SSD Fetish

Black Jacque

Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
9,445
I've got a build coming together with an SSD.<BR><BR>Budget is about US$150 for the part. Capacity requirment is 60GB or greater.<BR><BR>I'd like to get an Intel X25-M 80GB, but that's outside the budget.<BR><BR>Right now, I'm looking at the less expensive Samsung OEMed SSDs by G.Skill and OCZ.<BR><BR>I'd like to get a non-J-Micron controllered part like the OCZ Vertex or OCZ Summit. However, the Vertex also outside the budget. The Summit is not being listed with any of the <I>Usual Sources</I> despite being advertised as available in March '09.<BR><BR>At the moment I have the following choices:<BR><BR><UL TYPE=SQUARE><BR><LI>OCZ Apex Series OCZSSD2-1APX60G (has a steep MIR)<BR><LI>OCZ Core Series V2 OCZSSD2-2C60G<BR><LI>G.SKILL FM-25S2S-64GB <BR></UL><BR><BR>If you have <B>direct</B> experience with a desktop (not laptop) build using any of these parts I'd appreciate your thoughts. <BR><BR>In addition, if I've missed a lower-priced Samsung OEM with comparable performance, please list them with linkage to the vendor's product page.
 

Phoenix '97

Ars Scholae Palatinae
1,354
I've had a Core V1 series since last August, and it's pretty quick, however I don't have an OS loaded onto it. I use it for medium to large program and game installations such as OpenOffice, MATLAB, and Mafia (PC game, 2002). When loading, the access pattern is nearly 100% reads, so it avoids the random writes the controller has problems with. <BR><BR>What OS do you intend to use with it? Would you consider 2x30GB OCZ Solid drives?
 
ive got an x25m in a Macbook and a 120GB Vertex in my Vista i7 desktop now. I also have an SSD in a Latitude D420.<BR><BR>In my Macbook, it replaced a 320GB 7200RPM WD Black drive and the difference was phenomenal. In my D420 the difference is comparable to a 7200RPM drive, but it did replace a 4800RPM drive so the improvement is substantial.<BR><BR>In my desktop, it replaced a 300GB velociraptor and the difference was marginal, but very noticable for certain things. Opening Adobe apps is at least twice as fast.<BR><BR>I also don't pay attention to any of those stupid tweaking guides on OCZ forums, except for turning off auto defrag in Vista. "Tony" on those forums is one of the biggest Witch Doctors I have ever seen on the internet. And most of his tips were for their shitty line of jmicron SSD's.<BR><BR>There is a distinct advantage in using an SSD in a laptop. Not as much in a desktop where 3.5 drives are very good performers.<BR><BR>On a side note, my Vertex is not silent. It makes a distinct sqeeking sound when accessing data, but I can only hear it with the case off.<BR><BR>I also dont see any real evidence that the Vertex has problems with AHCI other than some poster named Wendy saying so. I run mine in ACHI mode without any problems yet...
 

Black Jacque

Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
9,445
<blockquote class="ip-ubbcode-quote">
<div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div>
<div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Would you consider 2x30GB OCZ Solid drives? </div>
</blockquote>
<br><br>I considered 2x 30GB in RAID 0, but I've got SATA connector restrictions.<br><br><blockquote class="ip-ubbcode-quote">
<div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div>
<div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">On a side note, my Vertex is not silent. It makes a distinct sqeeking sound when accessing data, but I can only hear it with the case off. </div>
</blockquote>
<br><br>Maybe the mounting screws are too tight? -- View image here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif --<br><br>I'd like the Vertex, but the price puts it out of the budget.
 

warrens

Ars Legatus Legionis
11,415
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Auritania:<BR>I had the SSD bug. I bought a 60Gb drive. Don't remember which at the moment. Went to install server 2008 on it. It wouldn't install. The OS required a minimum 64Gb on the drive. I've now got a large form factor thumb drive. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>Huh? I routinely install Server 2008 on partitions as small as 9GB.
 

Auritania

Ars Praefectus
5,289
Subscriptor
I understand that you can put server 2008 on a smaller partition, but the install program checks the drive for space and if there isn't 64GB there to start with, it stops. If there was 64GB, it would have continued and let me create a smaller partition and install.<BR><BR>Maybe there is a work around, but when the OS install program stops and tells you it can't continue, that's a sign for me to stop.
 

