SSDs - State of the Product?

Santilli

Hairy Aussie
Joined
Jan 27, 2002
Messages
5,258
I don't think it is realistic to assume that mixtures of very old, old, and contemporary hardware will work well together. For troubleshooting purposes, you should simplify the system to one boot drive (preferably onboard port) and a single SSD on the questionable controller.

Currently the 3 ware card shows up as a 9000 series.
I also have the MegaRaid card 320-1
and the Silicon IMmage SIT 3112 Alink controller.

The 3112 is highly unlikely to go over 120 mb/sec.
 

Santilli

Hairy Aussie
Joined
Jan 27, 2002
Messages
5,258
After lots of playing, it's the 9500S that's the problem. With a single drive, it's max is 63 mb/sec per channel.

On the 3112 I'm getting around 124-126 MB/sec writes, and, 133-138 MB/sec reads.

Kind of weird, since the slot it's in shouldn't be that fast.

The debate now is to try and boot off the 3112, and create a single, small boot drive, on one of the 30 gig Turbo's.
Second option find a fast scsi Raid 0 card.
Third just boot off the current scsi system since it's pretty darn fast anyway.
Fourth put the two drives in the HTPC system, boot off them in Raid 0 and switch machines.
Fifth: buy another motherboard setup this machine and bring it into the 21st century.
 

timwhit

Hairy Aussie
Joined
Jan 23, 2002
Messages
5,278
Location
Chicago, IL
I just noticed that Intel is now making a 40GB X25-V, I would have bought that and saved some money if it was available when I bought my X25-M a few months ago.
 

sdbardwick

Storage is cool
Joined
Mar 12, 2004
Messages
608
Location
North San Diego County
I expect that they are practically identical to the Kingston 40GB drives that use Intel flash; probably 1/2 the write speed of the 80GB drives.
I see that Kingston EOL'd the 40GB and will replace it with a 30GB model with a Toshiba TRIM-enabled controller. Anandtech reports that the new 30GB will be $80 AR next month. Now Intel's position makes more senese.
 
Last edited:

timwhit

Hairy Aussie
Joined
Jan 23, 2002
Messages
5,278
Location
Chicago, IL
I wouid think most netbooks use 1.8inch disks though. I can't even find what size disk the Acer Timeline uses.
 

ddrueding

Fixture
Joined
Feb 4, 2002
Messages
19,723
Location
Horsens, Denmark
I've put 30GB Vertex into MSI U100 and U123 without issue (there is a small foam pad you can remove, not like the SSD needs vibration damping).
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
17,474
Location
USA
I just noticed that Intel is now making a 40GB X25-V, I would have bought that and saved some money if it was available when I bought my X25-M a few months ago.

They have been listed for some days or maybe a week. Given the relative sluggishness of the X25-M, I'd only consider them for applications that don't need much write performance.
 

ddrueding

Fixture
Joined
Feb 4, 2002
Messages
19,723
Location
Horsens, Denmark
While sluggish compared to other SSDs, it is blistering compared to 2.5" HDDs. This is a clear upgrade option, and for only $129, it is a no-brainer.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
17,474
Location
USA
35 MB/sec. is slow and 40Gb is tiny for Vista and Windows 7. Will people want them in netbooks? Maybe.
 

Stereodude

Not really a
Joined
Jan 22, 2002
Messages
10,865
Location
Michigan
Keep in mind your odds of getting any OCZ rebate is only slightly improved by actually sending in the rebate. First, they will deny it with a blatant lie about your submission. Then, you can call and yell at them with your photocopies in hand. After enough poking and prodding they will eventually send you your check if you're lucky.
 

Santilli

Hairy Aussie
Joined
Jan 27, 2002
Messages
5,258
NEVER plan on getting my money back from those scams.
NEVER buy unless I'm happy with the price at purchase.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
17,474
Location
USA
NEVER plan on getting my money back from those scams.
NEVER buy unless I'm happy with the price at purchase.

Right on! I've been ripped off too many times, so I don't even bother to send in rebates. At least when you buy a car with cash they take the rebate off the top.
 

Fushigi

Storage Is My Life
Joined
Jan 23, 2002
Messages
2,890
Location
Illinois, USA
I fail to get only about 1 in 20 rebates myself so it's worth it for me to send them in. They're the icing on the cake to me; I don't buy unless the pre-rebate price is already acceptable.

Right now I've 3 rebates in process, one for the Vertex 120 I recently picked up.
 

Santilli

Hairy Aussie
Joined
Jan 27, 2002
Messages
5,258
I don't know if the setup is worth the money, but, I think it may have put another 5 years useage on this machine.

It's noticeably snappier, certain things happen MUCH faster, others not so much then SCSI, but, I'm not sending this setup back anytime soon...

Two Vertex Turbos, 30 gig, raid 0, on a 9550SXU.
 

Fushigi

Storage Is My Life
Joined
Jan 23, 2002
Messages
2,890
Location
Illinois, USA
Some things arent arguable. SSDs consume less power, are quieter, generate less heat and as a consequence require less cooling. IOW they are less expensive to operate and lead to a more pleasant computing environment.
 

Santilli

Hairy Aussie
Joined
Jan 27, 2002
Messages
5,258
Sechs mentioned in one of his posts that coming from a fast scsi system the difference is not as much as people have been lead to believe. I sort of second that. Depending on your drive choice, and controller, you could get a system that was equal, or slower.

