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

what do people want with those raid devices? it's not like motherboards since years have onboard raid by default??

 

1. It conveniently holds two 2.5" SSDs and can mount in a 3.5" bay.
2. It is super-easy to configure - a single switch or something. The RAID is 'invisible' to the system.
3. It doesn't require that you use your motherboard RAID. I do not have any additional SATA slots available. While my MB has a lot of them, I lost some by having two video cards in there. The 2nd card covers up at least two of my SATA ports, and I use two others for eSATA. So I can't use my MB's RAID without reconfiguring a lot of stuff of getting rid of one of my SATA devices.
4. I heard it's going to cost around $60 - so that's pretty cheap.

 

Laptop boards?

 

1. not needed, just put them in your case and be done (i have two 3.5" mtrons, they are actually half-thick, that means, two of them fit into one 3.5" slot).

2. not that raid is much more difficult, but okay.

3. motherboard raid means no additional hw needed. s-ata saturation (with the new ssds easily reached in raid0) is a non-issue like on this hw-thing. oh, and, there are edged s-ata cables that should fit below your video cards.

4. i heard the mainboard raid is for free, and it'll show higher performance.

but it will fit into some niches. it would work in my case, for example (the two mtron together don't saturate s-ata2) just as well. but then again, no hdd box at all (i've taken that box-thing out completely) and the two drives just fixed on the case-wall with a rubber-band is even more clean


i was just interested. it seems a wierd thing.

 

laptops are out of question anyways as you don't get that box into a laptop.

and if you really think about putting it external, then it's not a laptop anymore.

 

May not be needed, but I still like the idea.

I don't think saturation would be common in real-world use (at least at this time for most SSDs).

I think I have virtually no room under the video card. Are there especially low profiles SATA cables that I'm not aware of? I know there are right-angle ones, but the ones I've seen are probably still too big.

I hope the RAID enclosures are high performance enough.

 

well, you don't want to raid two intel ssds with 240MB/s each to get something from 250MB/s to 300MB/s (depends a bit) instead of 480MB/s.

most of the new ssd's will be around 200MB/s read. they easily saturate the s-ata bus in raid0. all of them.

well, one of my s-ata cables is only about the thickness of the head higher than the actual s-ata-port where you have to plug in.. if you can stick an s-ata cable between the video card and the connector, then it would fit.

i'd sue your motherboard developer for such a stupid design

if they don't mess up the raid enclosure, it'll be quite high performance. they can take a cheap onboard-raid style chip and be done..

 

This is a good review of the Titan 256 GB SSD: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2009/01/20/g-skill-titan-256gb-ssd-review/1

 

^ not bad for the G.Skill

how is your other 256GB SSD performing ?

 

^ It's performing pretty good. I'll post hdtune scores later tonight.

 

The nature of SATA's point to point connection means that in theory bandwidth should increase in proportion to number of drives.

 

Yeah I always thought the channels were additive. It would be up to the onboard RAID controller's cap. Software RAID would incur overhead quickly and max out first.

 

You are assuming peak performance though... In real world use, it's not that fast. I'd be plenty happy to just get the full 300MB/s (at least for now!).

 

Very nice review, thanks! I wonder if the 128GB Titan will be exactly the same, or close enough so that it will not matter except for the cheaper price? Stil, I would like to hear from more "real world" users with regard to the overall usability that a person like me might do such as compacting outlook, listening to Itunes, surfing 10 or 15 tabs, and maybe some Quicken, Dreamweaver, and photo impact at the same time.

 

Here's a random question, I have a 60GB SSD now with winxp on it, if I wanted to put Vista on my 320GB mechanical drive can I lop off 4GB of the SSD in a new partition and use it to readyboost the vista install?

 

I installed Googles Picasa 3 and now it's finding all my images and videos and I have 20 tabs open in Firefox while listening to mp3's and I'm not experiencing any slow downs.

 

Just having 20 tabs open is not going to tax it. Opening 20 tabs will. Bookmark all tabs, then open that tab collection at once. Though i'm not sure if it's gonna choke the drive or some other component of the comp.

 

not in that raid box, as it in the end goes out on one s-ata cable.

 

A good report! Picassa is a pretty taxing program as I recall.

 

hm i have peak on my two mtrons all the time, why should i not assume to get peak on others as well? i have up to 220MB/s right now (each drive, by spec, having 100MB/s actually). why should i f.e. get two intels to only run them at up to 62%. they can only peak at less than 2/3rd then.

yes they'll still be hellfast, but you know, we're geeks, we don't want just a bit fast if we know our spent money could allow for more.

 

Well if you get peak all the time, that's quite unusual. If you look at benchmarks, peak read and write speeds are only obtained during very specific circumstances.

300MB/s would be fast enough for me for now... I'm a geek, but I don't have a Core i7 yet and don't plan to get one until Windows 7 is out... and besides, if I got the fastest thing now, it would only be a little while until something faster was out.

