I Hoped the sandforce controllers would mean one (or both) of two things:
1) A further alround performance increase
2) Indilix controllers would become cheaper
With this review I do not feel compelled to drop the extra for a sandforce, and I expect Indilix controlled drives will see no reason to drop in price either.
(and yes I know the price is dictated by NAND prices more than the controller price)
Sooooo, based on this review, do youguys at bit-tech still recommend the original Vertex as the SSD of choice??
hmm, until we have a look at that Corsair F120 and some other 120GB SandForce drives I'd hold off tbh. The SandForce SF-1200 is faster than Inidilinx's Barefoot, and the 120GB drives are roughly the same price at the moment.
However, there's also the interesting info that SandForce drives can potentially use cheaper NAND than the high-quality stuff in these and Indilinx drives (see page 1). I suspect we'll see big changes in the SSD world, so wait to see what happens over the next few months.
Just a quick question: Could we expect similar performance from the smaller sized drives of the same family?
I know that wasn't always the case with HDD's due to differences in platter density & so forth, just wondering how that stacks up with SSD's.
The reason I ask is that I was toying with the idea of the 50GB OCZ Vertex 2 as a boot drive, (currently around £141 from Aria). For myself, my first SSD will probably be one of the smaller ones...
SSD's are still too exspensive at the moment and spending that sort of money I would spend it on something more performance related ie graphics card. Untill the price drops i'm keep to my Samsung F1 (if ain't broke don't change it).
Originally Posted by John_T Just a quick question: Could we expect similar performance from the smaller sized drives of the same family?
I know that wasn't always the case with HDD's due to differences in platter density & so forth, just wondering how that stacks up with SSD's.
The reason I ask is that I was toying with the idea of the 50GB OCZ Vertex 2 as a boot drive, (currently around £141 from Aria). For myself, my first SSD will probably be one of the smaller ones...
The ever-so helpful answer is 'probably'. Manufacturers are telling us there should be no difference in performance, but as they'll need to use new firmware, there's a chance something will go wrong (or improve, obviously). Until we test one, we don't know for sure!
Had hoped that it would make the indlinx drives cheaper was hoping to get one if the price dropped a bit. Will be sticking with my f1's for a little longer.
I bought a Toshiba based Kingston drive (30Gb) for my HP 6735s laptop (AMD 780G based).
The Toshiba drive works very badly, and crashed a LOT, it was also impossible to install Win7 directly.
Went to a Intel 40gb Value SSD, no probs whatsoever.
Latest BIOS and Firmwares all round.
Some older chipsets may not have the neccessary BIOS updates, or may just be purely incompatible with some SSD's, so check before you buy, that someone has already had it working in the same type of config.
Will be waiting for the next gen controllers in sept-oct before making any more SSD purchases, this time round was just to get my laptop more sturdy ;)
Originally Posted by Claave The ever-so helpful answer is 'probably'. Manufacturers are telling us there should be no difference in performance, but as they'll need to use new firmware, there's a chance something will go wrong (or improve, obviously). Until we test one, we don't know for sure!
That's fair enough - thanks for trying!
I think I'll hold off for a while longer then. I'm approaching willingness to spend £100+ on my first SSD, I just don't have the stomach for £200+, at least not until I've experienced it first-hand and can make a better judgement on whether it's worth it or not for me.
I had always said it'd take breaking the £1 per GB barrier for me to jump in, but truth be told, they're slow at doing that and I'm getting impatient!
"As we add more NAND die to the C300 platform, the drive can perform more parallel transactions, which increases write performance."
"The other capacity-specific difference is the amount of over-provisioning that is available. NAND natively has around 6 percent over-provisioning built in, so as SSD capacity goes up so does the corresponding percentage of over-provisioning. This increase in 'spare area' results in greater performance in the larger capacity drives."
Originally Posted by John_T Just a quick question: Could we expect similar performance from the smaller sized drives of the same family?
I know that wasn't always the case with HDD's due to differences in platter density & so forth, just wondering how that stacks up with SSD's.
The reason I ask is that I was toying with the idea of the 50GB OCZ Vertex 2 as a boot drive, (currently around £141 from Aria). For myself, my first SSD will probably be one of the smaller ones...
i couldnt be happier with my Intel X25-V 40GB SSD. For £90 i got a drive that changed my whole experience with using computers, and i don't have any issues managing my OS storage etc.
I had my work pick me up an OCZ Vertex LE 100GB (based on the SF-1500 controller). I really really need both the random write speeds and the sequential reads from the SF controllers, and in the end, it's not my money they are spending. Hopefully I'll have the drive in the workstation in the next couple of weeks.
Now for my personally PC, I'll wait till Q4 when Intel starts to talk more about their 25nm based drives which should have a new controller as well. Prices should be a lot cheaper by Q1, so I feel like it's a good time to wait if you aren't desperate to move to an SSD (like I am at work).
Another update. The 9.0.14 intel drives does support TRIM. Just not when you have SSD in RAID, but a system with SSD + HD RAID works. You should use them on the next round up.
what do you do for a living i only ask as i have been itching to try a few sql databases on one see what performance gains i acheive
I am a mechanical engineer, so I do a lot of analysis that need decent hard drive speeds and I also do some HD video editing and 3DS Max rendering for the company (all of which need good read speeds).
