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

I don't know where we'd be without Intel. Seriously though?

 

I like a good underdog, but hell, i'll buy the best product out there with a reasonable price!

 

Any ideas when the X25-M G2 will ship again?

 

Thats extacly what I am waiting for also.

 

I don't hate Intel, I'm sure that next time I'll buy Intel SSD if price to GB is better then competition, always Intel CPU for notebook and for desktop AMD CPU just because of lower price.
I don't care too much for performance, so for me lower power consumption is ahead of super fast CPUs on notebook and reliable SSD is ahead of fast SSDs.

What I wanted to say is that there is no excuse for selling SSDs with poor FW and good move after mistake doesn't make them any better in my eyes.

 

This is exactly what I was saying a few pages ago. If OCZ undercuts Intel with their 120GB drive, then I will give Tony a shot, otherwise I am sticking with Intel. I don't care about the extra 40GB... like I've said before, there's nothing I can do with 120 that I can't do with 80... I am going to need more space anyway so it comes down to performance and that nod goes to Intel. If you're buying one of these for storage then you're on crack... it's about performance. That's what the tools that are enthralled with the $/GB ratio don't get- you don't buy an SSD to store your bloody Simpson's episodes. Go pick up a 1TB external drive if you're so worried about $/GB. Now, undercut Intel by $30-50, and then the cost savings along with the 40GB might entice me to go on a date with Tony and overlook the fact that I may receive a drive from him that is identified as "Ichiro Suzuki Heavy Industries." But they actually want me to pay more for an OCZ drive than an Intel drive? Ha!

I like Intel. They goofed- all companies at some point have. Instead of continuing to sell them, they immediately halted shipments and have admitted to a mistake and are going to get it fixed shortly. Look at Nvidia for instance with the 8-series debacle- those pumpkin tuffers (don't wanna get banned) won't even admit there's a problem with the 8-series GPUs.

Heck man, you remember when PCPER came up with the finding about performance degradation? Intel immediately admitted to it and a couple weeks later there was a firmware fix. Honestly, I've never seen a company admit to a mistake and issue a fix so quickly. Almost always you get... "ya well in our testing it's fine." 2 years later after 2,000,000 complaints... "ah ya... here's a firmware fix... but there's still no problem.. it's just a fix for ah... a problem that doesn't exist."

 

Is this date because of lust or love?

 

hmm.

I am only going to be able to accurately answer that question if/after I go on a date with Tony. I will let you know.

But if he's good enough for Jessica, I might give him a whirl.

 

yeah give me a reliable indilinx or samsung 120gb for less than or at least $200 and my next SSD might not be an intel...

 

Unless Intel drops below $200...

 

Just checked the firmware update link randomly, and Intel's support site is down. Update in the work?

 

Anybody know if any changes are coming to the Intel's with the "Postville Refresh" due in Q1 2010 as seen on the roadmap? Will those be generation 2.5?

 

I cant agree with this, 80 --> 120 is a 50% increase in storage thats very significant, saying you can do anything with a 120 you can do with an 80 is the same as saying anything you can do with 80 you can do with 40, and then with 20....

Space does matter, 80GB is just not quite enough. I look at my C: right now and I am using 130GB, if I had a SSD I would be more concious of what is on there and be able to get that down to 120 easy, and probably 80 but I dont want to sacrifice too mutch.

I want to be able to have all my programs and games on there to enjoy the speed and benifits of SSD.

I would feel I lost half the reason of having a SSD if I had to put half my games on a storage drive instead, just boosting program/os load times alone is not enough to make my purchase worth while.

Boot is already fast and programs already load fast. its games that load slow

I'll have to save up and look for a good G2 160GB intel sale, or if something of equal performance is out by then. Otherwise the Vertex/Falcon are good drives and still incredibly fast so if they do some big undercutting I have no qualms getting it. It will be bounds faster than the HDD, and the money saved means I can reinvest in a larger/faster SSD down the road sooner as the technology evolves.

Its kinda funny how everybody was like OMG SSD is the best, instant everything, and that was slow SSDs, along comes some really good performing ones like the Vertex/Falcon and people suddenly look at them like they are slow just because something a bit better shows up.

