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

Hey davepermen! Hoped to see you again in these old and dusty hallways!

 

i won't be around often anymore. but yeah, here i am.

who was the guy thinking the fastests ssds where still slower than his hdd setup? i guess, for him, the new intel ssd would be useful.

/offtopic woah that page is terribly chaotic. i'm using win8 by now, clean metro styled stuff. so much stuff going on on this page.. oh my.. (and it's not usable with ie10, and the ads are terrible..)

 

Davepermen, welcome Back! Try Vb4 Default style ... Your relaunched site it looking good

 

Indeed, although vertical space usage if not optimal, the site is usable. We needed to upgrade the vBulletin version anyways, but some of us are wondering what the vB guys were thinking when they designed the new GUI. Too bad we can't slap the old 3.6 GUI on it, it would be neat, but the to do list of the tech team is massive.

 

davepermen, the latest (Dec 2012) Windows Updates for Win8 have made all my systems much more usable - including this website (though it is slooooooow today...) which now lets me insert a line break when I edit a post (yay!) with IE10.

As for the Intel S3700 - yeah I would love to get my hands on a few of those for my main workstation - but I'll probably wait for the 'consumer' version in a few weeks (crosses fingers).

With Win8, remember; you can say 'metro styled' stuff - but the UI is Modern UI (not Metro).


Wishing you all the best for the holidays and for 2013!

 

i use metro style since knowing about it, and i won't ever call it modern ui.

never

never ever



stupid metro ag.

while the page might now work in ie, the ads are still beyond terrible. i want an adfree version. i would pay for an adfree web.

 

Samsung has acquired NVELO and Gains SSD Caching Software

Samsung has acquired NVELO and has added to their SSD portfolio with a proprietary caching solution that is arguably the most powerful in the industry.

Nvelo

 

Most powerful in the industry eh?

That's like saying I have the fastest Yugo on the block.

I'll stick with the Ferrari's...

 

????????

Strange Post

You fail to mention a better caching software or is there some hidden humor I'm not seeing?

 

The best caching 'software' (you may or may not agree with...) is a RAM drive - and that is not impressive either (Windows 7/8 does fine on it's own). Neither is the Intel SRT method for that matter.

Caching via a slow triple translation x2 small capacity SSD is nowhere close to 'the most powerful in the industry' - no matter how good it is in comparison to another just as slow or slower caching 'method'.

The best caching method is no caching - just like using USB 3.0 to run an O/S (or a PS Scratch disk) from is a lesson in futility - an SSD used as a cache is like putting Pirelli's on a Pinto (hint: it still won't be a Mustang 5.0 - no matter how pretty it looks).

 

What do you think Samsung's plan is for it's investment?

Did they spend all that money for nothing?

Samsung normally does everything in-house using their own hardware and software when possible..

 

Samsung's plan is to make $$$$$$$ - my plan is to get the most performance possible for my $$$ - the two are not necessarily aligned, right?

 

that's the plan for every company in the world. good luck with your plans.

 

Check list:

Read about new/better/faster system component.

Buy it.

Test it in my actual workflow(s) vs. my current setup which has been refined from actual experience gleaned over the last 35+ yrs.

Compare raw increase (decrease) in overall productivity with new component in place.

IF an increase is offered: compare $$$cost to increased productivity offered.

Predict sustained feasibility of this increased productivity (taking into account my current workload, my confirmed clients and my forecasted future projects).

If all the above point to a 'yes - buy now' answer: I do.

If not, return component and wait for the next new/faster/better component to test...


Hmmm... looks like my plans are still on track after almost 4 decades.


Thanks for the well wishes, but luck has nothing to do with it.

(Substance over Form = Success).

 

Does Plextor SSDs have any control software like Intel's ssd toolbox?

 

yes, plextool.

 

Marvell invests in SSD maker Memoright

US-based Marvell Technology has invested in Taiwan-based SSD (solid-state drive) maker Memoright to form a strategic alliance for combining its SSD controller ICs and Memoright's firmware technology to provide complete SSD solutions, according to industry sources in Taiwan.

