best battery life, but better performance then a cyclical 7200rpm.

Testing the waters on SSDs. I need a drive that will be faster then my 7200RPM drive, stable and long lasting and get better battery life then my current drive. Size doesnt matter as I ont need much and Id rather save lots of money then have space I dont need or want.

 

Intel X25-v / X25-m, Corsair C300, Samsung 470, Corsair Nova... take your pick.

 

I had two Intel X25-m, I wouldn't recommend them if you want BEST battery life.

More discussion about it's battery life here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/solid-state-drives-ssds-flash-storage/562215-intel-x25-good-ssd.html

I got best battery life with the Kingston V+ previous gen.

 

Im liking the intel x-25m at $171 for 80GB but I can get the kingston for $180 thats 96GB. Size doesnt matter as I really dont store much on this laptop, so really it comes down to performance, stability and battery life.

Kinston

Intel

Both look good, honestly I like and have trusted both brands and while intel sounds more trustworthy overall; kingston is better known for that style of storage. So brand wont decide this. On to google for '* vs *' threads and reviews. Thanks guys!

 

If I remember right, the Kingston SSDs aren't known for good battery life.

 

Kingston V series SNV425 are horrible power consumption, decent drives, but horrible with power. The V+ SNV325 are pretty good though.

 

Have an Intel in my main notebook - great drive as many recommend above.
Also have a Kingston in my netbook - good basic SSD - did improve battery life for the netbook. Spinner would average around 4 -4.5 hours on full charge for basic tasks with WiFi off. With the SSD I'll get 4.5 hours of battery life with WiFi on at 80% charge. Nice improvements and did improve responsiveness.

 

X25-m or Crucial C300 , I chose Crucial because its faster in boots up.

 

I thought the C300 had known stuttering issues? I would stick with Intel.

 

While I dont have the money for the drive quite yet, I think Im going with the x-25m. This is the drive I think Im going to get:

Newegg.com - Intel X25-M SSDSA2MH080G2K5 2.5" 80GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Currently Im using ~30GB for applications and OS and I think 80GB is more then enough spare space to store a few of my favorite movies and my phone backup.

 

I just bought a Samsung 470 64gb for $99 after a $10 coupon on tigerdirect and it improved my R2 battery life greatly.

Im now getting only 10-11k discharge while before with the stock 7200rpm hdd I was getting 14-15k

Did a crystaldiskmark and it got 220 read/170 write.

 

From what I've seen in terms of performance and power consumption benchmarks, overall the Intel X25-M and Samsung 470 drives lead in terms of power consumption, while most SandForce drives are a bit higher. That, and the reliability associated with Intel and Samsung SSDs are the main reasons I got the 470 for my X120e and the X25-M for my T500.

The X25-M 80GB can be found used on eBay for as low as ~$140, while the 470 64GB can be found for ~$90-100.

 

Where did you see that?

The only review I've seen that says Intel has lower power consumption than Sandforce is Tomshardware. Anandtech, Techreport and Storage review say the opposite.

 

Here's one from StorageReview with the Samsung 470 and Intel X25-M. It's a mix depending on operating conditions (ie: idle, startup, etc), but it's pretty consistent that most of the time, the X25-M and 470 use less power than the C300. Considering that an SSD is idle most of the time, I'd say the idle benchmark is the most important--the 470 leads the pack in that one, with the C300 in last place.

 

With ssd degredation I'm buying new only.

Now what is everyones take on the x 25v drives? The 40gb is very tempting since its enough space if I limit my vm to a more reasonable size and its only 100. How do these drives compare to a 7200rpm drive in real world performance? I have read that they use about the same power as the x 25m drives so that fine with me.

 

Not sure if you are aware but C300 doesn't use a Sandforce controller.

Vertex 2 and Corsair Force use a Sandforce controller, both use less power than Intel G2 in this review.
OCZ Vertex 2 Review (120GB) | StorageReview.com

It's much faster than any 7200rpm drive as many reviews will show.

The only thing it's slower at is sequential writes, for example during file copies.

I don't think a 60GB Sandforce drive will be a lot more expensive, while it offers a lot more.

