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

Sure, let's write the IOMeter results off, but then what about the random and sequential write performance in YAPT? Random writes have always been the issue with JMicron, but the Vertex really chokes up on it as well.

http://pcper.com/article.php?aid=670&type=expert&pid=12

That's not to mention the Vertex is still a ways off the pace set by the Intel in PCMark Vantage.

I think there's more to this performance gaff in the tests by PCPer than simply "let's write off that bench cause it's not desktop-oriented". OCZ's been having a lot of firmware issues with the Vertex, hence the delays. I'd be willing to bet these performance numbers are a result of those problems.

On a side note, anyone look at the Corsair 128GB drive? It's a rebranded OEM (Samsung) MLC. Overall sequential performance doesn't look great (100/80 or so), but no stuttering and very low power consumption. I'm thinking of replacing this Patriot in my laptop.

EDIT: Oh, I see there are some Corsair thoughts in this thread... reading...

 

chuck232: You covered the gist of it with the Corsair, it's no speed freak but it's absolutely consistent with its performance, has no stuttering and requires less power/generates less heat than the similar $/gb Titan.

 

i jsut hope newegg read the end of pcper's article where it lists the prices 60gb $199 120gb $399 etc... however it didn't mention price of the 30gb if the trend continues and 30gb performs as well as the 60gb i may raid two 30's and use my current hdd as an external or just make a home server though i don't fully understand how to yet

Another option i've been tossing around for a while:
really i just want ssd for Vista 64 and Warhammer Online. Warhammer lists a requirement of 15gb but currently is only a little over 10gb. Do you think Vista and WAR would fit on a 30-32gb drive?

I read Vista takes about 10gb so that is roughly 25gb taken with wear leveling and vista updates and WAR updates, i just can't figure out if that is enough...

 

I'm very excited about this...it is really too bad that we'll have to wait another year until we see this in most notebooks though!

Personally I don't have a need for ultra-fast data transfers that are possible with an SSD. All I care for is an ultra-fast OS and programs. This would be taken care of by 16GB of turbo memory, would be no muss no fuss, and would be inexpensive...and if Intel can make this new turbo memory compare to its SSD offerings in terms of performance then I think this will be a super technology.

That said, if large SSDs come down in price as fast as it appears they will then Calpella's turbo memory will be too little too late. In a year's time we should see high-performance 60GB SSDs for around $100. How cheap is Calpella's turbo memory going to be to have a chance of competing with this? The only users I see using it will be those that require a large HDD (say 500GB) and so end up using the turbo memory option to get the best of both worlds at a reasonable price.

 

You know, first-gen Turbo Memory has been pretty useless so far; I'm gonna predict that second-gen Turbo Memory is going to be pretty useless as well.

By the time second-gen Turbo Memory comes out, I'm pretty sure the price of "real" SSDs will have dropped enough such that the price per GB of an SSD with similar speeds will match that of Turbo Memory. There are, of course, fewer small, cheap SSDs than some of the more expensive behemoths out there, but even now you can get an Mtron 16GB SLC for probably less than what a 16GB Turbo Memory module will cost at the end of the year.

And of course, what exactly does Intel mean when it says "throughput on the level of SSD drives"? Throughput on the level of SSD drives now? Then? Whose SSD drives... the info isn't particularly clear. "Real" SSD drives will also get faster in the next year. Between now and a year ago we've seen the speeds and prices of "real" SSDs go from (in my opinion) "yeah right, I'm never gonna be able to afford it" to "yeah, I'm thinking of shelling out for a 256GB Titan"; who knows what it'll be like in another year.

So yeah, regardless of what Intel says, I think second-gen Turbo Memory's gonna be a flop...

 

Turbo Memory 2.0 for Montevina has been out for a while. It still sucks. As far as I know, Robson 2 will be the last "Turbo Memory" as there are no plans for its updated successor for Calpella platform.

 

I have a first generation Turbo Memory module in my laptop and given the effect of turning it on, I'm extremely skeptical on the benefits of any update. It's literally unnoticeable -- maybe you can see if when running a specific benchmark, but I just can't tell the difference in everyday use. I suppose Intel could come up with something revolutionary, but I'll believe it when I see it.

