Is SSD all that good?

[Grall]

80MB is actually roughly on par with most mechanical drives out there. Only 10k spindle speed Raptors or the last two years or so of large-capacity 3.5" drives are really all that much faster.

You'll have to copy a shitload of files EVERY DAY for 80MB/s to be any sort of a hindrance. The difference under any reasonable situation is insignificant, especially when the G2 outclasses pretty much everything else in every performance metric that actually counts, and usually does so HUGLY.

You'd have to be an idiot to pick another SSD for its faster sequential write speed over a G2 when the really important factor is random accesses of small I/O sizes - where the G2 shines.

 

[Erinyes]

80MB is actually roughly on par with most mechanical drives out there. Only 10k spindle speed Raptors or the last two years or so of large-capacity 3.5" drives are really all that much faster.

You'll have to copy a shitload of files EVERY DAY for 80MB/s to be any sort of a hindrance. The difference under any reasonable situation is insignificant, especially when the G2 outclasses pretty much everything else in every performance metric that actually counts, and usually does so HUGLY.

You'd have to be an idiot to pick another SSD for its faster sequential write speed over a G2 when the really important factor is random accesses of small I/O sizes - where the G2 shines.

Which is exactly what i was talking about, the current high capacity drives can sustain 110-120 MB/s.

Yes as i said its a slight difference and almost a non issue.

I guess you arent up to date then, the G2 gets beaten by the Sandforce and Micron in random read and write too. G2 is no longer the best. Im not saying it isnt good, and in fact if price is taken into account its even better as the cost per gb is lower

 

[Grall]

the current high capacity drives can sustain 110-120 MB/s.

That's only true for the first 5% or so of the drive though, and then it starts dropping. At the end of the drive, transfer speeds is only about half of maximum... So saying it can sustain that 110+ MB/s speed is a bit of an exaggeration/white lie, really.

On average, an intel G2 at 80 or 100MB/s sustained would be as fast, or faster than even the quickest 2TB HDD out there. Well, that is unless you short-stroke the 2TB drive down to 100GB capacity, that is... Heh.

Yes as i said its a slight difference and almost a non issue.

It's not "almost" a non-issue. It IS a non-issue unless you actually work with say, video editing or something like that... You're simply not going to notice the difference between 80MB/s or 110MB/s during everyday desktop use. As in: not notice AT ALL.

I guess you arent up to date then, the G2 gets beaten by the Sandforce and Micron in random read and write too.

Sandforce firmwares seem kind of in flux right now, some models ship with one performance profile while other drives get another, lower performance profile firmware. It's a bit too soon to say definitively which drive is faster than another IMO. Generally newer is faster in this bizniz though, and these drives are newer than Intel's offering (which is approaching 2 years now, seeing as the G2 is "merely" an incremental update of their original offering).

 

[homerdog]

I recall reading that the Sandforce drives lose a significant amount of performance when dealing with heavily compressed data, but now I can't find the article.

But that's probably not relevant to most people anyway.

Edit: Ah well I found it and it's not as bad as I thought.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2899/13

 

[eastmen]

Am i the only one who heard the famous forums rant about ...IO being the bottleneck in the era of multi-Ghz processors...

Thinking of trying out...Intel X25M G2 80GB...overhaul budget cannot go any higher...but at 80GB..it is like going back 4 years in main storage terms...how fast is SSD fast? I can boot up my PC under 50s to get a fully usable desktop...i load programs under 4s max...idk...get the 80GB SSD...use it for Win7 OS, 1-2 games...some music...Office 07...the work related documents..not a PS user..some transcoding of video....move my current 320GB HDD as storage...will SSD $/GB drop within the next 6 months..when is Intel G3 SSD coming? SSD...fast IO ...SLOW consumer takeup. lol. I also heard SSD works better with ICH10R under Intel Raid...?

Above sounds good?

This is my set up.

1 60 gig OCZ vertex. This has my OS and most used apps I have 20 gigs free spaceo n it.

THen I have 2 1TB hardrives for my data , music video and games.

If you can only get a 80GB SSD I would not load it up with music or video. Put that on a normal drive because for playback you dont need ssd speeds.

We will most likely see a cost in price happening in the fall. New 20nm nand will be avalible in mass by then. Right now we are seeing new chipsets that are faster coming about and so prices are going up.

