SSDs - State of the Product?

[ddrueding]

If you have a desktop with an SSD, you NEED to have a traditional drive as well. Use it for backups, use it for your pagefile. Use it for hibernation. If you're using Windows 7 or anything *nix, put your home directory on it as well.

I'd change that to: If your desktop has one drive, you need a second drive to keep a backup. I don't see any of the other things you mentioned as a "need" or even with strong supporting evidence on modern SSDs with their high wear ratings.

 

[LunarMist]

Micron says they are only sampling now. Link

The page now indicates it is in production. When does that mean it will be for sale? There is nothing online yet other than one site that sells engineering samples at a ridiculous price.

 

[LunarMist]

The problem with not having a MHD is that SSDs die without any warning at all. One day they work and the next day they don't. In a managed environment with shared resources and such, that might not be a big deal, but for home users and typical laptop systems, that's a huge, huge problem. Windows 7+ has libraries now specifically to address the need to move or split special folders (why "Downloads" is not a library by default I have no idea. Particularly since they move the location of the option around with different versions of IE), and it does actually have a fairly robust backup tool now, but almost no one knows how to use that stuff. Many IT guys I know aren't even aware what libraries on Windows 7 are for, let alone end users.

Anyway, an SSD dies and there's just no recovery from that. So user data needs to be elsewhere. And that's the main reason why the magnetic drive needs to be there.

I'm not convinced that a hard drive is any more reliable than an SSD.

 

[sdbardwick]

The page now indicates it is in production. When does that mean it will be for sale? There is nothing online yet other than one site that sells engineering samples at a ridiculous price.

Micron stated Q1/2013 release, so they probably released some to distributors on 2013-03-29

 

[LunarMist]

Micron stated Q1/2013 release, so they probably released some to distributors on 2013-03-29

I have seven weeks left, so I'm truly hoping that is enough time. :dunno:

 

[sdbardwick]

In stock at Newegg

 

[sdbardwick]

$50 less at Crucial.com

 

[time]

$600 for nearly 1 terabyte, and from one of the top 3 SSD manufacturers.

Friggin' awesome (channeling Ddrueding). I want one ... no, make it two ... wait, three/four/whatever!

I just have to dream up a cost/benefit justification.

 

[Mercutio]

I just have to dream up a cost/benefit justification.

L2ARC Caching for a 60TB zPool.

 

[Handruin]

Looks to be a review of it posted on Anandtech.

 

[CougTek]

I don't remember having read or heard about how well the M4 did in RAID arrays, but at those capacities, the M500 is starting to look like an interesting alternative in a NAS/SAN. Sure, its write endurance isn't very high, but if you don't write large amount of data, it could be interesting.

 

[CougTek]

Looks to be a review of it posted on Anandtech.

I only see pictures and frames, but no text.

 

[snowhiker]

In stock at Newegg

The delta is only $20 now. Newegg must have read your post.

 

[LunarMist]

By the time I found the news they were out of stock.

 

[LunarMist]

It appears that they are $600 now.

 

[LunarMist]

The 960GB drive seems to be fine, but the spacer is rather lame.

 

[LunarMist]

I don't remember having read or heard about how well the M4 did in RAID arrays, but at those capacities, the M500 is starting to look like an interesting alternative in a NAS/SAN. Sure, its write endurance isn't very high, but if you don't write large amount of data, it could be interesting.

The rated spec for total write TBs is ridiculously low, but 3000 erase cycles has been standard for a few years. Even if the write amplification is increased due to the 128Gb design, I seriously doubt that the drive will wear out after only being filled 75 times (72TB) in normal use. For my usage patterns of large files, it could outlive the laptop no doubt.

 

[CougTek]

The Corsair Neutron GTX has restarted to show in stock at online stores. It's the drive I'm the most interested in these days, along with the Intel DC S3700. The Neutron GTX is half as expensive and just as fast for server types of loads, when you leave ~20% overprovisionning. The only other "cheap" drive to match its performances in server loads is the OCZ Vector, but OCZ has a so-so reputation and the Vector isn't rated for a lot of data rewriting (similar to the Crucial M500 if IIRC). I don't remember the endurance numbers for the Neutron GTX and I'm sure it isn't as high as the Intel DC S3700, but it's almost certainly higher than the OCZ Vector.

I hope that during the few weeks when it almost vanished from shelves, Corsair hasn't made a change in the flash memory used on it, like shifting to TLC or other flash memory chips with lower write endurance.

 

[LunarMist]

The Corsair is a consumer desktop/laptop drive. Why would you use it in an application requiring server loads?

