Originally Posted by docodine I expected better performance.. Lame.
Are these SSDs faster than that old Gigabyte RAMdisk?
Ah, I remember the RAMdisk.
IIRC, reviews put it somewhere around 100MB/sec, which is much slower than SSDs. Remember, that was 'ancient' PC-3200 DDR memory. Hey, that might even be in F3 territory.
Now I feel like an old fart for remembering how excited everyone was when we moved from PC-2400 to PC-2700 and then PC-3200. And the big move from 100mhz to 133mhz FSB. Now my RAM is like PC3-12800 or something silly like that.
Edit - Checked another benchmark site. Surprised me. RAMdisk is still significantly faster than anything mechanical, and on par with some older SSDs.
Glad I didn't get too carried away with the hype and buy one of these then! It usually is worth waiting for a bit-tech or custom PC review before buying.
Silly Question #1 - Can it be used as the boot drive? Can see a possible use is a tiny HTPC with a PCI-Ex riser and a Mini-ITX board.
Silly Question #2 - Firmware upgrades, not sure if this is still that case, but the 1st Gen SSDs required that any RAID setup be unmapped for individual drive firmware upgades. How is that handled by this integrated solution? When I got my first SSD (1st Gen Vertex 120GB), firmware upgrades were a weekly release!
Originally Posted by SouperAndy Silly Question #1 - Can it be used as the boot drive? Can see a possible use is a tiny HTPC with a PCI-Ex riser and a Mini-ITX board.
Why would you choose this instead of a normal SSD for use in a small HTPC? The SSD is smaller, doesn't require a PCI-e slot (or riser card) and will be significantly cheaper (for the same capacity).
Originally Posted by SouperAndy Silly Question #1 - Can it be used as the boot drive? Can see a possible use is a tiny HTPC with a PCI-Ex riser and a Mini-ITX board.
SouperAndy
Yes, it's 100% bootable, although the loading of the raid controller does add a few seconds to boot times.
Originally Posted by xaser04 Why would you choose this instead of a normal SSD for use in a small HTPC? The SSD is smaller, doesn't require a PCI-e slot (or riser card) and will be significantly cheaper (for the same capacity).
Well, if you already have a micro/pico formfactor board that doesnt have Sata 6Gbps ports..
Originally Posted by xaser04 Why would you choose this instead of a normal SSD for use in a small HTPC? The SSD is smaller, doesn't require a PCI-e slot (or riser card) and will be significantly cheaper (for the same capacity).
I'm talking really compact here, probably in a custom case.
You remove the power and SATA cable requirement and with a flexible riser you could position the card parallel (maybe even under) to mobo plane.
Originally Posted by general22 Does anybody know why TRIM can't be passed to a RAID array, just curious.
Maybe because TRIM is supported only by Windows Vista/7... In more professional environments SSDs are useless (price/negligible size/very short longevity under heavy stress) and I'm not surprised that no-one else cares about TRIM apart from Macroco$t.
In all honestly I couldn't care less about Revo or SSD as a whole. You can't escape from fact that it is a dead end. Want performance. Buy proper RAID card (at least 256MB on board cache for single array) plug 2 or 4 2.5" 7200rpm 160GB HDDs into RAID0 and forget about SSD. And if you need very fast disk for recent files when you work - buy plenty of RAM (e.g. for i7 24GB is max). Ditch swap/pagefile altogether just for a kick-off. And then create RAM disk. With 24 GB easily 12GB is enough. Running such setup for sometime, and 12GB is just enough for everything unless you want to record BlueRay or something like that. When you finish work synch data from RAM Disk to HDD and Voila (and if you don't have UPS you can setup synch command/program every minute so data won't be lost). Like I said it works perfectly, in particular with huge directories 50k, 100k and more files inside).
SATA6 SSD are interesting I admit, but faaar to expensive at the moment.
lol srsly Hakuren? and that you say will be cheaper than a "proper" SSD? I don't think so.
Proper RAID controllers are very expensive. Maybe you can get someone used. But other than that don't expect much performance from the cheaper range of RAID controllers. Also you would have a point if you went with something like VelociRaptor in RAID. Still inconvenient and not cheaper than just getting a SSD.
Also those Areca controllers are not sold everywhere. some of the better ones are difficult to get hold of. Sometimes have to source them from enterprise suppliers.
Originally Posted by general22 Does anybody know why TRIM can't be passed to a RAID array, just curious.
