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

Is there please anywhere comparison review of Samsung's PM800 and Intel's x25-m G2? My googling was not successful...

 

Now that I replaced the 5400rpm 500GB drive with the Intel 160GB SSD, I am contemplating about putting the 500GB drive in the optical bay and using it as storage to lighten the load on the SSD, as well as not restricting myself about what to put on the HD (e.g., drag the entire music collection to the 500GB drive, instead of "selecting" favorites to put on the SSD, etc).

If I keep the applications on the SSD and the associated files on the HDD, will I experience any slow downs? For instance, iTunes running from SSD and reading from HDD, or Photoshop CS4 running from SSD and reading -and scratching- from HDD, etc... With this set up, I can also put all user files to HDD (downloads, documents, etc) without filling up or slowing down the SSD.

Just wanted to get expert opinions on the dual drive scenario including an SSD and HDD.

Thanks in advance!

 

where did you guys find info about sammys with trim ?
afaik only intels g2 will get trim when w7 is published...

 

OCZ has been telling customers that Samsung has plans to implement firmware flasher with TRIM before Windows 7. A user from OCZ forums emailed Samsung about it and got an ambiguous timeframe of sometime after Win7 launch.

 

for real ?
didn't know that, thanx a lot for info

 

Here is a guide how to align partitions without losing data.

I hope this will help You if Your partition on SSD is unaligned and You don't want to do fresh install.

 

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Newegg has the Intel G2 80GB for $239 today only.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...-E0A-_-20167023&[email protected]

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Enjoy. I have one. This is a no-brainer unless you really need more space.

 

Thx for the headsup, between me calling a friend to buy one, it sold out

 

zephir, sorry I took so long to get back to this forum, but thank you for the info I asked for.

Looks like I was wrong as to how disk intensive Matlab and Labview actually are (no surprise, I've been wrong before!), but I'll definitely be taking your experience into account when I make a final decision on an SSD.

You state that the programs rely pretty heavily on the IOPS rating of the hard drive - isn't the Intel optimized better for that?

Anyway, I may run a few more programs than you concurrently but the demand from an SSD's point of view may be similar it seems.

 

tenderidol,

with the 160GB G2 you have, I wouldn't worry too much about 'unnecessary' writes to the drive. The 'standard' for how long a drive should last for is 20GB per day of writes, Intel's (G1 & G2 drives) not only meet this standard, but increase it by a factor of 5 to 100GB per day and still spec it for 5 year duty cycle. This is even for the 80GB drives - I would assume that the 160GB drives would be even more 'robust'.

To make photoshop use an external hard drive as it's cache location, go to Edit, Preferences, Performance (on Windows CS4) and choose the location you want in the Scratch disk area.

Just make sure that before you open up photoshop, you have the external firewire drive hooked up first. (otherwise, weird things can happen).

I used this exact scenario with eSata external drives and it really made a difference to PS performance if the notebook drive is slow or overloaded (and all notebook drives are (relatively) slow).

Of course, with a G2 SSD as the 'notebook' drive, I'm not sure if your firewire drive will offer increased performance (less writes to the SSD, definitely) but this is something you may want to test (make sure you do a reboot between tests and make sure you open PS change the scratch disk location, close photoshop and reopen to make sure PS is using the new location).

Hope this helps?

 

I wondered the same thing at one time, and I decided to just go ahead and use the G2. You're paying for the super fast performance. Aren't you going to actually use it? Another question, however, is if it's possible to use both the SSD and the external drive as scratch disks for improved performance and possibly less writing overall to the SSD? Maybe I'll try it sometime.

So I keep getting the idea that we're assuming that OS X won't get the Trim Utility this winter from Intel, but has there been any word saying that we won't be receiving it? We'll at least be getting the new firmware, but the Trim Utility would be perfect for the scenario that Apple's lack of Trim implementation has put us in. I mean, that's a major part what it's for: OSes that don't natively support TRIM, right?

 

tenderidol,

I too thought that a notebook set up like how you describe (SSD=O/S, 500GB=Data) would be the ideal scenario, but I am sure I've read (in this thread?) that on a desktop system set up the same way, the wait for the mechanical hard drive to spin up really kills the 'snap' the computer normally has overall.