So I'm not your typical tech user, but I get so frustrated when my simulations start to slow way down because it's either paging to the HDD or just writing a ton of data.
for any one els who is reading this review Any program under windows 7 or command (like full format that can be done from the DVD it self no need to use HDDerase) Triggers the TRIM command the Recycle Bin to trigger the TRIM command as is overly stated so many times is in no way the Only way that the TRIM command happens
Any program the Permanently deletes an file will result in TRIM been sent the to disk as the command works at the File system level (NTFS) and passes it down to the driver in turn sends it to the SSD (if the Driver and SSD supports it and the SSD is Not in RAID)
and to add to that is System restore is still enabled and the Recycle bin is been emptied is most likely cases it get sent to an restore point shadow for undoing later on (depending how long the file has been there)
why are the drives been put into an filled state any way (from the test setup page) as the test system is going to be TRIM supported system any way why put the SSDs into an filled state thats not going to happen even under heavy use due to windows 7 sending the TRIM command, the only reason i could think of putting them into an filled state is if you Had 2 Test systems so you can compare the results of both one with Trim support and one with none
Comments 1 to 25 of 36
ReplyMight want to change the price of the x-25m on the last page, it costs around £350 not £500.
Ah, we were working from a silly price on a Gen 1 drive - have updated the article, thanks!
I Hoped the sandforce controllers would mean one (or both) of two things:
1) A further alround performance increase
2) Indilix controllers would become cheaper
With this review I do not feel compelled to drop the extra for a sandforce, and I expect Indilix controlled drives will see no reason to drop in price either.
(and yes I know the price is dictated by NAND prices more than the controller price)
Sooooo, based on this review, do youguys at bit-tech still recommend the original Vertex as the SSD of choice??
However, there's also the interesting info that SandForce drives can potentially use cheaper NAND than the high-quality stuff in these and Indilinx drives (see page 1). I suspect we'll see big changes in the SSD world, so wait to see what happens over the next few months.
I know that wasn't always the case with HDD's due to differences in platter density & so forth, just wondering how that stacks up with SSD's.
The reason I ask is that I was toying with the idea of the 50GB OCZ Vertex 2 as a boot drive, (currently around £141 from Aria). For myself, my first SSD will probably be one of the smaller ones...
These are for people with more money than sense!
The ever-so helpful answer is 'probably'. Manufacturers are telling us there should be no difference in performance, but as they'll need to use new firmware, there's a chance something will go wrong (or improve, obviously). Until we test one, we don't know for sure!
The Toshiba drive works very badly, and crashed a LOT, it was also impossible to install Win7 directly.
Went to a Intel 40gb Value SSD, no probs whatsoever.
Latest BIOS and Firmwares all round.
Some older chipsets may not have the neccessary BIOS updates, or may just be purely incompatible with some SSD's, so check before you buy, that someone has already had it working in the same type of config.
Will be waiting for the next gen controllers in sept-oct before making any more SSD purchases, this time round was just to get my laptop more sturdy ;)
That's fair enough - thanks for trying!
I think I'll hold off for a while longer then. I'm approaching willingness to spend £100+ on my first SSD, I just don't have the stomach for £200+, at least not until I've experienced it first-hand and can make a better judgement on whether it's worth it or not for me.
I had always said it'd take breaking the £1 per GB barrier for me to jump in, but truth be told, they're slow at doing that and I'm getting impatient!
I'm not in a position to comment on these specific drives, but the Crucial 64GB drive does suffer from 'small drive syndrome':
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/25/lexar_crucial_64gb/
"As we add more NAND die to the C300 platform, the drive can perform more parallel transactions, which increases write performance."
"The other capacity-specific difference is the amount of over-provisioning that is available. NAND natively has around 6 percent over-provisioning built in, so as SSD capacity goes up so does the corresponding percentage of over-provisioning. This increase in 'spare area' results in greater performance in the larger capacity drives."
i couldnt be happier with my Intel X25-V 40GB SSD. For £90 i got a drive that changed my whole experience with using computers, and i don't have any issues managing my OS storage etc.
Now for my personally PC, I'll wait till Q4 when Intel starts to talk more about their 25nm based drives which should have a new controller as well. Prices should be a lot cheaper by Q1, so I feel like it's a good time to wait if you aren't desperate to move to an SSD (like I am at work).
what do you do for a living i only ask as i have been itching to try a few sql databases on one see what performance gains i acheive
(For a standard/home user, not continually writing - eg not server)
hopefuly google chrome auto goes to the next page that i am about to try
I am a mechanical engineer, so I do a lot of analysis that need decent hard drive speeds and I also do some HD video editing and 3DS Max rendering for the company (all of which need good read speeds).
So I'm not your typical tech user, but I get so frustrated when my simulations start to slow way down because it's either paging to the HDD or just writing a ton of data.
for any one els who is reading this review Any program under windows 7 or command (like full format that can be done from the DVD it self no need to use HDDerase) Triggers the TRIM command the Recycle Bin to trigger the TRIM command as is overly stated so many times is in no way the Only way that the TRIM command happens
Any program the Permanently deletes an file will result in TRIM been sent the to disk as the command works at the File system level (NTFS) and passes it down to the driver in turn sends it to the SSD (if the Driver and SSD supports it and the SSD is Not in RAID)
and to add to that is System restore is still enabled and the Recycle bin is been emptied is most likely cases it get sent to an restore point shadow for undoing later on (depending how long the file has been there)
why are the drives been put into an filled state any way (from the test setup page) as the test system is going to be TRIM supported system any way why put the SSDs into an filled state thats not going to happen even under heavy use due to windows 7 sending the TRIM command, the only reason i could think of putting them into an filled state is if you Had 2 Test systems so you can compare the results of both one with Trim support and one with none
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/9391/semttuloee.jpg
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