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

hahhahahaha
OMG, 10 ssd-s...and not an addict LOL
wish I have more time ( time = money ) to try more stuff like you

 

i count 8, and only 3 of them in active use by myself.

 

8 !!! LOL i'd be happy with only one.

 

What about Samsung's 2nd gen SSD?

 

i don't like it. and anandtech doesn't like them much as well, shown in the newest intel tests. there, the summit failed compared to vertex and intel


but it still is good. compared to having no ssd, it's even great

 

No, it's not. Note that the seller is now ANTONLINE. Buy.com sold out already.

 

any idea guys where I can buy the new Intel SSD in Canada, and is it better than the new OCZ turbo vertex?

thanks

 

A few newbie questions for the SSD faithful. I've decided to take the plunge and get an SSD for my notebook. I'll be buying one in August...

HOWEVER, I've just discovered that my notebook has a SATA 150 interface. Is there any reason why I couldn't still install a drive designed for SATA 300?

If I can, am I correct in assuming that the only major performance hit with the new Intel drives would be sequential read performance? AnandTech's tests show that the drive is already under 100MB/s for sequential write. And, of course, random read/write are still well under the cap. Since all of those performance numbers are well above a typical 5400rpm platter, I'm assuming the new Intels would still give a *major* performance boost.

If I'm wrong about still using a SATA 300 drive, can anyone tell me anything about the Dell-branded SSDs (like what controller they use)? I think I read somewhere that they were Samsungs... Anyway, 256GB for $479 seems like a good value, but I definitely want no part of it if it means stuttering after a few weeks of use...

 

A short answer will be it still feels fast because of its fast access time.

 

Yes you'll still be able to use the Intel SSD but of course as you said you'll be limited by the SATA I controller speed. AFAIK the "Dell-branded" drives are Samsung drives. But I know there are Samsung users out there so i'll let them speak on that.

 

Thanks - I think I'm still leaning toward the Intel.

 

If your talking about the Interface then yes it will connect to the Interface as SATA I and SATA II Interfaces are the same. The SSD drive would just be limited to SATA I speeds.

 

Thanks, that's what I was hoping to hear. I didn't think it would be physically incompatible, but I wasn't sure. And I didn't want to find out the hard way if I was wrong

edit: Even with the slower interface, I still think it would be worth it. It's still fast, and I wouldn't think that random read/write would be affected...

 

Installed and running on my 2.0Ghz Unibody Macbook. Startup was REALLY fast, once on the desktop. Drive runs noticeably cooler and was surprisingly light!

 

Mr. Wonderful, can you dual boot into xp or vista and run ATTO bench and CrystaDiskMark? please

 

bah... Dell just called to tell me my order is back-ordered now, expected delivery date is now August 4. A whole 3 weeks slip already. What a crock.

 

Don't have enough room on the 80GB . :/

 

wow, you filled your drive fast!!!

 

I can understand that... The only reason my 128GB drive isn't 90% full right now is because i haven't installed everything yet due to Win7 isn't available officially yet.

I'm trying to hold down my writing to the drive as much as possible until i can buy the OS and not have to worry about the reinstall of all my apps. After that i'll be hoping i can hold on until the next gen with SATA3... technology is moving to slowly

 

I have Dell XPS M1330 on a warranty (P, XPS TECH SUPPORT and Complete Care).

I want to upgrade it from HDD 250GB, Serial ATA 9.5, 5.4K, W125 (part number XR812) to something like 128GB or 256GB SSD.

Does the labor for upgrade is covered under the warranty? Can Dell tech support help to install it for me anyway? What kind of drives suitable for my computer are available from Dell or some other reputable vendors which Dell recommends and where is a price list?

I have four computers from Dell at home and on-the-go (two laptops and two PDAs) and they never failed on me even after 6 years of service.

I ask the community to give me a hint.

The reason why to upgrade is SSD's speed and vibe and shock resistance. Could I use the laptop in the car after this upgrade? I hope all other parts in computer are more vibe and shock tolerable than HDD. Right?

OK. Searched thru upgrades and came out four possible options:

1) 256 GB Serial ATA Solid State Hard Drive for Dell XPS M1330/ M1530/ M1730 / Studio XPS 13 Laptops, Manufacturer Part# J246M, $479.99

2) 128 GB Serial ATA Solid State Hard Drive for Select Dell Alienware M17x/ Latitude/ XPS/ Studio Laptops / Precision Mobile WorkStations, Manufacturer Part# H063K, $379.99

3) 128 GB Serial ATA Solid State Hard Drive for Select Dell Latitude / Studio / Vostro / XPS Laptops / Alienware / Precision Mobile WorkStations, Manufacturer Part# U178P, $360.00

4) 256 GB Serial ATA Solid State Hard Drive, Manufacturer Part# J246M, $479.99

I'm confused why #1 and #4 are listed as different item while they are the same?

Can someone tell me what interface speed of the SSD I should look for? I know that my laptop has Serial ATA-150 controller but it is not clear what generation it is.