 

When I see Turbo Memory, I cannot help but think, "Microsoft Bob". All that bruhaha to develop the Turbo Memory and it is so useless no one even cares.

 

I could see a future for a form of tubro memory that is 20-30GB, faster than any current SSD and sits directly on the bus ... that would be useful as a seperate storage/memory area for the OS.

 

once turbomemory reaches ssd performance levels, it will cost as much as an ssd of the same size. it's nice to have more than one disk/ssd/whatever in the system. but turbomemory, once useful, could be just as well an ssd at a second s-ata connection (a 1.8" for example)

 

Yeah, turbo memory must have been so pointless it's not even in the Dell SXPS 1640.

 

If you bought that OCZ Solid 60GB drive for $116, then there's a rebate now! Making it $96 after rebate:
http://slickdeals.net/?sdtid=119724...Newegg/rebate/SH/OCZ5MIRsFeb17Feb2809lt12.pdf

Here is more info:
http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?t=1197245

 

Now I'm getting really tempted.

I have an Aopen MiniPC MP945-VX. This is an older SFF PC (looks like a Mac Mini) and due to the small size it can only use 5400rpm HDD or else it can get too hot. It has a max of 1 SODIMM @ 2GB so increasing performance by increasing memory isn't an option for me as I'm already maxed.

I ran HD Tach on my current Seatgate 80GB HDD and here's what I got:

random access: 15.7ms
Avg read: 31.5MB/s

So I could count on my read speads increasing by a magnitude of around 5x which would max out the SATA-1 interface of this PC

I'd love to breathe new life into this small and fairly quiet PC. I don't play games but I do uncompressed audio editing as well as some photo work.

What do you all think - would this be a good cheap upgrade?

 

I definitely think so.

 

If you actually use the drive in your main desktop? No.
There are some people in this thread that - for some reason - seem to have an agenda pushing the cheap Jmicron based SSDs, despite probably 300+ pages of this thread that say that the performance of these is horrible as an OS drive.

think about it this way: there is a good reason why intel, samsung and the SLC SSDs cost sooooo much more than the jmicron drives.

You are probably better of getting a nice, fast, large 7,200rpm latest gen laptop HDD.

 

On the other hand, if you run FMT and make other system configurations with your SSD (jmicron or no) it will be faster and work great and blow away a 7200rpm. You just have to figure in the extra cost of FMT.

 

which doesn't work for system disks which he would need. and fmt is not proven technology. it didn't work on some slow ssd systems i tried on.

 

I agree with sitecharts

Yes, the OCZ drive is cheap but just think of all the partition alignment, registry tweaking and benchmarking just to get it up to speed... thats a lot of work.

This SSD Thread basically conclude that Jmicron controller simply doesn't work and not worth it. G.Skill did manage to fix the problem at the end of the day the drive still has a cheap "Jmicron" controller.

For $96, you can find yourself a good 750 GB to 1 TB 3.5" 7200 rpm hard drive or 320 GB 2.5" 7200 rpm hard drive.

 

My agenda is trying to help people get the best bang for their buck. So far my experience has been great with the OCZ Solid series and I will be installing another one tomorrow in my Vista notebook.

If money were no object, I'd recommend the MUCH MORE expensive ones, but some of the cheap ones are pretty darn good for the price. I'll report how my Vista system works when I get the new Solid in it, but my XP system has been working great. I did some tweaks and added a RAMDISK for the temporary Internet files and it's faster than it's ever been (& quieter).

 

he said he can't use 3.5 nor 7200rpm due to size and heat constraints.

would 16gb be enough? or 32gb? if so, you could get cheap slc.

 

I thought it would be "a lot of work" but it wasn't bad at all (kind of fun actually). I didn't do any before & after benchmarking though as that would indeed take more time that I didn't want to spend.

 

I kinda agree with sitecharts.com here; I wouldn't install a JMicron MLC in my main machine. I think their poor worst-case performance offsets the best-case performance enough such that a fast spinner would be preferred. There's no real evidence of mass failures with the JMicron MLC drives, but I also am not sold on the mid to long term reliability of the things.

