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

Well, you do have a point. But as I see many more people doing tweaks and then moaning about how bad their system performs, how it's unstable, etc, the general result is, you learn one thing: don't. ever.

as long as you don't ever need the page file, it does NOT hurt to have it on. that is what I stated, and that is what is true, and that is why I continue to state it. it is NOT true on XP. it IS on vista.

and even while it's NOT true on XP, having an ssd makes the issue that small that you won't notice it (on a hdd, you do).

so all performance GAIN from disabling it is 100% placebo in any normal use case. why do you want a placebo that may bite you in the *** the day you may need it? answer: to make you feel better, to make you feel "in control" of your system, and to make you feel more intelligent and knowledgeable.

look at all the tweaks existing out there, like the superfetch registry tweaks. microsoft stated those registry entries where for XP and don't EVER GET USED on vista. still, people apply them and say it makes a difference. which simply can not be true.

same for most other stuff.

and it's scary to see knowledgeable people with years of real experience still state that, and not doing their job by learning how the os evolved in all those years.


Not being in sync with all the others, not being the "iphone is best because all say it is" sheep mode does always mean people argue against me, telling me obviously does not make me "the cool guy". but i don't care, i never was a sheep. what i am:

a user
a power user
a supporter
a programmer
a special user (dj and such)
and a system admin

(and all of that in a home environment, and two work environments)

and all of those since a while. does that make me smart and all? not at all per se.

but it does help at one thing: coming from all of those points of views (including working directly with microsoft and once russinowich to fix complicated bugs, one in superfetch) gives me a very balanced view.

it shows me why stuff that users moan about are the way they are, and why it's often good that way. UAC being one, superfetch being one, pagefile being one. I've seen so much cases where the pagefile was helpful, and only one, where it isn't (and this isn't the case on vista anymore. sadly it still is on my xp at work ).

I only try to help in this forum, as you all may notice. I'm quite bad at that sometimes But I still try. And one part I try to do that is myth busting.

There are tons of myths in the computer business that may have been true, but aren't at all anymore. A lot of people still bring up the jokes of win98 days about blue-screens all day and all that. and they can never prove that it's true nowadays anymore. Because it just isn't. most of the myths about optimisation are in the same boat. vista changed under the hood completely away from xp, so all that was true in xp has to be re-examined. and in most cases, isn't anymore.

I hope to still get fun and interesting and for everyone useful discussions on this board

and now I hope for some big new SDD news actually. nothing new on the horizon? want new stuff to spend my money on uselessly

BTW, about selling my not-anymore-used SSDs. I have to wait a bit to get all Intel babies, I can't yet sell them yet

 

I think we're more on the same page now. I do agree a lot of the tweaks you can find in the OCZ forums are rather excessive.

 

I've been looking at the Samsung spec sheets for their MLC and have come up with the following:

The chips in the Vertex, Falcon, Ultradrive Titan are K9HCG08U1M-PCB0
8GB speed:25ns Package: TSOP1 lead free 48 pin Commercial Temperature

The chips in the Summit, P256 and Samsung are K9MDGZ8U5M-SCK0. They are not on the Samsung website however I was able to guess or decode some of their nomenclature: The code is closest to K9MDG 08U5M-PCB0
From what I could guess the MDG are only used for 128Gbit=16GB, 50ms
The packaging is TSOP lead free and halogen free. (newer "greener" packaging)
The post in this forum is wrong about what is in the new samsung drives: http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=781651
I wonder if anyone has more info.

Edit:
Summit 120GB has K9 HCGZ8U5M- SCK00 x16
Corsair S128 has K9 MDGZ8U5M- PCK00 x8.

It looks like the MD designates the double stacked chip which has 16GB.
HC is for the single layer.

SCK00

S is for the new packaging as opposed to the P.
C is for the temperature spec
Still wonder about the speed

 

Indeed. I do agree those tweaks helped the poor people that got a core, or core2.

BUT the reason we all want a good SSD is great performance (and all the other facts like silence, shock-resistance, etc), and that's why we buy it. so there is a HUGE dislike of tweaking to me. if i go out and buy something expensive, tweaking should not only not be required, it should be mentally forbidden.

before having an SSD, i looked at all sort of performance tweaks. that's how i found out about SSDs actually. and you know what? they delivered. and suddenly all tweaks that may or may not be a little more than placebo just dropped away.

yep, the pagefile could hurt the performance (say, XP on an SSD). but still, it will perform so much better than on a HDD in that moment, that it doesn't matter.

that's what this thread is for: ssds. and what are ssds for? making your system fast. and what is that for? making the search for crazy placebo tweaks finally a thing of the past.

thanks to the SSD, i have a system that is in some cases 30x faster than it was before, or more (i have one specific example, where it is 30x faster than before, so i can state it without making up numbers. but i guess with the intel now the gap got even more wide). no tweak that even affects system performance can come close to that. some tweaks may give a 2x speed in booting, or such.

one simple example from a different situation: thanks to my SSDs, installing win7 did NOT give me a single performance gain. so all the tweaks that went into making win7 faster are useless for my SSDs. how can random reg tweaks or pagefile tweaks then help? answer: they can't.

