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

but the customer support will not be the same as Super Talent's product

 

Tony's preliminary Crystal DiskMark run:

 

speed is awesome, so wish the price is cheap

 

Wow... that is nice... two of those in RAID 0 would be even better! Waiting until next year for me Core i7 build...

 

Wow... the 4k random is simply mind blow.

I wonder which manufacture will be the first to max the SATA 3 bus speed. It would be pretty sick to have a 300 seq read and write.

I know SATA 6 is just around the corner...

 

If this is a 160gb drive at 500, there would be a mad rush for it.

 

Corsair has released their new SSD on newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233085

 

Probably the 60GB will be $500 given pricing of the current Super Talent LE or more as Intel's 64GB SLC is $800. And both Intel (SLC and MLC) still more than double the Vertex EX's 4K write speeds...

 

Seriously what is it with you people and dragging down Vertex price/performance every single time it gets mentioned by saying "Well Intel is still faster."

No kidding, like we don't know that?

It's as completely ridiculous as if this was a video card thread and somebody was posting HD 4850 or GTS 250 benchmarks, and some idiot comes in and says "Well the GTX 285 and HD 4890 are still faster." YA THINK!?!?

Only a fool compares performance from 2 utterly and completely different price points.

 

Well if you look at all benchmarks, you always compare a new model with higher and lower end models so you can compare their performance relative to other products. Performance alone means nothing without another product to compare it to.

Considering the two products are in direct competition, it is only sensible to look at the performance based on existing products, namely the Intel and the Super Talent. Similar to your GPU analogy, you compare how good the 4850 is relative to the 4890 to see how much worse it performs vs. how much you save. Don't need to get angry and call people fools, when people are just stating facts.

 

i have 3 different driver, i would say intel is still faster on reading. indeed.
my intel 80G can reach 250mb/s constantly, while samsung can only get up to 198mb/s and vertex is about 200mb/s on my E6400. Like I said, the situation only happens on my machine, so i dont know others, and i not someones samsung can get 200+ on reading.

 

How do you get your intel ssd to read at 250mb constantly?

 

I assume he means sequentially, since that is what it is rated for.

 

I'm just saying... there is a distinct anti-OCZ bias in this thread. I have no specific love for the company, they just happened to be the only company making $83 SSDs that don't suck.

 

sorry for the confusion.
I use crystal Drive Marker to test my SSDs, for sequentially, everytime (10 writting cycles) is 250mb/s on reading. While my samsung jumps around 140-190, and vertex 120G jumps around 160-200.
Anyways, I didnt mean both of them are bad ,these SSDs are still fast for my regular pace of work.

 

yeah, and it happens they first had to made 3 generations of such cheap drivers that DO suck, making everyone angry that's why there is an anti-OCZ bias in here. and if you now say we should forget the past, tell that to all the vista haters

 

As davepermen stated, history cannot be undone and a lot of early adopters (especially from NBR) have been burned and are wary of OCZ. And sorry to say, OCZ's $83 SSDs STILL suck. The Vertex thus far has been promising, and while cheaper than the Intel's, are still pricey.

I think that the Vertex, Intel, and Samsungs are all great options depending on a person's specific needs (ie. Samsung overall best bang for your buck w/ 256GB and very good speeds, Intel is the best for random speeds, while Vertex is a good all around alternative that is slightly cheaper than Intel but still has great performance and has more flexibility in size, ie. 30GB).

 

Someone mentioned earlier in the thread that up to a certain point, most users would not notice the difference in random write speed anymore. Is there a threshold point for that? Since Intel's random write is nearly twice of vertex/samsung, ow much of a difference would that make in real world performance?

 

stuttering in certain cases is the difference. random write speed per se is not what hurts (to a certain degree). but a chip like the jmicron completely blocks readwrite accesses to the disk while such a slow write access. and that then blocks the os.

when my mtrons or samsungs have a quite-slow write, it doesn't block the os fully, as they still can read/write other data from disk. and the intel is awesome at that with 10 parallel read/write units.

jmicron is like going back to pre-dual/quadcore/orevenhyperthreading times. if one app blocks the cpu, you get nearly fully locked out.