Marvell invests in SSD maker Memoright

 

Instead of getting Memoright to simply write firmware for their eMMC controller IC's they should dump those circa 1973 4200RPM equivalent 'ssd's' and work on getting real SATA or higher equivalent speeds out of all platforms and form factors.

See:
Hard disk drive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


So, does this mean Memoright as a brand is over too?

 

What is success???

Probably OT (and maybe even off base, and sorry Tiller) but I really can't resist...

"There are two great rules in life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that every one can in the end get what he wants if he only tries. This is the general rule.

The particular rule is that every individual is more or less of an exception to the general rule."
Samuel Butler (1835-1902)

 

Anyone got a Intel 335 SSD?

 

For those folks who are interested in a performance comparison of mSATA-based SSDs:

Round-Up: 10 mSATA SSDs From Adata, Crucial, Mushkin, And OCZ : mSATA: Solid-State Responsiveness On A Tiny Card

 

My Samsung 840 Pro, 2 weeks old said good nigth.
I have a sony vaio svs 15 Win8 pro

I have no idea why this happened, but i had default enabled MS rapid boot.

Yesterday i was watched a flash movie (TV) streaming and i closed the lid.

When i opened the lid 2h later it was dead.

Ultimate boot cd tells me that everything is "bad", cant find partitions or anything except a unreadable partition of 950 Mbyte.

Anybody have a clue?

 

Does crucial have a tool for their SSDs?

 

Do/did you have the latest Firmware on the drive?

The pre-production (which Should have been the pre-shipping) Firmware had this exact issue.

Are you replying to the post from LittOmAlt which I'm quoting above? Or are you posting a new question?

If the former, the 840 PRO is a Samsung SSD...

If the latter, Crucial still does not have an SSD Toolbox...

 

New Plextor ' Pro Xtreme' to replace the just 5 month old released 'Pro'.

See:
Plextor M5 Pro Xtreme - Hard Drives - CNET Reviews


Even though the link indicates the new drive is faster than both the Samsung 840 PRO and the Intel 520 Series SSD's, I hope the Plextor Pro Xtreme addresses the consistency issues the Pro model has.

See:
AnandTech - Plextor Updates The Firmware on M5 Pro: Promises Increased Performance, We Test It

 

Crucial M500 to offer 960GB for $600.

See:
AnandTech - Micron/Crucial Announces M500 SSD Line of SSDs


Looks like a few of these are in my notebook's futures.

 

Oops! Plextor M5 Pro Xtreme is simply a Firmware upgrade (it seems):

See:
It

 

Windows to Go on a 'proper' 256GB USB 'stick':

See:
AnandTech - Muskin's High Performance Ventura Ultra SF-2281 USB 3.0 Stick



Now this has my interest - wonder if I can install CS6, LR4, Office 2013 along with my accounting software on Windows 8 PRO and run it on any available computer 'safely'?

Either way - I think this is the first USB stick that is built to 'run' an O/S as complex as Windows.

 

That is awesome. Plus they also support ngff. So we should hopefully see haswell ultrabooks with 8GB RAM and 960GB storage under 2K. That would be awesome for sure.

 

Plextor also showed mSATA and NGFF SSDs at CES 2013.
Plextor Introduces mSATA, NGFF, TLC and Power Protection SSDs at CES Las Vegas 2013 - The SSD Review

 

WhatsThePoint,

At this point in time, nothing that Plextor and/or Liteon introduce has my interest in any way shape or form.

The abysmal consistency of the drive's performance is not what I pay SSD prices for.

See:
AnandTech - Plextor Updates The Firmware on M5 Pro: Promises Increased Performance, We Test It




And the above is the 'Xtreme' Firmware too...

I use to love Plextor for the high quality CD/DVD writers they had - but wrt SSD's - they do not have a clue.


Definitely a pass for 2013 (unless they introduce a new line...) - why pay SSD prices for HDD-like performance?

 

Looks interesting!

