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

I just hate you all Intel SSD owners!!

that's me, with 20ms average access time..

on the other hand, i now can't wait for the 2530p / 2730p with intel ssd to be available around here.. they'll be hell fast.


(btw, my mtron finally got sent out.. so in some days i can at least report more speed and faster response times... but sadly it'll be 32gb only..)

I'm thinking of of getting the 2530p then later. it has two slots, allowing for 2 harddrives (2 times 1.8" as it looks).. so one will be an intel ssd, the other one possibly some slower ssd, what ever will be available at the time.

the second one will even be allowed to have stutterings

 

You guys might want to hold off using benchmarks too much. Look at my explanation below. Basically, at least the Intel one, tries to optimize the drive for usage patterns and if the benchmarks are different from how the usage pattern is, it might slow down until it gets used to it.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=208242&page=110

For those wanting ultimate performance for 1.8 inch drive, Intel will also make X18-M. If you guessed it from the name, "18" in the name means 1.8 inch. The performance and the price of the X18-M is identical to the X25-M.

 

Inteluser, you should reference the post, rather than the page, as people use different page views with more or less posts per page. I wasn't able to see your post.

Back on topic. I have a new D430, anyone know what's the best PATA 1.8" SSD to stick in there (and one that doesn't cost an arm and a leg)?

 

Should be okay, but I doubt it's as lightning fast (see benches) and capable of as many I/O per sec.

 

Intel SSD, then Mtron SSD (limited to 32GB) and then Samsung's SSD, rather slow. I had a Sandisk once, the poor I/O was a handicap.

 

Sorry bout that:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=3951471&postcount=1099

 

you mean This one, Les????

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4cK0L__B9U

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PATA? I don't think they will make new ones anymore so you will have to find out used/older models. That means sticking to expensive SLC SSD or really slow MLC SSD.

 

it's sad, as i know a lot of users with pata based notebooks with 1.8" disks in. they all happily buy any faster disk.

if mtron only made the 64gb version of their slc. it would be the perfect choise for those notebooks.

anyways, can't wait for mi 32gb disk

 

Turismon

I have mine in a Mac Pro Desktop Computer. Dual Intel Xeon 2.66 Dual-Core Processors (4 Cores Total) with 4gb Ram -- this is a very fast machine -- much faster than a laptop!

I've installed MS Office 2007 and configured my exchange server -- the machine is noticable faster with this SSD than my 64gb MTron Pro 7000 it replaced!

Aaron

 

Just put an order for the X25-M through http://www.agileelectronics.ca/search/product-search.asp?product_search=X25-M

$740 CDN with taxes and shipping, not bad. That's the price for NCIX without tax.

Look couple of posts after, he got it fixed. Now its faster than yours .

Apparently you can make it even faster with a seperate RAID controller as the ICH can bottleneck the drive. With the RAID controller the read speed can go to 270MB/sec...

The sequential max write speed on the X25-M is only 70MB/s. However, not only the drive manages to get greater max speeds than the specs, it'll beat ANY other competing SSDs in random writes, especially small sizes.

 

Potential Solution to Make Relatively Small SSDs Hold As Much As Conventional, Larger SSDs and Still Perform Better?

For many of us, SSDs beyond 32 or 64 Gb are not affordable. But maybe checking "Compress This Drive to Save Disk Space" under the "Properties" of the C drive would solve this. TWO QUESTIONS...

Would a 64 Gb SSD all of a sudden be an 80 Gb drive?

Would the speed and power gains of an uncompressed SSD relative to an average spinning HD be lost due to uncompressing and re-compressing all the OS components, programs, and files being used?

Thoughts are welcome. As this might allow average people to purchase SSDs but get more Gb out of them, BENCHMARKS and REAL USAGE FEEL would be very helpful if someone wants to experiment (What % of the original SSD is gained as additional Gb if it's compressed and how much does a compressed SSD's performance drop?)!!!

 

You know, I never thought about compressing the drive that could be a definate help with space on this 80GB drive.

About the benchmarks not being right on the intel, i don't know about that, at first it was slow, then i ran the test many times same results. I updated the driver and bam it got fast. If it does learn and even improve over how fast it is already which is unbeleivable then more power to it lol!

If this drive was 160GB it would be perfect, 80 kinda sucks cause I bearly fit vista and all my stuff on it. (you can kill your shadow copies to save 10-20gb to help). I really can't beleive how fast they made this over other MLC drives, there is no comparrison at all, not even close. My machine actually bottlenecked at 100% cpu installing 3 apps before my drive could even max the light out..... love it.

 

Someone on a French forum reported that setting the Block (Multi-Sector Transfer) on Disabled in the BIOS eliminated the stuttering with an OCZ Core.

Just reporting, worth trying

 

No, the Intel X18-M has a microSATA interface, not ZIF, so he can't use it. For the TZ, the Sandisk 5000 ZIF interface is the best choice because it's cheap. You can also use the new MTRON ZIF interface SSD too or Samsung one.

