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

"I guess if money was no object, everyone would own 5 X SLC 512GB RAID10, right ?" YEP, right on the money with me

 

I dont believe he was forcing this down anyones throat, but if you buy a SSD for storage you either have too much money, or your stupid.

 

reliability sense, we can only check failure rate upon various users' reviews from online stores regardless expert's review.

 

vostro1400user,

Why would Intel, a business leader, volunteer any more than what the competition offers, needlessly? Of course in their 'official' literature they will state the 20GB/day for 5 years - that's what the 'Committee' decided was reasonable for SSD's. If you read carefully though, you'll notice that it is a minimum of 5 years - the drives in 5 years will be as good as the day you bought them. Now, tell me, which other manufacturer even matches that?

As to the original 100GB/day for five years claim I made, I'm pretty sure it was a Video link in the other SSD thread (good luck searching! ), but just because Intel builds the drives to that level, doesn't mean it has to officially support them (but notice nobody else even dares to make a similar claim).

Now, for your benchmarks.... so, so bored with benchmarks....

I've used a Sammy, I've bought and returned an (Indilinx) Torqx in less than 48 hours and I've also used an Intel G2 (on a sub-optimal platform: AMD Opteron = garbage, in late, late 2009). How does my real-world experience relate to the benchmarks you posted? None.

If you have no frame of reference to compare real 'performance' to, then benchmarks are all you're stuck with. I have not only my current computers (notebook/desktops), but also access to many other current or not so current computers that allows me to see a real performance jump when I see it - Samsung (SSD's) do not have it.

 

intel has its write speed in bigger block in less favorite position, plus the issue of concurrent write/read as posted previously, this won't guarantee intel be a winner in every aspects, although it's cheaper than corsair(still not sure whether it's identical to samsung).

 

eYe-I-aïe,

I'm enjoying this conversation! Thanks.

However, I'm not the one defending what I've bought (or own). From the looks of it, you are.

I'm still in research mode. If/when I get the Intel 160GB G2 to try in my own systems with my own workflows, I don't care one way or the other which is the 'best' - because I haven't committed to anything yet.

The points I made for Intel are not merely opinions, but facts.

That they happen to perform the best for what currently seems best matched for my use is a bonus - my main criteria is dependability, with a performance (productivity, actually) increase over my current systems. Notice I didn't say reliability? The jury is still out on that point...

In my research, with my direct experience and with due acknowledgement to (many) others in this thread, Intel is not only the best for performance, but they are the only ones I would actually trust with my data and my business (not only my money, but my business as in my 'livelihood') on their line of SSD's.

You state Samsung is conservative because they don't even offer firmware - that is a cop out. Samsung is milking 5 year old technology for all its worth. Where do they deliver (SSD-wise)? Low power usage, as mentioned before, but also shock-proof, dead quiet, no heat and great compatibility with almost everything that can use an SSD. But no performance advantage - at least not for the money.

But, do I trust them as a company? No. Why? Because they don't take responsibility for their mistakes (for example like Intel did - immediately) and they don't care or worry about correcting them. The vendors that use the Samsung drives simply point the finger back at Samsung and say 'until Samsung fixes it, we can't do anything'. This action does not inspire confidence in me as a business person for Samsung and for the companies that deal with Samsung. My solution though is simple; don't buy. No, let me rephrase that: never buy.

You may think what you speak is the truth, but unfortunately, you do have a vested interest in what you say.

I, on the other hand can praise Intel and tear them down the minute I try their product (on 'loan', always within the return period) and find them also 'not worthy' like the rest of the current SSD offerings. And, I won't lose face either - this is what researching with open eyes and impartial testing offers.

I am too old to get fooled with marketing, salespeople or online forums - but I am just old enough to know that your defensive stance is not from being 'fair' or objective - its because of the Sammy's that you've paid good money for.

If you want to help people out (because that is what I'm trying to do too), then tell us as objectively and truthfully as possible how Samsung SSD's improved your productivity over your identical setup, except for mechanical HD's.