Peldor

Ars Legatus Legionis
10,646
Anand has put up an interesting (and lengthy) article on his experiences with and testing of SSDs.<BR><BR>http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531<BR><BR>It also addresses the root cause of drives stuttering/pausing and slowdown after use.<BR><BR>The takeaway: buy an Intel or the OCZ Vertex, everything else take a colossal hit on random writes.<BR><BR>I think you could probably make a case for the OCZ Summit though.
 

antaros

Seniorius Lurkius
46
Anand replied to a comment on that article that implies that it might be worth waiting a bit to see what develops in the market:<br><br><blockquote class="ip-ubbcode-quote">
<div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div>
<div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">
<br>I tested with the shipping firmware for this article (0122). I've been playing around with 1199 in the lab and will most likely have an update in a couple of weeks once I've done a thorough evaluation of it. By then I should also have the final version of the new Samsung drive and maybe even some other interesting things. <br><br>For now, I've got to get to work on the new Mac Pro and the updated Ion article -- View image here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif -- I need a small break from SSDs por favor -- View image here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif -- <br><br>Take care, <br>Anand <br> </div>
</blockquote>
 
I bought four 60GB Apex drives to use as a RAID0 array on my gaming machine without reading much into the topic. I figured the SSDs would be plenty fast and the price seemed ok aswell, what could possibly go wrong? -- View image here: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/forum/smilies/scared_classic.gif --<br><br>At some point I then realized that the Apex drives are cheap for a reason (each drive is a transparent raid0 array in itself and they have no cache). <br>I’m running 4 Apex drives in RAID0 and still expected to be blown away by the speed as I never used a SSD computer before. In reality however I prefer my old setup of two short-stroked 500GB Samsungs over this.<br><br>Sure, sequential writes/reads are nice (230/320 in atto) and there is no stuttering per se but small random writes are just so abysmally slow, I might aswell run the OS from a Compact Flash card.<br><br>My first suspicion was that <i>cascading</i> raid0 is producing these odd results (it definitely adds overhead) but results with a single Apex were just as bad — actually even worse.<br><br>Long story short, do your homework before buying an SSD. Right now Intel (X25-M/X25-E) and Samsung (Summit, Samsung) controlled SSDs seem the way to go. The Vertex seems OK as well.<br><br>http://images.anandtech.com/gr...1809001858/18643.png<br><br>thatÂ’s 20 kb/s for the single jmicron drives, 30kb/s for the ones with two controllers. A 5400 rpm Seagate Momentus is aprox. 40 times faster than that. -- View image here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif --<br><br><b>mod edit: bandwidth leeching is rude</b>
 

Black Jacque

Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
9,445
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Also, SSD tech seems to be in flux lately - maybe waiting would be the best option. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>Tech is always in flux. By the time it stops changing, its no longer interesting and can likely be found running inside your dishwasher.
 
I replaced the Intel in my Macbook with the Vertex (120GB) a few days ago (It actually works with BootCamp).<BR><BR>The Intel X25M feels faster. Has way more teh snappy.<BR><BR>It's hard to tell when something gets slightly faster, but easy to tell when it gets slightly slower. The Vertex is definitely slower in everyday use.<BR><BR>I've got another X25M on the way and will be going Raid0 in my desktop. With nightly Home Server backups, I am hardly worried.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">It's hard to tell when something gets slightly faster, but easy to tell when it gets slightly slower. The Vertex is definitely slower in everyday use. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I take it you mean slower than the Intel SSD, not in comparison to a spinning magnetic platter?
 

dahakon

Ars Scholae Palatinae
1,040
Subscriptor
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Black Jacque:<BR><BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Also, SSD tech seems to be in flux lately - maybe waiting would be the best option. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>Tech is always in flux. By the time it stops changing, its no longer interesting and can likely be found running inside your dishwasher. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>This is of course true, but I was trying to point out that it's a bad time to update since Anand especially hinted at things to come - and soon.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Stateside, the 120GB Vertex is ~US$300. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I hate exchange rates and UK tax. The 120s are ~ £270 here, or nearly 400 USD. Perhaps I should ask a friend to get one for me - though the UK customs will probably slap the 15% VAT on it anyway.<BR><BR>Edit: Actually, that £270 is pre-tax. With tax, it's £310.
 

aka1nas

Ars Tribunus Militum
2,886
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Black Jacque:<BR>I thought the explaination in the article of the 'slowing down' was particularly good. <BR><BR>I'm wondering how often I would need to wipe my drive to restore its performance, if Windows 7's introduction will fix that, and if the TRIM function is supported by the Vertex.<BR><BR>Stateside, the 120GB Vertex is ~US$300. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>Once you have a TRIM-supported drive and OS, it sounds like you shouldn't ever need to wipe the drive. You're basically just spreading out all those erase operations so they take place at the same time you delete files, instead of being hit by a ton of them at once when you have written to all the space on the drive.
 

