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

Since you only have one post, I am gonna hazard a wild guess that you are affiliated with this site in some way or other. Regardless of how valuable a resource this site is, it is still a no-no. You may go your own way now. Thank you.

Edit: Back on topic--

I believe the drive in the XT2 is of the same type as the one in my E4200. It's the uSATA unit that's naked. Figuring it's a 128GB MLC, I tried to flash the firmware update posted earlier in this thread. Didn't work so I guess Dell has multiple 128GB 1.8" MLC drives that they use.

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/1621...s_ssd_market_with_65_million_acquisition.html

Western Digital must have something up their sleeves. Seagate fears SSDs and decides to try to sue their manufacturers out of existence. Western Digital on the other hand decides to just go out and buy one. So is the next Raptor line of drives going to be SSDs? Or they going to come up with something like a jaquar line to say its faster? Hahahaha. This is interesting though as it demonstrates that hard drive companies are looking into SSDs. They are not some niche and patent infrindging scam pupotrating on consumers like Seagate would have you believe. I hope WD builds some nice SSDs with this random company I've never heard of in order to drive prices down.

 

Nice I am happy with mine

 

I decided to gamble. I just ordered a 250GB Vertex for my Macbook Pro.

I am hoping to be able to update the firmware in the Vertex via the drive that I replaced my optical drive with. I can install Vista on the second drive using bootcamp.

If it arrives with FW 1199 then I won't install the OS until it is updated.

 

I don't feel much difference between my Samsung SLC and MLC, but I am definitely looking for an SLC if possible. The (relatively) cheap 1.8" SATA Samsungs from Newegg would be my first choice, but Intel is also an interesting choice. It all depends on pricing and availability when I buy, which may not be until the end of this year...

Well, the thing needs to accept 1.8" SATA spinners, which are definitely thicker than the E4200 bare drives, so I'd assume there'll be room for a regular 1.8" SATA drive. That's not to say that it doesn't ship with a bare drive if you buy an SSD from Dell, though; they might be trying to save a couple cents on every SSD sold XD

Heh, I'd love to see another industry giant get into the SSD market. The more competition, the better. Bring down those prices and we're all happy

 

Remember, I predicted WD getting on top of SSD's first And now I really want to hear what Anand has to say about whatever he was so secretive about with Intel future info. TELL ME NOW!

I think if I was to pop now, it would simply have to be Intel. Simply for reliability if nothing else. Hard to trust hardware where the firmware is changing every week. this would be going on my production/only machine.

 

hoping for a 160gb x18-m... really hoping for it please anand (maybe even the 320gb ones soon? no clue. but i'd prefer 340gb ones. so we could get 3, to have 1tb..

looks like it should be 342gb so 3 will be a real os-visible tera?

 

Lol, how do you plan to use a terabyte of X25-M/X18-M? I can't even fill a terabyte of spinners with all the anime I've watched in the past four years.

 

i have a home server with 4.5tb storage which my dad fills up eeeasily with our lifes movies. and tv-hd-recording

but wouldn't need that much myself no

but a completely silent (atom dual core based) windows home server, that would be a dream for me. and the next bigger goal to reach

 

Interesting. WD should have started SSD stuff quite awhile back if you ask me (maybe they did)... and any company that competes in the legal field instead of the technology field by bringing new and better products to market should go out of business (Seagate?). But I would not want to lose them as the more competition, the better.

 

Nooooooooo.

Even if that places them well out of my reach, look forward to seeing how they perform, at least.

 

I think this shows the fate of SLC SSDs

They are slowly creeping up to the "enterprise" segment, with "enterprise" pricing

While Samsung was in the SLC game, and used the SLC flash for consumer SSDs bundled with notebooks, the price was OK.

However, it looks like everybody is moving to MLC for consumer SSD, which just reduces the demand for SLC FLASH - and pushes it price even more upwards.

So, the second-gen SLC SSDs (with ~200 MB/s performance) are, unfortunately, very expensive - you have a choice:

* Intel X25-E --> expensive
* SuperTalent UltraDrive LE --> expensive
* Solidata X1 --> expensive

So this is it - I guess it will be MLC all over for any notebook/desktop mainstream use in the future.

Performance-wise, I can see no difference between those "enterprise" SSDs and fast consumer MLCs for typical desktop use (I have all that @home, so it is a direct observation) - however, I am quite worried for the longievety of my data and I just feel more secure with SLC flash, knowing that it has a write-endurance measured in centuries now - not in "Probably more than 5 years" or MBTF.

... we want SLC It is just better technology... but, as we all know it, it is not the decisive factor - MLC is just cheaper to manufacture and "good enough" and it is already possible to see the winner.

 

I installed XP Pro on my 1199 Vertex with no ill effects. It's only some Vista and 7 users who have reported problems.

 

it does not have anything to do with os. it has some issues with some mainboards/chipsets, and a possible when-filled-dead issue. but those got resolved with the new version we all hope for the users

 

Isn't this some sort of kludge with a JMicron controller and SLC flash chips?

