I am out to buy a new disk for my PC. It will be my main drive with everything else stored either online or on a 500GB USB-disk. So, performance, heat and noise is what matters. I have been reading up again and came across this on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive#SLC_versus_MLC)
QuoteSSD is still currently a developing technology. A January 2009 review of the market by technology reviewer Tom's Hardware (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom%27s_Hardware) concluded that comparatively few of the tested devices showed acceptable I/O (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I/O) performance, with several disappointments,[46] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive#cite_note-toms-45) and that Intel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel) (who make their own SSD chipset (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipset)) still produce the best performing SSD drive as at this time, a view also echoed by Anandtech (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anandtech).[47] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive#cite_note-46) In particular, operations that require many small writes, such as log files (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log_files), are particularly badly affected on some devices, potentially causing the entire host system to freeze for periods of up to one second at a time.[48] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive#cite_note-47)
According to Anandtech, this is due to controller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_controller) chip design issues with a widely used set of components, and at least partly arises because most manufacturers are memory manufacturers only, rather than full microchip (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microchip) design and fabrication businesses - they often rebrand others' products,[49] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive#cite_note-48) inadvertantly replicating their problems.[50] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive#cite_note-49) Of the other manufacturers in the market, Memoright (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoright), Mtron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mtron), OCZ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCZ), Samsung (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung) and Soliware (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Soliware&action=edit&redlink=1) were also named positively for at least some areas of testing.
The overall conclusion by Tom's Hardware however, was that "none of the [non-Intel] drives was really impressive. They all have significant weaknesses: usually either low I/O performance, poor write throughput or unacceptable power consumption".[46] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive#cite_note-toms-45)
Intel's SSDs cost 4 times as much. Should I abandon the SSD idea?
Edit: Considering I will be running XP which, is said, is not optimized for SSDs in contrast to Win7. I reckon that has to do with tons of small files. It turns out to be due to defragmentation, which makes it unsuitable (http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=669&type=expert&pid=5) as a system disk. Interesting remark on defragmentation here (http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=669&type=expert&pid=7)
From the reviews I've read the advantage SSD it pretty much negated for non-intel drives. The extremes have great write speeds as well as read, but even their regular SSDs outperform everything.
If you can't go for an intel SSD I'd suggest a raptor or something else with faster than average read/write speeds. If you are buying it for being able to take shocks better then the cheaper ones should suffice.
Me and Kreg were looking at this a month or so ago and Intels are the ones to go for, the write speeds are better than the other manufacturers but the read (which is what a system will be doing the most) is in another league, bare in mind there are 2 different sorts of SSD in the Intel range the 'M' and 'E' series, M, being the slower and the cheaper of the two stands for Mainstream, the 'E' for Extreme (like what they use in the cpu's) In very basic terms, the difference is where the data is stored, in the 'M' series, it is scattered across the chips, whilst in the 'E' series, it is stored altogether so it has quicker access :)
I'm looking at a new raid setup (raid 1, or maybe 0-1) and would love SSD, but until the prices have fallen significantly and the capacity in realistic terms, I can't consider SSD as being a viable option either in raid or single drive just quite yet.
Quote from: Snokio;278276Me and Kreg were looking at this a month or so ago and Intels are the ones to go for, the write speeds are better than the other manufacturers but the read (which is what a system will be doing the most) is in another league, bare in mind there are 2 different sorts of SSD in the Intel range the 'M' and 'E' series, M, being the slower and the cheaper of the two stands for Mainstream, the 'E' for Extreme (like what they use in the cpu's) In very basic terms, the difference is where the data is stored, in the 'M' series, it is scattered across the chips, whilst in the 'E' series, it is stored altogether so it has quicker access :)
I'm looking at a new raid setup (raid 1, or maybe 0-1) and would love SSD, but until the prices have fallen significantly and the capacity in realistic terms, I can't consider SSD as being a viable option either in raid or single drive just quite yet.
