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

Okay, here's the update to my post a while back about the new Intel firmware causing stuttering. At first the stutter was tolerable, it didn't bother me too much and only happened occassionally. As time passed, however, it became significantly worse and common to the point where was I screaming at my laptop in frustration every couple of minutes. Evertyhing, including browsers, movies, moving files around, etc., would grind to a halt at some point.

Per the PCPer article's author's suggestion after I emailed her, I HDDErased the drive and reinstalled Vista. Tried it out for about a week and it was smooth sailing. Absolutely no stutters no matter what I threw at it. Tried W7 immediately after that and again, after a week of my usual usage I still have smooth performance. No stutters at all. Plus, performance degradation is pretty much nonexistant. With the previous firmware which had no stutters, my usage led to a significant decrease in read and write speeds. Not so with the new firmware, here's an ATTO bench that's about two weeks after I flashed:



Benches and feels like it's brand new. Intel did a really nice job. HDDErase + the new firmware have made the drive completely problem free.

 

WANNA BUY US DRINK?? COZ U SAVED $300!!!

 

no, buy another 80gb intel for the resting money

 

I already have one 160GB X25-M and one Samsung 256GB before getting this Kingston and my MacBook Pro can only fit two drives so I'll take out the Samsung and do software RAID0 with two 160GB X25-M... Will decide later what to do with the Samsung 256GB... If none of my friend is interested then it probably go to fleabay...

 

looks like the one who needs it the most got it *shakeshishead*

anyways, have fun with the raid0, hope it gets to 500MB/s or so

 

Will post the results when it's installed..

 

Man you're in SSD Heaven right now aren't you. I'm glad you got through...good luck w/ everything.

 

It's hard to stay on top of what's best with SSDs. It seems to change daily.

If I were to buy today, assuming money is no object, and looking for the fastest OS driver of at least a 64gb drive, would the Intel X25-e still be my best bet or is the Samsung SLC or Vertex eclipsing that one yet? I'd be using it as a boot drive on a Windows Notebook, storing the OS and Program Files.

-Andy.

 

cripes... thats going to be one amazing RAID array. Cant wait for the benchies

 

I'll take the Samsung off your hands

Yeah, go for Intel's X25-E 64GB, though if you need even more space, OCZ Vertex EX and Super Talent LE have 128GB versions (SLC w/ Indilinx controller).

On another note:

http://www.nordichardware.com/news,9224.html

Go Samsung!!! At this rate, PCIe 3.0 is already obsolete. They are also going to need better controllers so that we can actually take advantage of the 30x speed boost (ie. Intel's 250MB/s read speed could be 7.5GB/s w/ PRAM!)

 

http://echeng.com/journal/2009/04/1...25-m-160gb-ssd-drives-macbook-pro-17-unibody/

Here is some guy who already did it.

 

Dave - I simply gave an explanation for sticking Windows XP on a 4 GB pci disk. Something I know Vista cannot be done with. Sorry you think I'm just a big ole' sugar pill chugging hick. And for a 32 GB SLC disk, I think XP would work perfectly, so I recommend to the person asking about the 32 GB disk - yes, go with it. There are plenty of guides that are simple to follow and intuitive nonetheless to getting XP down to a reasonable size without sacrficing much HDD space. I'm sure the person asking doesn't have THAT many programs that'll reside on the same drive as the OS that they need to worry about that much space. Otherwise they'd be looking at the 80 GB Intel. I for one would like to see more people try the SLC technology, and a small 32 GB disk can be pulled off perfectly with an XP installation.

 

Yeah.. I saw that article before.. Anyway.. Results coming soon...
Just updated f/w to 8820
Running on spinning HDD right now... Can't wait to get back to SSD..

 

YAY! Thats so far beyond awesome its sad and makes awesome look like a broken down 4200RPM drive

I do wonder why the small writes didnt really increase any. The top end is beyond amazing, but the low end is pretty much the same.

 

Any idea what's the best striped size for software RAID0 with two X25-M? Options are 16K, 32K, 64K, 128K, 256K

I'm benchmarking each one right now.

 

Thanks for that info. I will be running W7 RC1 x64 with 4GB RAM, no system restore or hibernate/sleep. I don't have that many apps I use, and most are small/open source (I keep things real simple). I do need Photoshop and Dreamweaver though. I think if I can keep windows w/updates etc. to under 15GB, the 15GB left for apps would work.

 

Nice, then we will see your benchmarks to find out.

 

Seems like 32K give the best overall/consistent benchmarks especially the IOPS but different between each stripe sizes are very small...

Here are the results of 2x Intel X25-M 160GB SSD f/w 8820 - RAID0 32K Stripe...

Xbench:


QuickBench Standard Test:



QuickBench Sequential Test:


ZoneBench IOPS Test:


Results Matrix


Now that I decided on the stripe size, on to restoring the backup...

 

I've changed my mind... Seems like 64K is better... Off to do some more tests...

 

Yeah, I'm fine with that. Except that you think that xp is much better in that case. I had vista on a 32gb ssd together with quite some applications, and 5gb music + my ordinary data with no problem, so it's not like you need xp + nlite for it. vista 32bit (without vlite, the nlite for vista) takes around 7gb after installation, + office + visual studio + traktor + ableton live + some smaller apps was around 10 - 15gb (together with app-specific user-data like libraries and such).

