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

Is this PDF dated? Has SSD write performance gotten to acceptable levels?

http://www.storagesearch.com/easyco-flashperformance-art.pdf

Cliff Notes
Read performance of small files greatly improved by SSD
Read performance of large (~1MB) files about the same
Read performance > 1MB files favors "mechanical" drives

Write performance is significantly better in "mechanical" compared to SSD

According to the PDF, if only 10% of operations are write and 90% read an SSD card will perform 1.5x worse then a "mechanical" drive.

 

Very dated. There are plenty of benchmarks at the start of the thread that show that write performance of an ssd is now better than the HD. Your best bet, actually, is to just check out the benchmark thread in my sig block.

 

Thanks I have pretty much read the whole thread (after making that post) to bring me up to speed.

It looks like it is probably still accurate for SATA I SSD's, but the newer SATA II SSD's ($1k+ for 64GB) have a much better (write) performance.

 

No not really... the best performance stil has come from the Mtron Pro and Memoright ssds which have exceeded the 100MB/s in read or write.

Even Samsung concedes that its improved benchmark tests come from better NAND and improved controller technology and not the fact that it is a SATA II design.

 

i am quite interested in why the extremely low access times of ssds is an advantage. say on average an ssd will access 15ms faster than a regular hd. but 15ms only equates to 1/67th of a second, no one would no the difference.

 

Faster access speeds means your computer can access data faster, and whenever your computer does anything complex, it needs to lookup data in many different places all at once. Boot time is where this all adds up, but even when loading web pages or clicking on folders or creating windows or opening applications it is the access time that causes the delays that can add up. Access times 100x faster means not much adds up, and your computer can do all the little things extremely fast.

The earlier SSDs had mediocre read/write times, so the time saved in accessing data was often offset but the time lost in reading/writing when accessing larger pieces of data. The newer SSDs starting with the Mtron Pro and Memoright GT are faster even in read/write, so there is absolutely no downside. They can access 100x faster and read/write 2x faster than your average notebook hard drive.

I have a Memoright GT installed on an SZ and it feels like I upgraded to a 4GHz CPU. My system is easily twice as fast. Everything is snappy. I have yet to look at the hard disk LED to check if my computer died or is just working on something.

This analogy will only help some people, but if you've ever played Street Fighter 2 or something similar online, then you know what network latency can do to you. Your character moves sluggish, and you cannot guard in time. An HDD is like SF2 with latency. It reacts with a split second delay. An SSD is SF2 without latency. Your computer will respond faster to everything you do.

 

If I can elaborate as to access times for jisaac.

A ssd may have, on average .2ms access time. That means that it takes that long to get a file. This is very obvious with most when they start programs like Word and there is no delay. Its almost like the system knows what your going to do next.

I really don't know why I haven't put a video together yet because it is a very visible difference in all functions of the system. The OS not only loads faster, but most system applications start instantly.

With a HD, the average acces time is 15ms, some 60 times slower...but is it really? Each time a HD makes a pass for information it again requires that access time as there is no memory as to where it was last. This means that, if it was required to make four passes for a large file, you are looking at a considerable amount of time, and now some 240 times slower than the ssd.

Many have described this difference in game loading as the best example.

 

The benchmarks at the link in your sig are outdated as well.

Here is the latest Samsung Sata II 64GB:

101.8 MB/s Read

96.02 MB/s Write

 

No...they are not actually. I was speaking of the "Latest and Fastest" which have the Benchmarks for the mtronPro and memoright, both of which are higher than the Samsung.

I use the samsung as well so don't get me wrong, its the fastest running 64Gb out there right now. He was refering to, however, a benchmark that goes back to August of last year which benched the very first two ssds released by Sandisk and Samsung, both of which are in the benchmark thread.

To me...dated means it was beat. Mtron and memoright scores haven't been topped yet for performance alone.

 

Any SSD equal or greater than a Memoright GT is absolutely superior than
any average HDD. The only downside is price, so once that is down, you
can expect HDDs to be gone forever. The SSD is undeniably superior
technology.

The Micron/Intel SSDs have been delayed, so it might be a good time to buy a GT or MTron unless you can wait another year.

 

Watch your wording here please Access time is the time it takes to seek to the sector and begin transferring the data blocks. The I/O has to be through before it has the "get" completed.

Let's take MS Word 2007 as our example.

At .2ms Word is loading from SSD. It has already loaded the Word executable at the 1 ms mark. In addition, WEord has a lot of DLLs. Those will transfer in the next 3 or so MS. Total time, 4 ms.

With the mechanical drive, you're still seeking to the first datablock before the physical actions required to begin loading Word to run.

See previous.

75x to access the datablock.

Several things are wrong here.

