Ssd info

[roy lever]

I'm in the middle of another build . Budget is not an issue. I have three other builds, two supporting charities and thankfully one for my personal use (the o/a rating 7.8 MS and top 3% CA Assoc.), they are using OCZ v3's. The charity units are running 24/7 and so far they have performed extremely well. However, I am now receiving negative feedback on the reliability of Vertex 3 ssd's vs. Intel, Corsair,Samsung etc;

I have accessed and read more articles on ssd's than you can imagine, and the "expert" opinions vis a vis functionality, reliabilty and cost are all over the map.

1. what harm do you do in defragging an ssd?
2. is it safe to wipe free space on an ssd?
3. should I consider a hybrid ssd a better way to go? (very fast, needing intense graphics downloads/uploads)

Hopefuuly, this makes sense.

Your inpute is appreciated.

Regards

 

[inzone]

There is no harm in defragging a SSD it's that you just don't want to do it a lot , like as in Windows 7 and Vista they have automatic defrag and then it would be harmful to the SSD to do it a lot.
You can secure erase a SSD and that does the whole drive with an overwrite that wipes out data , but the overwrite is done to the whole drive even the area's that have no data.
There is one hybrid drive that I would consider and that is the one from OCZ. It is a 1 tb 2.5" hdd that is placed on a pcb with a SSD also and plugged into a pci-e slot(like a RevoDrive) and you get the benefit of the SSD as a cache for the hdd and also the benefit of the pci-e bus , of course it is bootable.
There is also an alternetive to the Hybrid and that is the RevoDrive 3 X2 , if you want insane read/write speeds then you could consider it. The Revo is bootable and I have been using them since they came out and have had very little trouble with them. In case you don't know what a RevoDrive is , it is four SSD's on a pcb with four Sandforce controllers in raid 0 and the current version has these speeds;
Read 1500 mb/s
Write 1225 mb/s
IOPS 200,000

RevoDrive 3 X2 240gb
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227744

Of course there are different capacities from 100gb up to 960gb.

 

[CaedenV]

I have heard negative reviews about OCZ as well, but as far as I can tell most of the complaints are rooted in issues with the firmware, which seems to be fixed. For the price compared to Intel and Crucial the OCZ looks very attractive, and I ended up getting a solid3 for my wife's computer over the summer and I have only one minor complaint of HDD hangs about once a month when going into sleep state.

If budget is truly no issue then I would go with an Intel as they have the best warranty available, then reliability is not an issue as you can get it replaced. But as you have noticed, there really is nothing wrong with the current gen OCZ drives.

As to the questions:
There is little issue defraging an SSD, only the extra read/writes. Just do not expect it to make any difference in performance. defraging something that has 0ms seek time is entirely unnecessary. TRIM will take care of garbage collection which can slow down the computer. Just make sure you have a modern north bridge combined with win7 and you will be fine

you cannot securely wipe free space on an SSD due to how flash technology works. You can re-write space, but there is no way to wipe an SSD in the same way you can wipe a HDD. Again, TRIM will take care of these operations in the background.

Hybrid SSDs are a great option for high storage requirements with a limited budget, but like the SSD cashing on z68 motherboards, the performance is unreliable, and can change depending on usage. So if you can afford a larger SSD then that would be the way to go. Very few things that require large amounts of file space require the extreme speed of an SSD (unless in the professional server segment), so for the most part it is better to have an SSD large enough for your OS and all programs, and then separate HDDs for storage. It is cheaper, and you get reliable performance from your system.

 

[roy lever]

There is no harm in defragging a SSD it's that you just don't want to do it a lot , like as in Windows 7 and Vista they have automatic defrag and then it would be harmful to the SSD to do it a lot.
You can secure erase a SSD and that does the whole drive with an overwrite that wipes out data , but the overwrite is done to the whole drive even the area's that have no data.
There is one hybrid drive that I would consider and that is the one from OCZ. It is a 1 tb 2.5" hdd that is placed on a pcb with a SSD also and plugged into a pci-e slot(like a RevoDrive) and you get the benefit of the SSD as a cache for the hdd and also the benefit of the pci-e bus , of course it is bootable.
There is also an alternetive to the Hybrid and that is the RevoDrive 3 X2 , if you want insane read/write speeds then you could consider it. The Revo is bootable and I have been using them since they came out and have had very little trouble with them. In case you don't know what a RevoDrive is , it is four SSD's on a pcb with four Sandforce controllers in raid 0 and the current version has these speeds;
Read 1500 mb/s
Write 1225 mb/s
IOPS 200,000

RevoDrive 3 X2 240gb
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227744

Of course there are different capacities from 100gb up to 960gb.

