SSD or Velociraptor?

[Rick James]

How much faster would an SSD be compared to a 10K SATA drive?

[EarthDog]

A lot. Look at the numbers for access time, reads and writes for both drives.

[Neuromancer]

SSD > raptor

Acces times and STRS are both improved.

Of course, the MLC SSD are basically raided SLCs so that explains the great performance in the STR cat...

[sil40sx]

SSD is way faster than raptor, its like night and day difference. But the thing is, when you started doing multi-process on the SSD, it stutters which makes you wait for the other application to settle before you can open another one. Its like, SSD having a hard time reading while writing (and, or vice versa). This is based on my experience only, maybe there are some specific SSD's out there that doesn't perform like mine.

edit: some people says turning off windows prefetch (in the registry) somewhat eliminates this issue, some doesn't get lucky, like me

[Neuromancer]

SSD is way faster than raptor, its like night and day difference. But the thing is, when you started doing multi-process on the SSD, it stutters which makes you wait for the other application to settle before you can open another one. Its like, SSD having a hard time reading while writing (and, or vice versa). This is based on my experience only, maybe there are some specific SSD's out there that doesn't perform like mine.

You using a jmicron SSD ?

[sil40sx]

I have the cheepo Patriot 32Gb (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220341), i dont think its a jmicron.

[Rick James]

What are some good SSD's to look at? What are the bad ones?

[Froggy]

MTRON or Intel are currently proven performers.

[Rick James]

MTRON or Intel are currently proven performers.

I laughed when i saw Intel's prices. Jesus

[Neuromancer]

I have the cheepo Patriot 32Gb (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220341), i dont think its a jmicron.

IT appears it is.

The stuttering problem is a symptom of the MLCs with jmicron controller.s


Just do your reaseardch there are some cheapys that appear doable.. if you are looking for a 32GB drive...

[Rick James]

Good or bad? :)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231220

[Hipcrostino]

basically intels pricing is correct for high performances SSD's at the moment. The prices have dropped massivly recently. most 80gb SSD drives were like 10,000 not so long ago. $1000 for 80gb is pretty decent.

The Gskil will be like the rest of the cheap drives im sure. They all use a jmicron controller that isn't designed to go at those speeds. It still works, but you get issues.

[Rick James]

basically intels pricing is correct for high performances SSD's at the moment. The prices have dropped massivly recently. most 80gb SSD drives were like 10,000 not so long ago. $1000 for 80gb is pretty decent.

The Gskil will be like the rest of the cheap drives im sure. They all use a jmicron controller that isn't designed to go at those speeds. It still works, but you get issues.

Ugh.. I don't want to buy something that is going to have issues. Thanks

[sil40sx]

i regret buying 2 x SSD's. Now i have 2 x $130 paper weights. LOL

[Firestrider]

Is there any real reason to buy SSDs for real world performance now? I know the specs look great but will you get huge speedups from 0.1ms random accesses and 230 MB/s sequential reads in applications?

I get near instant application load times with the way Windows 7 and previously Vista manages memory.

I guess if you did a lot of extracting and file copying you would notice a difference, but I don't do that.

[Rick James]

i regret buying 2 x SSD's. Now i have 2 x $130 paper weights. LOL

Sil,

Even with there problems. How do they compare to the velociraptor or even a raptor?

Could one of the SSD guys run HD Tune for me for comparison? I'm not sure if that program will work for the SSD's even. Thanks

[flopper]

ssd, raid0 2x32gb a-data jmicron controller.
areca 1210.
Got some great deals, same price as for one velociraptor.
but much faster and instant.(i would buy the new generation ssd´s tho)

http://www.svensknlp.nu/databilder/3.5.PNG

[Particle]

Considering the price, I'd say Velociraptors are the better choice right now. Much better value for what you're getting.

[exe163]

Considering the price, I'd say Velociraptors are the better choice right now. Much better value for what you're getting.

+1, wait for windows 7 and then jump on the SSD bandwagon. No point being a early adopter (believe me I have a lot of experience with).

I decided to skip the velociraptor though, I went with 640 black in matrix raid 0. Which should give similar speed with slightly more access time.

[Dermen]

OCZ Core, Patriot Warp, SuperTalent OX, and GSkill are all the same JMicron drives. None of them build the drives they just buy them and slap their firmware/stickers on them. They have stuttering issues because of the controllers bad random write speed. You can cure this with a hardware raid card that has 128mb+ onboard cache or by doing a lot of OS tweaks and using SteadyState.

