SSDs - State of the Product?

[Mercutio]

... which is great until a mission-critical system that someone is using as a workstation gets a virus or can't install an update because of some userland application...

This is why my home file servers have NOTHING else on them but Samba and Apache.

 

[ddrueding]

... which is great until a mission-critical system that someone is using as a workstation gets a virus or can't install an update because of some userland application...

This is why my home file servers have NOTHING else on them but Samba and Apache.

My workstation hasn't had a virus since the days of BBS on 14.4. The only server application that is running on my machine directly is VMWare Server, which is running, fully up-to-date, and hosting test environments all the time anyway.

It may not be the ideal, but it is the easiest way for me to monitor backups, insure the functionality of the spare machine, test machine restoration, and test patches/updates before they hit production machines.

 

[ddrueding]

I've disabled the scheduled defrag & am running a fresh backup. Any other tweaks for a Vista on a Vertex?

Not that I can think of. I'd make sure that it is running a firmware after the garbage collection was introduced, then start appreciating the speedy goodness.

 

[Handruin]

Alishada was a spammer, sorry. Profile's home page linked to a spam site...their profile said they're in the US, but their IP routes to china. I deleted them.

 

[ddrueding]

Right on...now I'm talking to myself

 

[Fushigi]

Not that I can think of. I'd make sure that it is running a firmware after the garbage collection was introduced, then start appreciating the speedy goodness.

Hunting around I found this. I didn't bother with the RAM drive but did most of the rest.

 

[Adcadet]

Somebody brought up the idea of a flash drive on a PCI-e channel. Is this likely to happen soon? Is this the likely evolution of the product? Will it significantly increase performance? I'm curious, as I'm starting to think about my next system build.

 

[Stereodude]

Ask ddrueding. He's already bought one.

 

[timwhit]

Ask ddrueding. He's already bought one.

I believe it was $2k.

 

[MaxBurn]

TRIM now on some other drives:

http://www.corsair.com/news/press_release.aspx?id=1263986

Jim Carlton, VP of Marketing for Corsair. "While other SSD manufacturers have rushed out bug-ridden firmware and update tools, sometimes with disastrous consequences for end-users, Corsair refused to jump on the bandwagon. We took the time to rigorously test and quality our tools, ensuring that our users will have the best experience possible."

Ouch

http://www.ocztechnology.com/aboutocz/news/155

 

[MaxBurn]

Intel just released the SSD toolbox too:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=18455

 

[LunarMist]

Has anyone tried v 1.2 of the Intel tool on the X25-E yet?

 

[MaxBurn]

Why bother? Won't do anything for you other than monitor SMART stuff. Didn't seem to hose anything on my system though.

 

[Pradeep]

"Didn't seem to hose anything on my system though."

Pretty sad when that can be described as progress on Intel's part Max

 

[MaxBurn]

Given that the last one stealthily hosed restore points and you didn't know till you needed them and now I think it actually does something for the garbage collection, takes a few seconds and there is a progress indicator so I don't know that the last one did anything at all. Sounds like a lot of progress.

 

[ddrueding]

Just ordered one of these. Cheaper than 4x 160GB G2 and a RAID card. After some musical-drives, this will be my boot drive

It's here. Any particular tests you want to see?

 

[ddrueding]

Bah, it requires a molex connector. I was hoping for no cables. The only thing in the box besides the drive is a quarter-sheet saying to plug it in and a bunch of foam.

 

[timwhit]

What do you expect for only $2k?

 

[ddrueding]

What do you expect for only $2k?

Reminds me of last weekend at the Ritz Carlton at Northstar, Lake Tahoe. All the visitors (including me) were wowing at how great the place was, while the people who actually splashed out to stay there were complaining about the lack of heated seats on the balcony.

 

[ddrueding]

Windows 7 detected the drive as "LSI Adapter, SAS 3000 series, 8-port with 1068E". I thought there were only 4 cards in there? And there is an external SAS port on the card....I wonder

 

[ddrueding]

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/8326/localdrivesfull.png

Comparison benchmarks

 

[LunarMist]

It's here. Any particular tests you want to see?

Those are interesting, especially the 256GB model. Is there any way you can determine how much the drive performance deteriorates after 150-200 TB of random writes?

 

[ddrueding]

Those are interesting, especially the 256GB model. Is there any way you can determine how much the drive performance deteriorates after 150-200 TB of random writes?

Sure. I'll set up a script to start flogging it with stuff. Won't necessarily be random, but it will saturate the drive sure enough.

 

[LunarMist]

Is it correct that the SSD card takes up two slots, including the one to the left of the card?

 

[ddrueding]

I didn't look that big, but I'll need to take a look. I did put it in the bottom-most slot and there is still a small amount of space (few mm) below. Compared to the 5970 it is quite small

 

[Fushigi]

Well, I now know the lifespan of ECS motherboards. The other free-after-rebate Elite mobo I had, a G31T-M, spewed forth a lovely hot plastic smell this afternoon. ..

So if the MSI G41 works out I'll probably pick up another. ..

I'll grant that I haven't verified the CPU is good but I'd place money on it being an ECS motherboard before I'd bet on a Q6600 burning up.

Confirmed. When I removed the motherboard there was a black scorch mark on the case and an accompanying mark on the back of the board itself that I couldn't see from the front. The replacement MSI is being put through it's paces now.

 

[sechs]

The OCZ Vertex 2 Pro is the fastest single-controller MLC SSD I’ve ever tested, and it’s not even running final firmware.

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3702

 

[Will Rickards]

Yeah I liked what I saw too but I think in that article:
1. isn't available yet
2. will be priced higher than the intel drive
So it is out for me.

 

[Stereodude]

Eh... Some of that drive's tech sounds a bit smoke and mirror-ish... I'll let someone else beta-test it.

 

[LunarMist]

Paying more per GB for MLC, and slower in some critical tests is not so good in 2010. I'm waiting for SATA 6.0 Gbps SSDs.

 

[ddrueding]

SATA is the past. Just to to PCIe

 

[Santilli]

Is this worth it?

I'm seriously considering two of the Vertex Turbo's

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227468

Price seems REAL good?

Comments, suggestions?

 

[ddrueding]

Price is really good. I don't see them coming down much more. Larger sizes will approach that price, but a bit more than $100 is low enough to clear most peoples restrictions.

I have a stack of those on my desk right now, and have used a dozen in the last week. A pair in RAID-0 (60GB) should do great for a workstation.

 

[jtr1962]

What to buy for the person who has everything

They're even throwing in free shipping.

 

[ddrueding]

Looks to be the same as what I have but double capacity and hampered by SATA, for twice as much. No thanks.

 

[Santilli]

David:
is there much difference between two and three of those drives in raid 0 to humans, not benchmarks?
Or is it at a point of diminishing returns?

 

[ddrueding]

David:
is there much difference between two and three of those drives in raid 0 to humans, not benchmarks?
Or is it at a point of diminishing returns?

Even two is past the point of realistic performance improvements. Three just insures that something else is the bottleneck.

 

[timwhit]

David:
is there much difference between two and three of those drives in raid 0 to humans, not benchmarks?
Or is it at a point of diminishing returns?

You really want to use 3 drives in RAID 0? What are you doing that you need that much STR? I hope you do frequent backups.

 

[Santilli]

Currently my Raid 0 throughput is 150 mb/sec or so.

I'd like something that is a noticeable increase. Two drives are a bit smaller then I would like, but, doable.

I'm going to try that first.

 

[Mercutio]

Greg, I subjectively can't tell the difference between two G1 X-25Ms and three in RAID0 for anything. I'm not sure it even made a second worth of difference in Windows startup times.