BUT we talked actually about the new samsung technology, and how those first chips they produced are not yet "ready for market", as at MAX, you can get around 32gb on a 2.5" disk. it's not if that is enough for a mini install or not, it's just not enough to be the MAX AVAILABLE. even SLC quite right from the start could go to 64gb on 1.8", and 128gb on 2.5". it was just, nobody could pay it. but you could have it, if you had the money.

until samsung has a gb density that allows fabrication of 64gb, 128gb on a 2.5" (better 1.8" for me ), this new technology is not yet ready to mass market. at least not for a sole ssd for everything.

ready for mass market == enough to be a replacement for an ordinary hdd you, your sister, your mom, your dad, your friends. just not for those that collect gigabytes/terabytes of data. those can never get satisfied. they are not even happy with the current 2tb hdds

 

normally just the biggest one (but they're all quite big). at least don't take 4kb stripes, else you will always be at the slowest random write speed, when you write 8kb random thingies for sure, depending on the raid controller logic, about always. i've chosen, i think, 64k, as this is the max my controller can handle? something like that, at least.

 

Thanks for the tips, seems like the middle (64K) seems to be the best..

 

I'm on sammy 64gb, have 2 partitions, one 20gb for system, w7 rc 32 bit, page file and other soft like office, antivirus, photoshop 'nstuff, and I jet have another 9.5 gb free
rest of space is on other partition, and that's it, I need no more for my laptop...
second partition is 40gb, and it's enough for torrenting, wow-ing and other stuff

 

well, from what I have learned until now about raid0, is that bench requirements and real life requirements are often quite opposite, so, what is best for benchs, it's not often optimal for real life performance...
think atto is the one that shows best results couse it shows speeds for different file sizes

 

I've read that while stripe sizes don't matter a whole lot in PC usage, generally the stripe sizes you select will be optimal if that's the kind of sizes your usage allows access to often.

 

AWWWWWwwwww did dave hurt your poor feelings when u inerpreted his post as calling you a newb? get over it geesh...

 

I happen to do that from time to time but this time, you all missinterpreted me I wasn't calling hankaaron a newbie (haven't stated he isn't as well, though.. ). but i was saying a typical newbie a.k.a. the public masses can't handle that => not useful for selling.

 

ever since you said something to madmask about him misleading newbs and also mentioned hankaaron57 in that post he has been out to get you and can't just let it go. come on people its just the internet!

 

always the same


i'm just in wait-n-post mode in this thread currently. waiting eagerly for a 160gb 1.8" ssd from intel to be available somewhere..

 

OOT- I love xkcd.com comics..

 

Has anyone seen this corsair drive on newegg before? usually they are samsung drives but this one has 170read and 100write... could be a good price if its not jmicron. any clues what the controler is?

 

Too bad.. it IS Jmicron... http://www.asktheramguy.com/v3/showthread.php?p=400506

 

Thanks good find. I knew it was too good to be true

Carsair is pretty shady sneaking a crappy jmicron in there with all their sammies!!!

 

Damn, I was so close to pulling the trigger on the Corsair. Specs didn't look quite right though so I figured that if I waited a week or so then somebody on this thread would know what was in there
Guess I'll be grabbing an Intel or another Vertex then.

 

Big fan of the new Vertex line from OCZ...

 

Funny ur sig doesn't seem mention anything about a vertex...

 

Analysis: SSD performance -- is a slowdown inevitable?

http://www.computerworld.com/action...&articleId=9132668&taxonomyId=19&pageNumber=1

 

Oh yes; now we're castigating folks for not having sigs that meet up to their statements

 

Unfortunately, just a drawback stemming from the lower reliability of MLC technology itself. I hope SLC will become cheaper so that it will be in more consumer level SSDs. Many users with Mtron and Memoright have been using their SSDs for years without fail or degradation but they are still expensive relative to MLC SSDs.

At least controllers have been improving steadily. A while back, someone posted a link to OCZ's forums that were testing the new Vertex EX and even when filled, performed the same as when it was empty.

 

hi guys

anyone knows when the intel x18-m 160gb will be available in the market?

 

It's in the market already:

http://www.techonweb.com/products/productdetail.aspx?id=A03HJD&src=FG

P/N: SSDSA1MH160G1

 

I'm curious about the SLC Vertex, because while it has poorer 4k writes than the X25-E, it has better 4k reads, if the preliminary benchmarks are to be believed. How would this contrast manifest itself?

 

Due to different optimizations in the controllers?

 

does anyone try Win 7 RC? I heared that it has building TRIM function. I have no time to install win7 RC, so wish any1 here can confirm this.

 

No no, I mean in what real world settings would you notice the results of better 4k reads as opposed to 4k writes

 

wondering what will daveperman have to say about this one

 

A very informative thread indeed. Thanks NBR for keeping us in the loop in terms of the relatively newer SSDs!

 

guys

what is the difference (besides form factor) between 1.8" and 2.5"? I read somewhere that 1.8" has a lower lifespan than 2.5"... or something like that.

is there a premium for buying 1.8" instead of 2.5"?

any advice?

 

1.8" has a micro-sata connection. that is different to normal sata connections like on 2.5". adapters are rare and cost a bit.

 

"Status: Ship within 2~3 weeks"

looks like not-really-available-yet.

sadly.

then again, i'm not in stress, the sammies are a great thing for waiting for intel and i'm moving to my new living-place in a week or two, so i've other stuff to go. maybe during the summer i switch to intel? maybe..

my next goals: setting up the new homeserver for the new living place, and getting a media center for hdtv and blueray. i'm thinking of the hfx micro.. then i'll be happy to have too much ssd's around anyways, so i can pop one in there..