The OCZ Apex and GSkill Titan are the same too, they both use two JMicron controllers that are internally raided. They are supposed to not suffer from the stuttering problem but I haven't really read up on them much.

SSDs that use other controllers don't have the stuttering problems. The only other two I have read about are Samsung and Intel. OCZ Vertex is supposed to use something other than JMicron and have 32/64mb cache.

I almost bought a couple OCZ Core V2 drives when newegg had them for $50AR, but the stuttering issues stopped me. I wish I would have got them since I now have a raid card with tons of cache and the cheapest I can find them is $80

[sil40sx]

Sil,

Even with there problems. How do they compare to the velociraptor or even a raptor?

Could one of the SSD guys run HD Tune for me for comparison? I'm not sure if that program will work for the SSD's even. Thanks

there are lots of good things about the SSD's, but I just cant live with the stuttering issues thats why I went back on using my RaptorX.

eg, windows and programs loads twice as fast, small applications and desktops feels snappier when opening. the only problem with SSD is when you started doing multi-tasking, especially when one of your task needs to write something in your HD/SSD, then the stupid stuttering takes place. Ugh! :bang head

edit: like many others said, some work around on the registry, OS tweaks and third party apps fixes the stuttering issues, but not everyone gets lucky.

[Ashura]

Sil,

Even with there problems. How do they compare to the velociraptor or even a raptor?

Could one of the SSD guys run HD Tune for me for comparison? I'm not sure if that program will work for the SSD's even. Thanks

The Corsair 128 or the G. Skill Titan are your best bet.

Corsair benches: http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=594618
G.Skill: HDTune & HDTach (http://www.ocforums.com/showpost.php?p=5966136&postcount=30), ATTO (http://www.ocforums.com/showpost.php?p=5967244&postcount=33)

Ignore the crazy read/write variation seen on the Corsair HDTune/Tach benches, actual performance matches the rated 90/70 specs as confirmed by the ATTO benches.

If you're on a desktop, I'd get the Titan. I've come from two Raptors in RAID 0, and a V-Raptor, and these two SSDs are without a doubt faster than both. Don't get the G.Skill one you linked to earlier as that has the single JMicron controller which causes stuttering problems.

And, tweaks should be done anyway since the OS does a lot of things meant to optimize performance with a mechanical drive but are really unnecessary with a SSD's fast access time. If you're installing XP, partition alignment is a must, it's supposed to make a big difference.

[xtkxhom3r]

there is no stuttering in ssd's i configured 4 of them in raid for my friend and they are flawless you just have to set them up right in the bios/windows and update the firmware look around there are several guides/threads with ways to configure them correctly ssd's will stomp all over a raptor any day the only reason to go with a raptor is because of the space but if its about the space then just buy a 500 gig drive for storage and a ssd for the os...

btw the drives my friend has are the 32 gig ocz ones...

[sil40sx]

i used 2 x 32 SSD for my Matrix raid0, tried this, tried that but still has the stuttering. and for what its worth, using em on raid lessen the stuttering issue a tad bit btw. and yes, i tried most of the tweaks and guides already.

edit: some of the stuff i tried

- Solution : Core SSD's freezing and stuttering(WinXP) (http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=42487)
- Vista 32/64 SSD Windows Registry tweaks (http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=47212)
- Partition alignment for SSD (http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=48309)

[Ashura]

there is no stuttering in ssd's i configured 4 of them in raid for my friend and they are flawless you just have to set them up right in the bios/windows and update the firmware look around there are several guides/threads with ways to configure them correctly ssd's will stomp all over a raptor any day the only reason to go with a raptor is because of the space but if its about the space then just buy a 500 gig drive for storage and a ssd for the os...

btw the drives my friend has are the 32 gig ocz ones...

There are no firmware updates for OCZ's SSDs and the only way RAID will eliminate the stuttering issue is if you have a separate RAID card with onboard cache. Onboard Intel/nvidia RAID won't do the trick as sil40sx mentioned. And, if you're going to be paying for 4 32gb drives, might as well just get the single 128gb option from G.Skill or Corsair and avoid the hassle.

[Dermen]

I was reading more about the OCZ Apex (GSkill Titan) today and there were a few people on different forums that reported slight stuttering problems occurring intermittently when using a single drive.

[Surfrider77]

Apex still uses JMicron controllers, but are used in an internally built RAID0 configuration. There is a guide on how to set these drives in a sticky on the OCZ forums that completely eliminates the stuttering... even on the older drives. People just dont bother reading about it.

