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

I may decide to swap my OS's and run Windows 7 on my desktop and keep a light XP installation on my 1410. Hard to decide. :|

 

nah, forget xp..

 

Yeap forget XP, lol, mine should have been here today, but it still hasnt shipped, I really hope NCIX wasnt lying about their stock, that would pee me off. Am somewhat having second thoughts about not getting the 160gb model, but its $550 up here, would be over $600 with tax and shipping, just not worth it. I ended up price matching to $280 from $315, so that shaved off a decent amount.

 

Yes, 16MB and 32MB for G1/G2 respectively.

See:
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3607&p=2

I can't find a link right now, but the important thing is that Intel controllers don't cache any data - they are only used to manage the internal used/unused tables internally so either way it shouldn't matter.

Edit: link found:
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3403&p=10

However, I also agree with you that the 1000GB test is giving a better 'real-world' representation of what the drive (any drive) can do in a real install - as opposed to what it does in a test 'vacuum'.

 

Simple solution:

use the 80GB in your notebook and when the price is right throw that in your desktop and get the 160GB - you know you want to!

 

intel should get 320GB to market

 

wait 45 days and it will be..

+- .. 10 days

 

No laptop here haha, no need for one, moved into the desktop realm I have.

 

guess there will be 1 extra month from department to dealer?

 

nah, they're actually quite fast to get, right after they announce them. give them an extra month to land in switzerland for me, yes.. then again, i have no need for a 320gb one.. i wait for gen3 for the speed bump, the sizes are more than big enough for me.

 

Perfect!

When you get the 160GB G2, I'll 'borrow' your 80GB for my desktop! See, no worries.

Seriously, in a desktop you shouldn't need anything much bigger than 80GB then (assuming you have at least one more HD in there) for the O/S and programs, right?

 

Yea i got 750gb sitting around lol, I will be just fine, I highly doubt it will be over 40gb used.

 

Got my 1645 today, with the Samsung (Dell rebadge) PM800, and with firmware VMB19D1Q.

Do you guys need testing with this firmware?

 

no gc or trim.

 

I gambled and flashed my G2 160GB (02G9) drive in my ASUS notebook without backing it up.

3 reboots later, I'm still fine

Cheers,
Kermee

 

Back to a desktop myself. Downloaded the ISO, guess I have to burn a disk to install the new drivers? I'll go read Intel site now Dave

 

I read a few pages back that scheduled defrag should be disabled. So does that mean not to use it at all? What about disk cleanup and Ccleaner?

 

I join this club, again. After having an EEE with an ssd then selling it, I just bought the 160GB Intel G2 for my Acer 3810t. It was $549.99 on Newegg minus $125 coupon code and 10% Bing Cashback (thanks to a post in the Acer section). Now all I need to do is upgrade the Acer to 8GB of 1.35V DDR3 and I am set until 2012. Grand total of $372.09 paid.

 

Hi, I tried the new Intel firmware updater.
I followed all the instructions, SATA set to AHCI and ran the updater.
It's stuck at "Scanning the system for Intel SSDs" for 30 minutes.
Anything I'm doing wrong? or should I wait longer?
I don't think it should take that long to recognize the SSD in my system.

I found somewhere in the README about incompatibility with NVIDIA chipset based system.
"The firmware update tool may not recognize Intel 50nm SSDs with
8610 FW when used on some Nvidia chipset based systems
including the Nvidia based Mac systems."

But, I'm quite sure the one I have is X25-m 34nm and doesn't apply to this issue.

Anyone with M17x and G2 drive successfully updated their firmware???

 

I used Grub4DOS w/SysLinux to boot the ISO off a cheap USB stick formatted FAT32 (for the Acer 1810T). This is what my menu.lst looks like for the Intel ISO entry:

Code:

title Intel SSD Firmware Update 02HD
find --set-root /isos/110902HD88208850.iso
map /isos/110902HD88208850.iso (hd32)
map --hook
root (hd32)
chainloader (hd32)

Worked like a charm.

Cheers,
Kermee

 

How big are the Grub/Syslinux files? I believe Fat32 doesn't allow file sizes larger than 2GB right?

 

Intel should get their 20nm products to the market and bring high capacity and high speed SSDs to the mainstream!

 

Too late! haha, came home to a package on the doormat. Can't wait to try it out!

 

tigerdirect has 12.2% bing cashback, and they have intel 160G instock for $470 before cashback. total will be $420 after cashback...
guys who want a new ssd is a chance now

 

Come on guys. Any help?
I'm sure there're dozens of M17x users with those G2 drives.
I've been waiting for this firmware for ages.
Now it's out and I still can't update it.
I've checked the instructions million times.
I don't know which I'm doing wrong.

 

Thatoe, just a long shot but do you have more than one Sata connector on this M17x? Maybe you can try it on a different one than the one it's using now.

I remember that the updater will only work on a Sata Port 0 or 1, so if you can switch bays/ports, give it a try.

Good luck!