I can do that. Just plug the two drives into the 9500 again...
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
17,474
Location
USA
It depends on what you are using the drives for and where the bottlenecks are in the system. You might notice more improvement in usability from a decent i5 or i7 system with mundane hard drives than using the SSDs for example.
 

CougTek

Hairy Aussie
Joined
Jan 21, 2002
Messages
8,728
Location
Québec, Québec
The Vertex are good ones.
But the Vertex 2 Pro will be even better according to the preview at Anandtech.

BTW (I've only browsed the last two hundred posts of this thread), anyone knows which controller uses the new Kingston V+ SSD? The advertised numbers are interesting. It looks a lot like the current OCZ Vertex. Must be an Indilinx controller. It would be too good if it was either of the Sandforce controller (the SF-1200 or SF-1500).

I still hesitate weither or not to get a SSD. On the one hand, it's clearly faster than a mecanical hard drive, but on the other, the prices will fall so quickly this year that buying now will certainly bring regrets soon. If I make the move, it will probably be a 60GB-64GB size. The above mentioned Kingston if I spend in the upcoming month, or anything with the SandForce controller if I can wait two or three months.
 

sechs

Storage? I am Storage!
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
4,709
Location
Left Coast
Sechs mentioned in one of his posts that coming from a fast scsi system the difference is not as much as people have been lead to believe. I sort of second
I also mentioned in one of my posts that one of the problems is that SSDs have revealed many other parts of my setup as the bottleneck. There's nothing like seeing a processor core nailed while a program loads. Frankly, this has me considering a full-scale upgrade.

Considering that your system seems to be of greater vintage than mine (my motherboard has both PCI-X and PCI Express), I suspect that part of your issue would be limitations beyond the drives themselves.
 

udaman

Wannabe Storage Freak
Joined
Sep 20, 2006
Messages
1,209
F*CK, sh**, fsck! I placed the cursor in the blank area, where the text was formatting around the non-displaying image/gif file when I C&P'd the quoted text, hit delete to remove it, and the whole window disappeared, a backpage op occured and I lost my whole post....arrgh :monky:

And what's with tweakertech site, that constantly reloads, continues to load new data, after I hit the FF 'stop loading this page' button...they need to lay of the meth on that site, damn it!


I'll try again, and screw the formatting/image file.

http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/01/26/owc.outs.first.enterprise.grade.25.inch.ssds/

Thanks to a newer SandForce processor, the drives are said to keep their optimal 260MBps read and write speeds with 0.1ms latency.The enterprise-grade drives work at up to the full 3Gbps speed of SATA II and use Error Correction Code as well as SandForce's RAISE technology to avoid corruption and extend the lifespan of the flash memory cells. The 50GB Mercury Extreme Enterprise SSD is priced at $230, the 100GB version at $400, and the 200GB model costs $780.
Still too expensive, probably relabeled runcore or made 4 OWC by RC. I also note the Runcore V2 PATA/IDE likely using older controller, is $240 for 64GB (using older spec instead of realistic 50GB?) and for that you get only 80MB/s read, much slower writes...still faster than a HD, but not much...other than latency. Y is that when the last PATA at133 spec is much higher theoretical?

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/30...100gb_sandforce_solid_state_disk/index10.html

Even though we are working with very early samples, it is safe to proclaim the RunCore Pro V with the SandForce 1500 controller and low cost MLC flash a very fast solid state drive. At this time I feel comfortable saying that the Pro V will be the enthusiast SSD in which all others will be compared to for the first half of 2010. The synthetic numbers don’t show the true potential of the Pro V, but as soon as we get to real world Windows operations the synthetics be damned, this is the real deal.
<a href='http://www.tweaktown.com/phpadsnew/www/delivery/ck.php?n=a695f25f' target='_blank'><img src='http://www.tweaktown.com/phpadsnew/www/delivery/avw.php?zoneid=186&amp;n=a695f25f' border='0' alt='' /></a>
What we really need to know before passing the final judgment is cost. We already know that the Pro V will cost more than the Barefoot powered Pro IV, but is it going to be a 10, 20 or 30% increase in cost? Another thing we need to consider is how the drive will compare to next generation products based on SandForce 1200, Marvel and Indilinx. The SandForce 1200 products should show up around the March timeframe and the latter two should arrive early Q2 if we are lucky.
What we do know is the RunCore Pro V is fast, fast enough to satisfy our needs and limited in many cases by other hardware like SATA II and even processor speed. The 4K performance is the highest we have ever tested to date; it is simply amazing. Every enthusiast on the planet will want this drive!
As you might have noticed, we have a matched pair of 100GB drives. Tune in tomorrow for our RAID 0 benchmarks!
let me guess, you'all are going to stick with Intel, lol?

Get a Mac, the new Apple tablet will be the next tech icon!
 

Santilli

Hairy Aussie
Joined
Jan 27, 2002
Messages
5,258
I also mentioned in one of my posts that one of the problems is that SSDs have revealed many other parts of my setup as the bottleneck. There's nothing like seeing a processor core nailed while a program loads. Frankly, this has me considering a full-scale upgrade.

Considering that your system seems to be of greater vintage than mine (my motherboard has both PCI-X and PCI Express), I suspect that part of your issue would be limitations beyond the drives themselves.

I know the system bus is about 1200 MB/sec, vs. David's which is around 3500 MB/SEC
IIRC from the Ram disk tests.

Still don't really get much over 50% of processor useage, maybe a 60% spike opening programs now.

Only one program I run takes nearly all the processor power.
 
Top