Samsung 128GB SSD vs. Intel 80GB X18-M...benchies! ;)

Guys, if you're going to get an SSD, get the Intel X-18 M from Lenovo. I have and used one of my 128GB Samsung SSD's for a week and it pales in comparison. Don't take my word for it, check this out:

Here is the CrystalDiskMark 2.2 that I like to use with the Intel 80GB on the left, and the Samsung 128GB on the right. The Intel one is almost two and a half times faster in read speeds, and consistently, albeit "only" by up to 20MB/s in write speeds. (Intel X-25-E /X-18-Extreme, where are youuuu.... I thought Windows 7 was instant-on before. My WEI is now 7.5 out of 7.9.









And here we have the same in HDTune with Intel on the left again...Look at what HDTune did: On the Intel benchmark, it goes all the way to 250MB/s, and only 150MB/s for the Samsung. The Intel SSD appears to be more consistent in speed.

What do you think, folks?? I would MUCH rather have HALF the size, but TWICE the speed. I guess I'm going to sell my two 128GB SSD's. They wow'd me like Intel did today at first, but I need the speedier one as the main drive, and then regular 320GB (and soon 500GB!) 7200 HDD's for massive storage.

Does anyone have any idea as to why the Intel blows away the Samsung like that?

 

I don't know the answers to your questions, but 128GB Samsung SSD that I got from Lenovo (probably a newer model) in my T400s is:



I'm very happy with it and it was dirt cheap after Lenovo discount. How much Lenovo charges for X18-M?

 

Wow, your write speeds are like those of an SLC. Yea, that looks great. Well, I got it very recently, including the Thinkpad that it is running on. I've always been suspicious as to why it would barely do 100MB/s for read speeds.

Well, maybe it's a bad drive. I have another one, and both are brand new! It does "work", though. Are you sure we have the same model? lol...your benchmarks look like an SLC drive, and that's awesome.

Which OS are you running? (grasping at straws lol).

 

MLCs are perfectly capable of doing high write speeds sequentially. However, the intel drive is much better at random writes, which is more important in a real world aspect.

 

From PCWizard 2k9, Samsung MMCRE28G8MXP. Running XP, SP3 now. Without a doubt, Intel beats everything in small block (4k) read/write. But in sequential reading the max speed of this Samsung is not bad. I was facing a choice while configuring T400s, and decided that for $180 (upgrade option after corp. discount) @ 128GB SSD it has a pretty good price/performance ratio.

 

There are two different Samsung's here. The faster one is based on RB22 controller, the other is the first gen unit. You can verify that by viewing the benchmarks collected here. Interestingly, Mtron and Indilinx based SSDs give faster 4kb read speeds than Intel's X25/X18M.

 

I have a third-party supplied samsung-driven OCZ Summit 126GB SSD and have almost identical figures in CrystalDiskmark 2.2 to yours - and I am happy about that too - sequential read: 207.1 MB/s; sequential write: 150.5 MB/s; 512K read:166.3 MB/s; 512k write:105.8 MB/s; 4K read: 14.54 MB/s; 4K write: 6.93 MB/s

I have had it running for 3 months, and and it was much more affordable than the Intel of the time.
In the real world, my samsung driven SSD reads and writes everything almost instantaneously.

 

Anand shows the intel ssd's besting the indilinx controllers.
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3607&p=4

Overall the intels are still the best for real world use, but they could definitely work on the sequential writes. I think they were focusing on their controller algorithms mostly though for gen2.

 

I don't see the Intel option available as an option for the T400s on their website..

 

Alright, I had to calm down there for a bit. You know how frustrating it is when you spend 30 mins writing something, and you're done even, and then I screw up, and the damn Firefox did not retain it. It always had under VISTA! So, Mozilla, FIX IT!

And I was excited like a little kid about the fact that you're right, the 2nd Samsung 128GB SSD MLC does work one hell of a lot better than my first one, so thank you twister for challenging my first round of specs.