According to what people have said in the past even a slow SSD should pretty much be instant everything due to its .1ms latency and really cant get any faster than that for everyday tasks and perceived performance.

 

Quick question, do SSD's slow as they fill up just as hard drives do?

 

Some of them... but not just like hard drives. You don't want to use a typical defragment program on an SSD.

 

You have to factor in the overall scheme of things with the percent increase in storage. The jump from 10GB to 15GB is a lot more pronounced than the jump from 40GB to 60GB, even though in both cases it's a 50% increase. My point about the increase from 80GB to 120GB is that I am still going to be limited anyway. I have about 450GB of files so to me, it makes no difference if it's 80GB or 120GB, I am going to need another drive. This particular opinion has a lot to do with differing perspectives... disagreement is bound.

I don't game so I wasn't in factoring in the gaming side of things. It makes a lot of sense obviously having the games on the SSD. I was simply coming from the media perspective of music/videos. You can't have everything on the SSD anyway and programs/OS will fit comfortably on the 80GB drive with room to spare for my music collection, hence why I said what I can do with 120GB I can do with 80GB. But if games are running 5-10GB+ and you have a bunch of games than that 40GB will come in handy.

I never said they are slow, the Vertexs and whatever else is out there. All I said was that to me, I am going to take the best performing SSD and that's the Intel, that's all. When I look at the 80GB Intel drive and the 120GB Vertex drive, I don't see their capacities, because once again for my uses, they will hold the program/OS just fine and I am going to need another drive for my media anyway. All I see are the slight differences in performance and the lower price.

Heck, the OCZ Vertex 60GB drive is the same price as the 80GB Intel drive. Not only is the Intel drive faster, it's from a far more reputable company, and it's larger too. This is why I say OCZ needs to undercut the Intel drives. Who would opt for the 60GB over the 80GB Intel? They need to get the 120GB nearer to the $230 mark and the 60GB obviously lower than that.

 

My thing on vertex was not targeted at you, I meant in general people were raving about them when they came out, now suddenly nobody even dares to look in there direction.

Also at first everybody was like OCZ is a great company, now suddenly everybody is like omg they suck they shipped out stuff with bad firmware etc. (funny that intel did it too but nobody seemed to care)

As for prices you were looking at the current price, not the price OCZ lowered it down too, seems there new low prices have not hit market yet.

But there 120gb unit is like $2.13 per GB while the 80GB Intel is $2.63 or so per GB so it is actually a good bit cheaper when we see the new prices actually in the stores.

Im not taking OCZ side or trying to advertise for them, I actually do not like that company they gave me a hard time in the past 2x now and have some rude reps. If I was to get a Vertex I would probably try to find a falcon instead because its the same thing (but not as much support I do not think) and as it stands right now I would probaby get the g2 160gb intel but it is more than I want to pay, the 120gb size of the falcon is just right for me. Big enough to do what I need but not larger as to make me pay more.

The price difference is not yet large enough to make me get the OCZ isntead of the Intel, but I have a feeling that prices will drop dramatically once the G2 are on market and in steady supply and if they do manage to have a much cheaper unit despite the fact it is slower and not as good as the intel, it simply fits my budget/needs better so I would be willing to get it.

 

Hey everybody - i got a little (okay not that little to me) issue regarding my ssd drive.

I got a 160GB HDD drive and a 120GB OCZ vertex.
The 160GB drive is my old systemdrive, but only with 35GB data overall.
So what i want to do is: i want to clone my HDD on the SSD logically, so that there is no issue with the missing space on the disk, but that i get all my system copied on the ssd.

My problem is: acronis 10 doesnt work. its starting and confirming the orders, but it doesnt do anything.
Is there a general Issue with acronis 10 and ssds?
Is there any other cloning software that can handle ssds?

