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

Do you guys think the OCZ Summit 60GB would be a better choice than the X25-M because of the better write times, TRIM support, and price?

 

you dont need the extra 20gb and the higher 4K speeds, then the summit should be a pretty good drive.

 

Definite win if price is concerned.

 

interestingly not when i look at newegg. the intel 80gb costs the same pergb as the vertex or summit. 60gb variants.

 

Personally, I would go for the X25-M. If you are considering a drive that small, I would imagine all you really want it for is to load an OS onto and run applications off of (correct me if I am wrong). If that is the case, even though the Intel has the slowest write speed by far (compared to the new SSDs in the market now), it will perform the best in this scenario (disclaimer: I speak only from the many, many reviews I've read, NOT from my own experience). Its read speeds meet or exceed those of other drives, and it's almost unbeatable when it comes to IO performance.

The thing to keep in mind, though, is this: Intel is apparently about to launch new SSDs. We don't know when (except that it is soon) and we don't know the specs. The X25-M does NOT have TRIM support built-in, and although it could be provided as a firmware update, speculation abounds on the net that Intel *may* decide to include it in its new drives only (as far as I understand, they have not confirmed either way).

Now, as for the OCZ Summit, it is widely acknowledged that Samsung does not provide firmware flashing capability for its drives - so if you get old firmware with your drive, tough luck. However, OCZ *may* put a utility together which will allow you to flash the drive in the future, to enable TRIM support (which is NOT included in the current firmware). However, I have not come across any confirmation either way (that the Summit will be flashable). Another caveat to be aware of is if you are running your SSD in a laptop and you do not have the option to choose IDE vs. AHCI mode for your drive... The OCZ Vertex's firmware flasher has issues with some computers that can only run in AHCI - the fix is to take the drive out and put it into another computer (which is a real hassle, IMHO). Anyway, I'm just mentioning this because it is something I am considering - if I get a Summit and can't use the OCZ firmware updating utility (if it is released), then it will be a real pain to get the new firmware on there. To be fair, the Intel may also have some issues with AHCI, but I have not read about them (and I don't think the firmware update instructions explicitly ask you to switch to IDE like they do for the Vertex).

 

from my experiences so far, intel is the best drive. TRIM will be nice in the future, means for all win7 users. but I prefer a drive that can handle it's work perfect without trim (but still hope for trim support, then, too). and intel works awesome in that respect.

but yes, just wait for next week, then some new intels should pop up if the rumours are true, which we all hope, and then all will change again maybe.

but there is no price-difference between the 60GB samsung and indilinx drive and the 80GB intel drive => i would go for the intel. for the storage, and for the trust in knowing that intel may do the most to get the stuff working great. they are a big and great computer related company

 

What are the big differences between running my Intel SSD-E on Xp versus Vista or W7? I am, how badly am I shooting myself by running XP on this baby/

 

It is a shame that Dell doesn't get their listings right That is what I was talking about and it is indeed the Sammy.

Not only is the description wrong but the picture is also!

 

it should work great. intel has tested it's drive with xp, it should have no issues. but you're putting a soon 8 years old os on one of the fastest disks existing. this disk makes even vista fast (for all the ones that think it's slow me not included). so the only real limitation you'll do to yourself is, to not advance and experience the new and nice world of a very fast vista or win7, that is, besides being very fast, a great os that offers much more usability than xp.

but it should run well. provided, you get it to install with sata drivers, or so.

 

I loaded XP onto my SSD because I just LOVE it, and my most important software I use with work was having issues with Vista. They say the bug is out of it now, but I just wanted to wait. I loved Vista to be honest with you, except for work. I am wanting to just move on over to W7 when it comes out. I have the download key now, but it's just going to start shutting down soon if I remember correctly.

Though it is nice having near blinking eye boot times sometimes!

 

to everyone it's own but i wouldn't want to have to go back to xp ever again. win7 is no topic for me yet. i wait till it's out, maybe then it will be okay enough for me. it's the first os that is meh for me, and not yay, drop the old crap

 

So, I guess it's safe to assume the next time I come on here you want me running Vista.