Thank you for your reply and input.

At the moment I am leaning toward a RevoDrive.

Regards,

 

[roy lever]

I have heard negative reviews about OCZ as well, but as far as I can tell most of the complaints are rooted in issues with the firmware, which seems to be fixed. For the price compared to Intel and Crucial the OCZ looks very attractive, and I ended up getting a solid3 for my wife's computer over the summer and I have only one minor complaint of HDD hangs about once a month when going into sleep state.

If budget is truly no issue then I would go with an Intel as they have the best warranty available, then reliability is not an issue as you can get it replaced. But as you have noticed, there really is nothing wrong with the current gen OCZ drives.

As to the questions:
There is little issue defraging an SSD, only the extra read/writes. Just do not expect it to make any difference in performance. defraging something that has 0ms seek time is entirely unnecessary. TRIM will take care of garbage collection which can slow down the computer. Just make sure you have a modern north bridge combined with win7 and you will be fine

you cannot securely wipe free space on an SSD due to how flash technology works. You can re-write space, but there is no way to wipe an SSD in the same way you can wipe a HDD. Again, TRIM will take care of these operations in the background.

Hybrid SSDs are a great option for high storage requirements with a limited budget, but like the SSD cashing on z68 motherboards, the performance is unreliable, and can change depending on usage. So if you can afford a larger SSD then that would be the way to go. Very few things that require large amounts of file space require the extreme speed of an SSD (unless in the professional server segment), so for the most part it is better to have an SSD large enough for your OS and all programs, and then separate HDDs for storage. It is cheaper, and you get reliable performance from your system.

Thank you for your reply and informative information.

At the moment I am leaning toward a RevoDrive.

Regards,

 

[RetiredChief]

On defrag. Primary, as pointed out, increases the writes with no performance advantage. And infact may initially decrease performance until trim can recover from all the writes. Defrag is for placiing files segments in sequencial sectors - SSDs do not have sectors.

Depending on usage do not be fooled by the Very high sequencial speeds. Thes are very important when working with large file stuctures such as complex larg spresd sheets, CAD/CAM file editing, editing/encoding large video files, or if you do a lot of editing of large jpeg Photos.

If you really want "FAST" Sequencial speed, add some ram and create a Work Ramdisk. Advantage, makes the Reco drive look like a Model T compared to a corvet (About 10x faster than a conventional SSD) Disadvantage 2, one size ( I have 16 gigs ram so only use a 8 gig ramdrive) and 2nd, It slows down boot time/shut down time if stored on HDD (Not bad if ramdrive image is on a SSD, but then this also creates a high write cycle on the SSD (ie 16 gigs/day min).

 

[roy lever]

On defrag. Primary, as pointed out, increases the writes with no performance advantage. And infact may initially decrease performance until trim can recover from all the writes. Defrag is for placiing files segments in sequencial sectors - SSDs do not have sectors.

Depending on usage do not be fooled by the Very high sequencial speeds. Thes are very important when working with large file stuctures such as complex larg spresd sheets, CAD/CAM file editing, editing/encoding large video files, or if you do a lot of editing of large jpeg Photos.

If you really want "FAST" Sequencial speed, add some ram and create a Work Ramdisk. Advantage, makes the Reco drive look like a Model T compared to a corvet (About 10x faster than a conventional SSD) Disadvantage 2, one size ( I have 16 gigs ram so only use a 8 gig ramdrive) and 2nd, It slows down boot time/shut down time if stored on HDD (Not bad if ramdrive image is on a SSD, but then this also creates a high write cycle on the SSD (ie 16 gigs/day min).