Yes, you can tweak it to the point of acceptable worst-case performance, but I'd still rather recommend a small SLC drive (as daveperman suggested); you can get a 16MB Mtron for $150 and use your old drive or a large USB device for storage.

 

Just to quickly chime in here - I've been using a Patriot Warp v2 for the better part of 2 months now in my M1330 and I have to agree there are some substantial performance increases to be had. Photoshop opens substantially faster, Outlook opens faster, and things are a bit snappier. I haven't noticed any battery life improvement, but the performance increase is good enough I suppose.

Now, I've also noticed stuttering. I've followed (just about) all the tweaks outlined at the OCZ forums with the exception of enabling SteadyState or trying MFT. The stuttering's still there. It's minute, and if I told you it would be 1 to 2 seconds every 10 minutes or so, you'd probably think it's no big deal. But it's very obvious. And it's not the frequency or even length of the stutters that gets you. It's their randomness. You're typing, typing, typing and all of a sudden something locks up. Or you're browsing through the file tree and Explorer stops responding for a second. It's jarring. More than the statistics might otherwise say.

So yeah, I'm looking at the Corsair 128GB or possibly even the Intel 80GB if I can swing the money. At this point, I'm still willing to tough it out with the SSD. The performance increase over the 5400RPM drive I had before (Hitachi 120GB) is still worth it, but I'm looking to greener pastures. For the $50 I paid for this 32GB Patriot though, I probably don't have much to complain about.

 

read somewhere that windows 7 will support SSD's better than previous versions of windows....so i think it's best i wait for windows 7 to hit the market. for now i'll live with raid 0 ...

 

The X25-M/X25-E has 20 memory chips in 10 channel configuration. The Turbo Memory generation 3 will use the 34nm chips which will inherit the performance gains from the more advanced process technology.

Actually the technology is very misunderstood. The gains weren't there on the first generation devices(Santa Rosa) because the drivers were immature. Second generation devices with possibly increased throughput, mature drivers, and greater capacity actually brings benefits. The drivers were so bad initially that in the beginning even if the checkmark said it was enabled, it wasn't enabled without some fancy booting procedures(Anandtech had a review about this).

Third generation with 16GB capacity, integrated NAND controller on PCH, and even more mature drivers will bring significant benefits.

 

I understand the size restriction but there is no reason he will be unable to run a 7200rpm laptop HDD for heat reasons.
If the system is heat sensitive (passive cooling/bad ventilation) then he won't be able to run a raptor HDD but a laptop HDD ... really ... ?

And the fact that ONE user on this thread doesn't have any issues with his OCZ SSD (while many, many others have reported stuttering and all the other issues associated with jmicron SSDs) hopefully will be taken for what it's worth, no matter how vocal that user is about OCZ drives.

 

At that point though, especially if that "Turbomemory" is faster than a SSD, won't it make more sense to just use the turbomemory to install and run the OS?

 

Actually, Aopen specifically says that you are NOT to use a 7200rpm drive in this computer and even goes so far as to have a limited list of 5400rpm drives that are approved. The case is *very* tiny and the insides are incredibly cramped. I've used programs that read the case temperature in the past and when decoding HD content the temperature gets high enough that the HDD can easily die a premature death.

 

the temperature difference between a modern 7200rpm laptop hdd and a 5400rpm laptop hdd is negligible so that is BS. just make sure you don't necessarily go with the hottest drive.

may I also suggest the following thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=263039

 

I was about to buy the Intel M for this new Toshiba R600, but reports of re-imaging requirements made me decide to wait for a while as the market achieves clarity. But how could I turn down a $100 OCZ 60GB Solid? If I can find out what XP tweaks are needed, that drive should do for a while.

My new question is:
Can I use Acronis (or something like it) to simply migrate my existing HD data onto the SSD? Or must I install and build from scratch?

 

Yeah, you can image the drive just as would any regular HDD; I'm probably going to image my Solid as well.

 

Yes, you should be able to. I think I will try that approach tomorrow... probably using Acronis' Clone tool. I will try to verify that the partitions are (and remain) aligned as well.

Previously I just copied the files with robocopy but had some minor issues due to the copy method (I think). Possibly because of security issues with copying some files.

