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

Hello There !

Just so I understand well what you guys are saying...

Running this utility shall actually write 1's all over the board (unused disk space) then delete them, correct? If so, what it does is kind of an ITGC, but it's not IT, it's however GC, but it does actually make the garbage so it's able to clean it right after, correct?

If so, then it's kind of "replacing" the TRIM or the ITGC commands, a manual process of cleaning the to-be-deleted-files-but-not-done-yet, correct?

However, in my very own case, since eye do have 2X256GB RAID0 filled at 16%, 77GB out of 477MB, eye am thinking that such using my nand cells (by writing all of them once then deleting after) would no be a soo good idea, performance-wyse talking, since most of those cells haven't seen any byte of informaton as of yet, thus, writing on all of them even if bytes written are deleted right after will only cause them to die sooner than later, maybe not that fast, but still, am I correct? Simply put, eye think eye should not use unused cells, would be better to run that utility only once almost every cell of my drives have been used (written) at least once, what do you think?

If eye would have had the money, eye would have bought 2X160 Intel, but my budget was somehow limited, so eye decided to buy 2XSammy ALONG with my AW M17X, which did cost me ONLY $500CAN each, which is much cheaper than ANY OTHER BRAND that eye can buy from here, talking about $/MB... Next year, when Intel gets par on pricing with others, and when they'll come with bigger capacity, eye'll still be able to upgrade...

By the way, just so you guys know, the SSD's sold by Dell as ACCESSORIES are NOT the Samsung's ones, they're Aluratek, as per their engineer Andrew Wang: they support trim, they use 64MB of cache, they use 4 channels at 16-bit width (equivalent to 8 channels at 8-bit width), they have Indilinx Barefoot controller, and their read speed is higher, write speed is lower than the sammy ones, and they deliver higher overall IOPS than Samsung's ones.

Here's a copy of some benchs of my 2X256GB RAID0 64KB Stripes Nvidia Soft RAID CNTRL ( as far as eye know )

Good saturday to everyone !

eye...

 

that's cool, but, in my post keyword is portable, couse, afaik, portable versions af any software need little bit more time to load up than installed versions

 

this can all be done with Windows already installed? And what exactly do you mean by "booting from a cd"? What cd?

 

the cd with the firmware upgrade, that you burned, after downloading it as iso.


just do it, it's easy. but it's actually more work to explain it to you, than you just doing it.

 

Download the firmware update saving and extracting to desktop>put a clean cd in optical drive> double click the firmware upgrade, a window will popup prompting you to burn the iso to a disk>reboot selecting f12 @ BIOS screen (on my machine for boot options) select optical drive to boot> follow the prompts when the DOS runs.

 

I actually risked it today.

Burn the CD - dump it inside and start your laptop computer

Just remember it uses a US/UK keyboard layout.

 

Just a quick (double) check here...

I've searched the web, of course, but just want to make sure I didn't miss it:

Did Samsung/Dell release a firmware update that supports TRIM yet?

 

eye :wink: would not bet on Samsung releasing a FW flasher

 

I actually posted in this exact thread about PD10 and AS Cleaner

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5524748&postcount=479

The information I found about As Cleaner was actually from the OCZ forum....and it's a sticked topic, so I have to say that OCZ does not ban discussion of competitor products.

 

They will delete any post or benchmark about an Intel drive.
rules on competitor product discussion.

 

I meant in regards to the AS Cleaner, since the quotes were all about AS Cleaner stuff.

But I get your point you are making about actual competitor SSD products, and not the software meant to enhance the drives

 

Just looking at all of those benchmarks you posted, there is little chance that almost every cell of your drive has not been written to at least once.

 

No, the quote about competitor products came after the comment about AS Cleaner working on Intel drives. The posted benchmarks of the Intel drive after running AS Cleaner was deleted from OCZ forum even though they were on topic of AS Cleaner.

 

You jokin' right?

Eye mean, man, it's not like EACH bench was writing 80GB of data...