Forget benchmarks (but I won't mind if you include them), forget 'I feel's...', just tell us what your computer workflow is and how SSD's made it better. Because when I tried it (Torqx), the experience left me wanting.

Cheers!

 

it only means usable rather than " as good as the day you bought them", plus some cells might die and total capacity might shrink in 5 years.

 

vostro1400user,

useful life is based on the specs of the product you're buying!

Intel is stating;
the sustained max writes per day,
the max Read speed, max Write speed,
the max IOPS and the size of the LBA range and depth they're 'spec'd' to.

If total capacity shrinks because of cells dying, Intel is already taking that into account (they have at least 7.5% or 6GB on an 80GB drive as 'spare') - otherwise they would have it written down as an additional stipulation.

Intel is not offering this PDF by accident; this is what the drive is warranted for.

 

benchmarks are still the only objective measurements than the subjective 'i feel' stuff that enable you could choose which profile of related benchmark be more close to your workloads and hence make the decision to buy.(failure rate from users feedback is also another critical factor).

 

or option 3, is that i do a lot of video encoding, don't want to mess around with RAID, but i want the demuxing of 20+ GB TS files to go at a quick rate. going from one drive to another obviously speeds up tasks where lots of data is being read/written...having both of those drives SSD is optimal, but since 256GB is still ~800, the OS drive is the one that is SSD right now. right now my only bottleneck is latop > external 7200rpm.

not to mention, once ive taken huge source files down to dvd5 - dvd9 720p, it's nice to transfer those quickly form external, to laptop for playback, etc.

not everyone uses their laptop for only surfing and games.

 

can you ask for a replacement due to max write speed can't meet intel's max write speed within warranty period?

 

If it falls significantly below, I would.

 

what would be significantly? i doubt intel will offer the replacement if there is no clear criteria written on its document.

 

I've seen enough platter hard drive based systems fail due to the hard drive to never wanting to go back to that tech again. Reliability is DEFINITELY on the SSD side for the good ones.

Low power on Samsung drives are only theoretical. If its slower and is active longer which causes more CPU activity, it'll more than offset lower peak power.

 

What is significantly? I agree, that would be the stickler!

But long before Intel and I came to have that discussion, I would see it going something like this:

Intel: Are you running a TRIM compatible O/S?

Me: Yes

Intel: Then, manually run the SSD Toolbox Optimizer and stop benchmarking your drive!


or, alternately;


Me: No, I'm still using XP.

Intel: Then do a secure erase and re-install your O/S and apps.

Me: Isn't that extreme?

Intel: What's extreme is to be using an O/S that is almost 15 years old!


For me, I would actually pursue this issue if the drop was 25 or 30% (or more), after I've tried the above 'fixes'.

However, if this was near the limit of the 5 years of warranty, then I don't think I'll be caring about 2009 technology then either!

 

The funny thing is the claims of Windows 7 installing and booting faster than previous OSes were only noticeable with platter HDD systems. The biggest part in system boot times for XP is where the bars pass by, on Windows 7, it takes the similar time on an SSD system as on a HDD system!

 

Every new version of Windows they have said it boots faster. And then many times after release be forced to say, well, maybe, sometimes it MIGHT boot faster, other times it boots slower. Funny how "truth" changes over time

 

Hey !

I think too we're having somewhat of an interesting discussion here.

If I understand you correctly, you are basically saying that along the course of your life, where you have to deal with SSDs on various systems, Intel drives showed you being the best performers, right ? If so, 1-800-goto://we.agree.com! I said that in merely every comment I posted. I sincerely don't see where we disagree here, wondering how you can say I am defending samsung here…

As a person, as businessman, and as an end-user, you say not only you would never recommand Samsung, you actually pray for people not using them. Well, that's your own choice, I respect that, however, doesn't that make you a bit kind of self restricted mind just a little bit ? Thing is that as you already know, they don't care because you're not their customer, yet, you are their end-user if you happen to use their product, whatsoever… But thing is, call it widespread compatibility or what you want, real life fact is that Apple, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Sony do buy tons of them which, on this particular point I sincerely and totally agree with you, this is absolutely no good for end-users of ours, because it does not make them feel as much that the have to deliver…