How about the problem with fragmentation, if performance would drop below regular magnetic drives' performance? I know win7 will make better use of new ATA commands, according to the article above, but the problem is still there
Quote from: delanvital;278277How about the problem with fragmentation, if performance would drop below regular magnetic drives' performance? I know win7 will make better use of new ATA commands, according to the article above, but the problem is still there
well yes, i got a Intel SSD in my i7 rig, and yes you cannot defrag it and it fast turns into a big red pile of fragments...
This will somewhat have a impact latency performance... BUT!! what articles generally not tell you that hte performance lost is from access time of 1-2ms to 3-4...
I use a SSD disk for windows and alike.. and im having no noticeable performance losses due to fragmentation.. and when you then compare the disk performance to a old style HDD.. youll still be amazed..
Quote from: kregoron;278279well yes, i got a Intel SSD in my i7 rig, and yes you cannot defrag it and it fast turns into a big red pile of fragments...
This will somewhat have a impact latency performance... BUT!! what articles generally not tell you that hte performance lost is from access time of 1-2ms to 3-4...
I use a SSD disk for windows and alike.. and im having no noticeable performance losses due to fragmentation.. and when you then compare the disk performance to a old style HDD.. youll still be amazed..
Well, the tests in the link here (http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=669&type=expert&pid=5) conclude that fragmentation can impact fx read speed, making an intel mainstream X-25 drop to 40MB/s. My old Hitachi 7K250 can do 30MB/s. How long time have you had the SSD? And how many years do you expect it to last?
Edit: Data like these:
(http://www.pcper.com/images/reviews/669/x25-8.png)
and to quote:
QuoteIn several tests our write speeds dropped to 25-30 MB/s and simply refused to recover on their own, even with several successive passes of HDTach as well as any other application we could find to write a solid file across the entire drive.
Hmm... more info leads to this being an Intel-specific problem, details here (http://arstechnica.com/news/2009/02/sector-remap-fragmentation-slowing-intel-x25-m-ssds.ars)
yeah ive seen those tests, but then again, if you do a IOmeter on a regular HDD youll seen performance drops to the 1-15mb/sec range.. yes old skewl disks can be defragmented.. but IOmeter is really a worst case senario, which you properly wont see within months on a std used rig...
especially if you partiotion the disk properly with seperat pagefile partition and such..
yes they do get impacted by it, but so would any disk..
But yes SSD's are still not perfect, far from.. regularly reinstall my OS (once a month, using imaged fresh install) so i dont ever get near those performance drops..
and with the current price tags the intel ssd's are sickly expensive compared to their predecesors... which will without doubt give you a higher performance/size/cost ratio
Quote from: kregoron;278288yeah ive seen those tests, but then again, if you do a IOmeter on a regular HDD youll seen performance drops to the 1-15mb/sec range.. yes old skewl disks can be defragmented.. but IOmeter is really a worst case senario, which you properly wont see within months on a std used rig...
especially if you partiotion the disk properly with seperat pagefile partition and such..
yes they do get impacted by it, but so would any disk..
But yes SSD's are still not perfect, far from.. regularly reinstall my OS (once a month, using imaged fresh install) so i dont ever get near those performance drops..
and with the current price tags the intel ssd's are sickly expensive compared to their predecesors... which will without doubt give you a higher performance/size/cost ratio
Well, as also PCPerspective state, using an Intel SSD for an OS would be a no go. It is a matter of weeks to months. I still need to figure out how much fragmentation is an issue with regular SSDs (with no NCQ), comparatively...
and, now they say there is a firmware upgrade from april, from intel (http://technologyexpert.blogspot.com/2009/04/intel-releases-new-firmware-to-fix-ssd.html)?
the problem with using the SSD for windows, is mainly due to pagefile getting fragmented to pieces, but ive always created a partition at the beginning of a disk, (where doesnt matter on SSD's tho) and moving the pagefile to that partition and locking it to the full size of that partition..
This removed 75% of my fragmentation on the disk.. atleast the fragmentation that causes largely impact on performance..
