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

I agree. And doesn't the intel handle writes differently? I remember reading here or somewhere else that the SDRAM is not used as "cache" ...

 

I just want to state for everyone who talks about other partition managers and such stuff:

if you use vista or win7, you don't need anything else than the internal partition managers (and the one from the install disks/sticks). they do automatic alignment and all. it's all fine.

and even for xp, if you have a vista cd around, you can manage it with the disk. somehow



to spare-time. you say 32gb would be enough? it is for me. and for 220$ you could get a good working mtron 3500 32gb. outside of the price range?


to everyone else about the storage and external disks and all that.
get rid of the external disks, get a homeserver instead. auto-backup of your notebook(s and pc's), data savety trough auto-dublication on the home-server. you can still use your existing external disks. really, think about it. it's a great investment for your savety of the stuff you really care about.

you can set one up with an old pc (p3 or so) that stands around and has no use, or get a cheap atom 330 system from ebay that handles it, what ever.

and then, 32/64/80gb ssd's are enough for about anyone (but more is always nice). instead of planning for a new notebook, this is my suggestion for investment for anyone.

home-server hw: 200$
additional tb (+existing one from an external disk or so): 100$
home-server licence: 100$ or so?
32gb ssd per machine: 200$ each

for the price of a new notebook you get a perfect backup system, much storage, and a notebook with completely new performance levels (a.k.a. what you originally wanted to invest in: a new notebook ).

yeah, i love to talk about that solution. it really works so great, i never want to move back.

 

it's not used as a write cache per se, as write-caching is dangerous. it may lead to data loss. i've talked about the why before. simple said: as long as the data isn't written to disk you can't be sure it could write to disk. so writing into a cache and then say "yep, saved" to be faster is dangerous.

they use it to cache everything else, the whole "where to write next, how to arange, etc" and cache the last writes to combine that with future data in a next write directly, invalidating the old cell. all the ideas floating around. i know intel knows much more where the cache helps but is not about storing actual unsaved data.

 

Dunno if this has been posted, but the Vertex doesn't use a JMicron!

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=14257

 

that article makes me feel all fuzzy inside

if the 60gb comes in under $249.99 i'll snatch one the second i see it available. otherwise i may wait a week for newegg to drop the price. seems to be the trend other than the titans which actually increased in price. or maybe the intels will drop to compete for sales... might even splurge on the 120gb since the article said it should be a good bit faster.

 

Yep, we knew it didn't use a JMicron controller, but the article provides more info... like what controller it does use.

I really hope this new controller is a success and can compete with Intel and Samsung to help force prices down.

 

Ditto TidalWaveOne. Another nice tidbit from the article was that prices will be lower than what was originally announced.

 

Ah, but the question remains... "Will it be a contender?". Great to finally get some hard info. The company that solves the controller problem as completely and elegantly as possible, AND keeps the price down will enjoy some very nice success. Maybe these folks are it. They are in a great area for technology. They can have lunch with the kings of hard drives, Western Digital

 

Hey all,

I only read like 20 pages, too much changes have happened to take 3 hours from the beginning.
So excuse me if the question has been asked/answered.

Does anyone have any experience with the 256GB Samsung SSD?
Has anyone seen it properly reviewed/compared yet out in the world?

Reason I ask is Dell has just started offering a 256GB SSD addon for some of their lappys and it appears to be the Samsung 256GB, which is supposed to be a beast.

I'm dedicating a thread to the drive specifically and collating info in the Dell XPS section.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=352730

Thanks for any feedback.

Edit: Just saw post 2856 and 2858, It's a Sammy 225MB read and 188MB write!.

 

from what's been said about it, it's legit, and samsung has a good stable rep in the SSD community

 

Sorry, i have nlited off paint on my windows so i can't draw on that. But the offset you speak of i think it is in the "sect" column, the partition has to start at 1 and end at 63. It does this by default, what you change is just the cylinder "cyl" to adjust the size of your partition.

 

If the alignment offset has to be a number between 1 and 63, how would you go about having offsets of 128k and 256k?

 

I don't know why it would have to be those numbers. How is understand it you align so that your partition starts with a sector 1. Those kb figures is the result, but it could be otherwise if the bytes per sector was different, but it's usually 512bytes per sector right?