 

Yeah, can anyone who's going to be using Acronis to image onto a SSD do me a favor and manually set the SSD's partition alignment offset to something other than your current drive's offset, and then report what the SSD's offset is after you've reimaged? (ie. your HD's offset is 63, you set your SSD offset to 128, what's your SSDs offset after you reimaged?)

 

ashura: you have vista, offset is not a topic for you..

 

See I think the concept of Turbo Memory is this. When it is done ideally, it is an alternative to a cheap SSD. Due to capacity limitations and lower cost implementation, you won't get the throughput of a full much more expensive SSD and of course a silent drive. You probably won't get into freezing problems because only the crucial files are in there not everything on your computer.

Think of this. If the SSDs advance to a point where they fix all the current cheap SSD issues like freezing, what would be the point of buying an SSD?? Fast load times and boot times would have its limits. It would end up being throughput and IOPS(which helps things like copying files for example).

 

You guys sure Acronis Clone doesn't change the partition alignment? I remember reading somewhere that it does change it back to XP default which is 63.

I personally did the clean install. But to be hoenst, I didn't notice much difference.

 

I dont know if somebody is interested but... I have OCZ Core V2. I used tuned XP but when i have filled 50% of my drive stuttering starts. I moved drive to my new lappy (from SZ to TZ) and change XP to W7. Same applications, same usage, same data on unchanged second partition but no stuttering or freezing. Just want you to know

 

you forgot "expensive". everyone would then buy an ssd if it's cheap and has no problems.

turbomemory is just like hybrid disks a thing to make a "slow switch" to ssd. once everyone has an ssd, turbomemory is an additional overhead => unneeded.

but of course, you'll disagree

 

did you have the partition alignment changed in winxp? if not, that could be the main thing as both vista and win7 partition correctly aligned.

 

I dont know what exactly did you meant. I didnt change partitions. Just format XP partition (using Acronis i think) and instaled W7. Size and data on second partition were unchanged.

 

Is this new Samsung any good? Sure are not many details. http://cgi.ebay.com/128-GB-Solid-State-SSD-SATA-II-Laptop-Drive-Samsung_W0QQitemZ330307237040QQcmdZViewItemQQptZPCC_Drives_Storage_Internal?hash=item330307237040&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A4|65%3A3|39%3A1|240%3A1308

I wish it was SLC but I am sure it is not. Still, it IS a Samsung. Thanks, Dave

 

The new Samsungs are excellent, if you search back a bit you can find a link to benchmarks from the 256GB version.

 

Can someone tell me if the Corsair S128 is equivalent to what we are referring to as the "new" controller Samsung MLC for purposes of this thread?

(Corsair being a re-badged Samsung equivalent)

I'm not sure how the term "new" is being used here, sry.

I do recall Corsair's original press release claiming they would use a new controller at maybe, oh, midyear IIRC.

 

partitions in xp are by default unaligned, resulting in much more write-overhead for an ssd (and ssd's are quite bad at small writes). result: much slower performance.

vista and win7 do it right by default, resulting in much better performance.

but this of course only, if you deleted the old partitions.

 

afaik (i'm unsure) the new samsungs are the ones with 200MB/s, the old ones with 100MB/s read speed. or are the new ones MLC and the old ones SLC? dunno

 

So that's your story and you're sticking with, eh?

/me decides to re-read the last several pages

 

hehe i know the first samsung where slc, 100MB/s. i know the newest can 200MB/s and are mlc. but i know there are some 100MB/s mlc and don't know if they're the newest or another generation all together

 

And of course you don't get my point. Most would go for OCZ Core if it wasn't for the freezing problems.

 

My OCD compels me to manually set the offset in Vista anyway.

And more than anything I'm curious about what Acronis does to the offset when you reimage. Most of the time Vista sets a good offset of 128 or 256 but every now and then it does go as high 1024 or 2048.

 

just jking

But...the Corsair S128 are definitely MLC and I believe may be "old" or "current" gen Samsung equivalent, not the so called "new" drives laserbullet referenced several posts back. But if I was sure, I wouldn't have asked.

NP.

I'll do some research thru the previous several pages. I'm sure its all there if I poke around enough.

Thx