 

Hi folks. Thanks for all the discussion in this thread, it's been helpful as I tried to decide on a drive. Anybody know anything about the Super Talent Masterdrive SX? I just ordered the 64GB one from Newegg and I'm wondering what to expect.

 

It is a Samsung controller. Similar to the Corsair.

 

if you raid0, it would be 160gb. if you raid1, it would be 80gb, but if one fails, the system still works.

i don't know which version of acronis true image it uses..

 

Well, I ordered the P128 Corsair drive from Scan this morning. They just took stock of some. I couldn't bring myself to ask my friend from the US to help me out. She usually does but she just had a baby 2 months ago and has another two kids under four. I don't want to be dragging her to the PO just for me right now.

I should get the drive on Monday. I hope I think it was well worth it when I get it.

 

you know there is a 160gb intel ssd. no need for raid0ing. with a big chance, there won't be a real speed gain, even while one could measure some gain..

 

yep thats the thought, but it depends a bit..

 

.

 

Depends on what your usage it. Say you want the speed boost for loading a large level in a game, RAID0 can be ~2x as fast. If you are dealing with mostly small file reads and writes your latency is what matters and a single drive will be slightly faster. Dave will correct me if i'm wrong J/k

 

I would, but you're right. another thing: a raid controller means additional boot time as it has to initialize itself first. so for boot speed, it will mostly be slower, then.

and it only can be 2x as fast for stuff like game loading. doesn't mean it has to. that depends on the raid controller. 2x 240MB/s would mean the raid controller should be able to do close to 500MB/s. if he can, say 300MB/s, you have payed the two disks for (close to) nothing.

in the end, I'd say a single Intel is fast enough in most cases. and one could later then add another 160gb one if storage is not enough, or performance isn't... (isn't that a great plan. yes, that's my plan in the back ).

anyways, i have a raid0. i prefer single-drive solutions.. (still love my raid 0)

 

I got my Corsair P128 today. I posted some test results in this thread below.
My HD still needs some time to settle.
When it settles it might be possible for me to hit those promised read 220MB/200MB write speeds.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4982040&postcount=728

Access time bothers me more than anything though.
Things feel a bit faster to me right now.

 

Those numbers do appear to be a bit off.

Your access time should never be 3.2 though
0.2 is acceptable though. Its really only the intels that break into the less than 0.1 catagory still using MLC flash. My Supertalent gets 0.2 to 0.1 according to how it feels when i'm running the test.

As to your read/write speeds. They will never hit the advertised. But only being 14 and 18 MB/s(respectivly) slower in sequentials is quite good

 

Thanks Kamin Majere, i think/hope that the 3.2 was a one of. My three other tests after that all reported 0.2. The read/writes are pretty solid. I notice a bit of a difference in the boot up times.
I don't do anything too demanding with my laptop. All i really do is office work and websurfing so i won't reap some of the real benefits.
Upgrading to Win 7 in the near future will also help boost my performance for the SSD drive.

 

Might have been a glitch in the program.

Yeah i'm not really a power user either, but my programs install lightening fast and i LOVE being able to open 374MB worth of Excel work almost instantly with out having to wait forever for my hard drives to figure it all out.

Hope you enjoy your drive though, i know i didnt need one but i'm loving my SSD

 

Holy crap! Those numbers are still slow??! I didn't even know we were up to 200 mb write speeds for mid end MLC flash yet!!

 

Rachel???? Holy Smoke!!!Been a long time.. Hello!!

Ooops sorry to crash the thread...Got a new ssd coming with my Studio 13 - 128Gb...

 

My only excuse is it was my birthday! I did it again, bought a drive I could not afford. So, have a look. Free shipping for anyone here.

http://cgi.ebay.com/OCZ-Summit-120GB-SSD-solid-state-drive-2-5-inch-MLC_W0QQitemZ330339123842QQcmdZViewItemQQptZPCC_Drives_Storage_Internal?hash=item4ce9bf0282&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A3|66%3A4|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A200

I am a nut. I do know that. Sure was nice while it lasted. Still cannot get my mind around the fact there are no moving parts in my computer save the fan. WOW. Dave Hey Les, what is up?

 

Difference between 7mm and 9.5mm Intel 160GB SSD?

Hey folks, can anyone share what's the difference between the two? I think I got a 9.5mm one (SSDSA2MH160G1C5 - 'C5' model are 9.5mm I believe). Would it be a problem fitting into the hdd bay of my lappy? Need special caddy?