I never said Samsung is conservative because they don't offer firmware; I did say that because they are conservative, they are not proving end-users with FW update tool, read carefully…

As for Reliability, I have to admit that I realized after the French-English translation in my head might have tricked what I meant, and I am sorry for that. In my head, Reliability was the absence of malfunction, it was the state of everything running like it's supposed to, I think it means more credibility or trustworthiness in English, my bad…


I agree with you, let's discard the benchies and let's get real world. (Remember that you asked for it…) Why did I go with SSDs ? First thing first, my goal is purely performance, no real other point here, right ? You have to know that I am most likely one of the most impatient person on Earth, just can't stand having to wait for a tool to perform the task I require from it in a timely fashion manner…

Anyways, thing is that in real life, access time for HDD is measured in milliseconds, access time for memory is measured in microseconds, while access time for processor's cache memory is measure somewhat in nanoseconds, if I'm not mistaken here. Nevertheless, clearly, the drive is the bottleneck. Performance being my first goal, I used to have laptops with 2 HDDs, but none of them ever had a raid controller inside, so I kind of managed a manual raid if you wish, where first drive was running the O/S + the programs, and served as backup for my data partition, which was on the other drive, which drive was also holding the backup of both my O/S and programs partitions. Those drives were 5400rpm.

Recently, I changed my laptop and while my budget was somewhat limited, I plunged for a M1730 with 2X200GB 7200rpm RAID0. For many reasons, including the DPC Latency that Dell had let go for two years on this machine since vista came to life, we're talking since 2007 here, shame on them, and they know, I tell ya, I have switched over the M17X. Still budget constraint here, yet, I was not willing however to waste my chance of going SSDs, if ever possible.

I searched and learned on here and there, so I knew exactly what I'd get if I'd go for those sammys through Dell. Thing is that I PAID 500CAN$ for each 256GB SSDs; how's that good money paid for as you said ? What's the lowest cost any Joe Bloe can buy a 160GB Intel ? Would I have paid $800 for 1 Sammy 256GB ? NO WAY. But budget + performance-wise, 1000CAN$ for 2X256MB RAID made sense to me, that's shy below 2CAN$ per megabyte, how's that for an SSD which, I ADMIT, is NOT the fastest one, still flying compared to HDDs…

But that's still theory, right ? So, what do I do. Man, I do a whole lot of different things, testing softs, playing games, playing DVDs, writing a book, playing music, video editing, sharing files, I have to regularly scan my drives, still while working, I do multiple thing at a time, always, and I can't stand when things hang, makes me wanna kill all my neighbourhood, you see ?

So, as to regards to my productivity, I can tell you that since I'm on SSDs, a full scan which used to take 27 minutes for complete is now under 11 minutes, a video job that used to perform in 30 minutes is now shy under 21, windows boots in 28~32 seconds while it used to take 48~57, and so on, and so on… More importantly, since I'm on SSDs, that's right, that's my new drug, well, I don't even feel like to kill my neighbourhood anymore, and that's simply great, I feel better, less stress, because no more emotions raising inside me because my damn computer's hanging all the time…

Yes, to help people is my goal too, and again, my point is to put things in perspective, don't get me wrong, if I had the money, I would have chosen 2X160 Intel RAID0; that was simply not for me an option, so I did my homework, read here and there, and a lot, and I made a conscious decision.

By the way, anyone knows if Toshiba have already made available their 512MB flavour as of yet ?

 

Then thats for performance, not storage, again for the primary purpose of large storage HDDs are far ahead of SSDs.