Total Space = 477GB
Used Space = 77GB
Unused Space = 400GB
Bench Tests = 5​

Amount of data on average needed to be written on disks (unused free space) for every cell to be writen at least once on the disk, which occurs pretty soon assuming wear leveling is properly functionning, would be 80GB par Program... (5 prog X 80Gb = 400Gb)

Looks far unrealistic to me, eye don't know about every exact amount of data each of one uses to measure write speeds, however, pretty doubful my common sense tells me they would use THAT much, too odd...

AS SSD is most likely the one that writes most among them, but isn't, for instance, Crystal Disk Mark writing say max 300MB, not GB..., just as an exemple...

Tell me please you said that without really meaning it...

 

How do you explain those low 4k random write numbers, shouldn't they be higher for 2 new 256gb PB22-J's RAID'ed together? 4k random writes take a hit when cells get used up. The operating system can show 400gb of free space but the controller without TRIM can see it all used up with valid data actually making an erase prior to a write on free space when it doesn't have to.

Try EYE-oh-meter 4k random write test-- HERE is a guide explaining how to..could be an EYE opener.

 

Bollocks, I started replacing the hard drive on my AS1410 to find out it's not exactly a simple procedure, and I can't find any documentation. I have a post in on the 1410/1810 thread but if anybody here knows how, let me know or link me. I really want my X-25M in. :|

 

Stop writing "I" as "eye". It's annoying and not funny.

 

And tiller, I see nothing, but you're welcome to look [when you have time] at the definitive resource. Might not even be listed under Samsung/firmware knowing Dell's incompetence.

 

Ok so I'm really itching to pick up an SSD. I was trying to hold off until the 320gb Intel X-25ms came out because I really need the space and the performance, but I don't think I can wait any longer.

What's the next best performing high capacity SSD currently out?

 

Of course they should, except for Samsung's SSDs. I am actualy surprised you ask, like kind of if AnandTech can't explain it, how could I ? http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631&p=19

In regards to those numbers, mine in RAID are "on par"...

As for the tool you suggested kindly, and I appreciate, seems to tell the same story as the other benchies I used, 7.11MB/s.

Sorry for the eYe, didn't mean to annoy...

 

It's okay. I was moreso trying to get a rise out of you, haha.

 

I figured out how to replace the HDD, so I've got my X-25M in and a fresh 7 Ultimate installation on the drive. I'm liking.

Edit: 34 seconds to reboot, timed using the script in one of the threads here. I don't have my full software setup configured yet, but still, that's darn fast.

 

How did your software RAID setup fare on the sequential reads and writes? I've heard that software RAID setups show inflated numbers on most synthetic benchmarks with the exception of IO Meter. Was wondering if it was true or not. I wish Toshiba had BIOS options for RAID, would put another 60gb Summit in or maybe 2x something else that comes out next.

 

The 160GB G2 of course!

Thanks hankaaron57, but I don't think I'll be trying those out on my clients computer!

 

http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1034987560&postcount=2
http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1034987649&postcount=6
this intel's shortcoming seems less reported.

 

Thats the first I have read anything negative about Intel SSD's -- by a Vertex user with a sockpuppet named computurd no less.

 

did you turn off ACHI in your OS for OCZ SSD? OCZ is telling this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...eoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&Page=1&Keywords=

"Manufacturer Response:... ACHI is another feature that was developed before SSD drives were on the scene. It is not required, nor is it beneficial to use with an SSD drive. We recommend a fresh OS install with ACHI turned off."

 

Toshiba has no BIOS options for IDE/AHCI/RAID nothing. The Nvidia Nforce SATA controller drivers don't work with SSD either have to use default SATA drivers from 2006 that ship with Win7.

 

lol not enough space for me! I currently have a 500GB HDD

 

Yeah, me too, (just got my 7K500 Hitachi to replace the SB WD).

But, the Intel's do promise sooo much...

I've got to try one!

 

So, just a quick question, i have one of the sammy's, i's a PM800 series, and what i wondering is this:

Since my drive doesn't have TRIM yet, I'm going to format every month or two, to regain performance, until A. Samsung releases new firmware, or B. i give in and buy an Intel 160GB. So I guess my question is, is all i have to do is format and re-install Win7 to get my performanc back? does it matter if i format an existing partition, or can i delete it, and create new, and install to it etc. just wondering if there are any tips.

