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

get a home server?

nah.. you don't want that with a 40gb ssd on it, maybe.. get a laptop with two drive slots? (or a home server.. )

nothing for as long as there is no one walking trough the door (a.k.a. no SATA 6Gbs support on the majority of hw, including anything intel, and thus 99% of the laptops).

once intel brings SATA 6Gbs, they will sure have their ssds ready for it, and they will rock

good morning everyone, it's 6:22 here, i have holidays and got waken by my company.. mondays, bah

 

Newegg's shellshocker sneakpeak shows an Intel 2.5" solid state drive for 2/27.

 

I need some SSD advice since I am pretty clueless about them (other than gathering that Intel seems to be the brand of choice). I am considering the Intel X25M 80 GB. My current laptop is over 5 years old and I'm at 47.2 GB, some of which I won't bother xfering to the new laptop. So the size seems fine, and I can't afford the 160GB.

I will be buying one of the following laptops in the neat future.
Lenovo W510
HP 8540w
Dell M4500 (not yet released)

1) The Lenovo offers a 128BG SSD upgrade for $238 (after SPP discount). I think they used Samsung in the w500, so that is probably what this is. If I get the w510, will the Intel X25M 80GB be significantly better?

2) Which Intel X25M 80GB would I need? I see different versions of the 80 GB model, and I have no idea what their differences are.

3) Is there any other SSD I should be considering? I know many of you have the 160GB model which is much faster than the 80 GB, so is there any competition for the Intel in the smaller capacity range?

 

Only differences in Intels:

1,8" vs. 2,5" - if you have a "normal laptop" (no business ultraportable) its most likely 2,5"

G1 has "Garbage Collection" G2 has documented Trim - I suggest the G2.

That's all - and don't bother with anything other than Intel
I found it quite funny - a link to a guy with blog on the Leica S2 - he was proud about hid Workstation Dell with 2SSDs... my single Intel beats his 4K random reads and writes by miles...

There is a bench somewhere in here:
http://dfarkas.blogspot.com/2009/11/leica-s2-review-test-shooting-in.html

(I wish I had the money for that camera... maybe after a lot of saving in 30-40 years....)

 

So what's the best way to tell G1 from G2?

Here are 2 I found at Newegg. They both have G2 in their model number but their price differs considerably. What's the difference between them?

X25M 80GB - OEM
X25M 80GB - Retail

 

The difference is that the retail pack comes with a 2.5in to 3.5in adapter for use in desktops while the OEM is the 2.5in form factor drive alone

 

I have a home server, doesn't help much for games, they need local installation. I wouldn't buy a laptop only because it has two drive slots. I'd most likely be limited to a 17", and that's just too big for my needs.

 

Since this is the definitive SSD thread, can anyone tell me what effect using an SSD for bittorrent downloads would have on said SSD?

 

Well then whip out the DVD and whip in the extra drive...

 

C300:
http://www.crucial.com/store/listmodule/SSD/~2.5-inch Solid State Drive~/list.html

 

Hey Les, yes, it has been a while. I have had 3 SSD's during the time. Last one had to sell while I could still get a good price for it as times are a bit tight here. And put that with my poor accounting skills and well, it gets pretty tight

But no worries, I will prevail! And I will get a nice fast SSD this year. Dave

 

Yup...I know where u r coming from. I am pretty lucky in that, thanks to Dells treatment in the past few years, this will be the first piece of computer equipment I have paid for since 2006....had to happen sooner or later.

Wife is still screaming over this purchase though.

 

Ummm hello Mr Intel????

You are going to have to hit the drawing board after these tests on the OWC...





http://www.barefeats.com/hard130.html

 

And while they're at it, lower their prices...

 

Im trying to get a drive to review...figure I might just enjoy trying the review thing and just throwing it in as a thread post. They e-mailed me asking a few questions yet never answered mine about the drive eheheheh

 

no 4k-64thread r/w and access time info for OWC?

 

It is supposedly the same as vertex le...
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...imited-Edition&p=491605&viewfull=1#post491605

 

Heh. When I first went for an SSD, I had itchy buying fingers and no knowledge, so I went with a OCZ Apex 120GB. Then I read some more, and I shrugged and went for a G1 160GB Intel. And then I read more and went for a G2 160GB Intel.

Thanfully I wasn't punished for my impatience and ignorance and managed to sell the OCZ and Gen1 Intel for a thirty dollar profit.

In any case, even with the new Sandforce things coming out, I'm holding onto this Intel for a while.

 

Can I ask for some confirmation on my ssd installation tomorrow? I haven't updated firmware before and know nothing of the tool box so.....am I correct with this plan?