I havent tried the firmware yet (maybe because im not seeing these performance hits), but i actually talked with a brother in crime to other night who have, and he claimed it solved a lot of issues..
heres is the test of the firmware from PCP
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=691&type=expert&pid=4
Quote from: kregoron;278296heres is the test of the firmware from PCP
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=691&type=expert&pid=4
Cheers. Restored my faith in that drive. A most interesting conclusion tho
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=691&type=expert&pid=10
Have you seen that video of the 24 samsung ssd'd in raid?
Damn it's rapid, but they also show it being formatted...?
Blimey, some interesting reads there, nice find
I have spent some time getting my head wrapped around crappy non-cache JMicron controllers, budget performance option of Indilinx, Samsung, MLCs with inferior lifespan and SLCs with better... and the way the controller works when deleting in 512kb blocks and how this affects performance blah blah :)
Now, I don't care about GB size, I just want it to run OS with installed apps etc. I care about seek time, because this appears to be what best reflects normal use (?) since, in particular, NTFS-file systems distribute blocks of data quite random on the disk.
In Danish currency I have to pay 2,250 DKK for the Intel X25-M (~ £ 260), the cheapest version, which no doubt is market leader. I can get the Samsung+Indilinx-based OCZ Vertex, 30GB version (32MB cache only, larger models have 64MB) for 1,050 DKK, thus being less than half the price of Intel's SSD. I know, Intel's is the fastest, but the Vertex seems to be a decent alternative atm.
I have been comparing SSDs to the cheapest Velociraptor at around 950 DKK (74GB version), the best conventional hard disk I can find. The SSDs win. Cheaper conventional disks (around 500 DKK) running in RAID can not challenge the low seek time of the Velociraptor, which again is what makes me happy in Windows - as far as I get it.
So... is the Vertex at 1,000 the best deal for me? My present drive, 2004 Hitachi 7K250 120GB (which was once part of a RAID, but the other disk died) has several bad blocks and is gradually getting worse, otherwise I would have waited, since tech evolves, Windows 7 possibly supporting the TRIM and possibly other new ATA-commands, problems with SSDs could be found still, and the fact that I am using, still, XP which as an OS has been tested 20% under performance to fx Win7...
I guess I can gamble a few months more, but would like to do the transition before the disk dies... Am I wrong here, going Vertex - if SSD at all? :g:
The OCZ Vertex disks arent bad at all, only if you get your hands on one of those rubbish JMicron dual controller based Vertex models.. those are horrible..average access times of 50ms worst case access times of 500ms!
On some tests the OCZ vertex actually beats the Intel based disks
They have solved it by changing to samsungs new controller which handels really well (as is apperently a lot better at managing the fragmentation)
Quote from: kregoron;278382The OCZ Vertex disks arent bad at all, only if you get your hands on one of those rubbish JMicron dual controller based Vertex models.. those are horrible..average access times of 50ms worst case access times of 500ms!
On some tests the OCZ vertex actually beats the Intel based disks
They have solved it by changing to samsungs new controller which handels really well (as is apperently a lot better at managing the fragmentation)
Are you saying there are Vertex models that employ the JMicron controller? From Anandtech I got the impression, that Vertex was introduced to solve the problems with the JMicron models (as fx listed here (http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531&p=17)) such as fx Core V2. Dual JMicron controller from OCZ would be the Apex, AFAIK :g:
Quote from: delanvital;278384Are you saying there are Vertex models that employ the JMicron controller? From Anandtech I got the impression, that Vertex was introduced to solve the problems with the JMicron models (as fx listed here (http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531&p=17)) such as fx Core V2. Dual JMicron controller from OCZ would be the Apex, AFAIK :g:
The initial released Vertex still had the dual JMicron controller, but rumors are that OCZ pulled em back and replaced with the new Samsung
afaik that is, might be wrong tho
Well, I ordered it.
Searching the OCZ forum, it seem there are tons of good stuff there for people with SSDs, e.g. a TRIM-app. They also discuss using RAM-drives to save writes to the disk, such as FF cache, temp folder etc. So, if you have, or plan to get, an SSD-disk, check here (http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=186)