 

no one is perfect. but the way they act on the mistake is great. validate it, quickly take anything off the shelf, fix it, and bring it to market again.

my car, when bought, had some issues with the breaks. they reported it to me, stopped the other deployments, and fixed the issue on my car.

same with intel. you know, most of the time, they have no major bugs. and when they have, they stay true to it.

no company has to be perfect, never making errors. but the way they react on it, that's a major thing. ocz is more of the "if they don't find out, just lets not react on it". intel is the "oh crap, look what we found. report and warn everyone, just in case".

i prefer the second one

 

...kind of like how OCZ deleted my thread that I created several months ago in which I inquired about what steps they were taking to create an updated JMicron firmware to address stuttering issues?

They said in that thread that it wasn't possible, despite the fact that they currently advertise their JMicron drives as "firmware updgradeable." I'm guessing they deleted the thread after their claim was proven false when Kingston/Toshiba released a JMicron drive with updated firmware (V-series) or when that firmware was subsequently leaked.

Very, very shady.

 

Yeah OCZ is a bit dirty I think, that goes to show how loyal I am to being unbiased that I would still recommend and even buy there product despite the fact I hate them as a company.

 

So... mini-PCIe SSD drives for laptops... how do these measure up to "full size" SSDs that would go into an empty drive bay? I'm thinking of picking up this...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227438

...when my free Windows 7 upgrade comes in (I know my laptop will fit it because Wal-Mart carries a version of the Toshiba A500 series with a 64GB SSD and a 320GB HDD).

 

mini pcie drives are usually damn slow... much slower than any modern 2.5"hdd

copy/paste from that newegg page:

 

I can't help but wonder why they would be slower though... PCIe has tons of bandwidth... more than enough for a single SSD. Is it simply because most PCIe SSDs out there, like the sort that come stock in netbooks, are just bad (like cheap JMicron 2.5" SSDs)?

 

thats the point. you dont even know what controller they use...

 

Given that it's an OCZ, and taking the price into consideration, I'm hoping they're using the same controller as the Vertex and Agility series 2.5" SSDs.

 

I, too, recommend them. But only for the ones that are fiddlers, and love to play around with their system. People who just want a stable, working solution, I always suggest the intel. actual pricepoint is not that important.

 

Problem is Intel doesn't make mini-PCIe SSDs.

 

I'm sure they aren't... dont' you think they would wanna brag that??? they are most likely using jmicron. just look at all the prices of all the confirmed jmicron drives. instead of dropping over the past year, i think they actually got more expensive which is funny, but i guess they are just counting on people saying, "well it's expensive, so it must be descent"

LOL isn't there a saying "burn me once, shame on you, burn me twice, shame on me?" I was rooting for them for a while but like you said with the falcon, there are so many competiters with the same drive and lower price, and better reps...

Gotta love ocz for trying to squeeze every penny they can out of the same drive!
OCZ Product Page
Solid=CoreV2: diff firmware
Vertex=VertexMacEdition:diff firmware
Vertex+14MHZfasterDRAM(woohoo!!!HAHAHA!!!)=VertexTurbo: maybe firmware too...

Edit: I think pretty much everybody wants to give ocz a chance and benefit of the doubt, but once you really start following their actions, you can't help but want to avoid them!

 

Got a new 120GB Vertex. Is there a quick and dirty guide of everything I need to do to get it ready for my Win7 RTM install? I know I need to align it to 64k. I know I should flash to the latest firmware (1.3?). Anything beyond that?

 

I would just do latest firmware and enjoy! if you jsut got it, i would think it has the latest.

 

Congrats...You don't need to align anything. Just set it up as if you were installing an OS onto a regular HDD and use it. No major tweaks needed except for disabling Indexing and Windows Search if you like.

 

I'm sad now, no intel for me. I don't have the money anymore

On a good note this is my first post with out a screen.

 

So any rumors on Intel availability? I see that Newegg has dropped G1 prices to match G2. But I'm not that impatient.

Yet

 

How much of that 450GB do you access regularly? I'll bet it's a pretty small fraction.

I, too, am looking at an SSD for something other than gaming. I want something fast for post-processing photos using Lightroom. Now, I can't store all my photos on the SSD (several hundred GB). But, with 120GB, I can store my OS, Programs, Lightroom Catalog files and the photos I'm currently working on. When I'm finished working on them, then they'll get copied across to the ordinary, big, hard drive.

