SSDs - State of the Product?

I've got my 42", 27" and 24" monitors at the office, and everyone knows what they are missing ;)

I told them that they, like me, are free to buy what they want and I'll hook it up for them.
 
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3778&p=7

AMD’s 890GX delivers a staggering 180MB/s in random write performance, a full 31% faster than Intel’s X58. The random write speed makes me believe that with a bit of driver and/or BIOS work we can get random read performance up there as well.

...

Next page:

"We have to give AMD credit here. Its platform group has clearly done the right thing. By switching to PCIe 2.0 completely and enabling 6Gbps SATA today, its platforms won’t be a bottleneck for any early adopters of fast SSDs. For Intel these issues don't go away until 2011 with the 6-series chipsets (Cougar Point) which will at least enable 6Gbps SATA."

I would recommend reading the whole article starting from page 1. It seems many mobo manufacturers are using workarounds to the default 1 lane of PCI bandwidth to the Intel SATA controllers on the non X58 mobos. But what is going into the Dell econoboxes?

I'm also curious what caused his Crucial C300 died of. And what two of them in RAID 0 do in terms of showing up controller limitations.

*idle rambling* Clearly these limits aren't going to be hit in most use cases today. Joe Average checking his gmail and browsing the web is not going to be impacted. However, who could have imagined an SSD under a $1000 delivering over 300MB/sec and 20,000 IOPS even 3 years ago.

In three years time, that kind of performance could be stock standard. And that's when the limits will be hit. *end rambling*
 
sdbardwick said:
U.S. Navy ships (maybe vessel class namesakes - Seawolf and Kidd are class names).
Click to expand...

Oliver - Oliver Hazard Perry class Frigate
Austin - Austin class Amphibious Transport Dock
Seawolf - USS Seawolf (SSN-575) Submarine
Kidd - Kidd class Guided Missile Destroyers also USS Kidd (DDG-993)
Wasp - Wasp class Amphibious Assault Ships also USS Wasp (LHD-1)
Joshua - also known as WOPR

These systems aren't named after my kids :)
 
DrunkenBastard said:
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3778&p=7

AMD’s 890GX delivers a staggering 180MB/s in random write performance, a full 31% faster than Intel’s X58. The random write speed makes me believe that with a bit of driver and/or BIOS work we can get random read performance up there as well.

...

Next page:

"We have to give AMD credit here. Its platform group has clearly done the right thing. By switching to PCIe 2.0 completely and enabling 6Gbps SATA today, its platforms won’t be a bottleneck for any early adopters of fast SSDs. For Intel these issues don't go away until 2011 with the 6-series chipsets (Cougar Point) which will at least enable 6Gbps SATA."

I would recommend reading the whole article starting from page 1. It seems many mobo manufacturers are using workarounds to the default 1 lane of PCI bandwidth to the Intel SATA controllers on the non X58 mobos. But what is going into the Dell econoboxes?

I'm also curious what caused his Crucial C300 died of. And what two of them in RAID 0 do in terms of showing up controller limitations.

*idle rambling* Clearly these limits aren't going to be hit in most use cases today. Joe Average checking his gmail and browsing the web is not going to be impacted. However, who could have imagined an SSD under a $1000 delivering over 300MB/sec and 20,000 IOPS even 3 years ago.

In three years time, that kind of performance could be stock standard. And that's when the limits will be hit. *end rambling*
Click to expand...

His choice of drives to test with leave a bit to be desired:
Didn't even come close to what the X-58 Gigabyte will do:



Also, I've seen a PCI-E 2 run nearly 800 mb/sec on that motherboard...

4 Vertex Turbos on the same motherboard:
 
I'm getting nearly 600 mb/sec on my Gigabyte Exteme, and, David had that one slot raid doing nearly 800 mb/sec.
No dust on those PCI E channels...
 
Ironically at 3.4GB (sorry typo there) sustained per sec their RAID 0 array of 1TB of space would run out of room in less than 5 minutes.
 
Indeed. Especially with the next gen of E series drives likely going to 256GB, you could be looking at up to 4TB of "fast cache".
 
Pradeep said:
Indeed. Especially with the next gen of E series drives likely going to 256GB, you could be looking at up to 4TB of "fast cache".
Click to expand...

I'd be happy with a faster 128GB X25-E drive that did not cost an arm and a leg.
 
LunarMist said:
I'd be happy with a faster 128GB X25-E drive that did not cost an arm and a leg.
Click to expand...

Well, I played with David's 800 mb/sec Z drive machine.
And, I've used mine, which is now approaching 600 mb/sec.

David has tried them side by side, and, he assures me you can't tell the difference. That is also my experience. I wonder if any human could tell the difference between the X-25E and the X-25M 2.???

I do notice a bit of a lag with the 3 Vertex Turbos on the dual Xeons, but, it isn't much. I think it's the difference between a 940 and dual Xeons...also, maybe, you can tell the difference between 250 mb/sec and 600 mb/sec...
 