A 60 gig vertex can be had as low as $160 if you look around

 

[Squilliam]

Yep the Intel G2 is very good, the sole weakspot being sequential write where its less than half as fast as the competition. Also the newer Micron and Sandforce controller drives are generally faster than the G2. Indilinx based drives are also decent but their random read/write performance isnt terribly good.

Heres a link to a recent SSD review by Anandtech, should answer some of your questions http://www.anandtech.com/show/3667/oczs-agility-2-reviewed-the-first-sf1200-with-mp-firmware

If you arent in a hurry, might be prudent to wait till Q4 for Intel's G3. You'll get better performance and 160 GB for around the same or slightly higher price

Thanks for the link. I don't think they are out for my country yet unfortunately, any idea for general availability, anyone? Unfortunately I don't have the luxury of waiting.

Take a look at my options, they aren't pretty: So what would you get given these constraints?

 

[eastmen]

anything with trim. Right now you stil lcan't beat G2 intels or ocz vertex drives.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

That's only true for the first 5% or so of the drive though, and then it starts dropping. At the end of the drive, transfer speeds is only about half of maximum... So saying it can sustain that 110+ MB/s speed is a bit of an exaggeration/white lie, really.

On average, an intel G2 at 80 or 100MB/s sustained would be as fast, or faster than even the quickest 2TB HDD out there. Well, that is unless you short-stroke the 2TB drive down to 100GB capacity, that is... Heh.

Perhaps you should do just a teeny tiny bit of research before making wildly exaggerated claims.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2866

That's one of the slower 2 TB drives and it sustains over 100 MB/s for well over half the drive in both sequential read and write.

You could "short stroke it" to 1.5 TB and still maintain a faster sequential read and write than the 80 MB/s. Even the slower 5400 RPM version of the same drive will average almost 100 MB/s (96 MB/s over at Techreport) over the entire drive.

Depending on your useage model that could very well be noticeable in daily real world useage.

Sandforce firmwares seem kind of in flux right now, some models ship with one performance profile while other drives get another, lower performance profile firmware. It's a bit too soon to say definitively which drive is faster than another IMO. Generally newer is faster in this bizniz though, and these drives are newer than Intel's offering (which is approaching 2 years now, seeing as the G2 is "merely" an incremental update of their original offering).

Sandforce 1200 drives are going to be artificially limited by firmware for random write performance. The only drives using the Sandforce 1200 that won't be limited are OCZ Vertex but not Agility (marketing agreement) and Corsair (they won't update to shipping firmware for their drives).

And as Homerdog noted. If you have alot of uncompressable files (compressed media files like movies) then the Sandforce drives take a futher hit to performance dropping them below other competing brands. It is however, quite fast when data can be compressed, program files (games, applications, etc.).

That said, the Crucial drive with the Micron controller is still overall the fastest (in most real world useage) and cheapest per GB among the performance SSDs.

Even with that, I still don't recommend SSDs to most people unless they have excess money to throw at luxuries. By and large most people (read non-enthusiasts) won't notice the difference between a fast HDD and a SSD unless you tell them.

Where it does make a rather large and noticeable difference though is in notebooks and laptops. But even there, it's hard to justify the cost for most. A couple friends of mine laughed out loud when they found out how much I spent for a 120 GB SSD for my notebook. They still make fun of me for that. /shrug.

Regards,
SB

 

[Cookie Monster]

By and large most people (read non-enthusiasts) won't notice the difference between a fast HDD and a SSD unless you tell them.

I thought the whole selling point of SSDs at rather exorbitant prices given their capacity was the fact that the speed difference would actually be observable in real life compared to going from dual to quad core, 4GB to 8GB of RAM etc etc.

Id think most people would know (that there must be something different about the [strike]black box[/strike] PC), especially when their apps and OS loads a little too fast than the usual.

Although the sandforce based SSDs are tempting, I think ill hold out til the G3 drives hit the scene. Til then, my velociraptors will have to do for now.

 

[Kyyla]

I thought the whole selling point of SSDs at rather exorbitant prices given their capacity was the fact that the speed difference would actually be observable in real life compared to going from dual to quad core, 4GB to 8GB of RAM etc etc.

IMO in laptops it is a LOT more noticeable.

 

[Erinyes]

That's only true for the first 5% or so of the drive though, and then it starts dropping. At the end of the drive, transfer speeds is only about half of maximum... So saying it can sustain that 110+ MB/s speed is a bit of an exaggeration/white lie, really.