I would imagine that anybody working with large media files would find the same process useful - keep current projects on the SSD, store the rarely accessed files on an ordinary HD.

 

What surprises me is that gen 2 Intel is sold cheaper than gen 1 in the Netherlands. One store says they have them in stock. Price 199,- euro.
http://www.salland.eu/?pid=213114

Does this sound right?

 

Gen 2 is cheaper than Gen 1. The only reason why the Gen 1's are getting discounted is to clear their stock. Gen 2 drives cost a fraction of Gen 1 costs due to the lower manufacturing process.

 

I know gen 2 is priced lower. Here in NL Gen 1 is not being discounted. So Gen 2 is offered cheaper than Gen 1 now.

And I thought Gen 2 was not supposed to be in stock yet.

Hence, my question.

 

That's a good news. At least an affordable intel. Below the 200 euros psychological threshold. I confirm that G1 isn't being discounted in Europe FTM. Actually G1 is expensive.

 

I'll bet if you tried to order one you wouldn't get it any sooner than anyone else ordering a gen2. they would either tell you out of stock or on back order or something to delay shipment until intel releases them again with the updated firmware.

 

G2's back on newegg!!! So the NL site probably has them too

 

Not yet available, and same prices as G1.

 

haha oh jumped the gun. saw picture and got excited. but that is the g2 price they just dicounted the g1's to get rid of them like someone else said. you won't see the g2's much cheaper probably until that 'tick' or 'tock' that people are talking about

 

Laptop Mag Review of Intel G2.

 

Little advice please. I've searched through the posts in this thread, and I'm still not sure...

Dell has a 256GB SSD Drive on their website for $480.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/...etail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=341-9999

I really wanted a SSD drive for my XPS 1640, but ended up with at 500GB 7200 rpm Seagate.

Several web sites claim this is a rebranded Corsair CMFSSD-256GBG2D, as found here:

http://www.corsair.com/products/ssd_...e/default.aspx

However, the Dell specs don't match the Corsair specs (SATA I vs. SATA II, etc). Posts in this thread seem to indicate it is a rebranded Samsung. And I'm not clear if it is the Samsung, if the interface is SATA II.

Anyone in this thread actually bought this Dell drive? This is quite a deal if this Dell drive really is the Corsair or even the Samsung. However, if it is SATA I, I'm not interested.

At the same time, I'm in no hurry, and wonder if I should just wait for the Intel 320GB SSD.

Thanks

 

I don't know, but this looks like one of those too good to be true moments. A 256GB Corsair II goes for almost $800. And Dell is selling them for 45% off? I doubt it.

But if they want to respond to Intel by offering 256GB for $400 or so, that would be tempting.

 

It is true. The Samsung that Dell sells is the same as Corsair's. 160GB for $440 or 256GB for $480... if you need performance, choose the former, if you prefer more space, go for the latter. The 320GB won't be out for a few months and will probably cost $800+.

 

Really? I'm not doubting that it's a re-branded Corsair. But the 1st-gen Corsair drives were...not fast. So the following thread makes sense to me.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=364122
(Dell drive w/ speeds well under 100MB/s)

Then, a couple months ago, they introduced a 2nd gen drive with much faster performance.
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4970

If Dell has switched to the "performance" line of Corsairs, at that price, that's good news for consumers. My worry is that they're legacy drives, though. As vrette pointed out, the product specs (SATA 150) seem to indicate that they are.

edit: If I'm wrong and you're right about this, I apologize for doubting! And thanks for the tip.

 

If it's Vista you only have the option to do a quick format. With XP and before you could select either.

 

Users from the Dell subforum have bought this and said its the Gen 2 Samsung which offers sequential R/W speeds of 220/200. The specs are unfortunately incorrect. I hope users here that have it can speak up and give these prospective some additional proof to alleviate their worries. The price used to be $799 but was recently dropped to $479. I wonder if Samsung has a third generation prepared...