Many vendors specify the interface read/write speed so I would like to know mine to concider not to buy something I don't need.

 

any one know where to get one of these in Canada?

 

I have 15GB left, and I'm not in too much of a hurry to reinstall Boot Camp, at least until Windows 7 is on store shelves.

I'm also in the process of shuffling all my things around to my network drive and so on and so on. I went through yesterday and cleaned all my unneeded music from my computer and moved/deleted my 35GB of movies and moved 8GB of PSP files to a flash drive. People made fun of us when we were saying that a 128GB or whatever drive would be perfect for whatever scenario, but it is true. And migrating my music off my laptop is not an option.

 

New Intel X25-M 34nm SSD's are now available:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010150636 50001157&name=Intel

http://www.pugetsystems.com/store/?cat=All+Categories&que=X25-M+34nm

Can't wait to get my hands on the 160GB version !

 

i hate that newegg charges CA tax.

 

Seems like the G2 1.8" models have turned up though:

http://www.colamco.com/store/product/detail.aspx?product=873706
http://www.colamco.com/store/product/detail.aspx?product=873707

Pretty cheap! $223 and $461.

edit: weird, I swear it wasn't on Newegg a minute ago...

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167016

 

Showed up on Newegg.ca. Good pricing!

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167016

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167017

I see that OCZ has lowered their pricing for Indilinx drives. Interesting also.

 

So from what I've read, is it that we're just hoping that Intel gives us a firmware update for the G2 drives to enable TRIM-ing? This looks like the perfect drive to get but I don't want to get burned by vaporware

 

goofball is right, sort of. OCZ is lowering the cost, but since retailers have all the stock bought at the old prices it is up to them to change prices. I guess Newegg has already seen the writing on the wall and has adjusted prices. Note the cost per gig numbers: the Intel drive is better than the Vertex

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3608

(I hope no one has already posted this and I missed it)

 

For the most part, yes. But if you want more than 64-80GB, that 128GB Vertex still looks tempting.

 

Heh, the 80GB Intel SSD on Newegg.com is already out of stock.

I wish I wasn't so cheap and would just buy the 160GB right now. Instead I'm going to wait until August 10th, when Bing.com doubles their Cashback percentage. Hopefully there will be discounted ones on eBay by then as well.

 

I waited too long! Argh, curse you, indecision...

 

i know i feel the same way.

 

It's noq out of stock on Newegg.ca as well.

Puget Systems has both available but at a premium price:
http://www.pugetsystems.com/store/?cat=All Categories&que=X25-M 34nm

 

Well it's been 3 months now since i've had my Vertex 60GB and I paid $199.99 for it shipped then (Apr. 30); And to this date it's only lowered $9 less...I definitely feel good about that.

 

TRIM is entierly unimportant on those drives. It's just nice to have. the drive is certainly not vapoerware in it's current state.

and intel stated, that they will update the firmware with TRIM support. so far, intel was quite trustable in such cases, not?

 

Well maybe this post will get lost amongst all the Intel talk right now but...

NEW FIRMWARE FOR JMICRON DRIVES (JMF602 Controller)

This is not an official release...I actually have no idea where it originated. But the readme properties says it was written by JMicron and the utility itself was made by Quanta. My *guess* is that this is the new modified firmware that is being used by Kingston in their V-series drives. But the utility appears to be able to flash any JMF602(B?) controller (Core V2, Solid, Apex and many many other drives). I am not sure if the utility will work for the old JMF602A controllers (Core V1).

The included readme says:

Since the new Intel drives are released and I'm going to replace my OCZ Solid Series drive anyway, I thought...what the heck, I'll play with it and if I brick my drive then no big deal. I had no idea if the utility would even recognise my solid series. But it did.

Updating the firmware will erase the drive contents so obviously back up your data first because you will need to do a fresh OS install etc.

The results

"Stock" firmware from OCZ:
This is the same old sad story with these drives...terrible 4KB random write performance causes stuttering.



"new" firmware:



So small random writes go from awful to...still awful, but improve by 3X. In my short "real world" testing so far, I can notice an obvious difference in the areas that were so annoying before:

• browsing through folders there is no longer any pauses
• as I'm typing this post the cursor doesn't freeze and take a second or two to catch up with what I've typed

There are some other "real world" tests that I need to get to since I've had to do an OS reinstall but so far it is looking good. I was just going to jump on a new Intel but maybe I can hold off for another couple months if I can get some descent performance out of this old dog for a bit longer!

I've attached the flashing utility to this message in case you want to USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!!! This almost certainly voids your warranty and you run the risk of bricking your drive.

I've also attached the IOMeter file that I used to run the above tests. You will need to remove the .txt extension so that the file is called random4k.icf in order to use it with IOMeter. I had to add the .txt extension in order to attach it here. Here are the details of the configuration of this test:

• 8GB section of the disk
• Queue depth = 4
• 100% random write
• 3 Minutes run time
• 4KB

I haven't used the newly flashed drive extensively at all though so again USE THE NEW FIRMWARE AT YOUR OWN RISK!!! I cannot say how this affects read/writes for other file sizes yet because I haven't tested it much. I did do ATTO and CDM before and aside from small random write performance everything else looks about the same. However, I do get strange results with CDM, but I think this has to do with how crappy this benchmarking program is for use with SSDs.