I will admit I am dying to try this Intel with Vista. My laptop was not made for speed, but for earthquakes. I ran a bunch of bench tests the other day and I was one of the top spot for writing & reading in the comparisons. I was all gippy!!!

 

if you have the minimum specs for vista, yes (you do have some gpu/onboardthingy that can do dx9, don't you? i don't know toughbooks features exactly).

but if so, yes, go for it.

 

Will do that and post results, but first have a lunch and take a nap.

Just to add: IT IS FASTER!!!

Video showing boot times

I have some more videos and will add them in future.

 

Not sure where you got your numbers. From today's newegg:

Intel x25-M 80 GB: $314, or $3.93/GB
Corsair (Samsung) 128 GB: $326, or $2.54/GB
SuperTalent (Samsung) 64 GB: $173 or $2.70/GB

Note that the Samsung 128GB MLC has a significantly higher write speed than the 64GB version: 200MB/s vs 120MB/s.

 

Actually 64 GB version has 160 MB/s write.

 

Not according to Samsung:

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/products/flash/ssd/2008/down/PB22-J.pdf

 

Yes, I know what Samsung say and can't see a reason why You don't trust ATTO results for my MasterDrive SX 64 GB.

 

interesting to see that a rebranded samsung can go faster than what the official stats say. Maybe they tweaked the firmware to allow for more write speed.

 

i only looked at OCZ as the name summit got stated. there i checked vertex and summit. both are at around the same pricepergb as the intel. sorry for not checking the others i feel ashamed.

 

Because not everyone reports the same write speeds. Similarly, someone testing the 128 GB version may see a speed higher than the 200MB/sec spec. The point is that the 128 GB version is significantly faster.

 

Well, the OCZ Summit is selling for $349 for their "120GB" version, which is the same size as others' 128 GB. The Summit "60GB" is going for $206. So yes, they are slightly higher than the equivalent ones, but still quite a bit cheaper than the Intel on a $/GB basis.

If you're in the US and you shop around a bit, you can easily find the Samsung 128GB MLC selling for about $310. The best price I have found for the Intel is about $310 also, but it's for the 80GB. Still a big difference in $/GB.

I have been following prices closely. If the Intel 80GB can be had for $200 or so, or if Intel introduces a new SSD at an equivalent price point, I will jump in. I think it will happen sometime this year.

 

are you talking to me ?!?!

I didn't say that Intel is not faster than samsung, it is, with no doubt, but Intel had some performance degradation issues and had to fix them ( daveperman called that "bug" ), and samsung didn't
that's the thing that I was trying to point out...

and, the part where dave is pointing that intel is much more snappy then sammy in everyday use...well, it depends what is he meaning by everyday use...
if it is surfing and e-mail checking, winamp, movies...I really can't imagine that something is working faster in such situations than my laptop is working now...

but, if everyday use is photoshop, movie editing, once-per-week-OS-instaling, than, in those situations, dave has a point

but really, I mean, opening my windows explorer with WIN+E button combination or displaying a content of the partition or folder itself, I mean, sometimes I have feeling it pops up even before I click my mouse button...

 

that is everyday usage, all of it


you know the difference between a bug and a feature? they stated it works, and for some very tiny fraction of cases it didn't.

jmicron never stated it works, and it never worked on ALL OF THEM.

that's a big difference. the intel problem was overblown massively by the internet crowd. it was very hard to first find out how to actually reproduce because it normally never happened.

 

I must have messed up a 2 and a 3 somewhere, then.. at least it looks like it crap.



i hope it happens next week, want to jump into "all intel ssd" next week. not that i afford it, but i want to

 

I think tommyb was referring to me

I respect all of dave's work with SSD's but he is truly sticking up for Intel quite a bit. So the benchies say it is not marginally faster and then Dave will say that the day to day use is "snappier" which in itself is highly subjective.

I like the Intel drives too but I think the PB22-J has much more value for the price.