Vertex should be released shortly and do not use the JMicron controller at all. I will be picking up 4 of the 30G drives on place it on my HW raid controller. Should fly!! :D

[sil40sx]

so Rick, haven't you decided yet? LOL
btw, heres SS when Im using raid with 64stripe. i got better burst and more snappy feeling when using 64stripe. and when i use 128, i get better read and low cpu utilization, but low burst speed.

http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/4013/64stripesqg3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[Rick James]

so Rick, haven't you decided yet? LOL
btw, heres SS when Im using raid with 64stripe. i got better burst and more snappy feeling when using 64stripe. and when i use 128, i get better read and low cpu utilization, but low burst speed.

http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/4013/64stripesqg3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I'm heading to fry's later :)

Going to ask for steps on how to set this puppy up before i even think about installing it.

[EarthDog]

Personally, I cant believe after this thread you are still going to one!!!

It shouldnt be any different than a regular HDD...

[Rick James]

Personally, I cant believe after this thread you are still going to one!!!

It shouldnt be any different than a regular HDD...

I'm going to look at it and "possibly" get one :)

Aslong as its faster then this......

[xtkxhom3r]

There are no firmware updates for OCZ's SSDs and the only way RAID will eliminate the stuttering issue is if you have a separate RAID card with onboard cache. Onboard Intel/nvidia RAID won't do the trick as sil40sx mentioned. And, if you're going to be paying for 4 32gb drives, might as well just get the single 128gb option from G.Skill or Corsair and avoid the hassle.

why would you rather get a 128gb drive !?!?!? you would get worse performance if you get a single drive you will get about 150 transfer rate and with 4 drives in raid you get 500....

[Spawn-Inc]

i've heard the new 128gb one from corsiar is a nice ssd. it doesn't have the JMicron controller.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233075

[xtkxhom3r]

still not as fast as 4 in raid though

and btw those transfer rates are ****

[Evilsizer]

stuttering issues can be fixed by using a raid card with onboard cache. another way to fix stuttering is to correctly align the partion for XP if your using it. as well as using MS-steady state. how ever this will increase bootup times since it takes random writes and turns them into sequential writes to the drive.

Vertex is a MLC based SSD that should be out soon, as said with no jmicron controller. however the Vertex drive will feature onboard cache on the drive to fix stuttering issues. i would personally at this point wait for vertex but it is a bit pricy.
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10009849
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10009850
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10009989

spawn,
even if it doesnt have the jmicron controller it will still stutter unless it is packing some on board cache. for the price i would rather get this drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820609333).

[Ashura]

why would you rather get a 128gb drive !?!?!? you would get worse performance if you get a single drive you will get about 150 transfer rate and with 4 drives in raid you get 500....

Because to completely eliminate stuttering with the 30gb JMicron SSDs I'd need an aftermarket RAID card. With a single 128gb Titan and no RAID card I already get a 200 transfer rate and no stuttering. Plus, having 4 drives isn't an option for everybody (laptop users).

For the price of a decent RAID card and 4 30gb JMicron SSDs, I can have two 128gb Titans in onboard RAID giving me twice as much space and 480 read/320 write.

[Surfrider77]

i've heard the new 128gb one from corsiar is a nice ssd. it doesn't have the JMicron controller.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233075

Those transfer rates are abysmal. Thats pretty much first gen SSD speeds.

[xtkxhom3r]

i have never used one ssd drive on a laptop or desktop i have only tried 2,3,and 4 drive raid configurations with onboard raid on a p5q deluxe,p5q3, and a asus p6t all of them with out the stuttering problem...

[mercalf]

What are some good SSD's to look at? What are the bad ones?

Check this out: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820609332

Don't buy them all though, I plan on getting one next week :santa:


Also, I already crunched all sorts of numbers on all hard drives imaginable - basically, the access rate is very important - but more important are the I/O times. Your typical hard drive will have 3-500 I/O, your Raptor brands will have like 1200...most solid states have significantly more. I like your thinking though!! Weren't you just comparing the HAF and Storm Sniper??... We're going along the same path at similar times...

[EarthDog]

ROFLMAO, in another thread he posted that he returned it.... :)

[Evilsizer]

what?

[EarthDog]

http://www.ocforums.com/showpost.php?p=5981108&postcount=31

[Ashura]

http://www.ocforums.com/showpost.php?p=5981108&postcount=31

Geez, it's not as if the $/GB changed from when he was in the store to when he took it home. Besides, it's a $119 SSD, most likely single JMicron controller. It wasn't going to give him the performance he wanted as repeatedly stated in this thread.