 

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5250507&CatId=4216

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5250507&CatId=4216

 

umm, sort of. while it is performance, accessing data on a stored drive, is part of the storage process. unless you archive stuff, and never access it. i may have a video file on my hdd, i have to re-release, and its nice if i dont have to wait forever to copy 8GB.

better cost per GB doesn't really = far ahead

when i said 800, thats just the number Dell had listed at the site. i actually got $200 off when i added BluRay and SSD, so depending on how you look at it, i either paid 350, or 250$ plus the HDD that was configured with the system for mine.

for that price, it's not worth it to me, but the price to add a Samsung to my lap was sweet, and 256 is about the lowest id want to go. im hoping when my 1TB dies, i can get a 512, or 1TB SSD for under $1000. depending on how long this thing lives, that may not be that far off.

 

Great deal Indeed: ±3.30CAN$/MB...

Was unfortunately not available back in early october when I did my purchase...

But again, I'm not stucked with my sammies, one great thing in life is that you can always upgrade your drive, praise the Lord....

 

I understand, I was not refering to you having paying that, it was just to say that I wouldn't have bought a sammy ssd for that price. Sorry

 

no, i wouldn't have either, i wouldve bought an Intel after-market probably, but then again, it was the size that made me bite.

 

I agree, this is a good exchange of ideas.

I don't push Intel as being the performance king - I push it as being the grown up company who takes responsibility for their actions and is truly the one company I would trust, why? Because their actions match their words - so far. Samsung is not out of the running yet, but if their next gen SSD's and especially their attitude (blase) towards their true customers remains the same (towards us, not their vendors) then for me, they will remain dead.

OCZ/Indilinx is aiming at the 'mass' consumers - I have no problem with that, but they clearly are not marketing for me, nor do they act as a responsible and trustworthy company that I would place the keys to my business with (digital photography is what I do).

Now, here is the kicker - I can spend $10K right now for an M6500 Covet and forget about what performance increase an SSD will offer in my current systems (although, I would still put in dual G2's in the 'C, I'm sure). I can also spend less than $1,000 (new notebook) to significantly increase my productivity over what I currently use on location (VAIO P8400), even using old tech, mechanical HD's. So, why would I drop the same money on something that so far only offers 'bling' value (bling = Oh! I see you have an SSD, kewl! )? What is my point here? The point is that $$/GB don't mean anything to me, saving even 99% off a competitors similar product doesn't hold much interest for me and even bang-for-the-buck doesn't excite me - what I care about is a real pure and unadulterated performance increase from the technological step I'm at now.

I too am impatient, but I am also a realist - with 8GB of RAM in my systems, Win 7 and SuperFetch working for me, the only speed advantage of SSD's right now is the first time you run/load a program - as long as you don't reboot, the second time is only going to be as fast as your RAM and your CPU can work - regardless of whether you're running an SSD or a mechanical HD. Saving seconds does add up, I'll agree - but they do not add up to anything close to a $1,000 of performance increase, compared to other options. Especially, in a real-world setting.

I'll repeat it again more clearly for you; late in 2009, Intel is my pick so far not simply because of performance, but rather the peace of mind that only Intel is offering to business customers with a solid all around performer and mostly Intel's integrity to see them to the next big thing. Which they more then likely will introduce themselves (soon).

Thanks for letting us peek into your computer workflow/usage patterns!

To see what I consider an upgrade from my current setup, and what 'real-world' means to me, see here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=436882

 

"extracting a 180KB RAR file took almost a minute on the Torqx - yes, that's KB, not MB and this aspect of its 'performance' is what makes the Torqx 'garbage' "

well said.

similarly, any SSD with stuttering issue (if not curable by tweaking registry) will be a disaster for real-time system, that's another reason that prevents from choosing intel since there are some users have stuttering issue with intel's. even one or two seconds stuttering will cause a loss of over ssd's value during trading time.
http://www.biz.newegg.com/Product/P...eoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&Page=1&Keywords=
http://rawhidewatch.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/ext4-on-intel-x25-m-ssd-needs-nodelalloc/
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=645909

" Intel G2 SSD stutters

Pros: The drive is very fast on reads - about the same as the OCZ Vertex Turbo.