1) Sequential block transfers don't require a repositioning of the heads for a seek.

2) The stepper motor for track to track access on very extended seeks is quite fast.

3) You don't incur a worst case scenario every time.

With your description, you've required that the stepper motors for seeks essentially reset to the zero point; which is not true. The controller knows where the heads are, which is why NCQ (Native Command Queuing) can yield performance gains. There are N number of I/Os at various locations and the drive optimizes the seeks based on where the heads are vs. the data blocks.

Cheers,

 

thats why I keep coming back...to learn. I thought I had as I received this description and 'education' from a techy at one of the enterprise companies I exchange thoughts with...

 

Les:

We all have plenty to learn

 

Word loads in about 1 sec with my mechanical drive. However large a multiple 1000ms is of 4ms, we are talking about a time difference that is barely noticeable.

 

The question isn't about Word. The question is how many other actions take 1000ms on your computer? If they all got reduced, well you'd feel the difference.

Your computer will literally do everything twice as fast, and response times become instantaneous.

Even your internet connection will feel faster, and I am not kidding.

 

So, do you recommend on getting the new Mtron Pro 7000 SSD?, is it the latest one?

 

For get it, there's no 64GB in Mtron PRO 7000 with a form factor of 2.5" which is the one that I need

 

I couldn't really find this anywhere, so I figured I would ask. I'm receiving an XPS 1330 with the 64GB SSD soon, and I would like to know how similar partitioning is as compared to a mechanical drive. My goal is to dual-boot Windows Vista and Ubuntu 8.04. I will strip down the Vista as much as possible to save space since I will only be using it in dire circumstances anyhow.

 

It's an illustrative example.

Add that up over the course of a day; and you would notice a significant difference.

Cheers,

 

Neither Vista nor Ubuntu know that it's an SSD. From their perspective it would be a 64GB SATA disk.


Cheers,

 

Perfect, thank you much!

 

Interesting news in the main news section of the Forum. Supertalent released their SSDs with 120GB available for $700. This is MLC and spec'd at 120MB Read and 40MB/sec write.

The 60GB SLC at 120/70 MB is inline with the SLC competition at $1200.

Honestly, the 30GBs for Solaris to run the OS, and then a ton of 500 GB mechanical drives for ZFS for media storage and I'm a happy camper

Cheers,

 

Les:

Any thoughts on SuperTalent's SSD announcement? I'm curious who the 40MB/second writes "feels" in the real world vs. a mechanical drive (100GB @ 7200RPM). I suppose I could run the tools you do against the drive and see how it compares ;-)

Cheers,

 

This question had come up in one of my other threads...I think it was the HD vs SSD thread...check out my recent posts.

Its nice that you can get the 64Gb ssd mlc for 400 bucks and 700 for the larger. Its bringing it in line with consumer needs.

I personally don't believe the average consumer (actually anyone less than a computer nut) will notice a write of 40MB/s compared to what they are probably getting now out of their HD. Remember this is only the write bench and the read is a whopping 120MB/s

Coupled with the read bench and the access time, I believe the average Joe will see the same as I see when I am using my MtronPro7000 right now. So, my answer would be that the consumer will be very happy with this.

I think this would be a very nice thing to see for gamers who have to wait for initial load of games and whatnot.

I guess the only place that this really would be of concern is in large networking systems that has a very large daily read/write qeue. I think that has already been addressed that this ssd is not made for that however.

 

The problem is that the example did not illustrate a noticeable difference. A lot of not noticeable differences over the course of a day are not likely to be noticeable.

A real world example in which much faster access time, with comparable transfer rates, would be helpful.

As my illustrative example, the Samsung HDD v. SSD video shows the SSD booting in 36.29 seconds. My WD 320/5400 boots a bit faster than that. I realize the Samsung is not the state of the art, but it has minimal access time.

 

If memory serves the demo video is of a previous generation SATA I drive, not the SATAII versions which significantly outperform them.

So the comparison is against the current 320GB and the SATA II drive.

Cheers,

 

Sorry for the noobie question: isn't supposed that the windows vista is installed in the hard drive unit?, I mean If I want to upgrade it later and change it with a SSD then windows well be deleted from the system and I will have to install again in the new SSD? (and I dont have the discs to do that)...

I understand that I will have to make a copy of all my files and documents but not sure what will happened to the windows vista and everything installed from the factory like the windows media player, adobe acrobat, etc, all this programs will be lost?

thanks a lot

 

This would be great information, as the SuperTalent price point is, IMO, not totally insane. Might be worth it for easily noticeable faster performance, silent operation and perhaps a bit better battery life.

 

It is not the current SATAII (hence my "not state of the art"), but I believe it has the same access time as the current drives, with much slower transfer rate. Comparing HD to the current SSD would not be fair, as the new SSDs have at least twice the transfer rate. The old SSDs had transfer rates in the general neighborhood of the rates on a HDD, but super fast access times.