 

I don't think SSD degradation is the concern of 99.9% of users, as the lifetime of the flash chips in SSDs can take many, many more write cycles than you'll be using before the SSD becomes obsolete. Buying used is an easy way to get a great deal on an SSD. Having bought both my SSDs used (my X25-M came with some ~200 power-on hours, with ~400 power cycles; my 470 came with 26 power-on hours, with ~40 power cycles) and benching them, they line up exactly with bench figures from reviews online.

The X25-V has slower read/write figures than the X25-M, but power consumption should be around the same. I was actually very close to buying the X25-V (actually, I did buy it, the eBay buyer backed out), and I'd say that if you can find it for <$70 on eBay, definitely go for it. Random reads (which determine "snappiness" of a system) will be much better than a 7200RPM HDD.

Doh! Got the F120 and C300 mixed up. Thanks for the correction, Phil!

 

how much slower are we talking? I don't want the computer to take forever to install/copy data.

 

About half the speed as a fast 7200RPM drive, in terms of sequential write speed, which will be most evident during file transfers. For example, scroll down to the Iometer 2MB Sequential Read/Write benchmarks for the X25-V and WD 500GB 7200RPM Scorpio Black drives.

My take on that, though, is that you'd be bottlenecked by interface if you use USB, though, so sequential write is far less of a concern than random read speeds.

 

I'm thinking more along the lines of installing software and such. Copying will be done from my usb drive. I guess I have some thinking to do.

 

In real world file copies, the X25v and WD 750GB are about as fast.


Western Digital's Scorpio Black 750GB notebook hard drive - The Tech Report - Page 5

 

Don't buy an SSD and use it as tape.

 

Very helpful list thanks! I'm starting to consider the value intel more seriously but ill need to do some math on my exact space needs to make sure I won't fill the drive.

 

If you care about battery life, then a drive based on the Sandforce SF-1200 controller is the way to go (G.Skill Phoenix Pro, Corsair F120, etc). Every benchmark report I have seen indicates that the Sandforce SF-1200 drives have the lowest power consumption.

And to be perfectly honest, if all you're buying an SSD for is faster software installs or file copies, then you're wasting your money on an SSD. Any drive you ever buy will only be as fast as the read speed of the source drive, or the write speed of the destination drive. Unless you're copying from SSD-to-SSD, your file copies won't be going much faster than what you can get today with mechanical drives.

The benefit of an SSD is its scalable random read speed. Random read speed (ignore sequential read speeds; sequential is a nearly meaningless measurement when it comes to real-world performance) means that OS + applications + games will load faster. Scalable means that you can throw just about any read pattern at your drive without that drive ever choking. An SSD means that your computer will never slow down, because it's waiting for a thashing mechanical HDD to catch up.

 

Im buying an SSD for better battery life, and snappier performance. I dont do alot of transfers, but I still want to know real world performance of copying files to an SSD. Im buying this as an OS drive hence the 80gb or lower size. I dont need a lesson in SSD technology, rather real world use opinions as thats what counts in my book. Benchmarks are great for a baseline, but lets be honest nobody gets the same benchmark speeds as there are just too many variables to factor in.

Im pretty settled on an SSD for my x200s. Now im working on whether a 40GB will be big enough for my needs. Im starting to think it may not as Ill be at ~25GB with OS (with software and updates) and VM alone. That leaves ~12.5GB for data and I think Id like a bit more room for a few movies and a backup of my phones SD card data (not 100% sure Ill be doing this).

 

I think 40G is really a bit too tight. Personally, I would say the new G3 80G would be a perfect one for your usage, for the following reason:

1. It is based on the same controller as G2 so less likely to have reliability concern.

2. It add big capacitor thus enhance the reliability for even the rarer corner cases

3. disk encryption making dispose in in the future easier(i.e. setting password at the very beginning and you don't need to worry about people recovering data from it)

4. Intel has refined the algo so you get improved speed over G2(which is already very good).

80G gives you enough head room based on the description and the price seems to be decent as well.

 

If you're buying for snappier performance, then get the biggest size SSD you can. No matter which SSD I have tried, filling any of them more than 40% resulted in a noticeable slowdown in 'snap'. At 60% filled, you may as well have a HDD imo. Also, in my systems I have not noticed that the SSD gives substantially better battery life - not in similar email/web/writing/reading modes anyway (maybe 10mins?).

Actually, except for the shock resistance of an SSD (they still heat up too...) an alternative option is getting the biggest/fastest HDD (WD Scorpio Black 750GB) and simply using the first 5 or 6% of the drive and ignoring the rest.