 

I swapped the drives.
Intel drive to HHD1 and hard drive to HDD0.
It's still stuck at "scanning for intel SDDs"
weird thing is, it doesn't say like "no intel SDD installed" or anything.
It's just stuck there.
I think I'll keep that updater running tonight and see what happens in the morning.

 

Well to tell the truth, I don't care much about the "real speed". The information from my benchmarks is comparative. Anyway

Does anybody know, how to check, if automatic W7 TRIM function is working? I understood, that SSD Toolbox is needed just for systems with non-automatic TRIM (Vista, XP). In CrystalDiskInfo the TRIM is on, but it doesn't tell me, if it's actually working.

 

I am going to wait till tomorrow to try the new drivers. I have a desktop Dell Optiplex 745 so I do not think they will work anyways. I should probably update the BIOS also but then things start getting dicey and i need the machine.

Never had a BIOS update gone bad, even back in the days with floppy's and all that. But still, I do know that they CAN go wrong, and do not have the time to be without machine. Old age had made me a conservative. But not so conservative that I do not have the drive listed in my sig

 

Thanks for all the replies guys. So I've sort of decided on Dell Studio 17 which I'll be ordering straight from Dell - do you guys suggest telling them not to install any OS on the drive before shipping it to me?

 

No, definitely don't suggest that - they'll be able to blame you and your install for everything until warranty has run out without doing anything for you in the meantime!

What you want to do is simply take out the cheapest HD you can order with that system and replace it with the Intel G2 160GB. If anything goes wrong, put in the drive they shipped and stand there and yell - FIX IT!!!!

 

i had one going bad. hp had then to replace the motherboard of the laptop, it was totally bricked.

sad thing was, it was my first bios update ever. i did it at work, and a friend at work did it at the same time, too. same download, same hw, same old bios version. identical situation. mine didn't survive..

it can happen.. and can be very annoying, then

 

hp should get their memristors to market and make everything else obsolete.

 

yes, defragmentation has (close to) zero purpose on an ssd. disk defragmentation, at least, has zero. file defragmentation might have some (but the scheduled defrag is a whole-disk defragmenter => not that useful for that).


if you're on pre-win7, yes, disable it. if you're on win7, leave at is. it shouldn't touch your ssd anyways, as it skips non-hdds during scheduled defrag.

 

davepermen,

Memristors.

First one made in 2008, consumer production in 2025?

 

Swapped? You have two, oh!

Try it with only the Intel in?

If all else fails, use an Intel M/B based desktop system for 5 minutes.

 

they're actually still planing for consumer production in 2012 i think?

 

they at least know the potential it has for the general computer market, and how they really should put most of their effort into getting it out. it would bring them much much money.

in short: they don't need wear leveling => they have no need for any of the complicated ssd controller logic. they would "just work". and have much higher density. if they get that to mass production, even at now old tech like 45nm, it would dance around any ssd in cost, performance, and storage size, too

 

Damn! I'm one of them.

I presume there were no lasting consequences of the update failing? You were still able to boot from the SSD afterwards?

I was going to wait a few days before trying it, but I may give it a go today just to see if it works.

 

I successfully installed the new Intel firmware in my 160 GB 2nd generation drive. Now to install Windows 7 and make my system fly!

 

I know this is a dumb question, but can I put the Intel SSD into an external enclosure and do the firmware upgrade that way?

 

I have a suspicion that not.

 

So I just got Windows 7 installed on my Intel 160 GB gen 2 SSD. It seems to be working great. But... When I try to get a Windows Experience Index rating, I get an error when it gets to the hard drive part. Can anyone help?

 

Oh well, WEI still isn't a good benchmark. Try running CrystalDiskMark to see numbers.

 

OK, tried it on my M17x with the same result - it hangs when looking for an SSD. I tried changing the AHCI mode from 'Legacy' to 'Native' and the drive was recognised but the upgrade failed with it suggesting I need to set the mode to 'legacy'.

Looks like I'll be digging out my old Tosh and trying that.

 

Depends for what.

WEI is giving you a rough idea - e.g. instal an Intel SSD and run WEI on say Vista - if you get say 3.0 you know something is wrong.
(Intel G2, 160GB gives 5.9 on Vista Business 32Bit by the way)

The other thing is: Running benchmarks on a drive with the OS on it has its own problems the moment anything requires something on the drive the benchmark will drop...

So ideally run them in safe mode?

 

and it should still work and show good numbers for the disk. if not, there is a problem. and, one of the problems that results right out of wei not working: it can't detect that it runs on an ssd now, doing several os changes like no defragmentation, like maybe disabling superfetch, etc. for all that, WEI is there. it should work.

but i have no clue how to fix it

 

Ok, have the OS installed, what should I do lol?

 

Can you suggest some tests I can do to see if Windows realizes it's an SSD? Any simple apps I should use?

EDIT: Here's what the drive looks like in Windows Explorer.

 

well, you should get wei to work .. i have to think about it..

hm.. it looks like a floppy