This would seem to show that super fast access times are not, in themselves, enough.

 

You could always use clone software to copy from the old to the new drive. Then you would not have to reinstall anything.

 

I got the Memoright GT. It's better. They are at the same price point but the GT does 120 on write vs the MTron's 90.

If it is a budget issue, then I'd wait for the first 64G drive that does 100+ on both read write for under 1G.

I wouldn't buy a cheaper drive right now. Say you buy an 80/60 (read/write) drive now for 1G. In 6 months you're going to want the new one that does 120/120 for around 1G, and if you buy it you'll end up spending 2Gs anyway.

Also I wouldn't buy a notebook with a preinstalled SSD unless you know exactly what drive you are getting. If you're installing one yourself don't buy any extended warantees because they will be void if you open the case.

 

@ kinglebron good advice and I should say, you're completly right I will end up changing for the recent SSD in 4 - 6 months and spending two much for this, so I will wait, but then:

I will have to reinstall everything, including windows vista, windows media player, programs, files, documents, etc... and that's a lot to do, but I will rahter do that and change my HDD to a SSD SATA II.. Ill stayed tuned in this thread and see what you all are gettingand whick ones the best choice.

 

Ok, before making the decision to upgrade the SSD later or just buy my lappy with one preinstalled I have to be certain of some things since I'm not a computer expert... (jeeze!! I wish I could read & study university as much as I'm studying and reading all this threads and info about upgrading to a SSD!)

Les, I just read in you introduction to the SSD the following:

"Do you want an SSD? Simply find one, backup your system with a disk imaging program, pull out the HD and replace it with the SSD (both being SATA of course) and restore your system. Similarly, you can do a clean install just as easily as having the HD inside the system. There are no additional cables or carriages to worry about."

So, suppose that I use "Acronis True Image" or "Paragon Drive Backup" for the disk imaging thing. What exactly I'll be "imaging" with this two programs?, Just the system software like windows vista? or also the documents and files that I had saved?... I'll be doing the image backup to a CD, right?, then I will just have to take out the HDD, put inside the new SSD and then what?... When I turned on the system I will be automatically redirected to the BIOS menu (since the new SSD will be blank)? If so then I will have to insert the CD into the driver when the BIOS menu still active and then how exactly I will be installing the backup data from the imaging CD into the SSD? Is the backup data starting automatically after I insert the CD?


Sorry for all the question, and tlets be honest guys, If I am making all this question then do you advice me to rather order my lappy with a SSD unit? maybe Im to noob to upgrade to a SSD by myslef..

 

My first thought after reading that is if you haven't got the knowledge or background to follow this, don't do it. More damage can be done to your system and enthusiasm through doing something your not capable of than any other computer job, if you will. Please don't think I am being rude but several have tried to babystep and latch on to do this but, if your not capable of it then don't do it.

Now having given you that rather direct warning...can you change a hard drive and reformat your system? That is all you are doing.

You are simply using Acronis to make a backup image of your original system. If something goes wrong later or you don't like your end result, just restore your system to the way it was.

Next, simply replace your hd with the ssd and follow the Clean Install thread. Thats it. There are even pictures there now that you can follow if you follow the link.

"Upgrading to a ssd" is no different than replacing a hard drive.

 

Cloning software, such as Acronis, copies the entire contents of the drive (vista, programs, documents) from the old drive to the new. You then unplug the old drive, plug in the new, and boot.

Les is saying the same thing in the introduction that I said a few posts back.

You may well be better off buying with the hardware you want rather than upgrading later. On the other hand, this stuff is really easy.

 

Ok ok, you are right... Its sad but you are right, I might go for the SSD from the begging and just placed and order wiht one inside,thank you very much!

 

My Vista was broken in places, so I took this opportunity to do a clean re-install, but this is not necessary unless you want to do it.

If you have another computer, then cloning drives is extremely easy. At your own risk:

-- An Oversimplified Cloning Guide --

1) Pull out the old drive and place it in an external case such as this. Hook it up to your second computer as an external drive. This way all the system files will be there, but you won't be using them, so you won't get those "in use" errors.

2) You can use something like DiskImage to save the entire disk to a file. You will need room to save this file somewhere.

3) Replace the drive in the case with the blank drive. Use DiskImage to copy the disk file to the new disk.

4) Take the new drive from the case and put it into your computer, and boot. Put the old drive in the case, for a spare external drive.

In theory that is it. One problem with DiskImage (and others similar) is you can only copy drives of the EXACT same size, so you will need to adjust the partition size. You can always expand the partition to its max later.