You can see in ranish partition manager that the MBR sits at (0,0,1) CHS (cylinder head sector) addressing. If you started your OS partition right after that, you'd start it at (0,0,2), which is unaligned. The next place with a sector 1 is (0,1,1), which means you leave a blank space from (0,0,2) to (0,0,63), so you start at the 64th sector with 512bytes per sector, you are at 32kb. OCZ forum wants you to start at 128 sectors in, that would be (0,2,1), or 64kb. If you want 128kb, that would be (0,4,1), 256kb would be (0,8,1). You notice that those kb figures all start at a sector 1.
From what i know (and this was in a context of HDD and not SDD, don't know if it makes any difference) you also shouldn't have a head that starts at anything else than 0 or 1, so i wouldn't do what you or the OCZ forum recommends. I don't know how the guys at OCZ got to 128 sectors in, whether they tested it, or if theoretically it makes a difference in terms of logical block alignments, or if it is detrimental to have a head at another value than 0 or 1, i will have to let someone better informed answer that question.

 

Hrm, I think we might just be miscommunicating here (ie. you're saying one term that I'm interpreting as another). XP always sets a partition alignment offset of 63kb whenever it's installed. If you were to go into command prompt on your XP machine, enter 'diskpart', then enter 'list disk', and 'select disk x' x being the drive with XP on it, and then enter 'list partition' you'd see the offset of the partition on the rightmost column.

It's that 63kb offset that causes problems for SSDs in XP. Vista and W7 typically use 64kb or 128kb instead and it's why SSDs perform better naturally under those operating systems. Making sure to set the proper offset prior to installing XP has been shown to greatly improve performance.

 

I did as you said in command prompt, it tells me my partition has an offset of 32kb, as i had expected, since i partitioned it that way using the CHS values i explained earlier.
Yes a 64kb offset is the result of a sector being aligned at 1. So is 128kb. But the head value would not be 0 or 1.

 

Upgrading to OCZ Solid 60GB drive.

This is my "story" for upgrading an older Seagate hard drive in a Windows XP notebook to a new OCZ Solid Series SSD.

For my main system, I have a Vista x64 system with two drive docks, an eSATA one and a USB one. I removed the old Seagate 7200.1 80GB HD from my Windows XP Dell E1505 notebook. Unfortunately I forgot the hard drive was password protected so I had to install it back into the notebook and remove the password before I could put it in the dock and my computer would see data on the drive. I wonder if the OCZ drive supports password protection? I may have to investigate that.

I put the OCZ 60GB Solid drive in my eSATA dock and followed the directions on the OCZ forum for using diskpar to create an aligned partition. NOTE: I use a program called "HotSwap!" to install/remove drives in my eSATA dock which I find very handy (makes it work more like USB drives). NOTE: Don't forget to make the new partition on the SSD the actve partition.

I then used robocopy (included in my Vista install) to copy the files to the OCZ drive (two commands because two partitions):
robocopy d: l: /MIR /COPY ATSOU /R:2 /W:2
robocopy f: m: /MIR /COPY ATSOU /R:2 /W:2

I had some errors trying to copy some "crypto" files (and some others). Security related?

To restore the MBR, I used "mbrfix64.exe" from http://www.sysint.no/Nedlasting/MbrFix.zip:
mbrfix64.exe /drive 8 fixmbr

I then put the drive back in the notebook and hoped it would boot up... and it did!

I then applied some of the tweaks mentioned on the OCZ forum. This included some registry tweaks and disabling the Indexing Service. I did not do the "tweak in beta test" and I did not disable my page file even though I have 2 GB of RAM in the computer. I also did not setup a RAM disk.

I had some problems with Outlook XP. It may have been how the files were copied with robocopy (I would have preferred to use Acronic True Image but was concerned about it preserving the partition alignment). Doing a "Detect and Repair" operation in outlook and then shutting down and restarting Outlook seems to have fixed it.

So far my impressions are very positive. The computer boots much faster and is very quiet. Programs load faster. I have not experienced any obvious stuttering.

 

It's decision time - I'm too impatient to wait another few weeks for Vertex and other innovations in the SSD market. So, it's either the 32GB Intel E or the 80GB Intel M.