1. Create system image onto external drive.
2. Remove old ssd and install X-25m
3. Boot firmware update iso from flash drive (no DVD on this system) and update (Will I know before hand if I need to? What version?)
4. Restart and boot from Win7Ult64bit Installation USB - go into Repair mode
5. Plug in external and reinstall image of disk from Win7Repair menu-Reboot into Win7
6. Install Intel SSD Optimizer and run menu.
7. Test the speed eheheh.

It says I have: Intel(R) ICH9M-E/M SATA AHCI Controller

Do I need to change this?


Sound good?
Will I automatically know if I have the Intel/MS AHCI driver?
How do I know TRIM is working?
Any other thoughts?

 

It is best to do a clean install imo. It should come with latest firmware but if it doesn't, the flash isn't destructive.

TRIM needs the default MS SATA driver to work.

Go to device manager and click on Intel(R) ICH9M-E/M SATA AHCI Controller, select the driver tab, update driver, browse my computer for driver software, let me pick from a list, select Standard AHCI 1.0 serial ata controller.

 

Ya...I am going to do a fresh install. next problem...I cannot get the Win7 USB/Win7 Download installation tool to recognize the upgrade iso for some reason so I cant get it installed on a bootable usb....

Frig...Thoughts? I havent got a dvd.

 

http://forums.mydigitallife.info

 

No...what I need is a way to make the usb bootable and install the Firmware upgrade iso from Intel. For some reason it cannot be done. I am wondering if the iso is 32 bit and the usb has to be created on a 32 bit system....frustrated.

 

http://communities.intel.com/thread/7705;jsessionid=5328108A8C844A733357EE1D98AE2D2E.node5COMS

 

Thats working thanks...From there, I can simply extract the iso to the disk I am sure...tx again.

 

The term small is no measurement at all.
Small can be 1MB (that's small compared to a 1GB panorama) or 500KB, or 50KB, or 10B.
-> like this: Useless tests

 

Step by step, for your viewing pleasure.

 

Yup finally got it done.... I believe the problem I was having is that you cannot create a 32bit bootable iso on a 64 bit system. Even if I put the Intel Firmware Upgrade info on a usb, booted to a command prompt from the Windows 64bit OS disk and then tried to get the program working...no go.

I had to create the boot disk with the 32bit OS which is Win98 in this case . Tx.

 

different solutions
a) get a 15" with more than one slot (they exist)
b) get rid of the dvd drive (and get my movies on home server to auto-import any disk there)
c) get a 160gb intel or 256gb whatever, and just don't install all the games at once. restricting yourself to a few games makes those games more fun. "i'm not allowed to switch the game till i've beat it" means you have to push yourself.
d) continue to cry and don't fix it hehehe (d is most likely to all users)

none. just don't care. your internet will be too slow to ever be able to damage your disk with the writes you get from downloading something.

one solution for htwingnut, indeed

why? none of those numbers show something amazing, nor something intel can't play with (most graphs don't have intel on actually )

1) well, you should have a homeserver
2) that is quite important, yep
3) no, not important, it will have the newest one.
4) you do a clean install now, and should have used a homeserver else
5) ..
6) if you want, but it's not needed
7) if you want, but it's not needed

it just works.

you get my way of living, right? just not caring anymore about the details. i pay much money so the stuff just works. that's what i pay for

 

So r u saying the latest Intel AHCI driver allows Win7 to work with TRIM now?

 

i'm saying if you install win7 on an actual g2, then trim will work. i'm not saying any other extra installed driver will work. as some might, or might not. people haven't done very scientific tests about it yet i'm back to the default os installed drivers myself..

 

Is the Intel SSD Toolbox independent of the driver that is being used with the SSD? For example, say if I was using a driver that doesn't do TRIM, would the Toolbox be able to remedy the situation by running the TRIM command weekly, etc?

Should be getting my 160GB later today.

 

the toolbo is indepentent of the driver per se. but if the driver doesn't propagate trim commands, no, the toolbox can't sent them just as well. all the toolbox does is sending the commands manually.

 

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/23/sandisk-ships-60gb-120gb-g3-ssd-to-north-america-and-europe/

 

^^^ lol, nice job on getting this product to market finally, SanDisk!

This was announced at CES last year and was supposed to come out in Q2 2009 ( LINK to Gizmodo). It was also announced at $149 MSRP for the 60GB drive, which isn't even close to the $229 price announced today. Doesn't SanDisk know that we can get 20GB larger and Intel for about the same price???

SanDisk has failed hard.

 

yes, Jackboot.
The only thing attract me is the lifetime warranty.
However, I am the person alway get new stuff, so lifetime warranty fails on me.
maybe its good for bussiness solution.