Cons: On a large SQL Server load to rebuild an in-memory object cache, it stutters very badly. It will be very fast and then periodically stutter with 20x slower reads. The stutter is bad enough to make the load process slower than a 15K RPM SAS drive. I can't recommend it for enterprise use. The OCZ drive does not stutter and is 2-4x faster than the 15K RPM SAS drive on the database read task. I had this checked on 2 different Intel 160GB G2 SSD's. Same kind of stutter on both and I don't really want to try the latest Intel firmware updates because they seem to be having problems putting out a good update."

for a real-time trading system, this renders intel x25-M 'garbage'.

 

That's why they have the SLC, x-25E, specifically for that use.

 

http://techreport.com/articles.x/15931

"Like its MLC-based cousin, the X25-E uses a 10-channel storage controller backed by 16MB of cache. Amusingly, the cache is provided by Samsung—one of the biggest players in the SSD market—via a K4S281632I-UC60 SDRAM memory chip."

 

THESE are supposed to be pretty fast enterprise SSD's but if you have to ask how much they cost you don't need it and can't afford it.

 

I don't know what your point is, vostro.

 

Can you take your SSD apart and replace the NAND chips? How many are in there? I wonder if you could add more, increasing capacity? This guy is selling them on ebay for $30 each + $25 shipping.
http://cgi.ebay.com/100-brand-new-S...C_Drives_Storage_Internal?hash=item35a5328a2f

 

I'm pretty sure you can't do that at home - maybe Samsung could, but then I think its cheaper for them to replace the whole unit.

 

current P256 already offers stuttering-free with sufficient speed, for either those enterprise SSDs or new coming micron C300, it's still unknown whether they're stuttering-free from online resources although they're fast enough.

 

never mind.

 

it's 4M each, seems useless.

 

Hi,

My Win7 Installation and Apps take 50 GB space. Which SSD should I go for for my X200T.

Please suggest.

Thanks

 

I suggest a 160 Generation 2 Intel drive (I have one)

Honestly, just like that there is no way to tell - you could try by stating your uses, but in the end its also a matter of trusting the company to get it right.

 

Thanks,

Use would be, Photo editing, some VM's and regular stuff like browsing etc.
But would prefer to store misc things like music, movies etc on external backup drives.

Intel 160 GB will be bit more then what I am willing to invest at this point. I am looking for something under $300.

 

Ah, that narrows it down already there are 80GB drives from Intel...

I'm currently running Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Adobe Bridge on mine - writing large files is faster than a HDD, but something else can bottleneck it.

extracting previews from RAW is quick - and for me RAW to JPEG conversion sped up (I do have a T9300 processor though)

 

Well mine processor SL9400 and graphics card 4500MHHD both aren't that great so not sure how may times the performance hit will be compared to your config, that's the reason why I was confused when/if to get SSD

 

Well, I only have the X3100 as a graphics card I use on my SZ...

The processor - I think its a fairly large difference - but if you don't max it out (right now) then its not a bottleneck and a SSD will be good for photo editing

One of the key areas you'll notice an improvement is boot time and application start-up time.

Photoshop opens in 7-8 seconds.

 

I will second the 80gb Intel, just got mine last week, couldnt be happier.

 

Thanks,
Whats the best place to get it from in US

 

Maybe Amazon.com ... stores like BestBuy, NewEgg... you need to compare prices...

 

I will keep on checking prices, I read quiet some time back that Intel planned to sell it for $219 but guess due to high demand they are selling for inflated price like $300 (eg newegg).

I will keep looking for a descent deal for it to be around $230 or so before pulling the trigger.

 

Good luck!

When I was looking at the 160GB one I think they were 280 odd €.. but that does sound high come to think of it...

its 1:1 for prices € vs. $ - even if the exchange rate is different.

If you can find one at 230$ that would be good for you

Good luck!

 

I got mine for $278 CAD, price matched NCIX to newegg. Try newegg though.

 

That's a pretty good price, it was $250 US the other day (deal section), not sure if that was Black Friday/Cyber Monday. But Canada is always more expensive

 

One last question, which of these 3 models to get for the tablet http://www.intel.com/cd/channel/reseller/apac/eng/products/nand/feature/index.htm

G201, G2C1, G2R5