They had different FRU's!!! And I have two different 1.8"-2.5" converters, where one works a tad better, and every combination I had thought of, was given both converters. Check it out:






Soooo....which is which!? hehe...my 2nd "new" whatever Samsung 128GB MLC is on the left, and currently has the slightly worse 1.8"-2.5" converter of the two. lol...I'll switch that out at a later date to see how much difference it makes.

And on the right, the Intel, around 40MB/s faster, but my God, on the first line, it is literally two and a half times faster at writing, or a whopping 100MB/s.


Now, here are the HDTune benchmarks for both Samsung number 2, and the Intel drives:

Alright, Intel, on the right, has the better read speeds, but Samsung is not far behind. Samsung would beat the hell out of the Intel drive.









Alright, this forum rules! I would have kept on going with a slower and smaller size drive. The crazy "instant-on" Windows 7 boot up that Intel wow'd me. You can't tell the difference with this Samsung number 2. Same crazy feel every time. I wonder how Lenovo treats these vastly different drives, specs-wise. Not everyone will have two lying around.

 

OH NOES !!!

I got again ripped by Lenovo !

My X200 Tablet is few weeks old and still have old gen SSD ? This is f***ing dissapointing ! I paid for it 450USD extra as I remember ... omg my ultrabay and dvd rw drive seem to be made in june, fresh thing ...

Uhmm here is screen from HDtune



Bah ! Maybe in a year or two I will buy new SSD much quicker than this and others what seem to be on the market ...

Damn you Lenovo !

 

in real world scenario you would be hard pressed to tell any difference between recent samsung and intel drives, those benchmarks are quite useless imho.

for an example, in real world you will probably rarely (if ever) write 100mb of 4kb files to your disk at once, that's 25.000 4kb files one after another. you'd maybe able to tell a difference when you compare the two side by side and the samsung drive starts to suffer under heavy parallel io. that isn't considered by neither of those benchmarks and in real world mobile computing it doesn't make a notable difference, unless you have specific demanding software like a sql server with a metric ton of data and sql requests per second.

 

How about system startup ?

I understand that these days the HDD is a thing that slows PC down ...

I got now X200 Tablet 1,86GHz, 4GB DDR3 and 128GB SSD ... which one part is slowing others ?

I believe that now the thing to upgrade now or in the future are SSD drives only, right ?


Cheers

 

Bottlenecks really depend on your usage. If you were a gamer, your GPU would usually be the bottleneck (if you had a SSD). If you do calculations for work or research or run VM or particle heavy games, your CPU would be the bottleneck. If you do lots of file transfers, your SSD would be the bottleneck.

 

Most likely any slowdown in your system would be related to human speed as all of those components are plenty fast.

Don't get hung up on sequential SSD speeds. The thing that makes SSDs awesome is random access compared to hard drives, and any Samsung/Intel/Indillix drive is great here.

Further, MMCQE28G8MUP is the model number for the newer drive ( datasheet). I would suggest running a different set of benchmarks as your drive should perform better.

 

Are you trying to say that Im the bottleneck of the pc ?

How do you know that mine is newer model ? I cant find any info about date on datasheet.

What other software should I test SSD with ?

I see that some of you use CristalDiskMark, what else ?


EDIT:


I made again some benchmarks ...

Samsung SSD 128GB




WD Scorpio Blue 500GB in Ultrabay

Of course I used here DiskMarkX64 because I run Vista SP1 X64




Please let me know what you think.

 

Your model number "MMCQE28G8MUP" is listed in your HD Tune score. This is the Samsung model for the newer SSD (rated at 220/200). The older 1.8" 128GB MLC (rated at 90/70) is "MMDOE28G8MPP-OVA" ( mmdoe28g5mpp-ova for the 2.5" equivalent).

 

So why I dont have equalient results from benchmarks ?

Well I did restore to defaults settings in BIOS so this may be the reason ? I have no idea why It doesnt score as it should ...

So now I believe I have the most recent version of 1,8inch Samsung SSD MLC 128GB ?

Cheers

 

Perhaps you have a bunch of other things running, you are using the computer while it benches, etc.

It doesn't really matter. Notice how much faster the random reads and writes are...

In real world usage it should be ridiculously faster than a traditional HDD. Don't get held up in benchmarks.