There are always going to be people that favor one or the other. I just try an point out the value side of things

 

i started to fall in love with the mtron ssds. they where not that fast compared to a hdd with only 100MB/s read/write speed more or less.

still, it was night and day. but my notebook was too slow for ableton live, so i got the new version of it. from a 1.2ghz c2d to a 1.86ghz c2d, from ide to sata (finally).

the result: i got a 128gb sammy with similar numbers as the mtron, and it was just bad in comparison. i got a faster notebook, a faster bus, and a similar (from numbers) ssd. the result: it was much slower. slower boot times, slower app starts, just every click was not that responsive. and all that, compared to an ULV 1.2ghz core2duo, which is the slowest c2d existing.

then i got a newer sammy, one with 200MB/s readwrite as stated. the result: it felt IDENTICAL to the 128gb version, even while in benchmarks, it WAS twice as fast. still, the old notebook with the tiny 32gb mtron with half the speed was much faster sidebyside.

then i got the intel.. now the mtron sucks

so it's not "just highly subjective". i had them side by side. samsungs are still great, but nothing for me. snappiness is highly subjective, but as well highly important for feeling the speed.

so even while the samsung is more cheap, it does, at the same time, just not deliver the same experience as the expensive ones. => it's a value oriented, slow ssd from my point of view. the intel is worth the more money you have to spend on it. definitely.

 

I don't know...

After reading this it's hard to imagine that the X25-m was faster.....

 

why? it's still fast enough to get bestmarks.

btw, in BENCHMARKS, it performs as delivered. and it is much faster than a hdd. it's just much less fast responding to requests as an intel. and you can feel this right after the first seconds. but from measurements, we're talking milliseconds at most here. but they change the whole feeling on the disk.

i would suggest the samsungs for netbooks for example.

okay that was hard

 

So you can notice the difference in .01ms?

You are definitely a unique individual then

Also, are you testing side-by-side with exact same systems, specs, and conditions?

 

I'm quite sensible to small differences in fps, too, so yeah, maybe I'm quite unique.. then again, we all can easily detect those differences. it just depends on if you actually care about them, or not. i'm quite sensible (independent on ssd tech, but ssds fits well into that issue ) to it in general. movies, streamings, music, djstuff. i detect smallest stutterings and i'm definitely very quickly pissed off by them

 

It's funny because I was just thinking that your unique talent would be best suited in entertainment (dj, producer/editor, etc).

I know it's off-topic but if you don't mind me asking what do you do for work?

 

tomy b is my brother, so, actually, I KNOW he was referring to me




I've never tried my sammy in desktop pc, it's only in my lapy...

dave, now I wish that we could meet and test our drives head 2 head

 

If You use Google You can find that Samsung 64 GB (MMCRE64G5MXP-OVB) has same read and write speeds and rebranded ones.

That is because 128 GB and 256 GB versions are faster then 64 GB.

Just take a look at PDF file You gave us.

I was referring to everyone who was saying that Samsung is snappier and didn't play with Intel.

 

Finally got my 60Gb OCZ Summit, and upgrading from 120gb 5400rpm Hitachi drive I must say this is a ridiculous perfomance upgrade.

I also gained at least 15min on my 6-cell, and notebook is noticably cooler when browsing, nice.

Best 200$ I've ever spent on notebook goodie, period.

There are a couple of things that are annoying, though. OCZ managed to build a _rattling_ SSD that consists of monolithic aluminium(magnesium?) shell and a bunch of chips attached to PCB. You read that right, they had a total of _two_ parts to assemble, and they were too cheap to add a drop of glue so that thing wouldnt rattle.

My notebook also started emitting high-pitched whine when accessing data from disk, or could be that I just started hearing it right now.

And last, but not least - why, oh why is it 1.5mm WIDER than a HDD? Who's idea was that? Thank you OCZ for 20 minutes of my time spent butchering HDD's bracked to fit the thing inside.

Thumbs up to everyone here, your posts helped me decide on buying and it's fantastic. Great information in this thread.

 

I shouldn't say this but it's too easy..... You should have gotten an Intel:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

 

Hey guys, I'm looking to upgrade my MBP with a 256GB SSD. Which one do you recommend and @ what prices?

Thanks

 

Dave, Yes I can handle Vista with no problems at all. Toughbooks come with Vista and XP Pro as a downgrade. So, basically I have both full OS discs. I just swap as I like.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010150636 1421446019&name=256GB

Theres the majority of your 256GB choices.

