SSDs - State of the Product?

[ddrueding]

We've decided to move away from Lenovo after several 3850 x6s we've been getting had to have major parts replaced during burn in. One had every part replaced but the case.

Wow. I haven't had any issues so far, but I don't have that many servers in production (10?). I also get them from a local authorized re-seller (IT Creations out of LA) that has all the parts/service in stock. Really great service and delivery time with very little additional cost.

 

[Howell]

Hopefully they are burned in before you get them. Ours are not, and Lenovo sends an employee when they don't work.

 

[ddrueding]

Hopefully they are burned in before you get them. Ours are not, and Lenovo sends an employee when they don't work.

Yup. I have the no-charge option of them doing a 24-hour burn-in. No charge, but it delays shipping by a day (obvs)

 

[snowhiker]

Samsung 950 Pro PCIe SSD.

Anandtech article here.

"The Samsung 950 Pro is the new flagship consumer drive and it eschews the backwards compatibility and the 2.5" SATA form factor of the three previous iterations of the 8xx Pro family in favor of a PCI Express 3.0 x4 connection in the M.2 2280 form factor coupled with the NVMe protocol."

Ars Technica article here.

"The 950 Pro isn’t Samsung’s first consumer M.2 SSD, or even the company’s first PCIe M.2 drive. It is, however, Samsung’s first consumer M.2 and NVMe drive that uses the full performance of four PCIe 3.0 lanes. It is also an upgrade from its predecessor, the SM951, in that it uses 3D V-NAND rather than planar NAND."

 

[LunarMist]

Will they continue with SATA SSDs?
I have two of the M.2 SSDs in one system, but more than that is a pain.
Is there some way to utilize 8-10 like normal hard drives in a basic computer?

 

[Mercutio]

Is there some way to utilize 8-10 like normal hard drives in a basic computer?

There are M.2 to single port SAS adapters. I think you'd be losing out on the real whole "direct connection to PCIe" aspect of M.2 if you went that route.
I don't know if you've noticed, but M.2 SSDs get really, really warm. I'm not sure I'd be too happy having to air cool a bunch of them.

 

[ddrueding]

This page features a RAID card that has room for 4x M.2 SSDs.

 

[jtr1962]

Will they continue with SATA SSDs?
I have two of the M.2 SSDs in one system, but more than that is a pain.
Is there some way to utilize 8-10 like normal hard drives in a basic computer?

I'm sure they will for quite some time. It's not like SATA is going anywhere anytime soon.

The funny thing years ago on storagereview I predicted once non-volatile RAM became cheap enough to make solid state drives, storage would end up taking the same route as RAM, where you basically have dedicated slots on the motherboard for it.

 

[LunarMist]

I'm sure they will for quite some time. It's not like SATA is going anywhere anytime soon.

The funny thing years ago on storagereview I predicted once non-volatile RAM became cheap enough to make solid state drives, storage would end up taking the same route as RAM, where you basically have dedicated slots on the motherboard for it.

There appear to be no SATA alternatives to the 2TB Samsung 950 Pro now or anytime soon.

 

[Stereodude]

There appear to be no SATA alternatives to the 2TB Samsung 950 Pro now or anytime soon.

That's probably because they can't appreciably improve on the performance of the 850 Pro and still use SATA.

 

[LunarMist]

Sure, but why does nibody else make 2TB SSDs?

 

[Stereodude]

Sure, but why does nibody else make 2TB SSDs?

Are you forgetting about this one?

 

[LunarMist]

I meant the 850 Pro. Im concerned about the power and heat from the 850 EVO.

I wizh there were other companies in the 2TB capacity, such as Crucial or Sandisk.

 

[snowhiker]

There appear to be no SATA alternatives to the 2TB Samsung 950 Pro now or anytime soon.

:scratch:

I thought the 950 pro is available in 256 and 512 GB versions only?

 

[ddrueding]

I suspect he meant alternatives in the 2TB capacity.

 

[LunarMist]

:scratch:

I thought the 950 pro is available in 256 and 512 GB versions only?