 

Jonlumpkin is wrong. Old Samsung MLC SSD 2.5" variant has model number mmd0e28g5mpp, while the new Samsung MLC SSD 2.5" variant has model number mmcre28g5mxp. Old Samsung MLC SSD 1.8" variant has model number MMCQE28G8MUP, while new Samsung MLC SSD 1.8" variant has model number MMCRE28G8MXP.
Samsung attached the wrong datasheet to their old products.

 

I stand corrected. Thanks for the clarification.

 

Who cares. It's easy to get a couple of characters wrong. Here's the FULL, complete list of identifying parameters, including FRU #'s

OLD SAMSUNG 128GB SSD MLC; FRU # 41W0519 (MMC QE28G8M UP-0VA) DO NOT GET!

NEW SAMSUNG 128GB SSD MLC; FRU # 45N7953 (MMC RE28G8M XP-0V B) VROOOM, baby!


So....would you guys keep the Samsung 128GB, or go with the Intel X18-M? The Intel one does write faster on the smaller, non-sequential data. Read speeds are also approx 30-40MB/s higher. Keeping in mind that I cannot, for the most part, really say that I can "feel" the difference, with the exception from that mirror from the Intel (high read speeds), to the newer Samsung (with the high sequential speeds). How often does that happen, though.

 

Trust me, it is important sometimes
I managed to get my Samsung 128GB drive for only $230 because the seller listed the spec wrong, and I was able to recognize the part number from his picture.
I have used both, and don't notice a difference in responsiveness. Use whichever one you want. I do appreciate the increase in capacity though.

 

Lenovo will swap it out for you. Be kind and polite. No one likes a smart . Point out that you know (because now you do LOL) the difference, and naturally, you expected the higher spec'd one. I'd be surprised if they didn't ship you one overnight. Go for it!

 

Really? Come on. lol... The higher spec Samsung is night and day faster than the older one. The boot time after swapping it out for the newer one was cut in half, and it acted like the Intel 250/70 as far as boot time and shut down!??

There was only 8 weeks difference as far as the date of manufacture. Ugh.

 

Bootup and shutdown depends on read more than write, and as you can see, there's not much difference between the read speed of the two drives.

 

The thing is that Im in Europe and Lenovo support here is none.
Well I will ask my friend in the States to call them up and check this out ...

Of course Im not happy with this, but lets say in a year or two SSD's should be much more cheaper and even better performing ? So if my friend fails I will just patienlty wait ...

What are the diffrences between older and newer Samsung SSD ?

Is there a big diffrence in performance in everyday/normal use ?


Cheers

 

Oops, my bad. Intel's 250/70 vs. 220/170, is not much read difference yes. I thought you were comparing the two Samsung's.

So basically a 100MB per second difference in favor of the Samsung, albeit sequential, would anyone get the Intel?? Please do not take into account the 80GB vs.128GB difference in capacity.

Thanks to all who reply!!

 

I prioritize having the intel's random performance. I have a samsung slc 64gig but am getting the Intel x25-m 80gig Gen2 on Thursday.

 

Is price a factor? What are you doing on your notebook? Do you need to transfer large files often?

 

How did you get it from Lenovo? I don't see it (the Intel drive, specifically) as an option anywhere. I don't even see the G2s in most retail stores, yet.

 

I dont transfer large files that often but Im worried about system performance like: sys startup, installing software, running programs, or applications like MS Office, OneNote or other tablet apps, notebook everyday use applications etc etc

Cheers !

 

Then go for the Intel.
Thinkpads don't even have a eSATA port, so it's doubtful that you'll be doing any large file transfer.

 

I may do large transfers by Ultrabase and HDD or SSD in Ultrabay.

Id have to sell this SSD and squize some extra cash on Intel.

I dont think its worth now. Maybe I should wait for new,faster SSD's to appear ? Are there going to be some big changes for them in the future ? Bigger capacity (however Im fine with 80GB or 128GB), faster transfers ( by much ? where is the limit now ? )

 

X25m G2 are very hard to find right now. Whenever they show up they go out of stock real fast.

