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

This is with the new 200ish read/writes controller?

 

well, for another 50 usd you should be able to get slc version, so...

 

Naw, the older one; I don't think they have a 64GB version of the newer drive. Same sequential (90/70) and random speeds (~15/5) as the current SLC (in theory).

Really? Actually, I think I might have been the one who said that, but I was trolling eBay the past few days looking for another good deal on the SLC... and the best thing I could find was ~300 shipped (and from the UK no less).

 

Hypocritical coming from me but I would hold off till the Vertex gets reviewed and the 60GB comes out. It's not that much more than the Samsung and should get you a lot more bang for your buck.

 

Does anyone has experience on Filemate 256G SSD? or G.SKill Titan.
I am looking for a 250-256GB SSD for my thinkpad X61t coz my intel 80G is not big enough for me, and as some ppl has already known that Thinkpad capped the SATAII performance on X61, T61, so high speed ssd does not work on my laptop anyways, and all I want is a SSD without lag issue.

 

Titan might still end up getting lag issue according to some here it, especially with Firefox. I personally haven't experienced any stuttering on it though. It also runs very hot and uses more power than a regular hard drive and other SSDs.

Another option for you is the Corsair 128. 128 gigs of space, runs very cool with low power draw, no stuttering, and an SSD's trademark fast access time. Downside is you're capped at 90/70 read/write speeds but since you're capped to SATAI that shouldn't be a problem anyway.

However, if you ever see yourself moving away from your X61, you might regret buying what is essentially a SATAI drive. The Vertex is coming out soon, within the next two weeks, and it's supposed to have zero stuttering issues, incredibly high speeds, and overall a very competitive bang for the buck. Waiting for that is an option for you too.

You can also try to shop around on ebay for deals on Samsung SSDs, or pay a premium for the 80GB Intel X25-M.

 

I have 80GB intel X25-M on my X61t now, but its capacity is not enough for me and I do need a larger one.( Vista eats up space quick even I turn off the recovery).
I was thinking about Samsung 256G SSD from ebay , coz there was a seller offer $830 for 256 SSD, which is a good price.
but G.SKill and Filemate price are so attractive so far.

 

Would honestly stick with your X25-M. You might not get the full benefits of the read speed, but you WILL get the full benefits of the write speeds, and write speeds are what the Intel is all about. Titan and even Samsung 256GB drives still just don't perform that well in random writes and/or IO. And the Samsung is seriously a rip-off at any price significantly higher than that of the Titan (as the speeds just aren't that much better). If you're looking for space, buy a 500GB 2.5" external or some big USB flash drives instead.

In other news, how much would you be asking for your Intel?

 

lol~~ I want put my Intel to my T60, and 256G SSD in my X61.

 

If roughly $830 is your price range, the 250GB Vertex may work for you. I'm seeing the 120GB priced at $470 at Zipzoomly with the 60GB at $250.

 

Those are pretty high prices for MLC, IMHO. But I do realize new release prices are often higher than regular street prices, once in general availability.

These babies better perform if they want to sell at these price points. The 60GB and 120GB are pretty much at the current Intel 'M' price-per-Gig!

 

In general, at their current price points, I'd take Samsung/Corsair 128GB (~$300) over Titan 128GB (~$300) over Titan 256GB (~$500) over Samsung 256GB (~$800) over Vertex (~$800). If you're more into power consumption, I'd switch Titan 128GB and Samsung/Corsair 128GB. I think the Samsung/Corsair is generally a good drive, I'm kinda sold on the Titan, and not really sold on the newer Samsung or Vertex (yet).

Of course, my true recommendations would still be an X25-M, or a Samsung/Mtron SLC

 

nahh, I can afford 800 or so, but its a waste on non-SATAII laptop....
thats why I am considering G.Skill Titan (does Titan performs the same as OCZ APEX?) or Filemate(cant find any review).
I emailed once to G.Skill, and they are not helpful at all, one reply was " Try to look online review, and you can find out what controller on your G.Skill Titan". It sounds like they are not really into ans emails.

from Corsair forums, i heard corsair has 32M on cache memory.

I am struggling if I really need 256G SSD, coz I dont have moives , music in my X61 table. all I have are AutoCAD, Photoshop CS3, Canon camera software, Office2007, one note.

 

Apex is identical to Titan save for the firmware; the performance is pretty similar. Dunno about the Filemate, but if I had to take a bet, I'd bet that it's the same drive as well (possibly with yet another firmware revision). There is another drive out there called the Photofast G-Monster which is also almost certainly the same drive.