The only one i can personally recommend is the Supertalent Ultra drive. Its pretty solid. I've been using one as my main drive and i'm very impressed. Others will have more opinions for you though.

 

SLC SSD question:

I was looking at this on http://www.storagesearch.com/foremay-2009-july.pdf and I went so far as to contact the company. Based on the specs and what I got from corresponding, here's what I got

260MB / sec Read
250MB / sec write
42,000 random Read IOPS
41,000 random write IOPS
available up to 256GB in size with SLC.

I've been doing research on high-end enterprise SSDs because as much as I want to believe that Intel has the fastest overall (mixing R and W and IOPS @ random), wouldn't it be ideal to have NO cache to reduce latency when dealing with large files? (I deal a LOT with music files in .wav format, photo scans at high-resolution (hence why I'm doing an 8GB job as well for RAM), and I want to be able to have everything open and start up at a moment's notice.)

What does having no cache really mean, and if I can get a sample to review, would it be worth the time / effort to see what it really can do?

Jason

 

1st picture:



SSD was new, out of box



2nd picture:



after killing SSD with IOmeter and some strange setting



3rd picture:



20 minutes after killing it



4th picture:



40 minutes after killing it


Every later picture shows almost the same results as 4th so no need to post them.

Strange is that random writes for 512 KB files didn't go back all the way. My opinion is that this happened because before I run IOmeter I filled whole SSD three times with some movies just to get it to used state, but as I said, it is just my opinion.
My bad I didn't run Crystal Disk Mark after getting it to used state and before running IOmeter, so it will remain mystery for ever.

BTW: ATTO didn't show any difference before and after IOmeter. Actually reads and writes are showing 163.5 and 234 MB/s. (don't have a screenshot to prove it)

 

Hey, I have been starting to look into upgrading my Compal FL90 i thought about going the easy route with the Kingston V-Series SSD Upgrade kit, but saw how much slower it was compared to other SSDs available on the market. I am mainly looking for something that is in the 120 GB size range. My current HD is 160 GB and I've about half of it.

Any suggestions? I saw a Intel x25-M 128 for $500, but I'm not sure if I'm willing to shell out that much cash. And people have been saying the OCZ Summit series is good but cheaper. This laptop has served be well but I am still looking to replace it in about 2 or 3 years so I doubt I will be getting going for the Intel X25s

 

I have the G.Skill Titan 256GB. I recommend buying something else, this thing runs hot and uses as much power as a regular HDD. And it still stutters from time to time. I'm planning to buy a Samsung PB22-J.

 

Looks like Partiot memory is offering a 10 year warranty on all their SSD products: http://www.patriotmemory.com/produc...8&group=Torqx M28 Solid State Drives&catid=21


http://www.patriotmemory.com/company/news/newsp.jsp?source=176.

 

That's ballsy stuff right there. Their Torqx line uses an Indilinx controller so right now even a 10% price premium over OCZ or G.Skill may be worth it for over 3 times the warranty length.

 

Think about where technology will be in 10 years? Who is still using a HDD with the tech that was prime 10 years ago? God only knows what we will be discussing in 10 years.

I would put a 10 year warranty on most computer components if I was a manufacture just to stand out from the crowd.

 

The unknown in SSD longevity is how long the controller will last - 3 years might not do it.

 

What's wrong w/ the Samsung? It might not be THE top peformer, but it's cheaper and more cost effective.

Samsung/Corsair P/OCZ Summit (all the same, check for sequential speeds of 220/200MB/s R/W), check Newegg for latest pricing.

Not many people need the latest technology. Several enterprises still use 10 year old SSDs.

Is the Torqx M28 line Samsung controller based?

 

Indilinx, if this thread can be trusted (And by the looks of the rest of their info, it's accurate).

 

Torqx M28 isn't the same as the Torqx. According to the specs from Patriot, 220/200 MB/s R/W and 128MB cache (sounds like OCZ's Summit), leads me to believe it's a Samsung. Btw, if anyone is interested, seems to be really cheap at Dell:

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/...etail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=341-8981

256GB Samsung for $480 (down from $700, and retail for same is around $600)! Cheaper than any of the other companies on Newegg. I believe some people in the Dell forum confirmed this was the Samsung 2nd gen, despite the pics and poor description.