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

Anand's latest SSD article has a equation/table for longevity of modern SSDs.

 

Extremely....I mean exceptionally well explained. Thanks very much, jon. I already went back to the Intel, and the WEI (Windows Experience Index), and you know, I go by that! Just like I do with the terror color chart.

Anyway, the Intel is now back to 7.5 out of 7.9. The Samsung had gotten a 6.8, which isn't too shabby either, but the Intel SSD is not only lightning fast, but it's consistently lightning fast.

erik, thank you as well. As usual, awesome crowd on this board! By the way, remember I got the X25-M SSD MLC literally one year ago, in September '08, right when they came out, and purchased from a cool dude who ran runs his own business, for $550 shipped. I do also remember that somehow I wasn't convinced that it was a new drive. For this, and a few other reasons, I didn't really like it. It didn't even feel like it was faster. It would even BSOD my T60p, andmy hands were tied, before it eventually crashed completely. The drive wasn't dead, I just had to reformat it, and I didn't have the patience for it at the time, so I didn't bother exchanging it, and sold it.

Finally, this one was manufactured on 7/26/09, so how do I tell if it's a Gen 2 model.

 

Hi,

I bought a X301 with a Samsung 128GB SSD in late July this year and it appears to have the older 1st generation SSD (MMCQE28G8MUP FRU41W0519) from the attached benchmarks.

What are the chances of having this drive replaced with the newer MMCRE28G8MXP (FRU45N7953) model, seeing that the hardware maintenance manual for the X301 only references the older 41W0519 FRU ?

Thanks

 

You most likely do not have a G2. The end of the model number should say G1 or G2...but the G2 JUST started to come out at the time you mentioned yours was manufactured. Then the G2 line was pulled for a firmware update. I haven't seen the X18 G2 around much anyways. The X25 G2 is around here and there but goes out of stock really quickly. Just check the model number in device manager. But as I said most likely you have a G1. Unfortunately Intel is not going to release an update for TRIM support for the G1...

 

I have been looking around to find some benchmark tests for the new Intel X18-M 160GB. Anyone have any good review links with??

 

Should be exactly the same as the X25m 160 G2. Check Anand's articles.

 

edit: beaten. exact same as X25-M

 

So one of these new T400s with a new Intel X18 SSD in it should really fly

 

It would be pretty damn fast. It's still a little too costly for my blood atm. Maybe when the 80GB drive costs $100 or less, I'd get it.

 

Yes, you can. You guys are sometimes too afraid of corporations. Nothing against you, chrixx. I was just answering your question...lol. No, it has just been my observation that some members here are furious, but don't do anything about it. The same is true for cellphone customers in several another forums that I am a member of.

Do your homework, i.e. get the FRU #, model #, and whatever identifies a drive, a stick of memory, an accessory, or anything else that defines an item as unique. Then make the call, write that email, and/or complain in the Lenovo forums. There are Lenovo moderators, which will likely very quickly come to your aid.

No one representing Lenovo in whatever capacity wants you to be unhappy. They want you to come back next time, for another Thinkpad. As if we wouldn't anyway.

Be polite, do not demand, don't be too aggressive, yet assertive (hard to explain), and absolutely no "language" of the four-letter kind.

Try not to be shy, and have the mindset that this is what you're going to accomplish, not attempt to.

In the case of the Samsung and its two different model and FRU numbers, be insistent that you bought this very expensive drive in good faith from Lenovo, a company that was recommended to you, or a company you have come to trust. You could have likely saved some good money, but no, you wanted one-stop shopping, and didn't want to buy from some fly-by-night computer accessory operation. Then you can add: "I'm not saying that about Lenovo, Sir, and I'm sure that this was merely a mistake.".

I'll definitely exchange my Samsung (0VA/slow) for a (0VB/speedy) one.

I'm sorry for the long post. I hope this will help somebody at some point,

Good luck to you all!

 

Very well put:smile:

 

Anyone here have the new T400s with the new Intel X18 SSD in it that did some benchmark tests?

 

Just look up benchmarks fro the x25m G2 such as on Anandtech.

 

Sure. Here you go. I am using that very drive myself.



Notice how one test was done on my C: drive, and one on my D:. I swapped them out, after I decided that the Intel X18-M would be the more exceptional ( ) one, and now it is.