Or can someone propose a more cost-effective SSD improvement over a 5400RPM HD in my about-to-arrive Toshiba R600?

 

Is Nyceis still around?

I've been learning alot about the 256GB Samsung SSD shipping with Dells, although there is no ETA when it will be available in retail. Prices are looking pretty high currently.

Nyceis, if you around can you do an HDTUNE compared to these benchmarks I found?

There is some great benchmarks I found on a Japenese site from yesterday.
It compares the Samsung 256 P800 (only one 256GB model out there in 2.5"), intel X-25 E & M, OCZ Apex testing w/ Crystal and HDtune pro 3.5 .

So there is this anomaly I find strange with this drive in HDtune where a few random access reads are hitting 100ms (1/10 s), which no other drives exhibit except the P800.

I wanted to see if you may see those same results if you do an HDTune, it seems to be in the 4k reads?

Check out this thread on the Samsung 256GB and see the section on "reviews" where you will see the Japanese review and all the charts.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=352730
Hope you are still out there.

 

The benchmark I mentioned above shows there benchmark scores side by side, if you like.
I would have a tough time with a 32GB personally, their prices aren't too horrible anymore though.

Edit proposal for cost effective improvment: Return the toshiba, get a Dell with the Samsung 256GB SSD upgrade for $400. hehe

 

If you're willing to live with 32GB, I think the best value solution out there right now is the 32GB Mtron Mobi 3000 which can usually be found around $200. It's not the IO beast that Intel is, but it's SLC, pulls 100/100 R/W and reasonably quick on random writes as well. I would have gotten one myself had I not found my Samsung at a lower price.

 

One other point about the Mtron Mobi 3000: It's power consumption is not nearly as horendous as the 3500 series. Still more than the other SSDs but it is not like first gen 7200 rpm hard drive bad.

It seems the ye olden Samsung SLC 64Gb SATAII has been deactivated from Newegg and a lot of other retailers. I'm hoping that means they'll have a new model out rather than Samsung getting out of the SLC game. That would be a shame. The 32 GB version along with the Gskill and OCZ rebrands of both are still availible... for now.

 

I see someone ask about Samsung 256GB with the new controller. So far, the only place that sell them is dvnation but unfortunately they are backordered. You might want to wait for few more months though so that hopefully the price fall a lot more, it retail at $1175 now.

 

Oh one thing about the Intel drive. Everything is of course not top in the Intel camp. It looks like the drive might sacrifice sequential write speed in steady-state to save power. It might go back up to 70-80% of max speeds after few weeks with very consistent usage, but nevertheless it'll take quite long time.

That's backed up by Intel's numbers of 150mW on Active but burst numbers of 2-5W in reviews. It will burst, but not very often.

 

possible stupid question....and not that you would want to....and not that i have read each page here either....

can you, or would you even want to set up a single SSD in raid or raid like?
is this even possible?

 

raid is for more than one disk. it's an "redundant ARRAY of independent disks". you can't "raid" one disk.

but yes, having two or more ssd in a raid 0 enhances the performance of the two.

 

figured this....thx
just thought you could simulate raid if you partitioned the drive....oh well.

would raid even be effective, or more effective, if used with SSD's?

 

I'm no computer guru, but I think people go RAID (1?) for backup purposes in preparation for a hard drive failure. And when it dies, having a replicated partition won't serve much purpose at that point (since the hdd is dead).
Just like you don't open up two bank accounts for yourself at the same bank -- you have a backup account elsewhere if things go south.
Having RAID (0?) wouldn't make sense on a single harddrive as there are single parts for single tasks and of course they are on the same harddrive so RAID doesn't even make sense here.

Take what I say with a grain of salt. Probably a lot of mistakes and such, but I hope you sorta understand it if I'm correct.

 

nope, sounds perfect, psygn. you've done your schoolwork well

 

Question. People are saying the Vertex is not out yet, but i see then for sale with many etailers? If it's out, where are the reviews?
Also, is the only difference between Vertex and Vertex II is that Vertex II is two Vertex raided?

 

i knew what types of raid (0 and 1 being the most popular) there were, i was just toying with the idea that may speed up an already fast drive....