I saw this one not too long ago.It's also able to run
USB Flash Drives | Super Talent Technology

Ordering “Windows to Go”: how to create a bootable Windows 8 USB thumb drive | Ars Technica

 

The Super Talent option is also interesting - albeit with an older SF 1200 controller and 'ancient' nand 'specs'.

But it too can saturate USB 2.0 (which is what is needed to boot from anyways).

I had to laugh at the pricing though 80GB $999 -


The only thing the Muskin has over it is literally double the capacity (256 vs. 128GB) - which is what would separate this from 'toy' status to a 'work' tool.

 

Even new SSD's can be bad - yeah, we asked for more capacity - but at 'real' SSD speeds. And what's up with 1978 tech used in SSD's (I am talking about the 4x RAID0 implementation)?

Not only does it not offer better performance - it 'costs' in power/heat use too - not to mention the killing of TRIM (I am guessing...).

LSI is not helping get SF a good name so far...

If performance doesn't tank with sustained use, this would be a 'buy' in the $200 range (also assuming reliability is good too).



See:
Solidata To Unveil 2TB LSI SandForce Driven 2.5" SATA 2 SSD - First Pictures! | The SSD Review

 

I ran benchmarks (AS SSD & Crystaldiskmark) which gave the 4K Read speed as only 18mb/sec when I've seen other benchmark results from same drive with 24mb/sec - 30% better. Only the 4K speeds are affected. TRIM is definitely enabled & so is write caching. Latest firmware & Intel chipset driver. I tried the guide on disabling power saving features for Intel 5 chipsets (even though I have series 7) on this forum but that didn't solve it.

 

You might try this:

See:
Coder Bag: Disable CPU Core Parking Utility



Good luck.

 

Thanks but already tried it. Didn't improve.

 

Hmmm, could you link to the benchmarks you are comparing to?

I don't care to see the 'score', I'm interested in what the article states is the testing conditions.

(I'm assuming at this point that it was a new/unused drive tested empty (not with an O/S on it) on a secondary SATA port).


If you just want to see the 'score' higher: did you try running the benchmark in Windows Safe mode?

 

New mSATA from Intel (still using SF controller?):

See:
Intel Introduces mSATA Solid-State Drive for Ultrabook™ and Low-Power Embedded Applications


Edit: Yeah, still SF:

See:
http://www.techpowerup.com/179431/Intel-SSD-525-Starts-Selling-in-Japan.html

 

Hi guys.

Looking for some help/information from all of you SSD guru's. It's regarding the Dell version of the Samsung 830 Series SSD's (256gb & 512gb models) known as Dell PM830.

There have been quite a few NBR members (including myself) that have experienced slower than retail performance and other issues with Dell's revision of their "Dellized" firmware for these drives. One member has posted up a supposed "leaked" firmware revision that was given to him via a Dell/Alienware technical support agent. I won't go into detail too much in this post as much of the information can be read over here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/638053-updating-samsung-pm830-firmware.html

In a nutshell, there are three Samsung Retail versions of firmware for these drives since release, the Dellized versions of these revisions differs only by a slight change in the code (eg. Samsung latest is CXM03 B1Q and Dell's latest is CXM03 D1Q. This "leaked" firmware (which Dell currently deny knowledge of, apparently) version is CXM03D1T and has been uploaded by a NBR member on the above thread.

Problem is that (for those that have flashed it) it only updates Dell's latest revision (above) and does not update the previous revisions (CXM01D1Q & CXM02D1Q).

I was wondering if anyone here can confirm wether or not this is indeed a Dell firmware intended for the PM830? - I don't know how to go about verifying the upload but I thought one of you guys might be able to. If you can help out, the firmware has been uploaded and can be downloaded via this post on the same thread linked above: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/638053-updating-samsung-pm830-firmware-8.html#post9060349

Any help that the guru's can offer up would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post (and that linked thread, if you did!) and hopefully, someone can shed some light on this that I can then update the AW thread with any news.

Regards,
Steve.

 

When are the Crucial M500's coming out?