[Evilsizer]

the controller is only part of the problem... you can not place all the blame on the controller.... without more details it sounds like something was not tweaked correctly in the os. i run a 30gig OCZ ssd that i know has a jmicron controller on it but i have not issues with my setup. im running XP-32 and only use about 2-4gig of space on the drive. i dont recall reading Vista using 10gig of HD space....

[Ashura]

Tweaks aren't a guaranteed fix for the controller's faults. With the Core V1 and V2, I've gone through the OCZ tweaks with a fine toothed comb and made sure I applied them all correctly, as have others with the JMicron drives, only to find that the stuttering persisted. Users like you who have zero issues are few and far in between.

Finding good data on the JMicron JMF602 controller is nearly impossible, but from what I've heard it's got 16KB of on-chip memory for read/write requests. By comparison, Intel's controller has a 256KB SRAM on-die. And I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that given Intel's experience with CPU caches, that its SRAM implementation is probably very well done.

With the JMicron based solutions, if you try and write too much to the drive (and trust me, it won’t take a lot) and the buffers get full, the controller tells the system that it’s not ready to write more data and you get a pause.

When you cause the JM602’s internal buffer to overflow, your system runs in bullet-time. Applications take much longer to launch and close, windows take longer to appear, and there are distinct pauses in anything you want to do that involves the disk. Want to send an IM? Well, that writes to an IM log - you can expect a pause before you can send your IM. Loading webpages is the worst, reading from and writing to the cache wreaks havoc on these cacheless MLC drives. Just for kicks I tried loading AnandTech while I was extracting a 5GB file on the SuperTalent 60GB MLC, it took over 10 seconds for the website to load. Once the JM602 was free to fulfill the read request, the website just popped up - but until then it was like my DNS was failing. It’s a lot like what happens to your notebook if you try and do too much, the disk quickly becomes a bottleneck.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3403&p=10

[UBB]

Tweaks aren't a guaranteed fix for the controller's faults. With the Core V1 and V2, I've gone through the OCZ tweaks with a fine toothed comb and made sure I applied them all correctly, as have others with the JMicron drives, only to find that the stuttering persisted. Users like you who have zero issues are few and far in between.


You did alignment as well and still experienced the stuttering? I gathered from reading ocz forums that proper alignment was the best tweak to alleviate stuttering. I was thinking about the lower end series but now I don't know. Probably best for me to continue waiting out Vertex with corrected firmware.

Nevermind, that looks to be for xp only.

[aja]

What are these transcend SDD's like?

http://ec.transcendusa.com/product/product_memory.asp?Cid=100&indexnum=4

Features:

Fully compatible with devices and O/S that support the SATA I standard

Built-in ECC (Error Correction Code)

Wear-leveling algorithm ensures reliable data transfer

RoHS Compliant

Low Power Consumption

Certification: CE, FCC, BSMI

2 Year Warranty

*For OS installations, SLC version is recommended!

Specification:
Size: 100mm x 69.85mm x 9.5mm
Op. Voltage: DC 5V
Op. Temperature: 0°C(32°F) to 70°C(158°F)
Weight: 48g
MTBF: 1M hours
[SLC] Max Read 136MB/s, Max Write 96MB/s. (8GB)
Max Read 135MB/s, Max Write 105MB/s. (16-32GB)
Max Read 163MB/s, Max Write 142MB/s. (64GB)
[MLC] Max Read 123MB/s, Max Write 60MB/s. (32GB)
Max Read 148MB/s, Max Write 92MB/s (64GB)
Max Read 163MB/s, Max Write 92MB/s (128-192GB)
Shock: 1500G, 0.8ms
Vibration: 3.0G, 5-800Hz

[Ashura]

You did alignment as well and still experienced the stuttering? I gathered from reading ocz forums that proper alignment was the best tweak to alleviate stuttering. I was thinking about the lower end series but now I don't know. Probably best for me to continue waiting out Vertex with corrected firmware.

Nevermind, that looks to be for xp only.

Yes, alignment was done on both XP and Vista installs along with the tweaks mentioned in the stickies. The only thing that got rid of stuttering for me was SteadyState.

The drives were tried in a number of machines btw, from a Gateway 7811FX to my 1000H to a E7200 P35 desktop.