You'll have the same capacity as the 40GB SSD and with similar 'snap' for much less $$$ and SSD induced headaches. In addition to the ability to 'expand' the partition to the size you'll need in the future (at the cost of some 'snap', of course.

Good luck.

 

depends on usage. For read heavy scenario, even 100% fill should not affect snappiness.

Same goes for battery life. If you baseline power consumption is high(fast CPU, GPU, lots of memory, more light source in the LCD), the saving of SSD would be less significant. If the baseline is low(integrated GPU, mostly browsing and things like that), the saving of SSD can be very significant as the idle power consumption is much lower.

 

my intels can be 80% full sometimes (and then back to 30% full sometimes, too). never experienced a difference in snappiness.

but still, yeah, get one with too much storage. head room is always good, even if it's just for the once-a-year-buffering-of-some-fullhd-movie-a-friend-wants-to-move-from-one-place-to-another, or what ever.

 

After some thought Im pretty much done with the idea of a 40GB. If I didnt have a win7 VM it would be installed already, but I do so Im glad I didnt buy it. 80GB is perfect for my uses as I wont have much data. Even with the phone data and movies I think ill maybe scratch 40GB including both host and VM OS'. Now to wait out the g3's...

I have heard anything from .06w(idle)-1.5w(actual working HDD) for SSDs while typical 7200rpm drives range > 2w. While its small, its still an improvement. Boot time improvement, opening software is faster and over all snappiness from reads is improved. As long as write times are comparable to cyclical drives Im on board. I have considered popping in the 500GB drive from my XPS into the x200s, but I think it may be time to jump on the SSD bandwagon even if its only temporary. I have been fighting it since its inception, and I figure I need to see if its worth it for a mobile rig for me or if I should just stick to a good ol' cyclical drive.

Trust me I would rather save the money, but I think there is alot to be gained and now that they are becoming more reliable and come with a 3 year warranty I think the time is right.

 

From what Ive read it will be a .5w or more decrease in power consumption. With all the low wattage hardware in my x200s I think it is the last piece to the puzzle before I get into tweaking software and hardware to maximize my battery life.

I agree with the headroom issue. Honestly right now Im using a 250GB drive and Im sitting at 30GB of usage. The most ever to date was 150GB back when I stored all my data on my computer and not a server. Now that all my data is on a server I no longer tax my local systems HDD space. If I need something I use/view it remotely or download it to my machine then upload back.

 

I truly wish and hope the 'time is right' for you to jump on the SSD bandwagon.

However, note that my 5yr warranty Patriot Inferno is doing duty as a 'USB key' for me (in an external enclosure).

For performance 'guarantees', the warranty is useless.

Reliability? Just Intel and possibly Samsung.

Looking forward to hearing your results after a few months of use.

Good luck.

 

Thanks! Im hoping the g3's will be affordable as the 80GB g2 is going to be a tough push with the wife. Might be a few months before I can get "permission" depending on the g3 prices.

 

Ah, in that case may be just try to optimize your current 250GB like some other FS(not sure what is the default fs ubuntu use), the new generation of FS seems to be much faster than last gen.

Out of curiosity, why do you run W7 under ubuntu and not the other way round ?

 

Im running ext4 and its solid. Boot times are very fast, but as always i would like a bit more snappiness.

As for ubuntu and win7, I prefer linux to windows. I only have the win7 VM for netflix streaming, slingbox streaming and if I want to test windows code or software. Basically its a streaming and sandbox VM. I rarely ever boot it up, but still nice to have for when I need win7. I have been thinking about taking the 500gb drive from my XPS as its a bit faster then my 250GB WD, But I just dont see the need for that much space on the go and Im sure it uses a bit more power. But then again saving $150-200 is sounding nice the more I think about it...

 

In that case, I would suggest forget about the SSD and use the proceeding to buy some gift for the wife

Or get a 7k500/scorpio black that is around 70 bucks.

 

What I would do is use your 500GB drive with a custom install of ubuntu and use/partition only 250GB (or less, how much are you actually using?) of it.

The 'snap' will definitely improve, but how much, I'm not sure in your case (but I would still be doing it now... just to see).

If you're using less than half of your 250GB drive right now, you can see an almost 4 times improvement in response if you use the same space (use a total partition size of 125GB) and your 500GB drive.