 

Dunno - from their sales PDF I got the picture they use their own controller - they also reported some very high IOPS, which does not go hand-in-hand with JMicron However, I've never actually seen any Solidata SSD in the works.

However Tom's Hardware actually complained of abnormally high power usage (something close to 8W or more IIRC) - but that looked more like a serious engineering defect... I hope they are not really serious with THAT power usage for a SSD.

 

Well, my corsair is arriving tomorrow. However, I am kind of sad that the corsair ssd forum is kind of pathetic compared to OCZ forum. From what I read in corsair forum, the company has no desire to tweak their ssd for increased performance (firmware upgrades). Even intel upgrades their already fast ssds with newer firmware...

 

For the few who care - I got my 128GB Transcend IDE SSD this week, been copying my Hitachi 7200rpm drive to it. It's spec'd for 68MB/sec read and 46MB/sec write; so far I've measured 75MB/sec read and 45MB/sec write so it's doing pretty well. I just now took a look at their data sheet and it shows that the drive is just a SATA SSD with an IDE to SATA bridge.

 

No need to tweak it.

 

I think you are right but I HOPE you are wrong! I really want an SLC 128GB second generation at a reasonable price. I simply think they are more reliable. I cold be wrong, but with MY data and business on the machine, I do not want to take ANY chances.

 

Seems like it. I picked up 2 x 32gb from CFD, a subsidiary of Buffalo, in JP. The specs and design is exactly like Transcend's, so it is probably the same like yours.

 

Don't you back-up? SLC, MLC, or spinner I always back-up.

 

Oh yes, I do. I even have a small company dedicated to backup www.capecodbackup.com but one other thing I worry about is data corruption with MLC. I have no real reason to, and with Intel I would probably not worry, but these others you do hear things about data corruption. And, as we all know, if you backup corrupted data, the backup is itself corrupted

 

well, the idea of backup is to actually have even back to the uncorrupted data ^^

even then, slc is not needed. still it's sad as it's very very very very nice

 

Yes, a true backup would have enough incremental/versions to protect against corruption. I am sure WHT agrees with that

I have not given up on SLC yet. I hope I never do. The Intel seems to be the one for me if i had to buy now. However, it has got to get bigger and cheaper first. It is really odd for me to wait, I usually jump right in. But I had such a bummer experience with an early Gskill, I am once bitten twice shy. Still looking for the Samsung/Summit as well.

 

Question: I get that they are not the bet performers anymore, but what is the deal with the 1.8 SATA Samsung drives on Newegg. Are there any problems with them? Do they perform like the regular SATAII drive of old?

 

They are actually some of the more reliable drives out on the market. Performance is still quite good too; it'll kill any traditional HDD and it's definitely a lot better than most of the JMicron drives out there. And it's SLC to boot.

 

I've read through many pages of this thread trying to decide what to buy. In the end I decided I just needed a reasonably priced ssd drive for my Lenovo S10 netbook.

I decided to buy the Filemate solidgo 64mb drive with the builtin USB2.0 jack(excellent for the initial imaging)
It was 111.00 USD(I'm not in the US so pricing is often high)

So far I am very pleased with the drive, especially for the price -

Here is the performance in my Lenovo S10 netbook:

 

here's a x25-m intel drive in my dell inspiron 1505/6400. think the ich7-m is limited to sata150

 

My dad talked to me last night that he's seen such storage thingies i have in our local shop. Quite fun, they sell intel and patriot. but they do sell intel and not even that much more expensive than f.e. newegg.

hm. can't wait for anandtech and the intel reports..

 

Man, our local Fry's sells junk with respect to SSD. They've got a wonderful selection of mini PCIe drives for the EEE, some strange Ridata PATA drive that I'm afraid to try out, and a smattering of first-gen Patriot JMicron drives. They stocked Mtron re-brands real briefly last year, but sadly, I haven't seen them restock those since. A pity, really.

Oh, and none of their compact flash cards go above 233x either

 

possibly they still have them in the back, as no-one bought them and you might get 2 for 1? or all for the price of one

now that'll be nice, not?

 

on another note. an online shop around here lists two intel 80gb:

SSDSA2MH080G1C1 and SSDSA2MH080G1C5 anyone knows the difference? (it's around 35$ difference, both 80gb intel 2.5")

 

Seems like 160GB price at Amazon went down a little...
$760 TigerDirect/$780 Amazon (Out Of Stock)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B001MTJYC8

80GB from Amazon $360
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B001F4YIYY

 

I know Intel is the best SSD out there for the consumer but the new Samsung 256 GB is an excellent drive in my opinion.

 

Super Talent is joining the PCI SSD market:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/01/super-talents-2tb-raiddrive-promises-incredible-1-3gbps-writes/

 

i'm more and more depressed by the s-ata3 spec. till they finally get it released and widespread, most ssd's will surpass it's speed easily over pcie.

why only 2x the speed each time? why not quadruple it? or 10x, like lan-connections...

outdated before release..

