktop perspective.

The situation with notebooks is different.

 

on a notebook, SSD makes a lot of sense. no moving parts, lower power consumption, lighter. Performance is actually the last thing on my list of consideration.

 

if you notice 0:33 , 0:34 they cut the video maybe they is some cutting we didn't notice it.

 

Doesn't seem like there's anything fishy there other than maybe using hibernation resume rather than booting from scratch.

 

they cut the video AFTER the boot, so nothing fishy in terms of boot there.
and it's the new win8 boot, which does work similar to hibernation, but isn't.

anyways, anyone seen this yet? after all the mess that hp delivered in terms of corporate behaviour, it's nice to see the important stuff still on track:

HP, Hynix to launch memristor memory 2013

memristors, can't wait for them. where do i sign for beta testing? alpha testing? pre-alpha testing??

 

davepermen,

I want to be wrong, I hope I'm wrong, but the article doesn't give me too much reason to be (wrong).

I'll believe it when I see it - HP is simply shaking up a dull news day.

Pre-Alpha testing? I don't think they have one fully working copy yet (that rivals current memory modules)... That would be the news instead the fluff presented.

 

Hello,

Can I find somewhere numbers of sales for SSDs? Sales of each brand etc?


Iam Interested, thank you!

 

Hey everyone, I am in search of a little advice. I just recently had an Alienware m17x r1 replaced, and while most of the components are massive upgrades, I accepted a WD 5400rpm hard drive in place of my old WD Black 7200rpm.

I notice the difference tremendeously on World of Warcraft load times / texture pop-ins, and less so, but still noticebly, on other games and Windows 7 start time. These are the two performance statistics I care about more than ANYTHING ELSE.

I figured I have a budget to replace the drive in it, and I will be coming out ahead with the other upgrades I received. Which ever drive I get will be my OS/Applications drive, and I will change over the 5400rpm to a storage drive. Also, I am trying to spend as little as possible, and I am willing to sacrafice some performance for value (but not reliability/useability).

The drives I am looking at (in order of most interest to least):

$65 ($1.02/gb) Corsair Nova Series 2 64gb - nearly the miracle $1/gb mark, very good advertised specs, but there isn't many (if any) real reviews of the drive, and there are some reports on corsair's support forum and on newegg's feedback section of the drives controller choking on multitasking

$130 ($1.35/gb) Kingston V+100 96gb - very close to the m4 and vertex 3 in benchmarks, with the advantage of an additional 32gb for the same price

$110 ($1.72/gb) Crucial m4 64gb - seems to be the most recommended drive, seems to have mixed benchmark results, but overall very good to excellent. value falls off on the $1/gb ratio on this drive.

$100 ($0.20/gb) Seagate Momentus XT - not an SSD, but rather a hybrid featuring 4gb of SSD like NAND. none of the problems that come with SSD, tons more space for the money, but performance on World of Warcraft not really measured NOTE: with this drive, I would consider getting a 2nd down the road for a 1tb raid 0 setup.

$130 ($2.03/gb) OCZ Vertex 3 64gb - seems to be the highest benchmarked drive in my budget, but reports of BSOD's and other reliability issues scare me away.

 

I had long boot times with Crucial M4. Maybe it's my VAIO with lots of apps but maybe not. I have SATA2 but 20MB 4K reads. 170-190 MB 4K reads QD32.
But still 34 seconds on reboot and 20+ seconds on boot after bios logo. I expected 12-15 seconds.

I bought Crucial M4 SSD on eBay from certain buyer but it was NewEgg one. It was much cheaper than 100$ or 110$ or whatever you say its price.

 

I have VAIO F11 and M4 256GB. Disk is not so fast as on SATA III but its fast a lot. Boot times are around 30s but because I have more application to run. SP1 for Windows 7 slow down boot a lot. Some review show that SP1 slow down boot 2x!!

Clean Windows 7 boot was around 20s. Its still faster than HDD getting from hibernation

 

So I guess I just found out my laptop (Alienware m17x R1) has a chipset that supports only SATA II, which sort of makes the Vertex 3 overkill, as I wont get the performance I am paying for.

What sort of impact will that have on the Crucial M4 which also lists 6gb SATA III compatability? Do top recommendations change for folks with only SATA II?

 

@digitaltrav

Be patient on purchasing, you can get a good drive very close to $1/gb if you find the right deal.

I just purchased a Corsair Force 3 120gb SSD (2nd gen SandForce controller) for $135 w/free shipping ($165 before $30 rebate) from the Egg.

 

oh, right, negative-man at work.


well, they're working on it since years, and so far hit all the schedules and are still on track. more we can't know, but that's normal. i'm just happy that they're on schedule.