Thank you for your reply and informative input.

Yes, I need speed. I participate in online stamp auctions, speed and graphics accuracy are a prioirity.

I am not familiar with ram disk applications, but I will look into it. At the moment I am leaning toward an OCZ Revo drive.

On paper my new build is:-

Case = Corsair 600T
Mother Board = Gigabyte UD6 or 7
CPU = I7 2600K or I7 3960X?
CPU Cooler = Cooler Master Hyper 212
GPU = Radeon 6970
Ram = 16g Kingston Hyper
PSU = Cooler Master 750 Gold
DVD/CD = Plextor
SSD = ?

Thank you again for your input.

Regards,

 

[RetiredChief]

1) On ram disk. See: http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk
The soft ware for creating Upto a 4 Gig ramdrive is free, > 4 gigs is 15 bucks.
You can download the software and check out the 4 gig size - if you like the pay the 15 bucks and go to a larger size.

2) I see relatively little value in the revo drive over a normal SATA III SSD in reference to "Online" applications as the internet speeds are the bottle neck (even slower than HDD) As to Graphics "Quality" - That is going to be more a function of Monitor/software/GPU.

Look at reliability (Most important) the cost vs size and LASTLY benchmark performance. Remember saving 5 sec on boot time is not a big issue ( and a program opens in one blink of the eye vs 2 blinks. I can click on a link to a spreadsheet and the program will open AND load the spread sheet BEFORE I can drag the mouse to a cell to edit it - in this case a faster SSD is of no benefit. If you can get a larger size for the same price as a smaller one with faster performance - go with the larger size.

 

[roy lever]

1) On ram disk. See: http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk
The soft ware for creating Upto a 4 Gig ramdrive is free, > 4 gigs is 15 bucks.
You can download the software and check out the 4 gig size - if you like the pay the 15 bucks and go to a larger size.

2) I see relatively little value in the revo drive over a normal SATA III SSD in reference to "Online" applications as the internet speeds are the bottle neck (even slower than HDD) As to Graphics "Quality" - That is going to be more a function of Monitor/software/GPU.

Look at reliability (Most important) the cost vs size and LASTLY benchmark performance. Remember saving 5 sec on boot time is not a big issue ( and a program opens in one blink of the eye vs 2 blinks. I can click on a link to a spreadsheet and the program will open AND load the spread sheet BEFORE I can drag the mouse to a cell to edit it - in this case a faster SSD is of no benefit. If you can get a larger size for the same price as a smaller one with faster performance - go with the larger size.

Well, I'm back again.

Your input has been very helpfull. It has caused me to do a lot of research and touch base with user friends who have experienced similar situations.

I have conversed with several auction friends to discuss their system setups. Three are running conventional Very High End PC setups and one is running a workstation setup which unfortunately comes with prohibtive pricing for my needs and is not where I want to go.

One did not have a pleasant experience with any OCZ Revo's and exchanged for Vertex 3.

So, out of the three others, they are using SSD's in the 250gb range, Intel, OCZ and the new Samsung 830 series.

I am going with the Samsung.

So, I just have to decide on a MB & CPU. Monitors are not an issue I have two Sumsung Central Station 27" avalaible.

Thank you for your help.

Regards,

 

[RetiredChief]

I'm thinking of replacing my Agility III with either the M4 or the samsung 830. Leaning toward the 830 as I already have 2 M4's. I've crossed off OCZ, primarily do to the company maagement. What I've done in three systems is to install two SSDs, using one as the OS + program drive and the 2nd one as a Scratch/work drive.

ENJOY

 

[roy lever]

I'm thinking of replacing my Agility III with either the M4 or the samsung 830. Leaning toward the 830 as I already have 2 M4's. I've crossed off OCZ, primarily do to the company maagement. What I've done in three systems is to install two SSDs, using one as the OS + program drive and the 2nd one as a Scratch/work drive.

ENJOY

I agree, OCZ has a spotty history. I am not up to speed with the m4`s but I can tell you that everything I have read (USA, European, Asia and confirmed with my friends is that the Samsung is the way to go.

Regards

 

[roy lever]

Best answer selected by Roy Lever.