 

As long as you choose the right size and price of one of a number of the more recent versions of SSD, you will be happy. All of them will radically change the quality of your computing experience.
check out a few reviews first:
http://www.techspot.com/review/160-solid-state-drive-roundup/
http://www.techspot.com/review/181-solid-state-drive-roundup2/
http://pcper.com/article.php?aid=766&type=expert&pid=1
http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=825
http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=799&pageid=1
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631&p=1

 

jaredy: Nice! Gen 2, you already ordered it? Is it any faster/better somehow, and pricewise?

@sogogeta4/everyone else: No, price is not a factor per se. Neither is the difference in capacity (128GB vs. 80GB). I don't want to keep what will be a piece of ju...well, maybe not that bad, but it'll be old news, so I want to sell either one and make some easy $$ now.

I just want the better performance. I simply cannot wrap my mind around the (apparent) fact that a drive with 170MB/s is really slower in the end vs. one with 70MB/s, which is almost 250% less. But I don't know the technology enough to definitively believe one over the other. I know Intel is better at writing non-sequential, small files, and that makes a big difference? +100Mbps considering, Intel's still faster at writing?

I am starting to lean towards Intel now. lol...I'll get a Gen 2 of the Intel, and whatever else is coming out.

By the way, how will Gen2 be faster, better (in which way??) I'd really like to understand this, not because I don't believe you guys!

 

I am getting my intel x2m g2 drive on Wednesday.

Read Anand's preview on the intel drive and his 3rd part of his indepth SSD articles.
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3607
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631

 

the T400s has eSATA integrated into a USB port, as will future models.   the new docks also have eSATA.   it's coming, slow but sure.

 

I sincerely hope that's the case. Backing up the computer via USB to external HDD is a pain

 

There's hide-type expressport e-sata cards on ebay for < US$20 delivered. They give > 70MB/S. Much better than USB.

 

what's so painful about it? it is barely harder than moving a file between one folder to another internally...at least it is a lot easier and quicker than backing up to cd/dvd-r/rw's, or to an external usb drive, IMHO.

 

The Intel SSD has a very aggressive controller that uses write combining and write amplification and thus delivers exceptional performance for small random writes. These small random writes are often the most important thing for general OS responsiveness and perceived speed.

The newer Samsung and Indillix drives are substantially faster for large sequential writes. However, unless you are feeding your SSD from a very fast source (e.g. another internal SSD) or are capturing/editing high-bitrate HD video it is extremely difficult to throw >70MB/s at any drive for a long period of time.

The fact that sequential performance is far less important than random performance is why I have little incentive to upgrade my 64GB Samsung SLC SSD. Additionally, if I did upgrade it would be to a drive with a controller similar to the Intel that improved performance on small random writes (where mine is very good but not exceptional).

 

I'm not talking about simple file backup, but instead partition backup via Acronis, and the files can grow to be 10GB+

I don't need it so much as to consider an expresscard. I know they exist, but it's still nice to see it built in to the laptop. Thanks for the advice though

 

I guess it depends on how often you feel you have to image the system to external HDD, and how much room you have there. I have my SSD partitioned - one for os and programs (i.e. stuff it takes time to reinstall), one for created and saved files (i.e. virtual objects "unique" to me, and would not want to lose). I image the first area once a week (but probably over-kill - it is probably not even necessary even once a month - few changes are made to software). The second I update my mirror copies on the same external HDD (but in a separate partition from the images) using SyncToy 2.0.

 

How does old gen Samsung 128GB MLC do with small random writes as these are the most important thing for general OS responsiveness ? I believe everyday use too.

 

It's still pretty good. No stuttering and far better than any HDD.

 

How is it even possible to secure one of the new Samsung drives? Can I just complain to Lenovo that my SSD isn't performing as well as those in newer X301s and get them to replace it? It's technically a "defect" because we're talking same product, but vastly different performance.

 

I don't think write amplification means what you think it means. It's usually associated with the endurance and longevity of a drive, not its performance.

 

And negatively associated, at that. Write amplification = bad. It can also have minor effects on performance, but hopefully not unless it's a really high value, in which case there are other problems to worry about, too (eg longevity).