 

Latest information available:

See:
New Micron and Crucial M500 SSDs Offer 960GB Capacity for Under $600 - X-bit labs

 

Would a SATAII mSATA slot make a difference between a SATAIII mSATA slot? I'm debating whether to get an mSATA boot drive for my thinkpad W530

 

Now that's what I wanted to hear! I suppose I could wait a little longer for an upgrade.

 

Been reading, reading, reading...... head spinning.

Questions for you experts: I have an Alienware M17x on the way. It will have a 750GB HD with a 64GB mSata cache drive installed. Windows 7.

I'm moving from an old Dell M1710 with a 500 GB HD. The new machine will be used for a variety of things, some gaming but a lot of video editing (about 250 GB on the current drive is HD video clips for the editing work.)

So here are the questions:

1. I've seen people recommend making sure you upgrade the firmware on the SSD before installing anything, including Windows/OS - why is this? Why is this better than just installing the OS and then upgrading the firmware?
2. Any advice on making the transfer of all my programs from the old system to the new one less painful than simply finding all the reg codes and reinstalling everything? And using USB flash drives to move all the data? (I realized I can't really clone the drive in the old system and move it to the SSD on the new one, since all the drivers on the old drive are different than what is needed on the new one, e.g. video, sound, etc.)
3. I am really struggling on choosing between the Samsung 840 Pro 512 and the Crucial M4 512. As I read the reviews on Amazon, the M4 seems to have more people reporting issues. And I don't mind paying $60 bucks more for something I'll be using for a long time and that is so central to the performance of the system. I'm not sure what the question is other than is there a consensus on which is the overall better drive if you take the price out?

Thanks.

 

For speed: the Samsung 840 Pro is king, hands down. Although that 'win' may only be a few seconds in real world use depending on the specific task at hand.

Have to nix your idea of a 64GB SSD used as cache - especially with a video editing workflow - may as well use a HDD...

Clean install HIGHLY recommended - yeah: find your codes for your programs - well worth it for the stability and sustained speed possible vs. 'cloning' the garbage over.

Win8x64 PRO is also highly recommended with current hardware. If your programs are able to run on Win7x64 then Win8x64 is as big of an upgrade as anything else at this point (yeah; SSD's included).

What would I do in your situation?

Wait for the Crucial 960GB M500 drives and throw as many as you can into your system (along with an mSATA SSD of at least 256GB capacity too).

The prices are a little more of course, but the capacity increase is worth more than double the price difference imo.


Good luck.

 

Well, the 64 GB mSata cache drive connected to the 750 GB HD is already in the build. Hmm - I assume that will only cache the HD and not the SSD, assume it is configured that way? Have to check.

I'll have my video editing program (Cyberlink Powerdirector 11) installed on the SSD, and probably create a working directory on the SSD for the video files which I'm currently working with, so that all of that is pure SSD.
Thanks for the feedback on the 840 Pro and also the clean install. Makes sense, why not start on the new system with a nice clean install and not carry over 6 years of who knows what that has creeped in (even though I try to clean things up as much as possible.) Also a good way to decide what I really want/need (I don't really need 8 different video conversion programs and 6 different drive space programs etc.) Plus, all the gigs taken up by things that I'm not sure need to be there but not sure I can delete (like Users/doc/Appdata/Apple Computer/Mobile Synch/Backup and 9 gig of whatever is in Windows/winsxs, LOL!)

Yeah, would love to wait for the new higher capacity SSDs but I need to get to work right away, so I'll probably go ahead for now with the 840 Pro. Give the new drives some time to go through a couple of firmware revisions and get the bugs out (and probably drop some in price) then pick one up later.

Thanks

 

Sounds like you've thought it out pretty well - glad I could give a little input too.

Take care.

 

So, someone mentioned further up thread that you should upgrade the SSD firmware (if needed) before installing the OS. Why does it matter whether you do this before or after installing the OS?

 

I guess technically it doesn't matter - but better to 'kill' an empty drive than have it take your O/S and possibly data (not to mention the setup time involved) down with it.

If I have the choice: I would even prefer to completely re-install an O/S if the SSD firmware promised major improvements over the version I had installed.