Take a look at this baby. You can't get much more consistent. Both read and write speeds are only 1MB(!) apart. I have learned to not just gaze at the sequential speeds, which are always fun to watch, especially in the case of the Intel drive.

I understand that one of the most important part of the above benchmark test in its consistency, along with the last (3rd row, the number on the right), i.e. 4K write speeds. 44.37, and 44.56 MB/s. How much closer can you get!

 

I don't think that's how it works
Consistency only matters when the period between two benchmarks is far away from each other, and you mainly try to see how much performance has degraded.
Most important thing to look for in a certain benchmark is the small file read/write speeds and random read/write speeds (which are not measurable using the CrystalDiskMark program).

 

I'm having a hard time pegging date expectations here. If I were to order a T400 (not s) with a 128GB SSD next week (say, Monday or Tuesday), what should I expect?

 

Thanks for the Benchmark posts Was this test done on the W700 or T400s? I was looking at the signature at the bottom to where I saw that you had a W700.

 

I was going to wait until they released Windows first. Are you not going to wait??

 

Afraid I can't wait six weeks; I'm not waiting longer than Friday.

 

I dunno where you live, but in Canada, Lenovo quotes 13 business days before it will ship... so if you need it in your hands this week, you better look elsewhere.

 

Should be either the newer Samsung or Toshiba drive. Also, note that the SSD will likely be a 1.8" variety with adapter as Lenovo only stocks 1.8" SSDs (at least that was the case).

However, with the T400 you are probably better ordering it with the bare bones HDD and procuring the SSD of your choice from somewhere else (Intel, Samsung, OCZ Vertex, or the Toshiba are all good).

The policy would be different for the T400s/x301 as they use 1.8" drives (rarer at resellers and the base HDD is much more expensive [cheaper to upgrade to an SSD with Lenovo]).

 

You're right to call attention to turnaround. It looks like it's a little faster in the States - 9 days. Mine's got to be direct though.

There are two things I like about getting it from Lenovo:
1. They've got a promotion right now that makes it far cheaper to buy the upgrade than to buy one myself (the cheapest I can find for 128GB is $242).
2. If there's a problem, the fix is on Lenovo's dime; same holds if I flub up and have accidental-damage protection.

I'm also thinking that even those drives are far better than HDD's. That said, I understand the complaints about drives from different brands. Is there any advantage to having a 2.5", rather than a 1.8" with an adapter?

Now, I suppose I could get the base HDD and wait for SSD prices to come down, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

 

Quality-wise, the 1.8" and 2.5" are exactly the same. I prefer the 1.8" SSD's, as I want to keep my options open. I'm thinking about adding and X series to my Thinkpad family, and I like to marvel at a drive that is so tiny, almost paper-thin, and is able to juggle and throw around huge amounts of data, in lightning fast speed.

Depending on which adapter you get (I believe the "skeleton" one that you can find a hi-res photo of on here is a tad faster (I did a lot of benchmarks). The other one is simpler to put together, and install into the the 2.5" adapters. I'm not sure if you can request one over the other, or why you would want to. I can look up the FRU's quickly if you tell me which one you want.

I only use hard drives for storage purposes now. I need about 1TB of data, so I can either wait and make it two 500GB drives, or three 320GB ones.

I'd rather have the 500GB ones. Does anyone know how when they might come out? I think it'll be a Seagate drive.

Just FYI, the one they currently ship, if you elect to buy a 160GB of the 7200 kind is awesome. It's the Seagate Momentus 7200.3. I'd use it as my primary drive, if I wasn't sold on SSD's now.

 

Do you have any photos of your adapters ?

Im curious if I have that tad faster one lol ...


In a few days I will put a pic of mine and my SSD.


Cheers

 

Whats the firmwareversion on your samsung drives?

I have the newer 128 GB Samsung SSD (PB22-JS3) with Firmware VBM19D1Q. BGC ... yes/no? (got it in my Dell ... yeah I know wrong forum )

 

Got 128GB Samsung SSD MMCRE28G8MXP-0VBL1 - VBM1DL1Q

 

Heh yea, well, one of them looks like a "skeleton" and there is a hi-res picture on here for that. The other one is black, and has the 1.8" - 2.5" adapter already attached, where you just slide your SSD into, and it has a "latch" that falls into place securing the SSD in place. I'll find you some pics of both and post them here. Which one did you decide on getting?

