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

Did you read that Anatec article closely? The TRIM support will happen soon and Windows XP and Vista users get a performance tool... but that's for the new drives. The article explicitly said the original X25 and it's users are SOL. That's pretty bad. I imagine more than a few of you guys are not happy

 

Why should owners of Gen1 Intels be unhappy. They still blow the competition away.

 

Because major SSD performance features that are coming soon will not be available to first-gen owners (who spent MAJOR bucks on these drives).

Not a good way to treat customers, IMO....

 

Sir, does this gesture mean I should sue all the past companies I made purchase of items from, because I had a lower performance computer from a few years ago compared to now?

 

You buy a product for its expected performance at the time of purchase...

 

Consider all the peeps that bought 1st gen SSDs from OCZ or other marketing companies with JMicron controllers. They paid big bucks and got a crap product. Should all these companies be obligated to do something for the early adopters?

Now also consider that JMicron has created a new firmware for the JMF602B controller that apparently increases the small random IOPS to a level that solves the stuttering problem. Yet, all the SSD companies haven't provided this firmware for their customers...only new customers buying the Kingston V-series drives.

 

I've been reading through the first + past couple of pages of this thread, and you guys seem to follow this stuff pretty closely. I've been thinking of getting a SSD for my m1530 in the very near future, but my budget's probably more along the lines of an OCZ Vertex rather than an Intel. In light of Intel's announcement, what do you guys suggest I'd do? I'm looking for a 64-80GB SSD between $150-250, if possible (and thanks in advance!)

 

there's really no reason not go to with intel now, unless the vertex price drops by half.

 

Which Intel would that be? This, or waiting til one of those new ones come out, or that price drops? haha

 

Obviously not. However, where the manufacturer can, quite easily, provide updated firmware, it should certainly do so. Further support of this argument is the fact that the new drives are apparently not that much different architecturally than the previous generation. So, this points to Intel deliberately holding back on existing customers (early adopters, no less) and that is just not right. It's not like Intel has a lack of funds. And they have to realize that if they screw existing SSD customers, those customers will NOT be supportive of Intel in the future (if they can help it). I don't root for OCZ because their product (Vertex) seems almost experimental, but if Intel screws this first generation SSD owner (I've only had it 4 days but that is neither here nor there) I will jump ship.

 

What do you mean...(If the Vertex is experimental then all of the SSDs out must be too) as far as I know my Vertex nor anyone else's has any issues. I could understand if you were speaking of the ones with the ever so popular JMicron controllers but the Vertexes and their Indilinx controllers has stand up to and held their own in the SSD market IMO.

Not to mention the very good support of the Vertex.

 

Well, that is just my opinion of the Vertex series. I mean some of them shipped with no firmware on them. That's pretty ridiculous. Apart from that, firmware is updated very frequently, implying it's not stable (although I will concede that it is a good thing that it is actively being developed). The "wiper" utility needs to be run almost constantly - that's pretty silly, IMHO. It's also provided with a disclaimer of potential data loss/corruption, and doesn't have great support for AHCI mode. Lastly, the firmware update process requires IDE mode. A lot of people - me included - do not have access to switch between AHCI and IDE. Now, I'm no expert, but from what I understand, it is not impossible to update firmware in AHCI mode, it's just that the firmware utilities have not been polished enough to support that.

Again, this is just my opinion and some of the reasons I decided to go with Intel over OCZ (and OCZ as a brand is just fine - their SATA II SLC drive holds its own again my Intel X25-M in terms of application load speed and all of my USB flash drives are OCZ).

 

I see. I will just state that it is not mandatory that Vertex users run the "Wiper" utility...it's a bonus to have such a feature IMO. Unlike other SSDs that don't have anything to try and maintain the drives while TRIM is being worked on. If firmware updating is an issue for the user in IDE mode then I guess that user shouldn't be using that SSD. Nevertheless, to each his own and everyone has their reasons for going one way or the other. Thanks for your response.

 

I was a bit confused by Intel because they did release a firmware update or two to appease early adopters. Sure, the most recent one did largely fix the problems necessitating Trim, but the drives are practically identical. You would think they would do that. It's not like expecting Samsung to allow firmware updates on its 2nd gen drives to perform like the most recent ones. I'm also surprised no one mentioned it after a couple pages back in the "wish list" posts Trim support and backporting to the gen 1 drives was pretty common.

 

Not so - this new revision does claim to have a new controller along with 34nm NAND chips.

 

About the firmware update from Intel (or lack thereof):

1) It would be nice to get the update for all the old drives

2) It is unneeded for both old and new drives. The drives perform just as well without TRIM.

3) Still, while they don't perform better or worse, as they're intelligent enough to re-TRIM themselves, it would reduce the workload for the disks, as it can then trim it's data as early as possible.