 

Isn't stuttering also an issue due to lack of cache on the Jmicrons?

 

this got discussed before. write-caching is something that shouldn't be allowed for 100% guarantee something's written. (and can be enabled, with the fitting warning message besides, on an os level even). a disk can not cache write data, as it can not guarantee else that it got written until it's written.

read caches are great, but don't help in that case as well. all it can is cache logic for where to write what, and what's dirty and what not, to quickly be able to find a place to write data without hitting the slow path.

 

Found a site that sells OCZ Vertex EX series and Z Drive PCIe interface SSDs.

Z Drive PCIe 250GB 198,000yen
Z Drive PCIe 500GB 310,800yen
Z Drive PCIe 1TB 492,000yen

Vertex EX SLC 60GB 89,800yen
Vertex EX SLC 120GB 164,000yen

All would be available around Mid May onwards.

Pricing is not attractive but these are in Japanese Yen. Actual prices might be lower.

 

yap, not attractive pricing. i've bought two mtron slc 64gb and raid0ed them for less than that single vertex ex 60gb. performance is very similar (220MB/s max read speed, f.e.). so, no, quite expensive actually. half the price would be really nice. at that price, not so.

anyways, lets wait and see for the local pricings.

 

I have a question...bit off topic; Windows 7 is supposed to have support for TRIM when it's released. If I buy an SSD that doesn't have TRIM capabilities and I use it in a notebook that has the final released version of Windows 7, will the TRIM capabilies of the OS work/function as it should on the SSD?

I want to believe it will but i'm not sure...anyone have a clue?

So in essence my question could also be, is it mandatory for both the OS and the SSD to support it for the TRIM feature to work?

 

I think from what i've read the SSD needs to also support TRIM. maybe some others can correct me if i'm wrong. i the the big anandtech article exlpained it, but then i think the guy from pcper may have said anand's theory was wrong on how it works...

 

On SuperTalent UltraDrive LE (SLC), I decided to go ahead and do alignment as seems to be recommended everywhere I've seen. I used Diskpar.exe and set it to 128 offset (64K). Below and After results attached below. Do these seem to be slower than the original bench? All categories are lower except 4k random read/write slightly up. Perhaps SLC drives respond differently to alignment?

 

Difference does not seem that big, maybe just variability between benchmark runs.

 

yeah try running it a few more more times to see if results are consistant

 

I think you're both right. Benchmarks do vary slightly each time. I did a quick format and changed allocation unit size to 8192 (8K). Seems to like these. Results for 1000MB file below. Time to stop benching and just use it. It's noticebaly faster than the Velociraptor it replaces. I'm happy with it (until the next faster one comes along! ).

 

Those are awesome results!

 

Yes very nice! need another sammy so i can reach those sequentials!

 

+1.

I love my Vertex. The speed difference compared to my 7200rpm Momentus is essentially night and day. Based on how profound my improvements were for what I spent ($201 delivered for a 60GB Vertex), the Intel drives simply aren't worth the extra coin. Not even close, for me.

 

My Vertex was $83.

Speed over a certain point is transparent to the end-user. It's like internet. For loading a web page like NBR, it doesn't matter if you're 5Mbit or 100Mbit, it loads the same speed perceptually,

And daveperman is doing it again. Somebody asks if speed increases are noticeable, and he brings up stuttering and Jmicron. I'll say it again: When you reach a certain performance threshold, you see exponentially diminishing returns from faster / more expensive drives. The Vertex drives are already well past this threshold, and that's the point that's being skillfully covered up by some users on the forums. That, and the exponentially diminishing returns.

Look, I know how to frame a discussion, I'm very good at it, my field is psychology and heading into marketing. I know when somebody is framing a discussion a certain direction and it's clearly anti-OCZ in this thread. It doesn't take magic to recognize it.

 

Not sure if this is the latest draft, but it's 'relatively' recent.

tl;dr it's part of the ATA spec, so the drive would need some kind of additional capability added to it for dealing with the new commands. See section 5 'Identify'... looks like the o/s will be able to ask the drive if it knows what TRIM means or not.