How many GB of data are you putting on your notebook?

If you can keep it below the 70 or 80% we talked about before (between about 105GB and 125GB), I would leave my optical drive alone, or if there is much more data (and you don't 'need' it with you always), I would have an external enclosure house my 500GB drive.

To replace the optical drive with the 500GB mechanical would be my last step, unless I was replacing the optical drive with another SSD (and even then, I would only do it if I was RAIDing the SSD's).

Although at first blush it seems like a good idea, there are real-world consequences that you should take into consideration first. In addition to the above limitations, there is also the increased battery drain of the mechanical HD and also the inconvenience of no optical drive too.

So, where are your priorities with you Mac Book Pro?

 

Hmmm... I can't remember who I asked before, but can you point to any other info for this Intel Trim Utility?

Or do users just assume that Intel will release such a tool?

(My previous search has brought up nothing on this subject except this thread!).

 

On the Canadian side, Newegg has the 80GB G2 for $50 off.

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

Still available for 299 free shipping.

(I really need more space though...)

 

Yes, it is possible to use more than one scratch disk location in PS. If I remember correctly (don't quote me!) PS tests each scratch disk and will use the fastest one first (until it fills up) and then use the next fastest one.

So assuming the SSD is faster in PS's eyes, then the mechanical HD will never be used at all (if the free space on the SSD is large enough to hold the complete scratch space PS needs).

As far as I know, PS won't use more than one scratch disk concurrently (ie: RAID0 - for the same operation) although it will use multiple scratch disks (just not in 'RAID').

Now, I know that Windows allocates and uses multiple swap files the same way, but Windows will use them concurrently.

For example, if you tell Windows to use (physical) drives E: F: and G: as swapfile locations, then it will test each drive and give them a 'preference' order (in order of speed). If one drive/swapfile is being used constantly, then it will use the second/third swapfile to lessen the load on the first swapfile/drive. Best of all, it does this dynamically and on the fly - it is not hard programmed to when it first boots up or whatever, it depends on the computer's 'current' load.

This is how I'm using my desktop right now with 4 Raptors (one is a VRaptor) for my photo editing jobs.

Of course, with no SSD to play with I don't know if you'll see a difference with one, but I'm guessing that with the fast random write speed of the G2 Intel, you should not see a difference if you set up PS to use both the SSD and a mechanical HD as scratch disks.

 

Thanks again for your reply. I think I am just going to enjoy the 160GB SSD just by itself and wont bother with a second HDD at the moment. I changed the sleep behavior to "sleep only" to avoid repeated hibernation images, and deleted the previous image and gained 4 GB. Right now I am at 21GB and probably will not even pass 50GB if I put my not-so essential files.

Besides, adding an HDD may not only compromise the speed of the SSD, but also requires additional maintenance as you mentioned. For instance, I'll have to move the SSD to the optical caddy (due to lack of SMS at that location), deal with heat, noise and extra battery drain (although all minimal) and the lack of optical drive. If I find myself short of storage in 6 months or so (which is very unlikely), then I may consider doing this. Come to think of it, in all the computers I've used in the past (laptops and desktops with internal and external HDDs), I've never filled ANY hard drive passed its 75% capacity (not because I dont have enough files, but because I always get extra storage to give the HDDs some breathing room). So, the SSD should be OK with the criteria that you posted from Intel.

Thanks again for your time!

 

I've used a SSD+HDD configuration before on a Sony Vaio TZ. The SSD used is a Sandisk 5000, which is really slow, but better than the original 1.8" ZIF drive in there. I only used the HDD to store movies and music, so the performance of the SSD is not jeopardized by the HDD, and the battery life is not reduced as much (because most of the time the HDD is in idle).

 

I'm interested in case you remember where you found this info.

 

The thing is that I don't notice any slow down with the Samsung drive. Trust me, if the drive is actual incapable, I would drop it already and go with the Intel drive.
Maybe the reliance on IOPS for programming isn't that straight forward (maybe there's cache being created by the compiler to speed up the program)?
But I understand why you would want to go with the Intel drive. In fact, if I don't get the Samsung drives for a good deal, I would still be using the Intel drive.