4) they have no reason to do the firmware update. it would just be nice.


and, btw, didn't it got stated, the controller is different? if so, maybe it would be a tad complicated to implement trim on the old ones? it would at least, then cost, a lot of work and time (testing, and retesting, and validating.. you never want, at any time, that a trim releases memory that wasn't free..)

always remember, work costs money, time costs money, testing does. maybe it's not just copypaste.

 

Dave, you know I am saving up for the new Intel 160GB

 

In the case of OCZ Core V2, which was specifically advertised as having upgradable firmware, I'd say YES, these companies are obligated to live up to the promises they made when they sold the products.

 

who isn't?

 

I sort of stopped following the thread as it was bad for my health to want things so bad I cant afford

But refresh me on this new movement on SSD Tech.

Intel has a new NM process refresh in the works, this will reduce the cost to them for the new units.

The new units will probably following standard rule of die shrink (I say die shrink as I am used to cpu terms) will run cooler and use less power.

But as a result currently the write speed is somewhat slower, but the read speed is about the same.

This new tech is going to cost less? or its supposed to make the old tech get price cuts? or both? thats my main confusion right now is where this cheaper price is supposed to be. In the new units or in the old ones.

 

the new tech will cost around
$240 for 80gb and
$440 for 160gb

 

It's the same as a CPU die shrink as you stated. Pretty much everything is better with a lower process - it costs less and can perform better (though there are a few exceptions to the "everything better rule" like the slight 10mW higher idle power).

 

160gb still too much cost but 80b not enough space, lol gah, need 120gb like the Vertex, its just right IMO.

 

nah, 120gb sucks. 160gb is much more if you need space, and if not, 80gb is enough (but 60 isn't, of course ).

obviously you have no clue!!

i'd like to see more size options myself as well.. but one can't have everything.. i would espencially like to see 40gb versions. for systems without local data, that would be cheap superspeed

 

all those existing 32gb drives are not enough but 40gb would be

 

See, if they release a 40GB versions, one would wonder whether its worth it over a 16GB Braidwood. You should be able to use Braidwood just like a regular SSD if you want to.

darQ96: Because the Intel drive is the fastest?

 

you and your braidwood stuff

16gb would not be enough, just as 32gb wouldn't be. 40GB would be, 80GB, 160Gb, and 320GB.

but everything else, or inbetween, wouldn't

bah

but more options would be nice, yep. how about a 640GB one? should be doable. 1280GB? maybe not yet.

still, they're great. now waiting how they impact the other vendors prices

 

Haha. But really, I believe in Braidwood a lot. Maybe a bit too much. But I think they know what to do to bridge the gap between HDDs and still-too-expensive SSDs.

It's pretty amazing we're still getting very few infos even with official introduction of the 34nm X25-M.

 

anandtech still waits for the disk. so they may not be send to the reviewers yet, or not yet delivered..

yep, you believe in brainwood way too much braidwood, sorry.

why? because it takes away every feature i love ssd for. and ssd's are not expensive. as i stated times and times before, if you plan to upgrade or replace your hw, get an ssd. it's cheaper, and you get more bang for the buck.

features lost by having a second hdd:
silence
stability while moving
simple one-fits all
no c:/d: etc.
no high performance no matter what you do (if you edit some large files, you have to copy them to the ssd, edit them, move them back to the hdd).

smaller ssds + homeserver networkdata in the gigabytes == best solution one can have

 

Saying SSD's are not expensive isn't quite accurate (at least for me it isn't). Unless your talking a 32GB which is worthless IMO ( are we back in 1996?)

I don't have mounds of cash to blow and you can get 1TB RAID 0 for a fraction of what a 256GB SSD would cost.

The SSD's are much faster and are worth the performance gains, but to say they aren't expensive is reaching...

 

It's funny to be that picky, but 120GB would be the perfect size and price for me as well. 80GB means no/few movies on my HDD. 160GB is way to expensive, though I could wait, but if you've seen my posts, I obviously don't want too. 120GB would be more than enough capacity and closer to the perfect price.

 

If so, then they have to release it sometime in the next 6 months. SSD prices are falling by more than a factor of 2 in less than a year. With this latest price drop, I believe it is now worth it to have an 80 GB SSD as the system drive for a desktop (with a separate drive for data). In a year, it will probably be quite reasonable to have a 250 GB one as the only drive in a laptop and alternatives will look progressively inferior from that point on.

 

Wow what a thread !

So Guys, if you have to choose a ssd right now that is really efficient in real world applications and not only during linear write/read benchies, which one would you choose ?