 

I've used the Samsungs, which are also past this threshold, and while their SLC and MLC numbers aren't as high as the Vertex or Intel, they are far cheaper per GB. So why wouldn't I recommend them over the Vertex (while being good so far), especially since OCZ's history of SSDs has been far from spectacular. Many people here have been burned, plain and simple - it only makes sense that they would be hesitant to recommend it and in fact discourage purchasing them until they have stood the test of time.

I didn't realize yours was so cheap since the going rate is $100+ for the 30GB, though I did acknowledge the flexibility in size options as a benefit. However, at high price points, there are other alternatives that are as good or better than the Vertex IMO (ie. $200 -> Samsung 64GB SLC and $600 -> Samsung 256GB MLC, at $400, I'd probably opt for the 120GB Vertex since I value space over the 80GB Intel).

 

All JMicron drives were crap, regardless of manufacturer. OCZ had all JMicron drives.

Indilinx drives do not suck, regardless of manufacturer. OCZ and SuperTalent are making them.

With these SSDs, it really does not matter who is making them, it's all about the controller.

 

The fact still remains that Indilink is a rather new and unknown company. Also, OCZ was the first to use Indilink, and despite their previous drives using Jmicron, there is still stigma associated w/ their SSDs. The Vertex hasn't even been out for 5 months yet, maybe in another 7 months, if no problems have come up then more and more people will hop onto the Vertex w/o reservation.

While Indilink has shown great potential, Samsung and Intel have been developing controllers for much longer and Samsung has had SSDs out for quite some time. So there is lots of data to back up the fact that Samsungs are reliable.

 

In large part due to people like you and daveperman.

You can't go make a blanket statement like "There's still a stigma" when you're a prime offender in when it comes to rampantly perpetuating the stigma at every chance.

 

Because I know for a fact that my Samsung drives run well (as do many, many others), so of course I am going to recommend them over the Vertex. We each have our opinions about which SSDs to recommend, and as I said before, the Vertex has been out for <5 months. The fact still remains, it's new. And I will continue to advise an alternative to the Vertex until it survives the test of time (ie. to arbitrarily set something, if it still has no problems by Jan 2010 or about 1 year on the market).

 

Are you serious? You honestly think a piece of technology has to be on the market a year to be worth the test of time?

In a year prices will have dropped and there will be better alternatives than the X-25M and Vertex drives alike.

 

Yes, as all early adopters of new computer technology know, the first year typically has several problems/bugs that get found when released into the public. Of course, in a year, any issues should be resolved and the Vertex should enter revision 2 or even 3.

 

So by that logic we can't recommend the Intel or new Samsung drives yet then , since it hasn't been a year? From where I sit Indilinx drives are as recommendable as the new Samsungs or Intels. I agree with Jlbrightbill.

 

Samsungs have been around for far longer than a year, while some models are new, they are revisions of older drives hence have already been tested. Intel is nearly a year, but there have been issues lately w/ drive degradation.

 

All SSDs have issues with "drive degradation." It's just when it happen's to the X25, everyone goes "HOL#*&$)(#$!!!!!!"

 

... and I do believe Intel has fixed their issues with it.

 

and OCZ has TRIM for its vertex

 

We're just passing by the half year mark, that's some pretty generous rounding.

Just poking fun, not trying to belabor the point you were responding to.

 

The 160GB Intel X25 is down in the $500 range using Live.com cashback. I think we will see it at the $500 price-point before we know it.

Here's an example.

$559 delivered (after cashback). Now if they would do the same thing with the X18!

 

can one actually buy an x18 160gb? there's none available where ever i search.

 

The problem is, OCZ pulled another one with the vertex when released. How many firmware updates have there been since release? why did they have to release them? one reason is the drive would "magically" disappear when written over a couple of times. Maybe if OCZ would make sure they were releasing a product that worked out of the box we would have more confidence in them.
I have rooting for OCZ since the first core series. The fact is the have yet to succussfully launch a fully functional product, that is good to go right out of the box. I may still buy one of there products, vertex or otherwise, but the fact is with OCZ i will be wondering what and when will somehting go wrong. where as if i buy samsung (like i did) or intel i don't have to worry. even with intels "problem" it is still the best ssd out there...