STR benchmarks are one thing, but actual write performance is another. For example, the Vortex is much slower than the X25-E is in the real world, and even the X25-M G2 is faster. I want a new E series that has higher STR AND higher write I/Os. :D
 
LunarMist said:
...the Vortex is much slower than the X25-E is in the real world
Click to expand...

I would argue that it depends considerably on what world you are from ;)

I'm quite certain that you couldn't tell the difference between a machine with a Vertex and a machine with an X-25E if all I gave you was XP with Firefox and Office, even if they were side-by-side. Even basic Photoshop tasks would be tricky to differentiate without a direct comparison or a stopwatch.

I'm not saying that you (and I) don't do things that make the difference worth the cost, just that calling these things "real world" without qualification is a bit of a stretch.
 
ddrueding said:
If it requires a stopwatch, it is not significant. Appreciated over time, sure, but not significant.
Click to expand...

Are you saying that there is an insignificant difference between a 5 minute mile and a 10 minute mile because a stopwatch was used to measure them?

:wink:
 
Just benched the 3 Vertex Turbo "Brick" in the Xeon machine:
Not bad for a 9550 through a PCI-X slot:
Vertex3turbosRaid0Xeoncopy.jpg
 
I work with one set going nearly 600 mb/sec, and, the other is the set just posted. The only really big difference is copying files, and a barely noticeable lag with the server, in most of my functions.

I haven't tuned the 7 install on the server to get rid of the built in 'lags'
that the MSFT guys put in. If I feel more energetic today, that can be one of many projects.

The Beast is blinding when copying files from the drives, even from a SATA removeable, to desktop, and back.

In some situations it's faster to copy the large file to the desktop, out of the same folder, then scroll to the folder you want to put it in, copy it back onto the same drive, then it would be if you wait for the scrolling on some of my larger folders...

I should mention that both systems are setup on the 37" Vizio, through different HDMI ports. I am comparing results on the same screen, and, switch between the machines often, using the Server for file storage and downloading, primarily.

The Server is now silent, uses far less energy, and does what it's supposed to...
 
Stinker said:
hdtach.jpg


I got my Vertex SSD running in my Lenovo T7500 C2D Laptop. I used Vista to create the aligned partition and then installed WinXP.

Here's my laptop: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-67707

Is there anything I can do to improve my performance numbers?
Click to expand...

Try running ATTO on the drive. I don't think HD Tach knows what
SSDs are...or how to rate them.

Also, you should really notice the difference? It's not really about SDTR, but access time.
 
ATTO does give me numbers I would expect from an SATA I connection.

I just wanted to confirm everything is optimized. Looks like it is.

Thanks!
 
Newegg has the 60GB vertex turbo for 170 after rebate (190 before) which is 2.83$/GB. Is this a good deal? I haven't been following the prices too closely.
The 120GB is 320 after rebate (350 before) which is 2.67$/GB.
 
I paid 309 from Tigerdirect, for 2 30 gig drives, tax 9% and including shipping. The Vertex rebates are a pain, and are approaching scam level, so don't include them in the price.

I have 4 of them, and I'm happy with their data transfer level, and, access time.
 
Stinker said:
ATTO does give me numbers I would expect from an SATA I connection.

I just wanted to confirm everything is optimized. Looks like it is.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

After some research, it turns out that Lenovo has limited my R61 (as well as the T61) to SATA I speeds even though the ICH8-M controller will support SATA-II. Lame. Kind of a bummer since it was advertised as SATA II in their literature & I should be able to get the higher transfer rates. No BIOS update is planned to fix it, either. Guess that will be the last Lenovo I buy.
 
Stinker said:
Kind of a bummer since it was advertised as SATA II in their literature & I should be able to get the higher transfer rates. No BIOS update is planned to fix it, either. Guess that will be the last Lenovo I buy.
Click to expand...

I thought it was well-known that T and R61s are 1.5Gbps-only. I might be wrong but that fact was mentioned in a large number of notebook-based reviews for SSDs a couple years back. As I recall Dell and Apple notebooks of that vintage also had a 1.5Gbps limitation.

One of my T61s has a 1st-gen X25-M in it and the benefits are quite significant even if the drive isn't operating at its full capability.
 
Stinker said:
After some research, it turns out that Lenovo has limited my R61 (as well as the T61) to SATA I speeds even though the ICH8-M controller will support SATA-II. Lame. Kind of a bummer since it was advertised as SATA II in their literature & I should be able to get the higher transfer rates. No BIOS update is planned to fix it, either. Guess that will be the last Lenovo I buy.
Click to expand...

Sorry to hear that. I had a similar experience with Apple, and never bought another. No excuse.
 
Pretty sure DD can budget for that.

By the way, Stinker I started a thread:

http://www.storageforum.net/forum/showthread.php?t=8107

For the same reason. It is better to have both access time AND SDTR, so it doesn't make sense to get another laptop until they catch up with the speeds of the current SSD's.

With the i7 chips now in laptops, that might accelerate the SATA II or 3 adoption...
 
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