 

no, it isn't. how much have you payed for your laptop? how much do you plan on paying for your next one? don't buy your next laptop, buy an ssd instead. it's CHEAP and gains you MUCH MORE. and for the rest of the price, you can get a windows home server + 2tb or more of storage to host all your data storage needs you'll ever have (and gain backups, and usability gains of having a shared storage pool, etc).

it's NOT CHEAP if you just want to replace a hdd. but for that, no one buys an ssd. everyone in here knows that ssd are for much other things. they enhance the performance and thus usability of your system, they make it more shock resistant, and allow for 100% silent systems.

all that is worth very much, and to get there, ssd are the most cheap way (if not, the only existing way).

but yeah, putting ssds in my windows home server as storage disks, now that would be hell expensive.


just don't think of buying an ssd to replace a hdd for storage. think of it of getting a new gpu while having lived so far with an integrated chip, when gaming. it's like removing your atomprocessor and putting in a quadcore. etc.

it's a performance upgrade, and it's the best performance upgrade, with most gain for the buck, that exists.


so, no, sir, an ssd is cheap. but you have to know what you get for it.

and not everyone has the money to buy a whole new gpu or cpu just for enhancing the system. such people don't have that money for an ssd, just as well.

 

intel. 10char.

 

They are expensive relative to hard drives, but hard drives are the single greatest bottleneck of any modern system in every day usage so this really isn't saying much. Instead, try to compare it to the total cost of the system. For example, here is what I will be building around Christmas:

Processor: Intel Core i7 860: most likely $284
Motherboard: something between $100-150
Monitor: on the order of $200
RAM: on the order of $100

Given the total cost of the system, $200-250 for an SSD is not unreasonable.

 

btw, subtract to the cost of the ssd the cost of your hdd, as you "gain" that hdd, too.

i replaced my laptop hdd with an intel 160GB. have i lost that storage? internally, yes, but externally, no. so now i have (it's 1.8" sorry) 160GB + 120GB. external cases for hdds are cheap (not for 1.8", though).

and althernai. how about a gpu? and/or another hdd? those add to the cost as well, reducing/changing the costfactor of the ssd, too.

 

these are now available at certain vendors (prices vary), see below.

http://www.fadfusion.com/selection.php?product_item_number=10068600248
http://www.compsource.com/pn/SSDSA2MH080G2C1/Intel_211/
www.uarkcomstore.com/cart/look.php?item_id=5915313
http://www.costcentral.com/proddetail/Intel_80GB_X25M_SATA_25IN_95MM_SSD_DRIVE_GEN2/SSDSA2MH080G2C1/10898198/
http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=211487190

enjoy

 

Ok then I thought it has performances issues when the disk is fragmented.
It's past since the new firmware i guess
This SSD seems to be great despite its 70mb/s when writing.

 

Lowest price so far (?) is at zipzoomfly:

$223

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10010801&prodlist=celebros

 

right, but zzf doesn't have it in stock yet. so you can be patient and save a few bucks, or say screw that and get it elsewhere

 

Jup. and the issue was overrated anyways. read anandtechs second ssd article, it explains all incl the fix.

you won't ever notice the "slow write performance". it's so fast in everything else, you just won't notice it.

 

I have done extensive calculations and determined that a 114.87659832 GB drive would be perfect for me

 

you have that much pr0n? oh crap, i always say i need 160.. now you know...

(i thought about a Kibi/Kilo joke about how much the 120gb drive would be formatted, but not, if i look at your number).

 

Ordered the 80GB from Buy.com.

 

Wow seems like they have them in stock... that's crazy.

Let us know how it is!

 

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=211487190

 

I ordered mine with overnight shipping. Hope to have it for this weekend.

 

yup i got my 80gb shipped overnight too. should have new laptop this afternoon also:

Dell Precision M4400 (from Outlet w/ 15% off coupon)
T9800 @ 2.93 GHz
4 GB DDR2-800
Quadro FX 770M
Intel Wifi Link 5300
Backlit keyboard, fingerprint reader, 9 cell battery, docking station
....and (hopefully as of tomorrow) the new 80 GB X25, gen 2

tonight and tomorrow will be fuuun

 

I am surprised that that there is so much talk on this thread about the cost of SSDs. They certainly aren't cheap, but how many of us upgraded our processor or GPU when we purchased our computers?

Today if I was buying a new ThinkPad from the Lenovo website here are the prices:
Standard: P8400 2.26 GHz
P8700 2.53 GHz +$70
P9600 2.8 GHz +$190
P9500 2.53 GHz +$295
T9900 3.06 GHz +$445

Which would make a computer snappier and more responsive, the P9500 processor upgrade or an SSD?

Don't get me started on you MacBook Pro guys. If any MGP user complains about the cost of an SSD then they need to be sent back to high school math for a semester.

So let's take a survey. How much did you spend on your processor or GPU upgrade over the standard offering when you purchased your computer? (Hey, everyone is just killing time on this thread until the first real test of the new Intel comes out anyway.)