That was a typo.

 

[LunarMist]

I suspect he meant alternatives in the 2TB capacity.

Yes, that's it. If there were more 2TB drives, the prices might be lower.
I need 2TB in the southern islands to be sure.

 

[mangyDOG]

For Windows 10 and Samsung SSD users.
Samsung have finally updated their Magician software to support RAPID mode under Windows 10.
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/support/downloads.html

 

[ddrueding]

That software partially works for Samsung 951 M.2 drives, informational only it looks like.

 

[blakerwry]

For Windows 10 and Samsung SSD users.
Samsung have finally updated their Magician software to support RAPID mode under Windows 10.
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/support/downloads.html

Forgive my ignorance, but is it worth installing this software? I just upgraded a laptop (that has an 840 pro) to windows 10 and only needed to install MS office and the latest trackpad drivers. Everything else works great and the system is pretty snappy (and very clean software wise).

 

[ddrueding]

These numbers would have been very impressive a while ago. Now? Secondary drive.

 

[mangyDOG]

Forgive my ignorance, but is it worth installing this software? I just upgraded a laptop (that has an 840 pro) to windows 10 and only needed to install MS office and the latest trackpad drivers. Everything else works great and the system is pretty snappy (and very clean software wise).

The magician software comprises of two components. The first is a basic SSD utility that enables firmware updates (for the SSD), monitors total write usage and also links to various windows settings that can be configured to improve SSD performance. The second component of the software is RAPID mode. RAPID uses system RAM to cache reads and writes from a single compatiable Samsung SSD. I personally don’t recommend RAPID mode if you have less than 6Gb of RAM as I have found Windows often reports low memory warnings on 4Gb systems.
From the reading I have done RAPID mode can make your system very slightly slower if you have a very light workload, however if you have a heavy workload it will improve your SSD performance significantly. There is also some evidence (no reference) that RAPID mode will maintain SSD performance over the long term life of the drive as opposed to quick performance tests.

http://techreport.com/review/25282/a-closer-look-at-rapid-dram-caching-on-the-samsung-840-evo-ssd/2
http://www.thessdreview.com/software-2/samsung-magician-4-5-rapid-mode-2-1-testing/3/

Cheers,
mangyDOG

 

[blakerwry]

Thanks, as I only have 4GB of RAM in that laptop I'll probably leave well enough alone.

 

[LunarMist]

Is the 850 Pro still the best 2.5" 2TB SSD for use in a Nexto DI? I'm not considering some funky SSD brands/suppliers or any over $1000.

 

[Stereodude]

What's a Nexto DI?

 

[LunarMist]

What's a Nexto DI?

It is a very fast storage device for downloading from flash media.
The Nexto DI 2901 is the current model for photo use.
They mostly produce storage products for on location pro video.

 

[timwhit]

Couldn't you just get a flash card reader and plug it into a computer?

 

[LunarMist]

Couldn't you just get a flash card reader and plug it into a computer?

Due to the little single-engine plane's ridiculous limits, I'm already 10 lbs. overweight with the bare essentials.
I will be secreting as much as possible on my body including CF cards, this device, and perhaps a spare SSD.

 

[ddrueding]

It is a very fast storage device for downloading from flash media.
The Nexto DI 2901 is the current model for photo use.
They mostly produce storage products for on location pro video.

The last time I saw one of those was when our wedding photog accidentally formatted all his cards after the shoot and before the ceremony.

 

[LunarMist]

The last time I saw one of those was when our wedding photog accidentally formatted all his cards after the shoot and before the ceremony.

Was it an Indian wedding or something like that?

 

[ddrueding]

Was it an Indian wedding or something like that?

Nope. The venue had a nice place for pictures, and some of the guests were only there for the day. As such, we scheduled group photos and a quick shoot with my wife and I for an hour before the ceremony. The photog (friend of my wife but still a "pro" - charges money and not his first wedding), did the shoot and then had some downtime before the ceremony. During which he cycled his cards though such a device which he hadn't programmed correctly; it formatted the cards without copying the images off them. The only pictures we have are from a friend of mine off her own camera.