Don't worry about the power differences between the different capacities: if they're from the same generation of HDD's. If the 500GB drive is the same speed but newer, if anything, I would bet it was even more power efficient than your 250GB model is.

 

I believe the 250gb is a scorpio black as well as the 500gb is too. Problem is I'm selling the xps and as it stands in not using anywhere near the space to justify a 500gb drive. Right now pre phone backup and movies I'm using ~30-31gb. With the vm adjustment ill be making and storing a few movies and the phone backup I'm thinking ill be at around 40-50gb (closer to 40). So I'm thinking if I stay cyclical id stick with the 250gb drive to get more money from the xps. Depending on g3 prices and where samsung goes (although I'm not a samsung fan) I would still like to go ssd, but then again I'm assuming the price will be near the 200 range for an 80gb drive which will be too much for me and ill just stick with what I have until its affordable. Now if an 80gb driveis around 150 that would be much easier to peddle the idea to the wife. Don't need permission perse, rather purchases over 100 we consult each other to see if its financially feasible.

 

Not sure where you are but 80G is already in the 170-180 range frequently(sometimes even lower) and the new G3 should be able to be below 150 after the initial spike demand though I really doubt you would feel the snappiness given you usage and that you are running ubuntu.

I would be very reluctant to spend that money for this case.

 

If you're currently using less than 40GB's - then partition the drive to around 50/60GB - if any increase in snappiness will be apparent; it will show up with telling Ubuntu to ignore the remaining ~200GB.

Note though; you may have/want to do a re-install of Ubuntu first (with the smallest partition you can use Manually set). This is because if I'm not mistaken; Ubuntu will create it's 'Swap' partition at the slowest 'inner' edge of the drive - so if you don't re-install, you may not notice any more snappiness (even if you never touch the 'swap' file - the filesystem still needs to check for it when you do anything disk-related and that would mean a full platter 'sweep' of the heads almost each and every time.

Good luck.

 

linux would not touch the swap unless you have used up all the memory(unlike Windows), so no the swap location has almost no effect.

 

Agree, it won't touch/use the swap partition.

But it doesn't have to - if it's there, the file system has to keep track of it - resulting in the full platter head swings at least for some of the time.

 

no. the file system has nothing to do with swap. swap is a block device that is handled by the kernel, not a particular file system. It is strongly adviced against of using the swap on file in the unix community. It create unnecessary complication(more layer thus more chances of bugs), slow things down and with no gain of any sort.

Windows do it for simplicity(partitioning is too hard for its clientele and using file system allows it to 'autogrow' which again is a no no for performance).

 

I work my rig pretty hard with alot of ssh sessions, RDP like sessions, streaming, scripting, coding, web sessions, etc. I open alot of applications throughout the day and I do alot more then office, web, and email.

As for swap location there is really no performance gain to be had putting the swap in front of the main partition. I have tried both with ubuntu over the years and not once has it altered performance even in the slightest bit.

Hopefully the g3 drives will arrive in the next few days and Ill be able to make my decision then. The extra .5-1w less useage and quicker boot times/application opening will be nice for an on the go system.

 

Can't comment on your usage but other than streaming which I never done, I do similar things and the only thing that I find a SSD really help is Visual Studio project build or NetBean/Eclipse build or making debian packages.

 

I do most of my coding/scripting in vim so an SSD wont help there. The more I think about my useage the more it seems its for battery life and startup time. Despite using a 3 year old LV ultraportable laptop things seem to open pretty quickly if not instantly and most of it is network based anyways. I guess I will stick with what I have for now and use that money for a new 9 cell instead.

 

Same here. vi all the way.

BTW, one of the reason I haven't used linux as the main OS is that sleep/hibernate was much better in Windows situation. The newer linux seems to have improved a lot. That should solve the startup time issue.

 

Thanks for the info!

I didn't have any good way to test if this affected Linux/Ubuntu or not, but now I don't have to test anymore.

 

Yeah I love vim, and open source seems to fit me quite well. As for sleep and hibernate they still are much better in windows. I really dont use hibernate anymore as it boots up and loads apps in the same time it takes to load windows to the login screen.

Yeah it hasnt really mattered much since hdd thrashing is no longer a common issue. When thrashing was common putting the swap partition in front helped a bit.