 

[ddrueding]

Money

 

[CougTek]

Our most used drives have roughly 30GB of data written on them daily, five days per week. Obviously, we need the highest possible IOps from them (they store randomly accessed databases), but 30GB per day doesn't require enterprise-class SSD endurance level unless we plan to keep them more than five years. Since the Neutron GTX is just as fast as the Intel DC S3700 and half the price, it would be cheaper to buy those and replace them after their fourth year rather than spending twice as much and get DC S3700 to start with. If the amount of written data increases by then, we'll adjust. For now, the consumer drives would be ok.

 

[Handruin]

Our most used drives have roughly 30GB of data written on them daily, five days per week. Obviously, we need the highest possible IOps from them (they store randomly accessed databases), but 30GB per day doesn't require enterprise-class SSD endurance level unless we plan to keep them more than five years. Since the Neutron GTX is just as fast as the Intel DC S3700 and half the price, it would be cheaper to buy those and replace them after their fourth year rather than spending twice as much and get DC S3700 to start with. If the amount of written data increases by then, we'll adjust. For now, the consumer drives would be ok.

You could also buy a couple extra as cold spares and still save money assuming they are being used in some kind of RAID.

 

[CougTek]

No matter what we end up buying, we'll of course have a couple extra of everything : SSD, RAM, server modules, NICs, SFP+ cables. We'll also have two main switches and two NAS, each configured to hot replace each other in case of a failure.

 

[time]

I'm seriously allergic to Corsair SSD. It's been 3 out of 3 failures for me, with a replacement also failing. I stopped making warranty claims and just replaced them with other brands.

I would rather use OCZ rather than another Corsair, but prefer Crucial, Intel and Samsung.

 

[Mercutio]

You could also buy a couple extra as cold spares and still save money assuming they are being used in some kind of RAID.

In my experience, putting consumer drives in RAID appears to be a good way to kill them much more quickly. As far as I can tell, the only "supported" RAID setup anybody is offering is RAID0 on ICHx RAID on Windows.

 

[CougTek]

Ok, so maybe I'm five years late, but I've finally purchased my very first SSD. I've put many in customers' boxes, but I've never owned one before. It won't even go into one of my systems, at least not in the beginning. I bought it to do tests on the servers at the job, because I'm sick of waiting for the pencil pushers to stop grabbing their asses and unfreeze funds for this.

I'll bring the drive home when my tests will be over. It's a Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB. I'd have prefered the 480GB model, but my wallet looked at me with angry eyes when I brought the idea. I hope that like many other things, reliability numbers will be different in North America than they are in certain parts of Australia. I hate RMAs.

 

[CougTek]

Oh and I paid 220$ for it with free shipping. Tremendously less than the 8600$ SuperTalent asked for their 256GB five years ago as described but Fushigi in the 7th post of this thread.

 

[LunarMist]

Ok, so maybe I'm five years late, but I've finally purchased my very first SSD. I've put many in customers' boxes, but I've never owned one before. It won't even go into one of my systems, at least not in the beginning. I bought it to do tests on the servers at the job, because I'm sick of waiting for the pencil pushers to stop grabbing their asses and unfreeze funds for this.

I'll bring the drive home when my tests will be over. It's a Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB. I'd have prefered the 480GB model, but my wallet looked at me with angry eyes when I brought the idea. I hope that like many other things, reliability numbers will be different in North America than they are in certain parts of Australia. I hate RMAs.

Why should relliability of an SSD be any different in different regions? It's not like there are shipping risks as with hard drives.

 

[LunarMist]

The 960GB drive seems to be fine, but the spacer is rather lame.

Does Micron/Crucial have an optimization utility for their SSDs as do Intel and Samsung? I was not able to find one.

 

[CougTek]

From what I can see on their website, they only have firmware updates for their SSD. No downloadable utilities.

 

[LunarMist]

Oh well. I hope the drive does not get too internally fragmented.

 

[CougTek]

Just don't shake it too hard and it should remain in one piece, instead of being "fragmented internally".

 

[LunarMist]

Well, you know the blocks.

 

[mubs]

Ok, so maybe I'm five years late, but I've finally purchased my very first SSD.

No worries, mate, I still don't have one!

 

[Handruin]

No worries, mate, I still don't have one!

I didn't join the SSD group until September last year.

 

[Howell]

I still don't have one. The wife will probably get one first.

 

[LunarMist]

Where can I get the 960GB drive? They don't seem to be in stock.

 

[CougTek]

I have no idea how much it cost and what controller it uses, but if you want a 2TB SSD, the Optimus Eco is now available for you. It's supposed to be good for 50 full erase per day for 5 years, so its endurance is quite good.

 

[LunarMist]

I have insufficient use for a 2TB 15mm SAS drive. It certainly is not for laptops. I suppose DD will buy two.

 

[ddrueding]

Nah, regular SSDs are now big and fast enough for workstations. And I have yet to build a NAS with SSDs; the price and capacity have a ways to go before that happens.