 

Did Sandisk name their drives G3 to steal some spotlight from Intel's coming G3 drives?

 

its SanDisk third generation. lol, 1st and 2nd were both bad designs.

 

I was under the perhaps mistaken impression that the IRST drivers worked with TRIM -- perhaps I should be using Microsoft's?

 

New version of IRST out from Lenovo 9.5.7.1002, no word on TRIM yet.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-74430

64 bit
http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/6mio25ww.exe

32 bit
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-74431

You have to manually install from device manager.

 

I was using IRST driver with my Intel G2 and had the same impression...it appears to me though that TRIM is not a feature of this driver. I posted recently with benchmarks showing how badly my drive degraded. I ran the toolbox on the drive and it was restored. Since then I've been using the default MS driver.

I'm curious about the Lenovo IRST driver though...TRIM enabled? I have an X200.

 

Intel forum says IRST driver does have TRIM, and there's a new version coming out in a few weeks with better performance.

http://communities.intel.com/message/83115#83115

That Lenovo version sounds even newer.

Also, in relation to small file performance vs large file performance vs what your operating system actually does, I ran a 3 minute test of basic computer usage with MS's Diskmon. It was mostly web browsing, using applications (office, etc), and playing some mp3's. Here's a summary of statistics, with full spreadsheet linked so you can get your own stats if you want to check it. I plan on running this for a longer test at some point to get a more accurate set of statistics (Larger sample size), but as it is, this is I believe more than representative.

Top 5 Most Frequent Drive Accesses by Type and Percentage
-8K Write (56.35%)
-8K Read (7.60%)
-1K Write (6.10%)
-16 Write (5.79%)
-64K Read (2.49%)
Top 5 account for: 78.33% of total drive access over test period
Largest access size in top 50: 256K Read (0.44% of total)

Bottom line: Gaudy sequential numbers are virtually useless as an indicator of how fast a Solid State Drive will handle an operating system. Some of these figures may have been sequential (I skimmed the full log, the sectors were not often next to each other), but the point remains. I removed all my subtotals so you can sort and subtotal the sheet yourself for whatever criteria you want.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/zmtuvtqoyb5/Diskmon.xls

 

Thats a great piece of information!

 

Price break sweetness

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227509

 

Les - seems you've stumbled across a problem many people have but aren't even sure how to diagnose. When I wanted to create a 64-bit copy of Windows installation on my 32-bit system, I couldn't for the life of me figure out why it wasn't working. I did some googling and found some simple hacks to get it done, but yes, for practical purposes, it can't be done. Glad you figured it out.

 

The information provided that allowed me to make the bootable disk and then to open the iso and expand it into the disk worked great....at least i think ehehe. My ssd didnt arrive today which means tomorrow...

 

winsat disk does not measure 8k writes and maybe they should in their next chance?

The M$ default ahci driver was written by Intel and is dated 6/21/2006-- surprisingly it works with Nvidia chipsets better than Nvidias latest Nforce SATA Controller drivers.

 

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=...ate-Drive&c=CJ

I am looking to buy the Envy with 320GB HDD and replace it with the above SSD (which I am getting for 219 not the 244 listed)

What I wanted to know was if thats the best SSD out there ( as I understand it, it is a Intel G2 which is the best right?) and if it is suitable for the Envy.

Thank you very much. Much appreciated.

 

I think this last post was a setup to see if I would take the bait by Dave....

eheheheh....

The best drive available out there is an Intel and this is shown pretty much in every comparison test going. We, the consumer, seem to jump at the use of advertised high sequential reads and writes on ssd drives when, in reality, they are the least used methods of disk access. If you look back a few posts you will see, by percentage, the most used methods of disk access.

You will notice 8k access is the most used... In tests everywhere you will find that 4/8k random reads and writes seem to be a big factor in the performance game and when you look at the tests, these bring the reality of the success of the Intel drives to the forefront. Some drives choke at these where Intel is like a race horse.

Take a look at the comparison results here between 4k random read and write:

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3535&p=3

And then take a look at opinions and reviews that result such as this:

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3535&p=3

Notice the first lines of the article eheheheh,

Hope this helps...

 

I am not sure what the deal is between you and Dave, but I assure I am a real newbie with real newbie questions. Thanks for answering me. So the SSD I am getting is perfectly fine for the Envy I will be getting?

So now I need to get an ESATA enclosure for my 320GB HDD (coming with the laptop) to use it as external drive, right?
Then put my SSD in.
How do I then install Windows 7 on the new SSD? Any links with instructions for that? Thank you very much.