 

I've read on some forums that superspeed RamDisk makes a good scratch disk for photoshop. I downloaded and played with it a little yesterday but gonna wait til I upgrade to 8gb ram before using it for IE8 caches and the pagefile

Benchmarked the ramdisk and was getting 3500 mb/s reads and writes--4k reads and writes were 495 mb/s.

 

I currently need some help with my Sony TZ.

Lately I notice the drive is slowing down. It constantly shutter for like 10 sec. My mouse can move but but nothing responds.... I have to wait a 5-10 sec to get things working again.

Anyways I spotted this 1.8ZIF SSD by ASAX. I was wondering if its worth the upgrade over my 48 GB Samsung I got from Japan (Came with my Laptop).

http://asaxssd.en.made-in-china.com/product/YewExUXbqJDm/China-Hard-Disk-Drives-ASAX-SSD-.html

It says (Read speed:80 - 96Mbytes/second Write speed:50-60Mbytes/second) but it doesn't say what controller. I'm guess its the first gen samsung controller?!? Any thoughts?

Do you think its worth the upgrade?

My laptop has 2 hard drive, 1 SSD and 1 Normal HDD. Does anyone know its possible to install windows on the normal HDD. I really want to try install the Intel G2 on my normal 2.5 HDD Bay.

 

New firmware and flasher up on ocz forums. Supports Vertex and Vertex Turbo
2 versions, one for trim, one for GC/raided systems.

 

^^^ Thanks for the update. I think imma wait for this to appear on the main website; I don't want to flash and then see them take it down due to issues or for w/e reason. Something to this effect happened the last time around so imma wait.

Thanks again for this info. though. +rep

 

The specs don't look so bad and I did notice that it is using a four channel controller (isn't that the same as the Vertex line?), but did you notice that you can only buy in minimum lots of 50 units at a time?

If my notebook had two hard drives, I would definitely be scrapping the 1.8" and going for any newer 2.5" like the G2.

(Unless the new 1.8" Intel is compatible with that (ZIF) connection? If it is, then the Intel drive is equivalent to the 2.5" models).

Also, I see no reason for Windows to not install on the 2.5" (second) drive if you have removed the smaller drive first? Definitely worth experimenting with - especially with the G2!

Good luck!

 

I had a X25-M 160GB G2 drive in my SONY VGN-Z570.
I noticed that HDDErase 3.3 can not detect the drive
although the drive is working fine.

Anyone seen this, or know the reason?

Thanks.

 

HDDErase has two requirements:

1. IDE has to be set to compatibility or legacy mode (so no RAID or AHCI).
2. The drive has to be in either of the first two SATA ports (won't work on any other SATA port, or through external ports like eSATA or USB).

Some laptops don't allow you to disable AHCI, I don't know about yours. The second shouldn't be an issue as very few laptops offer more than 2 ports. If yours can't satisfy both requirements, you have to use a different laptop or desktop that can.

 

There are no settings whatsoever for the SATA drives in the BIOS, it just sees the 160GB drive, nothing can be changed, so maybe AHCI is always on. I do know that it is, supposedly a SATA 1 not 2 interface, so I am not getting the full throughput that the X25-M can offer perhaps.

I paid to have it installed, since it is a real PITA, so it is not coming out anytime soon unless it has issues.

Since the drive has just been installed, HDDErase is not necessary now. Since it does not see the drive, what would be the next most effective way to restore speed down the road? Should I remove and recreate the partition and restore an image?

I am using Windows 7 RTM, 32bit.

Thanks.

 

Down the road with the G2? Wait for official TRIM support, nothing else is necessary.

 

Great, perfect, thanks!
I booted the INTEL Firmware Update Utility CD
made from the ISO, and it found and identified the G2,
and said the firmware was up to date. So, at least I know
that the drive will be seen when time comes for TRIM.

 

Will upgrading the firmware on an SSD drive require the drive to be formatted or anything like that? I was thinking of getting a Corsair P128 CMFSSD-128GBG2D and running Windows 7 on it when W7 launches. But I wouldn't want to go through any headaches to add the TRIM support down the line.