 

Newegg has extended the rebate on the Patriot Warp V2. Hmmm...

 

Heh ... from MTron Pro 7000 to Intel X25-M (and I thought I was an SSD-junkie ). Do you mind telling us a bit more of your set-up and the stuff you run on your system as well as some more details of the improvement in going from Mtron to Intel?

 

jketzetera

Got the MTron Pro 7000 Last November/December. Wanted a quick boot drive for Mac & PC (bootcamp). I partitioned the 64gb drive into two 32gb partitions and installed OSX & Vista to them giving me dual-boot capability.

That drive is a Sata 1 drive and under windows suffers from the 75MB/sec cap on the Intel Chipset (because the Mac Pro under windows doesn't set the sata controller to AHCI mode). Under OSX it runs at its full speed (about 110-115MB/sec read & 90MB/sec write. I've been extremely happy with this drive -- it makes my Mac Pro SILENT!

Now with the Intel X25-M, being Sata II it seems to run at full speed under windows even with the controller not set to AHCI mode. This drive will be for Windows Vista only and I will reformat the MTron Pro 7000 and use it solely for OSX. I of course have a 1TB data drive in the Mac Pro as well for all my data/pictures/video & music.

Although booting Vista on the Intel drive vs. the Mtron is only slightly faster, almost everything else feels a lot snappier -- noticably so even though it was great with the MTron. Programs open more quickly, programs install a bit faster. I can definately feel an improvement. I've wanted to get another SSD to put Vista on since my space was severly limited with partitioning the MTron, so I waited for the "latest and greatest" SSD to come out to make the jump. Under Vista I run Outlook (connected to an exchange server), Quickbooks Pro 2008, MS Office 2007, Ulead Video Studio 12, Picasa 3, iTunes, etc....

My Mac Pro is pretty much the Stock unit that came out 2 years ago -- Dual Intel Xeon 2.66Ghz dual-core (4 Processors), 4gb Ram, Stock GeForce 7300GT Video Card, Seagate 1TB data drive, Stock DVD Burner & a 1st Generation Sony Blu-Ray Burner (BWU-100a). All running on a Verizon FIOS 50Mbit/20Mbit internet connection

I also have a Super Talent 120GB MX drive I just put into an Eee Box (B202) machine and it is working very nicely -- better than the laptop drive that was in it before. Lastly I have an OCZ Core 64gb drive that I am using in an external USB/Sata enclosure. I put all my installable software on there I use when I visit clients and work on their machines (I am an independant IT Tech)....

Needless to say, I love SSD Technology and enjoy experimenting around with it!

Aaron

 

Well, now comes the part where I wait patiently for the price to come down.

 

You raise an interesting point. Once upon a DOS-time, storage compression like Drivespace and Stacker was advertised as increasing drive performance. The reasoning was that íf you had a certain CPU-power / Disk-transfer speed relationship, transfer speeds would actually increase (especially read transfer speeds).

I have not made any tests but believe that a NTFS compressed drive might show somewhat better read speeds (at the expense of cpu-cycles) than an uncompressed drive, while write speeds on a compressed drive might suffer.

However, I came across the following post at the Truecrypt forums, which should be interesting to try for those experiencing stuttering problems with their MLC-based drives:


Flashdrives can only be read (and written) in blocks. When now your clustersize is smaller than the internal blocksize, than you read the whole block, but you only need the data from that cluster. So it is slower.
This "blockmode" is also the reason why flashdrives become so slow when working with a lot of files (especially when writing).

Because truecrypt uses pipelining it writes the data in much larger blocks, thus speeding flashdrives up with small files. Just try it. Copy a lot of small files on your usb stick directly, measure time. Now create a TrueCrypt volume on that stick. Now copy the files into that volume. Measure the time again, it will be much faster.

It would be somewhat interesting if Truecrypt could improve the write performance of the OCZ Core series drives .

 

I have read the last ten pages i cannot read the whole thread.
I have also tried to run a search within this thread but it crashes the computer i am using right now (not the one in my sig)

Anyway i have a question i was wondering which 128GB Sata 2.5 SSD drives have a very low power consumption and decent performance? I have read that Samsung SSD drives have very low power consumption but are there any others also that have low power consumption? I don't want to get an SSD drive and then find out that my stock Fujitsu 200 5400 HD gave me better battery life.
I would not be getting an SSD drive just for the battery life and i know it is not worth while doing if the only reason you want one is for a very slight increase in battery life.

 

The Intel SSD can give some sort of battery life increase, 30 mins in average. Samsung is the second best one for battery life, but the results seem inconsistent. Some sites don't show improvement, though Samsung drive is still the lowest power consumption(when you don't include the Intel SSD). The other drives are really a sidegrade in terms of battery life.

 

I have looked on the Intel site and i don't see any Intel 120GB HD's does anyone know when they will be released? I suppose i could manage an 80GB one but 80GB seems a bit on the small side to me. Amazon are selling the 80GB HD's for $650 and whilst that is expensive it is still not that badly priced.