 

I ordered X301 on early September, and still got the old version of SSD: MMCQE28G8MUP, which is much slower than the new generation.

I have called both Lenovo sale depart and technique department, they both refused to replace it and they are very rude.

Anyone sucessfully got replacement? please advise

 

While this is unfortunate, Lenovo does not state what model drives they are selling you but rather that it is of a certain size and type (HDD vs SSD). So I don't really think it is fair to assume you can get a replacement because if it isn't technically defective they have satisfied the agreement that is your order.

I would just advise people upgrading their own disks from HDD to SSD so you have total control over what model and thus what performance.

 

Ordered my T400s on Sept 17th, got it yesterday.
SAMSUNG 128GB SSD MMCRE28G8MXP-0VB (i think this is the newer one)

 

miamipanther: That is unfortunate. jaredy is right, of course. Not defective. Not obligated to replace. xg3 got lucky, and that's cool.

However...where did you call to attempt to get it swapped out? Were you rude first, or the Lenovo rep? I have found Lenovo reps to be very friendly, and generous, almost like IBM was, with swapping out parts. I'm just asking...

 

All T400s seems to use the newer Samsung drive, whereas older X301 uses the older drive.
And I share the same sentiment of getting the cheapest HDD option and swapping it out by yourself later.

 

I tried to get my older Samsung SSD replaced by sending an email to Lenovo Asia Pacific. This was their response.

Thanks for conatcting Lenovo.
After consulting tech person, we learned that this is one of the fixed configration by our research department. Sorry that we cannot swap it.

 

Exactly what I think they'll say. They have the advantage of being ambiguous about the drives they supply.

 

Again, there is a way. Download CrystalDiskMark 2.2 or later, and post some benchmarks. Then we'll see if it is really a "fixed configuration" drive. Whatever that means...fixed configuration...sounds more like word play to me. The Lenovo response you posted is bad English in any case.

And "research department"? What is that? Call Lenovo and ask to be connected to the mighty research folks and ask them what they're researching all day long...lol

 

Can anyone confirm the type of drive that the 43N3406 product number represent? This can be purchased aftermarket.

 

I have called both sale and technique department. The sale department guy said he absolutely understood my frustration but can't do nothing about it. The guy in technique department is very impatient, kind of rude. His point is Lenovo can only replace hard drive which fails test, which is fine but he cut my talking serveral times, which make me feel really bad.

Any way, not big deal, the samsung is going to ebay and I am going to order intel when it's avaliable again.

Intel X18-M G2 appears to out of stock everywhere, does anyone know when Intel is going to ship them again?

 

I don't believe the X18-M G2 is available yet, but I don't know when it will. I would be interested in an answer to that one, as well.

 

Can anyone confirm the FRU # of the X18-M drive?

 

According to Intel's site, the X-18M Gen 2 should be available now. I'll find out Friday.

 

No one is actually has any X18-M G2s in stock yet...

 

Not worth the price to me at the moment...Just realized it's also hard to diagnose whether they have failed or not.

 

I did just see this thread and I got a new T400s last week with the "fast" 128 SSD disk... Well it is suppose to be fast and the benchmarks sure looks nice. I am used to windows XP and Vista feels slow. Hope it helps with Windows 7.

SP9400(2.4GHz), 4GB RAM, 128GB Solid State Drive

 

Are you caching? Slow means what as well. It certainly should not be slow compared to a HDD.

 

It feels like a driver is hanging. My old AMD X2 pc with a 1TB(70% full) 7200RPM disk boots up faster then the T400s . I know it sounds wired and I am little surprise in the moment. The T400s only has Office 2007 , chrome and dropbox installed.


Also on Youtube is has a CPU load on both core's is 60-80%



Ideas are welcome

 

well, vista does boot slower than xp.

 

Interesting, my Vista was faster than XP and 7 is faster than Vista.

 

Why my write speeds are this slow? I just installed Windows 7 on the machine and my disk is Intel's X25-M 2nd generation 80 GB. Read speeds seem to be ok though... help...

 

Got this fixed, in some ssd-guides they were referring to keep write caching off but that's most likely bs and was causing the slowness.

 

For windows 7 you shouldn't need to really tweak. The OS should detect the SSD and act accordingly.