EDIT 1:
I learned of this firmware update from this locked (edit: now unlocked again) topic at the OCZ forum.

Edit 2:
SuperTalent has released this firmware on their support page. It is called "FWUPD_090508s.rar" and seems to work for any drive that uses a JMF602x controller.

 

nice post. i hope this works for all the users with the jmicrons. so if they now get "good enough" for basic os usage, they sure get "good enough" as a cheap secondary storage drive with an intel as a first one, f.e.

one could say "too late, too less", but still, anything that helps is nice.

 

hm.. i do hope anandtech catches this and reports on it in a new ssd update (including the new intels, and all etc.. i think this anandtech part evolves into a halfyearly series (and 'halfyearly' looks too funny as a word )

 

going to wait till Christmas before i go all out for a new comp and the 160gb

 

by then, maybe you can even get the 320gb quite cheap

times are nice. but i've done something bad today: i've looked at the fusion io..

i still think sata drives are something that should die out.

has anyone seen real tests about the photofast pcie ssd? or so?

 

Does anyone know when Intel is going to release their 320gb SSD? People keep saying soon but they've been saying soon for months now. My hdd is dying and I've been trying to wait until it's released but yesterday it completely locked up on me and today it's having really extreme vibration issues. I'm afraid it's not going to last much longer but I'd hate to go and buy something now and have Intel release the drive in a couple weeks.

The prices of the first two drives are REALLY exciting. I was holding my breath for a $1k drive but they've really pushed the prices down.

 

from recent "IntelUser" rumours, it may be at the end of the year i'd prefer to have it right now. at the same price as the 256gb ssds of now. that would be so amazing and fun..

but nothing official yet afaik.

 

omg I have e-mail Intel. Lets see what they say. In the case of that I was planning on picking up this drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233085 But with Intel's new prices, I wonder if the prices on the Corsair are going to start dropping.. I would die if I bought the drive and a week later the prices got cut.

Perhaps I will just get the 160GB and a large SATA.. I can fit the majority of my games on the 160GB.. with XP anyway *sigh* Samsung's EcoGreen line looks as good as any for another internal storage solution. They've got 11 models though so I guess I need to start figuring out what sets them apart.

There's 16MB and 32MB FT D1 and 16MB and 32MB F2.. so I guess the question is what's the difference between FT D1 and F2..

 

omg.. who has read this: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10291582-64.html Not until NEXT YEAR.. and only "the first half", which means it could potentially be next May or June before we see it. Intel be damned, I'm getting a Samsung. Congratulations, you've lost the market of everyone who needs a decent sized drive.

If I'm dropping $550 on a SSD + SATA now there's no way I'm turning around in 6 or 7 months and spending another $600.

 

LOL your arguement is rediculous. Even if you buy a samsung intel will still release an even "awsomer" drive within the next year.
That artical is great news!
Oh yeah and newegg has intel's for $229 for the 80gb and $249 for the 160gb it doesn't list specs but it is the x-25m so i'm assuming!!!

 

After waiting around all year as it is (first released news of the 320gb in Jan), many people aren't going to wait another 6-10months for Intel to release the drive. People who are serious about dropping the $600 or so into a larger SSD are going to go with another company, and a lot of them aren't going to want to turn right around and drop another just for the Intel. Intel is losing buyers with this decision.

There's no telling where the market will be in 6-10months. Intel might not even be on top anymore. They're already WAY behind as far as capacity goes and they're not all THAT far ahead as far as performance goes. There are other companies which make some nice drives. Most manufacturers have at least something in the realm of 256GB, and OCZ even has the 1TB drives now. I would think it's in Intel's best interests to catch up to the rest of the market in capacity.

 

at least this means i'm save when i buy 160gb versions.

 

In six months there will be just as many people waiting, or coming into the market for a big ssd, or willing to drop another $600. The only business they are losing is yours in the scheme of things.
but i do feel your pain on the premature info releases to build hype for longer... AKA vertex, G3, intel, and all you other s!!!

 

There's always a trade-off between performance and size. If Intel released the 320GB drive now, based on their other drives, it would have to cost on the order of $800. It would be unwise to buy such a thing given that the sequential read speed is capped by SATA at ~250MB/s and the sequential write speed is a relatively pitiful 70MB/s. Thus, I can understand why Intel decided to wait -- within the year, they will improve the write speed, SATA will be replaced by the next version with twice the bandwidth and the prices will drop (my guess is that the 320GB drive will debut at around $500 if it comes in Q2 2010).

So indeed, if you need a drive larger than 160GB now, you should not wait for Intel. That said, you should still be grateful to them because by making their drives so cheap, they have forced other manufacturers to lower their prices (even on the 256GB drives which you are presumably interested in).