 

People - you don't primarily buy an SSD for storage.
You buy a SSD for performance, get a little 2,5" drive for storage.

 

You can try this thread about how to reset a Summit. Summit is a rebadged version of PM800/PB22-J afaik.
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=65603

 

I've read that too.

Here's my 512K sequential Rs & Ws; just shy below the other benchies I've posted. Makes me think that if most synthetic benchmarks show inflated #s for SSDs, it's not by far.

I've got 245MB/s Write, and 307MB/s Read with IOMeter, whereas I got ±275MB/s Write and ±320MB/s Read with the other bench tools.

So, yes, numbers are a little inflated with all the other tools compare to IOMeter, but not as much as I read it was. Tyvm by the way for pointing this tool to me.☻

Also, we have to keep in mind what stripe sizes are used, because if we're not careful about that, we might end-up comparing oranges and apples... I have 64K stripes, tried both 32 and 128 as well, 64 was the best performer in my case.

Rgds,

eYe

 

You have to choose between capacity and performance, as no manufacturer can provide you with wins in every field...

Right now, there’s 3 players among to choose from, and we’re talking chip controllers here, not re-branding vendors. So we have Intel, Samsung and Indilinx. Each has his pros and cons, which from my understanding are mainly the following:

Intel's target market for SSDs is the enthusiastic end-user, who is firstly looking for performance, who is not held back by high pricing, and who is willing to take some risk at a certain point in regards to the integrity of their data. Intel's approach is thus Aggressive, as they are eager to deliver the best performance SSD to the market, scarifying a little on the reliability side, remember the two major bugs encountered with their first drives. Yet, Intel offers the best performers.

Samsung's target market for SSDs is the major OEMs, Apple, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Sony to name a few. Therefore, their approach is Conservative, meaning while performance is not the worse one, it is not the best one neither, they are not (yet) to provide tools to their clients in regards to tweak or update their firmware, but they do suffer from the less level of degradation resulting from using the nand cells.

Indilinx's target market for SSDs is also as Intel, the enthusiastic end-user. Indilinx has been formed by some Samsung's engineers who most likely did not agree with their colleagues at Samsung as to they should follow the path of reliability or performance. Looks like those guys were aiming more at performance, and thus defected from Samsung to create Indilinx, for their goal was to compete against Intel, on the performance side. Indilinx's controlled SSDs are a compromise between Intel's performance, and Samsung's reliability.

So, who's got the best product ? If there was an easy way to determine a winner on all the sides, the news would already be widespread as of now. Reality is that each has pros and cons, and your clever choice will be based on your actual rig, your plans for the future, the money you can spend and the goal you're aiming at when considering SSDs.

Providing money is not an object for you, and that your main goal is performance, but assuming you DO NOT have a raid setup, your best call would be Intel. If you have a raid setup, Intel is, FOR NOW, not a so good idea since the Trim command must be relayed from the O/S down to the disk and, afaik, there is CURRENTLY no raid controller, soft or hard, that can interpret and pass along the Trim command from the O/S down to the disks.

If you do have a raid setup, your best choice, FOR NOW, is Sammy's flavor because, afaik, they are the only ones who's ITGC, their very own Trim version, is working with a raid pile. You won’t get the very best performance; however, reliability will be "au rendez-vous". Samsung's SSDs also offer, FOR NOW, the largest capacity available on the market.

Finally, if you do not have a lot of money, and no raid setup, but want to benefit from this technology, you might better end-up with an OCZ Vertex or some kind of high end version with an Indilinx Barefoot controller. This will provide you with a nice compromise between the two other's choices.

Hope this helps you at least a little bit to make our choice. While my goal was strictly performance, but as my wallet was, well, almost empty, I did go with Sammy's because RAID, and because I bought them throught AW at the very best price point I could find. Needless to say, I can surely upgrade to Intel ones one of these days, assuming they come out with larger capacity than 160GB, providing my NVidia raid controller can be updated to support Trim, and that their pricing point reflect what I can afford.

Cheers !

eYe

 

Why would you say that Intel users are wiling to risk their data? Due to the botched Firmware? That wasn't on purpose.