 

Since Samsung and Intel are the most stable SSD makers in the market now, which other models would be in the 2nd tier in terms of stability for those that do not have the cash?

OCZ Apex
Patriot V2
Transcend?

 

OK here are 2 questions: one belongs here, but the other I'm not sure....

I'm planing on purchasing a new laptop here in a bit (next week or so) and I'm planning to get one with 2 HDD slots, but only purchasing it with one and upgrading it with a SSD in the near future... I browsed thru some of the posts ...but there are just too many and didn't find the info I was wondering about.

Is there a minimum processor speed & RAM I should be looking at so that I will be able to take full advantage of a SSD when I pruchase it in the near future?

Ok not the odd question.. not sure if anyone here would have a clue about this one.... I have a PS3 and I'm upgrading the HDD in it (its only 80GB and full) does anyone know if a SSD would work in it (what kind of formating does a SSD support) and anyone know if it would make a difference? thanks

 

the new laptops should be able to detect SSDs. No minimum requirements as it is just a HDD. Any better system is only to bring the most out of your SSD.

 

Looks like a re-brand of something I saw just a couple days ago... isn't the OCZ RAID drive just as fast? I bet this is four Indilinx drives, just like the OCZ solution, since Super Talent already has MLC and SLC versions of the Indilinx drive.

I'd actually put Samsung and Mtron at the top for stability and then Intel next, as Intel does seem to be hit a bit harder by steady-state degradation (and of course, you can mess it up even harder with creative usage). Vertex is a pretty speedy drive, but stability isn't really guaranteed yet.

The JMicron drives (Patriot V2, most Transcend, most PQI, etc) are all fails.

With respect to consistency or reliability, I'd go with Samsung or Mtron. That Samsung 64GB SLC is a very good entry-level SSD now that it only costs $200. It's reasonably fast, doesn't need tweaking, and is proven. Mtron is a bit more expensive, but a bit faster too.

Well, I mean, just don't get a poky Pentium II with 128MB of memory and you're probably not going to bottleneck any modern SSD. And yes, an SSD will work on a PS3... but really, I don't see any point in this.

 

I don't really think it's a rebrand, at least not from ocz. if at all, they both rebrand an unknown seller.

ssd in a ps3 is for faster game loading times. but it's very much money spend for a little gain yes indeed. (espencially _if_ it's an sata1 port and thus capped at 150mb/s, no clue).

about the notebook. my core2duo 1.2ghz ulv easily beat every pc around thanks to the mtron ssd => any system will do and be awesome thanks to the ssd

 

Thanks for the info. (Does anyone else feel overwhelmed when buying a new laptop with the sheer number of options available? Its worst than buying a car, or even a house!!!)

 

no. there are not that much numbers for me. it has to be one of those silver notebooks called elitebook, and one of the fast ssd's. so i look at mtron, intel, samsung. check which one fits, which one is price/size ratio i like, and done.

 

Does anyone have a clue when the new Sandisk G3 SSD drives will be available for the consumer market? I've noticed that Dell is shipping some XPS laptops with these drives as a configuration option. I'm hoping to upgrade my laptops in the near future, but may go with another brand that is currently available if it is going to be a long time.

 

Just got back from my honeymoon monday... This thread has been pretty active the past week! so looks like vertex is still doing the "disappearing drive" act?

 

@ Clueless Graphics: I had Dell Latitude D600 with 1.6 GHz Pentium M Core Solo, 1 GB RAM and 1st generation Samsung SLC 16 GB (arounf 55 MB/s read and 35 MB/s write) and it was faster in boot times, copy/paste files, installing programs than any notebook I worked with, so do not worry for minimum requirements.

 

thanks for posting those benchmark.

i always wonder if it was worth it to get intel for ich7-m chipset... i guess not...

im kinda surprise the read doesn't cap close to 150 mb/sec ish.

 

you guess not? remember SSDs are fast because of the access time which is like 50x faster than a HDD, not the sequential speed which is only double that of a HDD. who cares that im missing 100mb/s, the only time i do major sequential reads/writes its on my 1TB HTPC unzipping and zipping and encoding and copying etc. by far the majority of use on a normal laptop is not going to be with huge sequential operations.

which is why its stupid all the SSDs makers going for sequential 'marketable' speeds when the reality is that the random performance (and since all random reads are similar between ssds, the random write) is the main determining factor.

not disappointed one bit...nearly all operations that involve the HDD now are done at 100% cpu usage (as in there is minimal time the disk is holding things up for while reads/writes are done)

now I am the bottleneck when using my laptop

 

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately getting a Samsung drive means that I have to deal with shipping charges from US, the selection in Singapore is miserable and overpriced as well.

Looks like I will have to go on a bread and water diet for the Samsung/Mtron.