 

Well, if you're fine with the heat and power issue, then I'd still recommend the Titan. I personally never experienced any stuttering with it and professional reviews are good. I sold my drive to a member here, John Kotches, you can try asking him if he's had any problems so far.

 

I saw Photofast G-Monster on ebay, 256G is around $900. price the same as Samsung SSD.
We will see if Vertex will out in 2 weeks or not.
Also, from OCZ website, i saw a new OCZ summit SSD, it has samsung controller.

 

Yeah, the Titan's at $2.34, the Intel at $4.50 and the Vertex at $4.17. Here's to hoping we see a price war erupt soon once other fast drives get on to the market. Look at what the inferior Titan and Apex, and just news of the Vertex, did to the X25-M.

 

FYI Summit won't be out till late March and should be more expensive than the Vertex.

 

I suspect Vertex will rapidly drop in price.

 

any thought about SanDisk G3 SSD? My friend working at SanDisk told me their SSD will be out in the mid of 2009. he mentioned SanDisk designed its own controller.

 

Actually, the firmware is the same as well. They both have firmware versions 0954 and 0955 in the field.

 

They can be like that with their processors because the performance is worth it. Only reason they're not so price competitive now is because they don't have to be with what AMDs offering. The situation with SSDs is different, too much competition to maintain a monopoly and too much industry innovation for Intel to maintain the top performance spot for too long.

There's no information about the SanDisk aside from what's been revealed in press releases. We know that it's supposed to be have fast 200/140 read/writes, not have a JMicron controller, a $2.50ish $/gb, and will be released later this year... but that's about it. Nothing when it comes to random writes which right now seems to be what separates the performance from the mainstream SSDs.

I wonder what accounts for the differences in performance then:

While theoretical performance as measured by HD-Tach is excellent, it doesn’t really translate into too many real world benefits. In our MP3 file pattern FC-Test benchmarks, despite producing excellent read and write results, the OCZ Apex demonstrates some unconvincing file copy speeds and writing the larger files in our ISO file pattern tests also produced a disappointing result, with the OCZ taking on average four seconds longer to write the 1.6GB file pattern than the similarly designed G.Skill Titan.

Performance of the Apex 120GB was also very sporadic and we've had to re-run our tests literally dozens of times to get results we're happy to publish. While some results were very fast, others lagged well behind. Looking at the saw-tooth HD-Tach average read and up/down average write graphs on the first page gives us a pretty good idea of why this is, with lots of differences in speed across the capacity of the drive.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2009/02/09/ocz-apex-120gb-ssd-review/7

 

Wait wait wait... I fail to see how 0954 and 0955 are the same? Or do you mean that they both have 0954 and 0955 in the sense that there are Titans with both 0954 and 0955 and Apexes with 0954 and 0955 as well? In the latter case, the difference in performance may stem from the fact that Bit-Tech had an 0954 Titan and an 0955 Apex or vice-versa?

Also, I wouldn't hold my breath for Sandisk. If you look on the first page of this thread, their first controller looks like a piece of junk. It's largely losing out to the relatively unimpressive first-gen Samsung SLC (and I think it's an SLC itself?) AND even worse, the Seagate spinner. Maybe their next controller will be a beast, but just based on their track record... as an aside, Mtron doesn't seem to have improved since this thread began?

ALSO, comparing drives by just the "per gig" figure doesn't work for an SSD. You need to factor in the cost per GB as well as the various read/write speeds. Intel might be twice as expensive per GB but the write performance is much, much greater than that twice that of competing drives.

 

Well, nothing firm - but FWIW, according to Sandisk they have developed:

So they are at least specifically marketing the G3 drives to have faster than "conventional" random write performance. We shall see

I don't think it is coincidence that they will be releasing the G3 drives concurrently with Windows 7 (which should improve SSD performance).

 

How hot was it when you felt it? and how did u notice the power issue?

 

Pretty hot, I couldn't keep it on my lap for too long with my 1000H. And I noticed the power issue while swapping around different SSDs and checking to see my battery life on full. The OCZ Core, Cosair and Intel I was able to get 5 to 5.5 hours. The Titan was an hour less, very close to what I got with a 5400rpm drive.

 

wow, thats a hot Titan.....
maybe , i just buy a CorsAir 128GB.... extra 48Gb compare to my 80G SSD.