 

buddy, why would you dictate what people buy? you probably can't afford a Bentley, do you go around telling people not to buy one? for me, once this 1TB external dies, that's it, mechanical HDD's are dead to me.

my version of your statement is: SSD's are for OS and storage. Mechanical HDD's, are dead.

Don't get me wrong, HDD's still work, but there are lots of developing nations that could use them, African nations, India, Detroit. ^-^

plus rep. thx man, that's perfect, exactly what i was looking for, but i came across it googling, and had no clue where i saw it. that may even be the doc i was looking for. =D

 

eYe-I-aïe,

So wrong on so many points... but we're all entitled to our opinions, right?

I agree with your top three, but relatively speaking;

Samsung's only strength is its low power consumption.

Indilinx is just above Samsung, performance-wise. I mean real-world, not benchmarks.

Intel is not only the most stable and forward thinking SSD provider right now, it also happens to have the best performance overall for a users workstation experience (except for very limited and specific scenarios).

Reliability? None have earned that title yet.

The only SSD's to consider are all under a year old. If you call that a 'good enough' measure of reliability, then go ahead. I call it - 'God! These beta products are pretty good, huh?' but reliability, nobody claims that title yet.

With that said, Intel is my bet for the most reliable SSD experience in the long term. You just have to devour the information available and you'll come to the same conclusion yourself:

Bad firmware: Recall all SSD's, Fix it. (That's fix it, period).

Dram cache used only for managing the SSD's (internal) tables, not for (your) Data as every other SSD controller is doing (and doing it simply to catch up to what Intel is doing safer; speed-wise).

'Committee' recommends a 'warranty' of 20GB Writes to an SSD each and every day for 5 years as a 'standard'. Intel not only meets it, but surpasses it by at least 500% - on it's 80GB drives (G1 & G2), Intel warrants the SSD for 100GB writes per day for five years.

Last, but not least, Intel does have a RAID driver that passes TRIM to attached drives - it's called Intel Rapid Storage Technology (renamed from IMSM) and although its not officially released yet, many have good to excellent results with the 9.5.0.1037 IRST drivers.

I'm glad your Sammy's are working as you expect, but I haven't yet found an SSD (still need to try the Intel G2's) that can replace my VRaptor/Raptor combination and feel confident in my decision.

 

Well, at the moment SSDs won't catch up to HDD in terms of storage.

The other thing is - if you HDD fails you take it to a specialist and they can extract the data - on a SSD you delete something by accident and its gone - after the next write at the latest.

HDDs are at the moment far better for data security than SSDs in that there is a way to recover them - at the same time SSDs are shockproof while HDDs aren't.

And cars like a Bentley actually are pointless - big, bulky... but what is it? If its a Limousine why do they put an excessive engine into it? If its a "sports car" why do they make it that heavy?
Same a Bugatti is a pointless car - but a Maybach isn't (if you can afford one).

The SSD is made for speed and for a shock proof storage. The HDD is established old tech, but it continues to advance, and it offers large capacity storage.

I'd actually like to see a modern 5" drive - or even 7" - if you double the diameter you quadruple the area - that would mean even more storage - and for home use that wouldn't be a problem I think.

 

Nice point you make here, let me explain what I meant.

As Intel's focus was to provide end-users with the best performance product, this led them to actually, as you say, roll out a boched FW. Obviously, Intel had no intention of doing that, nor any user who bought their drives was aiming at scraping their digital life...

However, Intel's approach being aggressive, compared to Samsung 's conservative one, common sense tells me that problems are MORE LIKELY to appear on a product that has been aggressively built, released, than his conservative conterpart. What I meant is that Intel's SSDs users are willing, in order to benefit from the very highest performing SSDs, to actualy ASSUME the risk that something is more likely to go wrong with such product than with more conservatively built and released ones.

Again, it's not a matter of willingness, it's a matter of likeness; it's more likely for a performance oriented product to fail than it's reliable oriented conterpart. And, imho, that's the exact reason why Samsung is not (or has not yet) released a FW update that end-users could perform by themselves. Samsung's conservative approach is most likely holding them to release some end-user tools where they could brick their drive if not used properly. But hey, don't get me wrong, itt's only mho...