 

The Vertex appears to be "available for pre-order", but I have seen no etailer with inventory to ship.

There was a semi-official comment somewhere that the firmware on these units was being changed before shipping begins. If that's so, then any early examples in the hands of potential reviewers would have had to go back for update.

I believe we will see Vertex reviews in a week or two, and shipping at about the same time.

 

I must have missed the post, but where/how do I set the offset to 64/128KB before installing XP?

 

Instructions and guide, along with some background info, here: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=48309

The easiest way is through the Vista recovery disc: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=326656&postcount=3

 

Vertex is in the hands of reviewers now, we should see something from them this coming week. They're supposed to be available for purchase a week after that. And yes, Vertex II to Vertex is Apex to Core, internal RAID0-ing the drives.

 

It's not for backup, it's for redundancy. It's an important distinction. It is to protect against hardware failure, but it doesn't cover the other problem, the people at the keyboard. If you issue a delete command, the array will dutifully delete both copies just as it was instructed to do so.

Wait too long, and the blocks are reallocated, making the file unrecoverable even with undelete tools. That's the point of having a backup too. On the various *nix flavors it might be unrecoverable immediately.

It's a popular misconception that having a RAID means never having to backup. See above.

Afterthought -- when I use the term RAID, I'm using it generically to indicate a RAID level with protection, i.e. RAID-1 or higher.

Added on Edit

I don't mean to sound like I'm picking on you. I am very particular about the verbage, as I work in large data center environments and we do both.

 

Just came across the following article about the problem with steadystate performance with intel ssds:

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=669&type=expert&pid=1


Would love to see them test the Samsung based SSDs, e.g. the Corsair S128.
The intel and the Samsung drives remain the only SSDs worth getting ... even with this.

 

Thanks for the links, ashura.

 

One quick anecdote...

You don't really realize how loud mechanical drives are until you remove them from your computer.

 

John,
How are you liking your Titan?

 

Jedi:

I just got started with it last night, and I need to do some tuning on my Firefox cache sizing. Overall, I like it quite a bit.

Everything seems snappy, and now I realize how loud the old drive was, how loud the DVD-ROM is and how loud the fans are on my C90S.

 

No problem, i'll be getting a Dell laptop anyway and I can get it for only a $400 upgrade.

There's a couple other places to order it, it's just not available. Apparently Samsung is not giving any word on when they plan to go into retail with it.

I'm collating info on the Samsung 256GB here - http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=352730

 

That is discouraging and disconcerting all at once. Sheesh.
I actually would like to see how the newest Samsung 256GB controller does, unfortunately it will likely take months before a test like that will popup for it.

Failing perfromance and having to reimage to regain performance does not sound like fun at all.

 

Old news question. Anybody heard of patriot SLC drives? I got a parts number here PE32GS25SSDR some sites list it as SLC. But it's the original warp i think.

 

Hopefully the Intel defragging utility mentioned in both the anand article and the pcper piece will be released soon and takes care of the issue.

 

I just had the pleasant experience of fooling with a Toshiba R500 fitted with the G.Skill 64GB drive promoted by NewEgg as their "best seller". Extremely impressive - like a quadcore desktop.

However, that unit is on XP - modified with complexity reductions, etc. I need to find out what.

 

Maybe for you, but I'm quite happy with the OCZ Solid I bought. Intel didn't offer me a product that was worth the price for what I wanted.

 

OCZ just released an ATTO bench of a single 120g Vertex, looks very promising. I'm looking forward to reviewers getting they're hands on it and letting us know if it's as good as promised.

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=51112

Also, Tony explicitly states that the 30 and 60 gig drives are not as fast as the 120.

 

Wow... great article. Makes the jmicron and other controllers seem a lot better than what people have been saying about them. Now I don't think Intel is as great as it was thought to be. I also wonder about the Samsung and wish they would test it out.

I actually started using a RAM disk for my temp Internet files on my main computer even though I'm not using any SSDs on it. I do have 8 GB of RAM in there and thought I'd try it out since I have plenty of memory.

 

Now I don't know about you, but that makes the Intel's claims of reliability believeable.

JMicron is horrible in that both real world performance and reliability is up in smoke.

The Samsung test was shown on the PCWatch, and they have their own flaws.