I'll settle for my little SSD RAID box and 300MB/s.

 

well i'm at peak for all the files where it matters (a 20mb file doesn't matter as it loads in 0.1 sec or so? and most of the time the apps have more to do actually decoding their files). but for bigger files, i reach the peak with ease.

i just hope the raidbox delivers. the onboard raids do, and do so since years, so i prefer to trust into them (and they're made from big companies with good support).

but i'll be happy to hear good reports from you.

 

hm wonder when someone will be able to put 2 of those titan 256gb ssd's in raid0 on a laptop and see how they respond.. am holding off at the mo looking at the ssd drive scene evolve quicker than expected..

I desperately want to get my dell m6400 covet at its peak performance.. and these titans might just be the ticket....

still no news though about where one can buy the slc samsung 256gb drives...

 

I'm wondering if the new OCZ vertex drives are just rebadged Samsung's.

 

FWIW: 128GB Titan in stock at Newegg

As of the time of this post...

 

Nice. Just drop it $100 more and I'll have to really consider getting one. Also, a few more reviews won't hurt.

 

I'm looking at dropping a new hard drive in my laptops 2nd bay. Instead of a 7200rpm regular drive I've decided to get an ssd to boot windows from and install a few choice games and use my regular hdd for storage. I just have no idea where to start or if this is even a good time to buy since the technology is still evolving so much.

I'm looking to spend less than $200 and hopefully get at least 64gb of space, is there anything available right now worth the money or should I wait for better tech and cheaper prices?

 

Nice review on the 256GB Titan. Performance just a notch or two below the Intel X25-M across the board, but you get triple the space at the same price point.

Assuming that the 128GB version performs the same, IMO that's the sweet spot for now price wise, but then again I'm not a diskspace hog (heck, 64GB is still fine for my needs).

For desktop systems though.... mmmmmmm, SSD.

 

OCZ Releases New 2.5-inch Apex SSDs
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/OCZ-APEX-SATA-SDD,6841.html

Corsair Enters SSD Market With 128 GB SSD
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Corsair-SSD-S128,6871.html

 

yeah that review makes me think the 256gb titan is kind of like 2 128's stuck together back to back. is the 128gb 2 64's stuck back to back or just half of the 256? (figuratively speaking)

And it appears RAID is the term people are using to describe the technology used in the new batch of SSDs

 

Yes, otherwise it would not have the same read and write speeds that benefit from it.

 

true. good point. ty!

 

it appears the Titans are sold out again already on newegg, as of this post...

 

I'm wondering if people are snatching this up and selling them for more elsewhere.

 

from what i've seen ebay has a descent mark up on most ssd's unfortunately =(. i was trying to snag one in a bidding war but they always go just a bit too high to be a deal...

 

The Egg also often changes prices to reflect demand, too. I wouldn't be surprised to see them raise prices unless contractually forbidden.

 

Hehe. I am happy that g.skill is making a nice buck with these new SSDs and NOT OCZ (whose Apex are probably the same).

 

Why? BTW, it looks like OCZ is going to be charging $400 more for the Apex.

 

I thought that the apex drive and the titan were different animals all together?

The Apex drive is actually 2 SSD's that are internally RAIDed and the Titan actually has dual controllers.

Are we sure yet the apex drives sport the 2 controllers or just 1 controller with a raided storage media?

 

i thought it would have to have two controlers to be raided otherwise how is it raided?

 

RAID only requires one controller. You need two drives or more though.

 

i am thinking of getting a SSd, what is the best one i can get for 250$

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Corsair-SSD-S128,6871.html

Corsair selling what looks to be a samsung rebadged 128gb SLC SSD for around 400$. Write and read speeds are not great as such but you're sure this thing will not stutter, and consume very little, in read AND write.

 

I think those drives are using a techology that is RAID-like as opposed to run-of-the-mill RAID. But then, I also think I'm hot.

 

Actually, three controllers. One of each drive, plus the raid controller. Maybe there are three in the SSD.

 

I read that article but did not know it was a rebranded Samsung SLC. Good catch. Nice drive. No stuttering. that may be more beneficial than raw speed for many of us. And for $335, YES!

 

How important are the slower read/write speeds in terms of actual performance assuming you generally don't transfer large files constantly? They are faster than any notebook mechanical drive, and I'd assume these read/write speeds coupled with the superfast access times would make for a good drive.

Anyone with any experience with this or a similar drive. I'm particularly interested since I have a lenovo t61 that would probably be capped at ~120mb/s anyway, so might as well save some coin if i can

 

Sorry that's what I meant.

I wasn't aware that Samsung made a 128GB SLC. The speeds and size indicate it's the MLC drive...

 

i hope it's an slc drive. could be my next one for my next notebook. and 2 or 3 in raid0 for the pc.. to saturate bandwidth.. as always

 

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/products/flash/ssd/2008/product/lineup.html

As much as I want SLC...