:\

 

hankaaron57 , i have a 32GB SLC Samsung drive in my Sony TX. When i upgraded that and installed Vista i didn't see that much difference at all. However, when i installed XP my laptop was like 100% faster than it was using the standard drive in XP.
Everything was instant.

This new drive feels faster than my old one in my SZ, it kind of mirrors my experiences above in a way. Like i said i'm not a power user so some of the major advantages i won't report on. I don't have any regrets with my new drive though.
I will soon updrade to W7 when it is relased.

Les you did it lol. I read your post that you was trying to talk Dell into this. I wish i had that gift. Well done and I hope you enjoy your new laptop and speedy SSD drive.

 

actually it should fit just fine. 7mm is already thinner than most 2.5" HDDs.

 

maybe the 7mm version does not have a casing? just the green board with the chips on it, and the 9.5mm one has a metal casing?

my one (1.8") has a metal casing. the samsung one i had didn't. i could theoretically fit two samsungs in the height of that one intel...

i can't wait for the day where ssd's look and get plugged in like ram today i like the green-with-chips

 

I don't understand 100%? so back to hdd for you, or what?

btw, i have pc's with no moving parts at home right now. no fan it's fun when you don't notice turning it on or off at all

 

Is there such a thing as a lifespan on an SSD? I've seen on some SSDs (forgot what name it was ) have about 1 million write cycles on their specs. Any explanations for this?

 

not 1 million write cycles, maybe you're confusing MTBF with write cycles?

IIRC, MLC is around approx 10k, whereas SLC can be up to 100k.

Unlike HDD's though, you can still read the data, you just can't write to those cells anymore, they aren't like "bad sectors" on an HDD.

 

Like the mini PCI-e SSD's?

 

it is a thinner casing. Transcend provided OCZ and CFD with OEM PATA 32gb SSDs and those were thinner than the usual 2.5" HDD, casing included.

 

Ah, must be a desktop if no fan. What about the power supply fan?

I am trying to get a small business off the ground, and just cannot take a $400 item right now. I guess the only good news is that by going back to my WD 320GB Black, I will for sure feel how much faster the SSD was. In other words, a direct comparison. I am already thinking Intel next Dave

 

I know your pain about the small business. I hope you succeed!

If all goes well you'll be back into the realms of SSD's before you know it.

 

Thanks for the confidence! I can definitely use it

 

This is slightly off topic, but what kind of small business are you running Cape?

 

Well, this is it, but I am redoing the whole site ASAP...

www.capecodbackup.com

It will have the ability for clients to sign up for services and/or products. Trying to focus on my core strengths, along with work that I can do remotely at least a large part of the time.

 

Did you make the site yourself? It looks very clean and nice.

 

In the following review, the OCZ Summit has very poor random writes IOPS scores:

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.p...sk=view&id=333&Itemid=60&limit=1&limitstart=7

Yet the reviewer did not state that as a con in his conclusions. Is the Summit or the Corsair P128 (Samsung 2nd gen MLC) really that bad?

 

This one I made, starting with a template. Thanks. It just is not quite what I am looking for, so I am having someone work up a newer design. Man, I forget how much work it is to get a good site up and running

 

Kind of surprising, anyone here run some IOPs tests on it? I didn't think it was that bad.

 

I read the article and the reviewer said "Iometer indicated a random read and write IOPS in the low 730's, which is well above most MLC products tested. " It is not fantastic but it is still better than most.

Summit is using samsung controller so I am not expecting it to be blazing fast, but I do expect it to be stable.

 

My Samsungs have been stable since I bought them 4 months ago.

 

HDTune and IOMeter seem to report vastly different IOPS numbers for random writes, if the reviewer is correct.

 

I can attest to the stability. No way would I know I had an SSD unless I put it in there

 

Cape,
Are you planning on going back to an SSD once prices go down/finances go up?

 

Not sure about that one.

Wasnt there a discussion earlier about IOPS above a certain threshold, it doesnt affect the endusers? As in endusers do not see the difference.

 

Yes, ABSOLUTELY! I know these drives are the future. Mine has not sold yet on eBay. Had an offer, but not enough. It will not be long before prices on these beauties are down. I am very curious as to where they will be for the upcoming holiday sales season???

 

yes. it would drop the sata-being-maybe-a-bottleneck-ever, and would just look too cool (and no useless weight on boxings and all).

 

I like your business, I plan for a similar idea (deploying Home Servers to all Houses in my case ). Wish you good luck! Hope it goes all well.

 

You too, thanks. I have a plan for a nice web site that a guy is working on now. Lean and mean.

 

I forgot to reply to that: No Power Supply Fan. all fanless. I only hear the humm of the two 1tb HDDs. Check my sig for pics

 

thought u said no moving parts