OCZ SSD2 Solid State Storage (offered by PCMW)

Over something like a 7200rpm serial ATA2 with 16MB cache. The price difference is enormous, and the storage would be like 1/6th. But I guess your disk never thrashes nor would I think fragmentation be a problem... definitely intriguing and I wanted to know what the experts here thought before I pulled the trigger on this new laptop.

Anyone know off hand how many writes they are good for? I can't find that on the web.

 

First off, a Mod should move this to Sager thread.
second, I bought from PCMW, i think they're good.
third, the SSD drives are probably ALOT faster. But i still dont think they're with that price even with that performance.

 

Yet. Give them a year, the price should drop significantly... then... oooooh yeah.

In another thread, someone worked out effective lifetime of 24/7 use (as if it were reading and writing continuously) for an SSD to be just shy of 5 years. Of course, they're not reading and writing continuously - or in many cases even on continuously, so you'd get a lot more time out of them. Incidentally, after 5 years of non-stop use, I'd be extremely nervous about a normal HD as well.

 

This was for a mlc ssd; the OCZ is slc and will last significantly longer, probably in the area of 50-150 years as it is the exact twin of the Samsung ssd I reviewed below.

You will not find a lifespan for any ssd less than 5 years in an honest testing environment; the environment has to be an honest representation though of what the drive is capable of. For example, one does not throw a mlc (multi level cell) ssd into a network environment which has a very high read write pattern as you mention above. They are for person use and will have a normal lifespan of 7-10 years which is better than a hard drive believe it or not.

I have several articles below; feel free to ask me any questions you have.

 

^that guy is the SSD expert.

Hey Flamenko, would you happen to know what size SSD fits in the 9262? Going to email Justin and Sager to see if it would be alright to add one later on.

 

Yeah... I browsed some of the articles... more than anything not having to listen/wait for them to them spin up is probably the selling point that grabs me.

So here's a question. On magnetic disks to genuinely 'delete' data you have to write some garbage data to the sector about 7 times or so. But I've read that even after a format recovery is still possible with the right tech... what's the difference with solid state, in terms of data security?

 

From a quick google, it appears that recovery from flash media is about as do-able as recovery is from other media.

BTW: writing garbage data to a disk 7 times will not "genuinely 'delete'" data from that hard disk. It will make it difficult for the lazy or the merely curious, or the impatient, but it will not stop someone with even a mild desire to get files off that disk from getting something significant.

The only way to permanently erase data so that no-one whatsoever can recover it is to physically destroy the disk - a welding torch is a favorite.

 

Hey,it's your money.
If you want clean fast boots and short loading times, the SSD is worth the price.
For a single drive system, the SSDs offer too little space.
For multi drive systems, 3 128GB SSDs in RAID 0 would be the fastest thing around.

 

wait... they have 128s for laptops?

 

Bought one Super Talent 120gb SSD from Newegg at $639. It boots WinXP really fast. Recommended for those that have better things to do than sit and wait on Windows, reminds me of fishing [waiting] versus catching...... Save to back this fast Drive with two 7200rpm Sata300 320gb Drives when they finally come out, Wow are we back to waiting again......

 

Another main selling point aside from blazing speed is it's low heat and power usage which is great for laptops. I have been seriously thinking about disposing of some of my disposable income on an SSD. I just don't have that much disposable income at the moment. Soon though, very soon

The SSD will start taking off soon. As others have said, wait a year or so and they will become much more viable.

 

How does the power consumption compare to a new 7200rpm drive?

 

"Low Power Consumption

A major disadvantage of hard drives is the amount of power they consume. Most of the power in a hard drive is used by the motor that has to spin the disk. Faster performance in a hard drive requires faster rotational speeds of the disk, up to 10,000 rpm’s for high performance hard drives. The SSD offers an enormous advantage over hard drives in power efficiency. Thanks to the lack of motors and to the efficiency of flash IC's, SSDs consume a fraction of the power a conventional hard drive demands. When idle, SSDs use about 95% less power than hard drives; and when active, 50 to 85% less power. Lower power consumption means less heat produced inside the chassis that needs to be expelled, which results in cooler components and a lighter need for chassis ventilation. And more important, in mobile computing less power means longer battery life. Furthermore, each SSD can save up to 21.9 Kilowatt-Hours of power per year compared to a hard drive, making SSDs the ultimate choice for eco-friendly computing."

The above was found here : http://www.supertalent.com/tools/ssd.php about half way down the page.

After searching a bit, i found that a Hitachi 200g 7200 rpm HDD typically uses 2.3w during read/write while a SSD uses anywhere from .4w to 1w during read/write. Sooo, if you do a lot of work that keeps your drive active while on the go, an SSD can give a bit more battery life. Standby and Idle differences are very little, like .2 for an HDD and .1 for a SSD, give or take .1 .

Just so you know, I know nothing. I just like to google alot.

 

In a year's time, with the m860TU, once SSD becomes more practical, a hard drive should be easily replaced by an SSD drive right?

 

They are supposed to be just as swappable as any other drive.
(Don't have first-hand info however).

Chris.

 

i heard that SSD's have a restriction to the amount of write times though dont they? does anyone know that this number is or how long the drive should last?

spending a few hundred on a drive who has numbered days is not too promising.

 

You mean to say that you've got your hands on a drive with un-numbered days (i.e., eternal life)?

 

I have been playing with the three OCZ2s, or should I Samung units since this is indeed what the bios reports.

I used RdII disk test utilities to get various unbuffered read/write (hdtune only give read speed) data transfer speeds. HdII does not do multiple test so there is a lot of variability in the data.

Here the result for various transfers (in MB/s)
config : 4k write/read : 128k write/read : 2048k write/read :
Single drive : 13/16 : 38/87 : 39/94
2xSSD Raid0: 12/14 : 45/96 : 56/149
3xSSD Raid0: 15/23 : 45/145 : 64/219
3xSSD Raid5: 8/23 : 18/102 : 24/180

Nota bene this was an unscientific test, but enough for me to compare the topologies.

 

It was a direct swap. Put the SSD in Drive position 3 [under battery] as it is really easy to access, changed boot dive in bios and then put on a fresh install of WinXp to get rid of all the older device drivers and software.
Write times are slow, but when playing "The Witcher", which was very slow loading, time cut to less than half , so now it's fun to play....

As to the limitation on writes, standard drives also have limitations on read/write, known as bad sectors. There are a few articles posted online that discuss these issues. And it is indicated in some references online that the future of storage is solid state due to elimination of moving hardware. Although the life of the SSD is advertised as longer than that of a standard drive, the length of the warranty does not indicate much confidence [the warranty is short, like one to two years max]....

 

lol i guess not, point taken.

 

More of an irrational hope actually, than a point - my hdds seem to be altogether too mortal.