A great tool is Parted Magic. You can boot it off of a CD. This has the tools to repair boot sectors, and also has all the fancy partitioning programs. If you cannot boot after putting the new drive in, this will help you fix it.

Always keep the old drive *as is* until you are done with the upgrade! You should feel safe knowing you can always put it back in to get your computer back to where it was. No matter what happens google is your friend.

Also DiskImage and PartedMagic are free, but if you don't mind paying, there are many commercial tools that might make your job easier. Don't think you need to pay though. As you know even Windows comes with a partition managing tool, and I believe Vista Ultimate has a disk cloner. Take the time to make sure you have what you need.

 

Sigh...you know you're a nerd when your heart skips a beat at the words "Solid-State Drive"

Few things here,

Wondering what the average age is on this board? I'm only 18, but have grown up with computers so I am at least slightly comprehending of the topics being discussed.

Is the 64GB SSD in the XPS 1330 a SATA II? Just curious, because after seeing some images of the case I believe it says SATA I, although they may have been older images.

Also, Les, I believe I have read everything in your sig. a few times but is there any tweaking of the Samsung SSD that can bolster read/write times? The Mtron 32GB pretty much rapes the Samsung 64GB. Kinda disappointing.


EDIT: Nevermind, didn't realize the comparison for the Mtron 32GB against the Samsung was of the SATA I.

 

You will have to open your system and see what drive you have. They only started shipping the SATA II Samsungs in late March and only on special request. The standard is still the SATA I. To open your system, removed the 4 screws bottom front left and simply pull it out to see which you have.

You would know if it was a SATA II in several ways, the most prominent being the actual site of the manufacture sticker. If you ordered it with your system, you would remember it being described as the "Ultra Performing SSD". I remember it being a $550 upgrade a few weeks back but the adds seem to change the ssd info daily.

The Mtron exceeds the Samsung SATA I ssd but it does not the SATA II. I consider the fact that we are looking at a 64Gb ssd vice the 32Gb as well.

Like you, I have been in the centre of IT technological advance for years.

 

i think the sata I has been replaced with II which was introduced in march although i am not sure when they dell will start using them. There is no way to 'speed' up ur ssd, although different os's can interact differently with it. If you are a linux user, use xfs to speed up your system, although this is not really a tweak lol-
age = 15

 

I just checked all the systems in Dell. Its much the same where the normal Samsung 64Gb SATA I ssd is advertised as always and the SATA II is advertised as "Ultra-Performing".

The funny thing is they both list for $720 although with different promotional system builds.

 

I only had one option for the SSD as I recall, it said "Ultra-Performance", I do hope it's the SATA II or I will be highly disappointed

Yeah, I should have clarified, I didn't mean to physically tweak the SSD, just wondering if there was any software out there that could possibly tap into some hidden potential. Yes I know that sounds corny, so sue me.

 

SATA II only implies that the drive is newer because it is part of a newer feature set, but it is only the interface and not what actually make it faster. So SATA I or II, still make sure you look at the model number and check the benchmarks.

In fact, most laptop motherboards don't support SATA II. So putting in your SATA II drive would be like putting a USB2 device into a USB1 port. It will work, but is a non-factor. Also even the fastest drives do not max out SATA I which caps at about 150mb/sec read.

From wikipedia:

SATA II is a nickname for the SATA 300 (3.0 Gbit/s) standard that can do about 300mb/sec read tops.

 

Anand has a nice new article on SSD.

http://anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3311

 

Here's a nice little number crunch with the Super Talents vs. the OCZ (Samsung) that we can buy on the street:

Code:

Mfr      Size      Price    $  / GB
OCZ      64GB     $1050     $16.41
ST       30GB     $ 300     $10.00
ST       60GB     $ 450     $ 7.50
ST      120GB     $ 670     $ 5.58

This is tremendous price erosion. I don't recall if the OCZ / Samsung is SLC or MLC. I'm also aware that you can get the Samsung cheaper than the OCZ, but you have to buy the rest of the computer to get the lower price So the $650 or $800 option costs you $2000+ to get with your machine.

Cheers,

 

The OCZ is a slc drive whereas the Supertalent is a mlc drive. You will be hard pressed to find the proof that they are from the exact same manufacturer but, the OCZ is identical to the Samsung SATA II given exception to exterior branding.

This is still a significant drop since we started playing this 'watch and wait' game with ssds.

 

supertalent has a slc and mlc version

SLC rated at 120/70
MLC rated at 120/40

MLC is for gamers that only need the read speed. which also makes it very cost effective. write time are slow tho. SLC runs into the $1k range so its about on par wtih OCZ

 

where did you see the 120gb st ssd for $670 fromm?

 

From Newegg.

Best,

 

You and I have both been saying that the similarities are quite striking