 

[LunarMist]

Nope. The venue had a nice place for pictures, and some of the guests were only there for the day. As such, we scheduled group photos and a quick shoot with my wife and I for an hour before the ceremony. The photog (friend of my wife but still a "pro" - charges money and not his first wedding), did the shoot and then had some downtime before the ceremony. During which he cycled his cards though such a device which he hadn't programmed correctly; it formatted the cards without copying the images off them. The only pictures we have are from a friend of mine off her own camera.

I never heard of such a thing and I've owned most of the better PSDs over the past ~13 years. Of course there is no end to human error. :lol:
However, one of the hallmarks of a pro in any field is to avoid unnecessary risks and not experiment around a job.

 

[mubs]

The only pictures we have are from a friend of mine off her own camera.

Ouch, that's so rotten! I've heard of quite a few similar catastrophes caused by "pro" photographers. Over-confidence and arrogance at work.

 

[LunarMist]

Is the 850 Pro still the best 2.5" 2TB SSD for use in a Nexto DI? I'm not considering some funky SSD brands/suppliers or any over $1000.

Well, I guess we will have to find out.

 

[ddrueding]

I never heard of such a thing and I've owned most of the better PSDs over the past ~13 years. Of course there is no end to human error. :lol:
However, one of the hallmarks of a pro in any field is to avoid unnecessary risks and not experiment around a job.

Indeed. My lesson there was to just carry enough CF and SD cards to cover the trip. Even if I copy them off to a laptop I try to leave the cards full and just set them aside until I get home and things calm down.

 

[Handruin]

I'm getting a chance to play around with my first NVMe device. I realize these are likely out of scope for most of us in our home use. We got a Lenovo x3650 M5 in house with 2 x Intel P3700 drives in the front bay attached to a PCIe x8 card with two ports on it giving each drive x4 lanes. I ran a few basic benchmarks using fio under CentOS 6.7 as block devices with no filesystem ontop to compare the Intel P3700 against the Lenovo drive which I believe is a Sandisk SDLKOCDM-800GL (Optimus Ascend SSD). Both are 800GB in size. The latency improvements of the NVMe are quite a lot better and I haven't even looked into tuning the OS yet.

P3700 NVMe
-------------------------------------------
64k sustained write
ioengine=libaio
direct=1
sync=0
iodepth=8
28K io/ps
1758MB/sec
await 0.5 ms
Note: There was little to no change with iodepth of 16 or 128kb size.

4k rand write
ioengine=libaio
direct=1
sync=0
iodepth=8
209K io/ps
780 MB/s
await 0.01 ms

Sandisk SSD
-------------------------------------------
64k sustained write
ioengine=libaio
direct=1
sync=0
iodepth=8
7650 io/ps
477MB/sec
await 1.01 ms

4k rand write
ioengine=libaio
direct=1
sync=0
iodepth=8
40K io/ps
154 MB/s
await 0.19 ms

 

[ddrueding]

Just a warning for anyone looking to run M.2 SSDs, they get hot and will thermally throttle if you don't cool them. I even went so far as to use thermal epoxy to attach large heatsinks to mine, and the base of the drives is still the second hottest thing in the computer.

 

[Handruin]

That likely explains the very large heatsink on the P3700 in our server. I'm unsure if it will throttle after extended run times but it's worth investigating.

 

[Stereodude]

Just a warning for anyone looking to run M.2 SSDs, they get hot and will thermally throttle if you don't cool them. I even went so far as to use thermal epoxy to attach large heatsinks to mine, and the base of the drives is still the second hottest thing in the computer.

View attachment 1041

:erm: And you have your own thermal camera?

 

[ddrueding]

:erm: And you have your own thermal camera?

FLIR One, not that expensive. ($250)

Easy work justification. AC in server room wasn't keeping up, and the thermostat was giving poor readings. Turned out to be an air circulation issue. Also good for identifying hot spots in computers for instability or failing components. For example, the hottest thing in my home PC is the swappable amps for the onboard soundcard.