[UBB]

Yes, alignment was done on both XP and Vista installs along with the tweaks mentioned in the stickies. The only thing that got rid of stuttering for me was SteadyState.

The drives were tried in a number of machines btw, from a Gateway 7811FX to my 1000H to a E7200 P35 desktop.

Thanks for the info.. I'm definitely going to hold out for vertex now. I can't afford to buy a decent raid card and I don't really like the steadystate solution.

[TimoneX]

stuttering issues can be fixed by using a raid card with onboard cache. another way to fix stuttering is to correctly align the partion for XP if your using it. as well as using MS-steady state. how ever this will increase bootup times since it takes random writes and turns them into sequential writes to the drive.

Vertex is a MLC based SSD that should be out soon, as said with no jmicron controller. however the Vertex drive will feature onboard cache on the drive to fix stuttering issues. i would personally at this point wait for vertex but it is a bit pricy.
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10009849
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10009850
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10009989

spawn,
even if it doesnt have the jmicron controller it will still stutter unless it is packing some on board cache. for the price i would rather get this drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820609333).

Why that particular drive sir? Aside from the obvious...price? Not picking on you, but I haven't seen any reviews yet on the ST OX series so when I see someone savvy like yourself point out a choice it gets my attention. Are you aware of any solid reviews on the OX?

[Evilsizer]

the ST OX drive for the price is way better then the corsair spawn listed. in raw read/writes the OX drive will beat it. not only that but the OX is half the price, there are some reviews for the ST OX drives. i forget which size was tested but i will have to try to find them...

[Ashura]

the ST OX drive for the price is way better then the corsair spawn listed. in raw read/writes the OX drive will beat it. not only that but the OX is half the price, there are some reviews for the ST OX drives. i forget which size was tested but i will have to try to find them...

I'm pretty sure the OX line uses the JMicron controller so there will be stuttering issues (I'll dig up a link to confirm). Not sure why you say the OX is half price either as the 128gb you linked to is $275 and the Corsair 128gb retails for $330. I've tried the Corsair (http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=594618) as have others at NBR, it has zero stuttering issues although read/writes are slower than other SSDs at 90/70. It compensates for the speed by running cooler and using less power than the other SSD in the same $/GB, the Titan.

[Evilsizer]

i must have lost track of the prices then... cause i have been eyeing the OX drive that is $120ish ...

[Ashura]

Confirmation that the OX line uses the same JMicron controller with no onboard cache:
http://www.dansdata.com/ssds.htm
http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=50184

[sil40sx]

hey guys, anyone can confirm that using a pci controller can totally eliminate the $tu?id stuttering?

also, to sum it up... #1 what SSD brand and model is/are guaranteed that doesnt have stuttering/freezing issue thats "currently" available in the market? #2 what are the benefits of the future (will be available soon) gen SSD's? #3 any brand and model in particular (from #2)

Thanks
Sil

[Ashura]

hey guys, anyone can confirm that using a pci controller can totally eliminate the $tu?id stuttering?

also, to sum it up... #1 what SSD brand and model is/are guaranteed that doesnt have stuttering/freezing issue thats "currently" available in the market? #2 what are the benefits of the future (will be available soon) gen SSD's? #3 any brand and model in particular (from #2)

Thanks
Sil

A number of people at the OCZ forums have tried the RAID card solution with success, there are a couple of threads here: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=47876

If you're going to go this route, just make sure you get a decent card.

1. No SLC SSDs suffer from stuttering but they're much more expensive. For MLC SSDs, Intel SSDs, G.Skill Titans (although apparently Firefox can be a problem, read more here (http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=351904). I still think it's worth buying.) and Corsair's SSD don't have the stuttering issue and are available.

2. Future SSDs will either have controllers with onboard cache (like the Intel currently does, like the upcoming OCZ Vertex will) or will make creative use of the JMicron controller by putting a number of them in RAID 0 (like the G.Skill Titan).

3. As mentioned above, the OCZ Vertex is supposed to use a new controller with onboard cache. Sandisk and Corsair are also both coming out with new SSDs towards the middle of the year which should be fine, don't know what the Corsair line will be called but the Sandisk line is supposed to be G3.

[ou_phidelt]

I picked up a core V2 and am going to try it out this weekend. However I do not really have high hopes and am eying the 60GB Vertex pretty hard. When they do drop I'll see what the price of the Intel 80GB is at that point. But for all those considering an Intel drive take a look at this (http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=669&type=expert&pid=1). Interesting read.