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

and you said that was the second gen controller w/ the read/write sequentials around 200mb/s?

 

no, that was the 100MB/s one. the 220MB/s one i have is enclosed in some funky shiny (in the end 100% useless) box.

 

Or some form of adapter that will accept 2 sata ports to connect to 1 sata port

I like it... wonder how much cooler it stays with out the casing around it. A good bit i would assume

 

haven't had an ssd that wasn't "just cool all the time" so no clue. but it has a bit more air to breathe.. if it needs to.

 

I have a question. Which is more beneficial: Moving the temp/tmp folder to another hard drive to reduce the wear/tear on the ssd OR keep the temp/tmp folder on the ssd? I also did the same to firefox's cache.

 

I'm not so sure about. If the casing makes contact with the chips it'd provide better cooling with case. This is because aluminum is a great at moving heat, which effectively gives the chips a larger area to radiate away their heat. Without a case it radiates directly into air, and air is a very poor conductor of heat. Still though, as cool as non-OCZ ssds run, heat may not be an issue.

 

same as always: DON'T DO ANYTHING. just let the ssd be like any ordinary hdd. don't even think that much about it. a cache on an ssd performs much faster (as you can access the cache faster).

wear and tear is an overhyped problem on ssds, due some bad ssds that got released. normally, a hdd dies much more often than an ssd due to wear and tear.

 

I use a RAM drive... but unless you're really writing a lot of files and data all the time it's not really a big deal.

 

I have a question. I'm curious to know how long a full Symantec or Norton virus scan would take on let's say an OCZ Vertex? Obviously it will be different depending on the amount of data stored, but how about an average? Will it cut down on time?

 

I am not sure if such a device exists, and even if it did, it would make the entire fit quite difficult but most importantly, you do not want to split SATA port bandwidth this way (even if it were possible). We are already coming up against SATA2 limits, two SSDs in tandem (assuming they could be RAID-0) would easily break the SATA2 barrier and be capped (ThinkPad style). That is why there are typically 2-4 SATA ports even on laptop motherboards, though we see just two, at best.

If one were to do this, it would be best to take the connection straight from the mainboard though that would clearly take some hacking, and pure passion for such things. It's been done.

 

Oh man, the X25 is now $315 @ newegg.

Give it a couple of months and it will be at $250. Come September, I would be shocked if it's not $250 or less.

$250 for the the X25 would be something man....

 

That would awesome! Y you gotta get people excited over speculation?

 

Dunno if this has been discussed before, but I just noticed that there is a OCZ Vertex Mac edition (120GB), which costs $519 ie a $120 premium over the regular Vertex. Is there really a difference between these 2 drives, or just a cheap way of making money/ scamming mac newbies

Edit: Talking about newegg prices - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227434

 

Mac people will pay a premium for any product with the word "Mac" anywhere in the item description =)

I dunno, I doubt there is any difference, at least any difference worth paying more for.

 

From the horse's mouth, no difference.

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=55269

 

dang, sounds like we need to get into the Mac peripheral business.... Start buying up some SSDs in bulk and wrapping new boxes/packaging around them.

I also use a RAMfs for /tmp on Linux. It makes even more sense on Windows since Windows doesn't automatically clean up the temp folder on shutdown or reboot, so it just keeps on growing if you don't clean it up.

 

Don't know if someone mention this, but as I remember there was some words that said if crew form OCZ make FW for Vertex with lover r/w, than IOPS will go up.
My opinion is that out there is lot of people with notebooks that are limited to SATA-I and what I want to say is that if someone is in contact with OCZ crew and can ask them to make FW with max ~130 MB/s r/w but to maximize IOPS for people with SATA-I controllers. Probably SATA-I crew will be happy to have slower (lower r/w speeds), but faster SSD (more IOPS), because new, lover, speed is max they could reach before.

Hope someone understand what I mean.

 

It's been confirmed that they already have IOPS as high as they know how to make them. Lowering the read or write speeds wouldn't help.

 

I rather that they keep the current specs but lower pricing.

 

That was funny. And it was probably what OCZ was thinking

 

I figured that was the case first time I saw it, as I could not conjure up any reason it was mac specific, and I knew if it had some kind of general enhancement it wouldnt be marketed as the mac model but rather something different.

 

IF there's no difference between the usual Vertex and the Mac Vertex (and there doesn't seem to be), OCZ should have the good sense to not distribute the Mac Vertex with a huge markup thru e-tailers like Newegg, whose customer base is largely fairly tech savvy, and will pick up on the fact that its a scam. Will just spoil OCZ's reputation.

Best Buy, on the other hand, would be a good choice.

 

I believe they already have high IOPS, but why not make FW with lower r/w speed and higher IOPS if they can. Especially for those limited to SATA-I. At the end it's costumers choice to use FW what they like the most.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want them to use that FW for all drives, just to make it so costumers limited to SATA-I can use it if they want.

Lowering price is always good think!

 

Yeah! Go Me! Thats how much I got miens for 250.00 USB BRAND NEW. I keep it hush hush...

 

Did you not read what I wrote? OCZ has said [via Tony] that they don't know how to increase IOPS any further. There will be no such thing as SATA I firmware because it wouldn't have any benefits, IOPS are already as high as they can be.

 

60 gb vertex $179 with MIR from newegg

 

With as many people that ask if standard headphones are ipod compatible, it doesn't surprise me at all that a great number of mac users would expect a "mac" hard drive to be special.

 

I've read enough about mac harddrives beeing servergrade tested and proved.

it's quite funny

 

Still waiting on two rebates on OCZ Solid drives I bought back in mid-Feb.