 

Hi there !

It's always funny to see how people are looking to justify their own little choice, discarding all arguments against theirs...

As a matter of fact, did you ever noticed that, while I do own sammy's stuff, and I did explained why I went with them, I AM STILL ABLE TO SAY that Intel has the best performing ones, Indilinx the most balanced ones (pricing and performance talking), and so on?

It is actually kind of funny how we, humans, tend to “protect” our opinions, so we’re comforting ourselves in our judgments, our decisions, our beliefs, and we can see that here and there, about any subject in life you can think of.


Reliability, from my little point of view, not only regards the product itself BUT THE DATA YOU PUT ON IT; you say bad firmware is fixed, so you discard the problem as being something that belongs to the past, thus, implicitly saying that this is not a reliability concern... this is a lack of honesty from your part ! Forget the Mean Time Before Failure, we are ages from seeing that in our this-year-purchases-drives, and nowhere I can see that the MTBF or other manufacturers are worse than Intel... However, if I do buy an SSD and put my data on it, and it then fails so I cannot get my data back from it, THIS IS INDEED a reliability problem...

FOR NOW:

Sammys gets A+ for providing users with the largest capacity available on the market as of NOW;

Sammy gets A+ for providing the only SSDs that work ITGC in RAID mode, as your Intel RAID driver is NOT OUT YET;

Sammy gets A+ for reliability, because there was (in 2009 let's say) no such problem with the drive not being able to store and retreive the data written on it.

Add your lowest power consumption here:________

As I said in my posts before, Intel are the best performers, Samsung has the most reliable (SO FAR, might change anytime), and Indilinx have the best balanced ones (price + performance)

Of course, this is only imho...

Please underatand I am not trying to pick on you, but the way you started your reply was kind of picky to me (So wrong on so many points).

I do own Sammys, still I can acknowledge and state out loud that Intels perform the best, and Indilinx are the most balanced.

Are you any able of such discernment without being blinded by the fact you own and only will own Intel's?

Be honest Tiller, I do not work for Samsung, I have no link with them, I am just trying to help people out, and I clearly stated that IF $ WAS NO OBJECT, IF PEOPLE ARE AIMING AT PERFORMANCE, AND IF THEY DON'T HAVE RAID PILE, THEY SHOULD WITH NO DOUBT GO WITH INTEL. I said that, even if I do own Sammy's.... Be fair !

Hope you understand how I am just trying to state what I think is the truth, honestly with no already-made-and-won't-change-for-sure opinion.

Best Regards,

littleYe

 

One little point that I need to point out here:
A firmware upgrade is like a BIOS upgrade - you do it at your own risk!!!

Its not part of product reliability.

 

You are absolutely right, and that just re-enforce my point of Samsung company's conservative culture, where they don't even (as of now) wanna make the tool available to you, so you could brick your drive. Just a matter of company's orientation.

However, again imho, if a FW update is released, it must be to fix something, which might be a reliability issue, so we're down to square one...

This is kind of becoming argument over argument, which can continue forever and ever...

My whole point was that each product or manufacturer has it's strenghts and weakness, and anyone who's looking to buy an SSD will make a better choice if he's awared of the pros and the cons of each. I tried to provide the information I gathered here and there in a comprehensive maneer, and no one has to agree with what I said. However, I am made in such a way that I have a hard time dealing with arguments that are put forward only to compfort one in his own choice. Again, I own sammys, but they're not the best, each has it's pros and cons.

What else can I say, just tying to be fair to help people picking the right product for their needs, goals and available money.

phew...

 

Today I had a chance talk to a EEr working at marvell, he told me that Intel controller was actually made by Marvell.

 

http://download.intel.com/design/flash/nand/mainstream/322296.pdf

intel only says 5 years of 20G daily write under 3.5.4...

 

and samsung's write speed over 32k size is much superior than intel's: http://hothardware.com/Articles/Intel-34nm-X25M-Gen-2-SSD-Performance-Review/?page=4

 

How to briefly explain and have your Mummy or GranMummy understand those fancy terms...