 

If you want to have the best shot at not having to reformat, get an INTEL. Most other SSD's require a total wipe for new firmware. Also, remember that Corsair is Samsung rebadged, and Samsung has a history of no firmware updates. Knowing Samsung's history, they will put out a totally new drive with TRIM support. Again, I would not count on any Samsung product for updates, ever.

 

What do you mean only intel doesn't require a reformat??? Neither Indilinx nor Intel need a reformat, and as you stated it's still up in the air regarding samsung even being able to upgrade firmware at a user level.

 

I had remembered the first Indilnx drives needing to be blown away for updates, where INTEL did not. I stand by what I said about Samsung, don't count on it, they have offered no updates so far.

 

and how come I've updated my sammy if samsung never offered any updates so far ?

 

I want to update my Samsung SSD in my notebook! How did you do it?


Also, this is question is from a friend who wants to put it in a Dell Mini 10v, for around $100-$150, what is the cheapest Indilinx or Intel SSD he can get with at least 32gb? He don't mind shopping on NewEgg, Fry's, or whatever. And depending on the manufacturer, doesn't mind rebates.

 

You guys need to start double-checking your facts, or just stick to your bread and butter and only talk about the products YOU'VE used first-hand. This is getting frustrating reading the back-and-forths between users on the same thread posting like they're getting paid under the table by Sammy/Intel. Just discuss the facts please.

 

He is only talking about a product that he has used first hand...

 

YES dell posted firmware update for the 2nd gen sammy SLC so far the MLC's are out of luck...

 

Sorry, that was my understanding on the Samsung.
My first-hand knowledge is only the INTEL Gen 1 and Gen 2.
The rest was what I had read, just second-hand knowledge
that I thought was true.

Definitely no connection to INTEL other than my purchases!

 

I would say the 30GB OCZ Agility for around $130. Although the 60GB version is about $185, which would be a nice boost in capacity but over budget.

Prices have been considerably cheaper than this recently but looks like stock is low and prices are going up...I guess NAND prices are on the rise.

 

Yup! when i read an article quoting a guy from sandisk saying they were probably pulling out of SSD race because the price of NAND for manufacturers and the cost of developing the technology wasn't being paid back by the rates of the consumer market, I baught up two SSD's ASAP, foreseeing the low low prices to be shortlived. and at $130 a piece how could i resist the 60gb agility!

be warey of agilities in the future though. somone posted a link stating that they were probably going to start using 30nm toshiba chips if they are ever functional. they are supposedly going to still be slow even when they work...

 

http://support.dell.com/support/dow...eid=R214180&formatcnt=2&libid=0&fileid=303196

 

Yeah prices are going up.
In france, the crucial M225 64 GB went from 139 euros (launch price) to 170++++ now. I'm glad i bought it 135 euros one month ago.

Ocz vertex 60 Go costs 200-220 euros....That's crazy. Same price as the intel X25-M G2 80 GB. I need to say LOL !! That's a shame.

 

How does that pertain to my question of what is the best 2.5" SSD? Unless I'm missing something so obvious that once I get it it, my face is going to be hurting with a bag of shame?

Where did people get the 160gb SSD OCZ Agility for $130? My friend isn't afraid of buying used, as long as its its working condition!

 

60GB Vertexes were on sale at Circuit City for $130 in recent memory after Bing cash back and rebate. Agilities were $150 on Newegg, not sure where they were $130. Maybe Bing @ ZipZoomFly or TigerDirect.

 

That's how, Megaman. It would behoove you to at least reread your OWN g-d post at least.

 

The update is for SLC Samsung SSD...I have 2 MLC Samsung SSD in Raid 0

Also, it was quite confusing as I was talking about a Dell Mini 10v SSD potential drives for the past few posts.

No need to slam me down. It's ok, I forgive you. No harm done


Now, I see alot of 64gb SSD around now for about $150....I think these have the newer Jmicron controllers...what do you SSD Guru's think about Jmicron controllers now that they SSD controller market has matured a bit?

 

well, you asked how I updated mine ssd, so, I gave you a link to fw update I used to update mine
afaik, pb22j mlc versions have no updates at the time, but, there may be some after w7 is out (in a week or so)
also, I still think that sammy 64gb slc is best under 150usd ssd of today

 

I just got an email from Samsung COrp,
here it is:

 

and it's all we need to know !!!!