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    256GB SSD appears to be significantly slower than the 128GB SSD

    Discussion in 'VAIO / Sony' started by hjacobs2000, Oct 30, 2008.

  1. hjacobs2000

    hjacobs2000 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Having both Z590 CTO (256 SSD) and Z590UAB (128 SSD) it appears the 256GB SSD drive is significantly slower than the 128GB SSD. These tests were done with Passmark Performance Test 6.1. more tests with other tools to follow
     
    hjacobs2000, Oct 30, 2008
    #1
  2. SpeedyMods

    SpeedyMods Notebook Deity

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    Is the 256GB SSD also 2 smaller SSD's in RAID like the 128GB is?
     
    SpeedyMods, Oct 30, 2008
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  3. hjacobs2000

    hjacobs2000 Notebook Enthusiast

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    I have not opened the Z yet but I believe it is dual rain 128GBs
     
    hjacobs2000, Oct 30, 2008
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  4. Kaze

    Kaze Notebook Consultant

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    the 256gb has 2 MLCs in it whereas the 128gb one has 2 SLCs in it...
     
    Kaze, Oct 30, 2008
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  5. ZoinksS2k

    ZoinksS2k Notebook Virtuoso

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    Interesting. If this is correct, the results make sense.

    This is an excellent article explaining SLC vs MLC ad how Intel broke the model with their drives. It also explains the wear-leveling concept very clearly.

    http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3403&p=2
     
    ZoinksS2k, Oct 30, 2008
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  6. hjacobs2000

    hjacobs2000 Notebook Enthusiast

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    The article actually describes the symptoms perfectly. The MLC SSD drive is much faster than a standard platter harddrive but in benchmarks is noticable slower than an SLC DRIVE
     
    hjacobs2000, Oct 30, 2008
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  7. Skyshade

    Skyshade Notebook Deity NBR Reviewer

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    There is no SLC SSD drive at larger than 64GB in existence, so you can do the math yourself. The performance difference you see is because of SLC vs. MLC.
     
    Skyshade, Oct 30, 2008
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  8. Phil

    Phil Retired

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    Thanks for posting those tests. Unfortunately synthetic benchmarks like Passmark aren't very reliable for hard drive benchmarking. For example cache memory on controllers can skew results so much that it says nothing about the real life speed.

    To know what drive is faster you'd have to real life testing.

    For example:
    -perform 3 boots under Windows Vista and dig up the boot time (somewhere in vista it's being recorded). If you're running XP get boottimer.exe
    -copy a 5GB folder to another partition and manually time it using a stopwatch.
    -create a heavy load on the system (fe. by running a virus scan and spybot scan at the same time) and then try opening up a large Word document (w/o Word running in advance). Time it by hand. (to perform these tests it's important that cache memory is fairly empty so a clean boot is advised.)
     
    Phil, Oct 31, 2008
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  9. psyq321

    psyq321 Notebook Evangelist

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    Oh yes there is - Memoright GT has 128 GB 2.5" SLC drives, that perfectly fit in a notebook :)

    The only problem is... Drive is approx. $2500 as of today.
     
    psyq321, Oct 31, 2008
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  10. hjacobs2000

    hjacobs2000 Notebook Enthusiast

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    After booting and timing both computers over 20 times (in a rather unscientific method) the 590 UAB 128 GB SSD booted and average of 3 - 5 seconds faster every time over the 590 CTO 256GB SSD. will run other tests this weekend. Boot times averaged 40-50 seconds
     
    hjacobs2000, Oct 31, 2008
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  11. sonoritygenius

    sonoritygenius Goddess of Laptops

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    Thank yoU! now is it from Vista's boot log or your own stop-watch-esque timer? lol :D
    40 seconds on a SLC SSD :eek: i
     
    sonoritygenius, Oct 31, 2008
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  12. hjacobs2000

    hjacobs2000 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Its from my "own stop-watch-esque timer" :D That being said when I get a chance i will look for the boot time file
     
    hjacobs2000, Oct 31, 2008
    #12