Mom, an SSD is like a pair of jeans. Tell me mom, what’s the part of my jeans that get used first ? -That’d be the knees I’d say. You’re right mom. Now, if you were any able, each time you wash my pair of jeans, to actually switch the piece of tissue that cover my jeans’ knees alternatively by those who compose the rest of the pant, do you think it would prolong my jeans’ lifespan ? -Well, I guess so… Well mom, that’s exactly what wear leveling does, it prolongs cells’ lifespan by spreading across the whole array of cells of the SSD the information it writes, so every cell do not prematurely die because it has been too much written on, like the knees of my pair of jeans, while others cells still enjoy their martini under the sun…


Grand ma, an SSD is like a pair of jeans. Tell me grand ma, if you drop a small piece of spaghetti sauce on your jeans, you will want to clean it, right ? -You betcha ! Good. Now, if you need to go to the washing machine, take off your jeans, and do all the proper steps to get the job done, this shall take quite a lot of time, right ? -You are correct ! Then, what about if you could simply wash this small portion of the jeans that got sauce on it, and avoid the duty of going and getting your jeans completely washed in the machine, wouldn’t you save a lot of time ? -Sure would. Well grand ma, that’s exactly what the TRIM command or the ITGC does on an SSD, it helps saving time, it washes spots, data marked as to be deleted but not done yet, instead of waiting for the disk to get full of junk before washing it, thus, keeping original performance of the SSD.


Just thought I'd put a little smile in your face sharing this with you...

 

I've had my Samsungs for nearly a year(It'll be a year in March) and I haven't had any performance problems with them.

 

Excellent! Hysterical! I liked your earlier post as well. We humans need to get it pointed out to us once in awhile that there is NO ONE PERFECT THING that is always better than all the others. I prefer THIS brand of toilet paper, so ALL should prefer it is certainly a foible we humans are totally guilty of, bar none. Ever notice how when a friend gets a car, that somehow magically that car becomes the car YOU should buy too? Hysterical!

That said, although the excellent speed reports of the Intel certainly swayed me, I chose them ultimately for the trust I have in them to actually not ignore and to fix any issues that might come up. they have the engineering talent and the deep pockets if necessary to do so. So, I actually, in a way, chose Intel for reliability, as well as speed. I do not need lots of storage. More than most of my clients, who have maybe 40GB filled on a 1TB drive. But I have only 80GB filled, which can get as high as 120GB, but that is about it. So, I have all my stuff all the time on the SSD and hopefully good backups!

If money were no object, I probably would have SLC RAID except that on any level, I could probably never bring myself to do RAID zero as having half one's data on any drive at any time just seems well, not too bright

I will admit that I was expecting a little more "snap, crackle, pop" from my Intel. I did not do a fresh install but a clone, so that is the only reason I can think of that could be slowing it down, not that it is slow.

Anyways, this thread and the one before it represents I believe the best and most informative info/discourse/discussion of SSD's on the entire net. Congrats to all.

 

Thanks for your post.

Last thing I wanna do is getting in a fight, a struggle where everyone tries to proove that their own drive can pee farther than the others... I guess if money was no object, everyone would own 5 X SLC 512GB RAID10, right ?

Reality being reality, again, the most important thing I think (...) is that when someone makes a buying decision, especially regarding SSDs which are not, you shall admit, exactly sold at a candy bar pricing level, this decision is better be well documented so you get what you need, at the price you can afford, and that your drive will serve you as your initial intention to buy it was made for. (Hope this is clear, sorry, english is not my first language...)

Of course, nobody wants to buy something just to realize after that it does not meet their expectations, so, yes, this is part of our human nature, once we've made the decison, we're always inconsciously trying to prove ourselves we were right. But we have to face that we MAY be wrong, whatever we think.

As for Reliability goes, you were right considering Intel on this side, as it is more than doubfull they'd let you down, providing siht would happen. They surely have the reputation, the money and the resources to help you would they drop the ball. In my case, their drives was simply too expensive for me to even think about buying them

I agree with you that this thread (and her older sister) have been of an excellent and plentyful piece of good information to anyone who's considering using SSDs, and I am very thankfull to everyone that contributed here, and that's actually why I considered I owed you and decided to go with some posts.

Cheers !

eYe