120 or is 128GB HD Samsung drives on Amazon are much more expensive on ebay than the above drive.

IntelUser thanks for your help.

 

intel doesnt have 120? isnt it 80/160 MLC, and 32/64 SLC?

 

Yea, you are right. They only have 80GB X25-M now. They will release 32GB X25-E later on along with 160GB X25-Ms by end of the year. I wonder when the 1.8 inch X18-M's will release.

 

In case anyone was wondering here are the results for the new supetalent 128 GB SSD.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=306345

 

Fusion-io unveiled its first consumer product: Press Release

No SATA: The ioXtreme brings high-end PC users 80 GB of PCI-Expressbased, high-performance, solid state storage...

Price: The ioXtreme will be priced at under $1000 and be available for home and consumer use in Q1, 2009.

 

no use until you can boot from it

 

Please read this article about their other SSD (IODrive): Fusion IODrive to become bootable in Q4

 

jedisolo:

What about some write performance metrics?


[edit]
Never mind, they are available on one of the links.[/edit]

 

i'm on my ssd now!! mtron 3000, 32gb. biggest feature: firefox with all plugins directly after booting: before: >60sec, now <3sec.

else, it starts faster than my quadcore with a modern 3.5" disk.

but it's not at it's maximum. 2510p owners, you got it somehow to mode6? mine is on mode5 now, too..

 

where did you get the mtron at? Is it pata/ Zif type like the nc2400?

 

I sent back my Patriot Warp V.2 64GB Solid State drive.

Its fast when booting and loading applications, but it sucks at everything else. My laptop wont properly come out of sleep mode (even after a fresh OS reinstall), and dont even try to use more than one Flash object at once.

Its probably got that jmicron controller, dispite anything that Patriot has said.

 

i got it from www.rocketdisk.com

it's pata with a zif connector. it was half a millimeter to thick at one edge, leading to problems installing it but it works good so far (but the 32gb are really small).

 

David, very cool to hear that it is working out well for you. My name is Jonny & I work at RocketDisk. If any of you guys need anything relating to Mtron or MemoRight SSDs, please just let me know! Thanks.

 

hy jonny.. you did your job very well yes. just sad mtron didn't really (the disk was anounced much more early + a 64gb version was anounced). then, everything would've been perfect.

anyways, thanks i'm happy right now i'm now putting my old 100gb hdd into an icy box making it cool, too

 

Lol. Glad you are happy, thank you for the good feedback. We aim to please!!

Mtron are very focused on the quality of their products, & they won't release a product until all of the bugs are ironed out, which explains the delays. But I do understand your frustration. The 64GB version is still in the works, but no scheduled release date as yet. I will keep you informed!

 

The Patriot Warp V2 looks very tempting for $165 after rebate. Any thoughts?

 

Have a brand new 64GB GT Memoright if anyone is interested...pm me. I haven't even the time anymore (as my lack of presence here shows) to play with ssds any further.

 

Oh no! Les! We need an SSD apprentice to take over your work!!

 

I just sent mine back to ZZF for full refund. I'll be buying something else, if thats the advice you were looking for

I have a few more posts on my experiences with it above.

 

Weird... Mine works PERFECT and makes wonders... Im posting using it .

 

One month of using samsung's SSD from dell. I can say im pretty happy with it, its reliable and fast. Ive had no stuttering issues and I use my computer alot, it handles multiple ios extremely well and the price is very affordable if you buy it from dell.

the 128GB is a really big plus (although im using less than 40GB now)

If I could get the Intel drive for 500$ I would, but since thats probably not likely I will hold out for the 256GB samsung drive which should have more than double the performance of 128GB drive.

If anyone is buying a laptop from dell, and considering an SSD. Do yourself a favor and pick one up as you buy your laptop. Samsung is really pushing their SSDs through OEMs and you will be picking up a great bargain.

 

I am also a satisfied SSD user, I use a Samsung SSD - the 64GB SataII. I cannot use a mechanical hard disk anymore.

 

Intel X25-M SSD also stuttering after all??

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=44484

That leaves only samsung drives.

 

Nope, see discussion below. It's a problem with outlook, not the drive.

 

I am thinking some ocz employee posting bs to take heat away from their products. Anandtech(and every other reviewer) did exactly the same tests on all the ssd's and identified the problem with jmicron controller.

 

Very-Very true that Outlook 2007 has a problem with both SSD and spindle HDs. I have one of each in the same model computer and it happens to both where when starting Outlook, for some reason it hangs and then continues after a few minutes. Definitely not SDD issue but MS.

 

UpDate: After doing a search on Outlook 2007 hanging, I found a cure that seems to work. That is to uninstall Outlook KB952142 automatic update.

I will keep you posted but both the SSD and the spindleHD do not have that symptom anymore.

 

I wonder which ssd does the new macbook uses