Ardax

Ars Legatus Legionis
19,076
Subscriptor
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Black Jacque:<BR>I'm wondering how often I would need to wipe my drive to restore its performance </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I wonder if using sdelete or some other app that writes zeros to the drive's free space would help while we're waiting for ATA TRIM?
 

Hinton

Ars Legatus Legionis
16,958
Subscriptor
The Vertex is as far as I can tell, not available in Denmark. Though if available in several capacities I'd go for the cheaper one and use the old drives as storage.<br><br>IMHO I can easily live with far less than 120GB as a system drive. So I guess this is back to importing from USA. -- View image here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif --
 

Peldor

Ars Legatus Legionis
10,646
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Ardax:<BR><BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Black Jacque:<BR>I'm wondering how often I would need to wipe my drive to restore its performance </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I wonder if using sdelete or some other app that writes zeros to the drive's free space would help while we're waiting for ATA TRIM? </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>My guess (based on Anand's explanations) is not.
 
<blockquote class="ip-ubbcode-quote">
<div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div>
<div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Ardax:<br><blockquote class="ip-ubbcode-quote">
<div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div>
<div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Black Jacque:<br>I'm wondering how often I would need to wipe my drive to restore its performance </div>
</blockquote>
<br>I wonder if using sdelete or some other app that writes zeros to the drive's free space would help while we're waiting for ATA TRIM? </div>
</blockquote>
<br><br>I don’t think so either, no. Zeroing the drive leads the controller to believe that the memory is filled with data (zeroes, in this case) and as such the controller will still erase a block before rewriting it. (=slow)<br><br>Sending TRIM or the ATA delete command (or whatever it is that tools like HDD Erase trigger in the controller) lets the controller know that the drive is now completely erased and as such the controller wonÂ’t have to delete the block before rewriting it. (=fast!)<br><br>That is my understanding... feel free to correct me if IÂ’m wrong. -- View image here: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/forum/smilies/gavel.gif --
 
I think the fundamental difference between what HDD Erase and the TRIM command do is that HDD Erase deletes EVERYTHING on the drive and the TRIM command only clears data marked as deleted.<BR><BR>Is my understanding correct?<BR><BR>So you would use HDD Erase in the absence of the TRIM command, but only when reinstalling your OS or performance has degraded enough that you can notice it.<BR><BR>When the trim command is implemented, we can do the same thing, but from the OS, and while keeping our data.
 

Ardax

Ars Legatus Legionis
19,076
Subscriptor
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by moep:<BR>Zeroing the drive leads the controller to believe that the memory is filled with data (zeroes, in this case) </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I see what you mean.<BR><BR><BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Is my understanding correct? </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>All the TRIM command does is tell the drive to clear a block. The drive has no knowledge of the filesystem, so it doesn't know whether a particular block of data is used for anything or not. It's up to the OS to tell the drive which blocks to TRIM, and when. It's not something that you, as a user, should ever need to do.<BR><BR>I'm sure research is being done in this area, but I wonder what the ideal patterns for TRIM will be? Doing it immediately at file delete (making deletes slower), or coalescing lots of trims together into a large batch in the background (similar to access time updates), or some other method?<BR><BR>Other odd thoughts: This will really fuck with undelete, recovery, and forensic software. How will disk encryption software (e.g. PGPDisk, TrueCrypt, and BitLocker) fare? Also, do SSDs make Prioritized I/O significantly more useful, or less useful? I'm leaning towards "more."
 

Black Jacque

Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
9,445
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Also, do SSDs make Prioritized I/O significantly more useful, or less useful? I'm leaning towards "more." </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>I think it brings new meaning to 'Prioritized'. With sub-millisecond reads and really fast writes in comparison to mechanical hard drives the old definitions no longer apply.