 

ty 4 warning

 

you will probably get your money back faster from ebay cashback (10%) then ocz lol.

 

I have had only one problem with an ocz rebate where they said upc was not included when I know it was. I have received all others and there were many.

 

Toshiba Ships First Laptop with a 512 GB SSD
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Toshiba-Portege-R600-ssd-notebook,7802.html

 

I thought I'd ask this again...

 

Virus scan is pure read, so yes, it will be considerably faster.

 

60gb so small,

I found the 120GB for $307 after rebate, much better deal but didnt (and still dont) have the benjamins to hit "buy", it sold out pretty fast too.

 

That's what she said

256ish GB is my sweet spot. I would prefer 500-512GB so i could use it for storage and everything; but at 256GB i can have all of the applications i want and never have to worry about "trimming" what i normally carry around. Plus I can stick a 500GB drive in my second bay for storage

 

Im a storage hog, id be able to live with 120gb in my first bay and 500gb hdd in my 2nd bay since the W90 I have uses dual hdd's.

120gb should be enough for OS & all the games I want to play, and my programs.

If I had 200+gb SSD I would use it for photo/video work also, but I can do that on the HDD if I had to.

60gb though is like OS & 1.5games plus even for SSD $180 is not that cheap for the 60gb vertex, its ok the wait will reward me in the end with faster/better ssd or a reduction in price.

I hear the Vertex 2 is due this year.

 

Vertex 2 and Vertex EX is not the same thing?

 

dunno, I was going off what I read somewhere else.

 

I think the vertex 2 is supposed to be two vertexes in one, internal RAID. like Apex/Titan.

 

that new pci-e ssd from OCZ definitely has internal raid.

 

Yeah that SSD rocks, but its REALLY expensive and i'm still not sure you can boot from it. But man does it boast speed and capacity that are amazing

 

That actually brings me to a question I had been meaning to ask.

Raid 0 - its a over rated, often misunderstood beast.

"Split the data between two disk for double the speed"

Thats about as much most know about it, not knowing that the speed increase is only on large continuous files, that your access(seek) time nearly doubles, and also that if the file(s) your working with are too small it wont split between the drives actually causing the speed to be the same or slower than a single drive.

The SSD is destroying mechanical hdd's in greater part due to the .1ms seek time, not the pure throughput.

Raid 0 has the effect of doubling the throughput but doubling the seek time.


Since this is so low for SSD already, does that mean Raid 0 has no real negative effect on SSD? (other than if one sector fails it causes loss of data on all raided arrays)

Also is it possible that many SSD already use some form of internal raid that we just do not know about for this very reason, that it would give great speed boosts without any real noticeable negative effects.

Id see no reason why people wouldnt be doing this, if your 60gb vertex can do say 180mb/s read and 150mb/s write for the 120gb model why not just have to of the 60gb in raid 0 and nearly double those numbers.

Again it would not double them in all situations, just in where the files are large enough to split, but from a sales perspective they would sell more and since even if it only uses 1 SSD out of the array it would be so fast most laymen users wouldnt notice.

Edit: since it has been brought up I do not know for sure if raid 0 raises seek times, I read it a few days ago and it made sense. I have used raid 0 a few times and did not see any real life gains so I do not use it anymore.

If anybody knows for sure and can back up claims with some proof I would like to know what effect raid 0 has on seek/access times.

 

why does raid0 double the seek time? while the controller cannot do logic without using up some time, it doesn't mean by anything that he can't a) access both in parallel as well, and b) if he only has to access one (for small files) it will have about the same speed.

show me what you mean by doubling the access times.

 

It was something I just learned the other day, its not a double but it does lower seek time. I dont know why just passing on what I learned.

I guess one drive has to seek a file, then the other drive has to seek to find the other part of a file, and by the time its done it took longer had only a single drive only had to do one seek to find the file if it were not stripped.

Makes sense to me,

Despite that my only real question was, are there any negative effects to a SSD when in Raid 0?

Edit: upon further investigation im thinking that maybe it has more to do with the raid controller than anything.

Wikipedia says something about access time cutting in half in raid 0, but that makes it sound like its 2x faster, not 2x slower it was worded in an odd way though.

 

SSD's in RAID0 dont' seem to suffer as bad from the negative affects of RAID and seem to nearly if not double the speeds and is sometimes limited ony by the RAID controler. From what i've read...... If i can ever find another sammy slc for <$200 i'm gonna try it. if not looks like i'll just go with the high seq. MLCs for storage and games...

 

don't be silly, there's no such thing as high as it can be or high enough

it can always go bigger, better, faster, cheaper...you name it

 

It doesn't make sence to be slower as the raid controller should handle both disks in parallel. and the disks behave very similar (having the heads move nearly in sync) => you should never have to "wait for the slower disk" really.

but i'd guess it does depend on the controller. i've seen raid controllers doing raid0 style readback in a raid1 configuration for faster reads (up to the speed of raid0 yep) and faster access times (random accesses happened async on both disks, one for the "outer data", one for the "inner data"). was quite fun to watch the disks and how they balance the work.

the only thing that may be in an extreme latency-dependent case, that if you have f.e. an intel drive (85microsecs access time) and plug it into a not-that-well raid controller to have more storage, the added latency of the controller itself may reduce the performance quite a bit.

but in the end, both raid controllers and ssds are very fast. the only really noticable thing is the 2x as fast read/write speed. well, you can notice it when ever you actually max out your system.. which is.. in my case.. not really often.. (as most goes over the server, with a single gblan => 100MB/s... )

 

Hey folks, quick question: partition alignment doesn't actually improve performance on a first-gen Samsung MLC, does it?