SSD Question

[X-Nemesis]

The new cs300's from Micron...supposedly they read @ 345mb/s and write @ 240 or something like that. Now that's a considerable number over the intel x25-m 160 (which I'm looking at). But my question is, how much of a real world difference will those speeds make over what's available now? I mean, if people are saying their OS's are responding lightning fast with the current batch, how much faster could the human eye conceivably notice anything better? Or am I missing something? I'm not talking storage capacity here just the speed ratings.

Wouldn't you(generalized term) be as satisfied with the speed of the X25-M offerings as to what anything faster could offer?

 

[garberfc]

The new cs300's from Micron...supposedly they read @ 345mb/s and write @ 240 or something like that. Now that's a considerable number over the intel x25-m 160 (which I'm looking at). But my question is, how much of a real world difference will those speeds make over what's available now? I mean, if people are saying their OS's are responding lightning fast with the current batch, how much faster could the human eye conceivably notice anything better? Or am I missing something? I'm not talking storage capacity here just the speed ratings.

Wouldn't you(generalized term) be as satisfied with the speed of the X25-M offerings as to what anything faster could offer?

I think what gives you the lighting fast response is the VASTLY reduced access time over the throughput. For instance Windoz is constantly reading / writing from dozens of files. With the SDD all the seek time basically disappears.

 

[X-Nemesis]

What difference would it make though going from a 250/200 intel drive to a 350/250 cs300? I mean, would you really notice the difference when it's already so fast with the x25-m?

 

[sminlal]

I haven't looked at those drives, but if they really do have that transfer rate and if (big IF) they also have access times as fast as the Intel drives, then yes, you would see better performance.

But a big part of the equation isn't just the performance "out of the box" - it's also how well performance holds up over time as the flash memory cells are overwritten. As we saw with some of the early SSDs, poor controllers can make a huge difference.

I would be looking for something more than just the raw performance figures to base a decision on.

 

[notty22]

This is from random access test , READ hdtune pro
Kingston 40 ssd, intel controller
HD Tune Pro: KINGSTON SSDNow 40GB Random Access

Test capacity: full

Read test

Transfer size operations / sec avg. access time avg. speed
512 bytes 7917 IOPS 0.13 ms 3.866 MB/s
4 KB 5751 IOPS 0.17 ms 22.468 MB/s
64 KB 2009 IOPS 0.50 ms 125.576 MB/s
1 MB 161 IOPS 6.2 ms 161.153 MB/s
Random 301 IOPS 3.3 ms 153.220 MB/s

Those numbers would just be even greater, and the writes also.
Those #'s are already many times greater than even a raptor

 

[vvhocare5]

As garberfc pointed out, it is the access time that is removed from the delay with SSD's. Those were huge delays btw, relatively speaking. And windows spreads all of those little files all over the place - not sequentially on a single cylinder - there are lots and lots of those delays.

The newest drives also stream data at the speed of SATA 3G, hard drives cannot do that - and their speed degrades as you fill up the drive.

I had the first gen Intel drive and the boot times and response were amazing - even after time. Swapped it for a newer X25 G2 and maybe it was faster (perception-only). I then put 2 of the G2 in RAID0 and I couldnt really see it until I worked with larger files - video and level loads in games. Then they were just blips.

So removing the hard drive access delay made the biggest perceived improvement. I could see the xfer speed improvements of the newer X25-G2, but less so than going to the G1.

I think you will be very satisfied with whichever SSD you choose. Let price help you decide. But having said that - I am also waiting to see what this next round of SSD's brings. Its hard to say no to speed.

 

[X-Nemesis]

Thanks for helping me understand this better.

 

[steve9207]

I had initially started a thread (looking to do a RAID0 set-up), but was later convinced that SSD was the way to go. The contributors of the thread couldn't have been more right. This post gave me lots of good info to go on.

I think some of the main things I took away from all my SSD research was...

■ Published Read / Write numbers don't always mean everything
■ Check for reviews from people that posted the actual numbers on the drive new AND when full (sminlal also commented about this)
■ TRIM is a good thing

I ended up going with an OCZ Vertex 30GB and I'm thoroughly pleased with it. I think any SSD you go with (with respectable specs of course) will serve you well.

 

[buzznut]

I agree with the others who have posted here. There are some reviews on the new 300C drives you mentioned here:
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=17615

They show some results which are faster for the new drives, but they are still quite a ways off from using the new bandwidth provided by SATA 3.0. However HD tach is not the killer app I built my pc to run!

I concur that you should read some reviews on real world performance before dumping large amounts of cash. I am quite happy with my Intel X25 V 40GB, it is many times faster than a mechanical drive. But I don't have a budget for bigger SSD's currently.

The only problem is they require more care and maintenance. In my case it is frustrating that I can't install more programs on my C: drive, but I can live with it for the tremendous increase in speed.

I would say go ahead and get an intel drive, I'm not sure those Crucial drives would be worth a price premium. However if they are priced competitively (with similar capacity Intel and OCZ), I would give them a look.

 

[notty22]

A new generation of Kinston Drive is here NOW, I wish I had an extra 200!!
It uses a new Toshiba controller, they are the #3 series
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139108&cm_re=kingston_ssd-_-20-139-108-_-Product
reviewed here and here
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=393&Itemid=60&limit=1&limitstart=0
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6392234#post6392234
Sequential Access - Read up to 230MB/s
Sequential Access - Write up to 180MB/s

 

[garberfc]

The only problem is they require more care and maintenance.

What do you mean "more care and maintenance"? They don't require any. You don't even need to defrag them? And you don't have to be careful of them. They're rated up to 1000Gs.

 

[notty22]

probably means if you don't have trim, its good to have a 'plan'
disable things like
defragging
indexing
prefetching
time stamp
hibernation
There is a neat beta program called ssdtweak that does all this. it limits writes , I have lost no performance so far in my Intel controlled Kingston 40g. I hear it might never support trim, so I disabled all I mentioned.