On average, an intel G2 at 80 or 100MB/s sustained would be as fast, or faster than even the quickest 2TB HDD out there. Well, that is unless you short-stroke the 2TB drive down to 100GB capacity, that is... Heh.

It's not "almost" a non-issue. It IS a non-issue unless you actually work with say, video editing or something like that... You're simply not going to notice the difference between 80MB/s or 110MB/s during everyday desktop use. As in: not notice AT ALL.

Sandforce firmwares seem kind of in flux right now, some models ship with one performance profile while other drives get another, lower performance profile firmware. It's a bit too soon to say definitively which drive is faster than another IMO. Generally newer is faster in this bizniz though, and these drives are newer than Intel's offering (which is approaching 2 years now, seeing as the G2 is "merely" an incremental update of their original offering).

Burst speed is a lot higher than 100MB/s, they can do an average speed of >100 MB/s. Heres a review if you want more data http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=870&type=expert&pid=4

You might notice it if you're copying a lot of files, its not such a small difference. So yea ill stick to what i said, its "almost" a non-issue

That firmware issue is only related to Corsair shipping pre production firmware, which according to corsair has no issues. That Anandtech link i posted earlier has more details on it. But the definitive answer is that both SF and Micron are faster than Intel. Tho yes the G2 design is just a small update of G1 which is almost two years old. I expect the G3 controller along with 25nm NAND will get intel back to the lead though. And as i said earlier, from a cost per gb perspective, Intel is still better than SF and Micron right now

Thanks for the link. I don't think they are out for my country yet unfortunately, any idea for general availability, anyone? Unfortunately I don't have the luxury of waiting.

Take a look at my options, they aren't pretty: So what would you get given these constraints?

Oh that sucks From the link i see the Vertex LE is available but only the 50GB version. If you cant wait for a while your best bet is the G2, and hey its not like a G2 is slow or anything

I thought the whole selling point of SSDs at rather exorbitant prices given their capacity was the fact that the speed difference would actually be observable in real life compared to going from dual to quad core, 4GB to 8GB of RAM etc etc.

Id think most people would know (that there must be something different about the [strike]black box[/strike] PC), especially when their apps and OS loads a little too fast than the usual.

Although the sandforce based SSDs are tempting, I think ill hold out til the G3 drives hit the scene. Til then, my velociraptors will have to do for now.

Yea exactly, the advantage of an SSD should be way more noticeable than a cpu/ram upgrade(unless you have a very old or crappy one that is ). I personally havent used an SSD but from what ive read the responsiveness of the system goes up tremendously. Thats a complaint i have with my PC currently, waiting for a game to load or that firefox window to open is annoying. I for one would love to get an SSD but IMO the prices are just too high right now. If i can get a G3 160 gig for $230 in Q4 then i think ill snag one

 

[N00b]

By and large most people (read non-enthusiasts) won't notice the difference between a fast HDD and a SSD unless you tell them.

I disagree wholeheartedly. The difference is incredible. Not because SSDs are so much faster but because of the (near) absence of slowdowns (try opening a folder with a lot of images while compressing a file).

And SSDs are completely silent. That makes a very, very noticable difference.

 

[hoom]

Thanks for the link. I don't think they are out for my country yet unfortunately, any idea for general availability, anyone? Unfortunately I don't have the luxury of waiting.

Take a look at my options, they aren't pretty: So what would you get given these constraints?

Filtered for Intel G2 & Sandforce
http://pricespy.co.nz/category.php?k=893#rparams=k=s52363403

 

[Squilliam]

Filtered for Intel G2 & Sandforce
http://pricespy.co.nz/category.php?k=893#rparams=k=s52363403

Thank you.

 

[Erinyes]

Yikes! Looking at cost per gb, Intel G2 80 GB is a better buy than either the Agility 2 or Vertex 2

Its Interesting that the Vertex LE which is basically the same as the Vertex 2 is priced 50$ less than it

 

[BRiT]

Perhaps so, and the Vertex 2 doesn't have that implied Coolness factor that 'Limited Edition' does.

I wonder if there's a different on warranty life between V-LE and V-2 models or if the firmware upgradablity is that different between the two.

 

[aaaaa00]

That said, the Crucial drive with the Micron controller is still overall the fastest (in most real world useage) and cheapest per GB among the performance SSDs.

I have one of those in my tablet (256GB C300), and it's bloody quick. Wrote a 512 MB file in two seconds!