 

Hmm, that's strange... it has similar power consumption (based on runtime), but generates more heat? Is that possible?

Hmm, there isn't a :thumbsup: smiley...

 

hmm? there isn't ??

 

You're right, I was off because it's been so long since I checked power consumption using the HDD. Just checked now and I get 4hrs 45 min, so that puts it

Titan < mechanical < SSDs w/ one controller

when it comes to power and heat.

 

design flaw?

 

No, it's a feature

Three controllers in the space of one... for great justice!

How to make a Titan:

1) Get an OCZ core
2) Add moar flash chips
3) Add moar controllers
4) ???
5) PROFIT!!!

 

i feel my intel is warm, cant say hot.
so i cant figure out the degree of "hot" on Titan.
for sure, if i put it on my lap, it warms up quickly...

 

Hrm, not sure how to convey it so that we can reach the same wavelength. Let's put it this way, I was fine with having the X25-M in my 1000H and on my lap for a few hours. With the Titan I had to have it off in minutes.

 

ur Eee PC is pretty light..
I cant type on my lap. lol my stomach is big.
btw, see u want to buy Lenovo X200, does X200 uncapped the SATAII?

 

Yep, no SATA limits on the x200. It's arriving next week, I can't wait till I have a decent SSD (hopefully the Vertex) in it.

 

.....!!!!
I hate Lenovo did this on my X61t.

 

I saw on Lenovo X200 options page there is SSD option. They are using the new OCZ Vertex or are you upgrading yourself?

Just wondering.

 

lenovo use OCZ vertex ??

 

Naw, I bet they use Samsung. I think every OEM that offers an SSD option uses Samsung or maybe Sandisk (though I think there some are shipping Intels too now). I haven't seen any JMicrons at all in OEM SSD options either, not to mention OCZ, G.Skill, etc.

I for one am waiting for a Dell XT2 and an Mtron ZIF drive

 

Yea the Intel drive runs pretty cool. When I had the X25-M just on top of the Seagate 7200 RPM drive I am pretty sure it was acting as a heatsink .

 

Upgrading myself. Like Command Wolf said, I think pretty much every OEM uses Samsung.

 

yeah, you're right, took a look just a moment ago, no more ~250usd samsung 64gb slc drives, even the guy who sold one to me don't have them anymore
well, guess I bought one in the right time

still works great

 

I'm discovering the benefits of a good RAMDisk, with or without an SSD to go along with it. I'd thought I'd ask this here.

I'd like to get a good RAMDISK for my Vista x64 system. I am using RAMDiskVE from Cenatek. Do they sell this product anymore? I want a 1GB RAMDisk (I have 8GB of RAM). If I could buy this for $25, I would. Currently I'm up against the 400MB limit because I don't have a license.

Or what product can I use that also automatically saves (at shutdown) and restores (at startup) the RAMDisk?

Need:
1. Vista x64 support.
2. Save and restore RAMDisk. Also save at user specified intervals.
3. 1GB or more capability.

Any recommendations? Thanks.

 

Nice, hope this means I'll see even more battery life out of my laptop.

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=345472&postcount=82

 

A RAMDisk is a segment of available RAM that is set up to work like a faster SSD, though of course it's smaller and typically must be reconstructed after each restart. By putting working files on the RAMDisk, access is extremely fast. Somewhere in this office is a little script that identifies working files to go to the RAMDisk, and loads it automatically. However, I think it was for a W98 machine - it's been invisible for years, but I'll look for it.

It's a good idea (with or without SSD), so I checked Cenatek. There's no price for the XP edition! I downloaded and installed a 512MB RAMDisk, and it's working fine without nags or demands. I don't understand it, but...

Thanks again, Albert

P.S. Look for "Gavotte" -- and there are many other RAMDisk products available, free and pay

 

I believe Superspeed's ramdisk product will fulfill all the requirements except that I think it only backs up at shutdown and manually, I don't think there's an automatic option.

 

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/05/27/free-ramdisk-for-windows-vista-xp-2000-and-2003-server/
Didn't check if it fits those 3 criteria but i used it before, good free stuff.

 

Looks nice but $100 for the Vista x64 version of RamDisk Plus! Ouch.

Does anyone know if you can buy Cenatek's product anymore? Looks like it has been abandoned? It seems to have a timeout mode for "unlimited use".

The free stuff doesn't seem to have any save and restore features.

 

Can anyone tell me which is better speed, Samsung 256GB or Intel X25-E 32GB (not talking size)?