Maybe because TRIM is supported only by Windows Vista/7... In more professional environments SSDs are useless (price/negligible size/very short longevity under heavy stress) and I'm not surprised that no-one else cares about TRIM apart from Macroco$t.
In all honestly I couldn't care less about Revo or SSD as a whole. You can't escape from fact that it is a dead end. Want performance. Buy proper RAID card (at least 256MB on board cache for single array) plug 2 or 4 2.5" 7200rpm 160GB HDDs into RAID0 and forget about SSD. And if you need very fast disk for recent files when you work ........ snip due to tripping user.
do you even get what Trim does anyway seem more like an Rant where this is not
1 256GB SSD vertex based SSD (M225 or Trim supported SSD's but not JMmicron based SSDs) for out way the cost and speed (that your not likely notice) of ram Ramdrive setup and Ram it self, its like when you raid 2 SSD all your getting is more data rate and bit more random access (until the disk runs out of empty blocks then Write Tanks in speed) that only server Disk I/O loads loads is where you could tell an difference, Why i always say Buy the size of SSD you need Do not raid them or you lose TRIM support and in turn ends up slower then 1 SSD no matter how many SSDs you raid as each SSD with have an Write access time of 100+ when the drive is not trim'ed (OK yes Read access and random read would go to 300-800MB/s or random 100MB/s+ but Real would use you not notice that unless server Disk I/O loads are in play)
do note RAM drives are fast thought but have to be Very specific to use an system in that way
And windows 7 or maybe 2008 R2 server (as its basically win7 just optimised for server use) supports Trim, Not Vista or 2008 server or lower (even thought its not that hard to add Trim support to the NTFS.sys driver as its what does it when an delete command is processed)
SSDs are a dead end, only wannabe "enthusiasts" use them. If you need performance, you buy a proper RAID controller and several 10k or 15k disks - it seems expensive, but in fact the price per GB isn't much worse than SSDs, and you get useable diskspace.
Consumer SSDs don't make much sense, I can only see one good reason to use them - they're quiet. But to have some actual data you still need a mechanical HDD, so that advantage dies here, especially if you consider the cost factor of consumer SSDs.
Also, putting such emphasis on TRIM is silly. It's limited to one OS and the lack of it can be easily worked around.
Originally Posted by TheUn4seen SSDs are a dead end, only wannabe "enthusiasts" use them. If you need performance, you buy a proper RAID controller and several 10k or 15k disks - it seems expensive, but in fact the price per GB isn't much worse than SSDs, and you get useable diskspace.
Consumer SSDs don't make much sense, I can only see one good reason to use them - they're quiet. But to have some actual data you still need a mechanical HDD, so that advantage dies here, especially if you consider the cost factor of consumer SSDs.
Also, putting such emphasis on TRIM is silly. It's limited to one OS and the lack of it can be easily worked around.
Eh?
you can't think of any reasons other than the noise levels to use a single 2.5" SSD, consuming a couple watts of power and offering genuine benefits in terms of desktop user experience to and alternative of say, spending in excess of £2000 for a decent SAS RAID controller and around 2TB of usable space with 3.5" drives (and a huge case) or 1TB of usable space of 2.5" drives - that still wouldn't offer the user a desktop experience matching a single low capacity SSD in addition to a large SATA storage drive?
You're right, I can't think of any reasons the SSD is a valid option either
TRIM makes sense too. I should imagine an overwhelming majority of the target market for consumer SSDs, being "cutting edge" and all, is on Windows 7 anyway.
SSDs are far from dead, in fact they're only just starting to catch on in the enterprise sector.
I'm sorry to say that no amount of RAID'ing of 15K SAS drives is going to match a good SSD like the C300's or the newer Intel SSDs.
I use 15K 300Gb SCSI drives on one of my rigs and they are faster than regular 7,200/10,000rpm drives but not in the same ballpark as a good SSD (like my laptops Intel X-25M G2 160Gb).
Originally Posted by Hakuren Maybe because TRIM is supported only by Windows Vista/7... In more professional environments SSDs are useless (price/negligible size/very short longevity under heavy stress) and I'm not surprised that no-one else cares about TRIM apart from Macroco$t.
In all honestly I couldn't care less about Revo or SSD as a whole. You can't escape from fact that it is a dead end. Want performance. Buy proper RAID card (at least 256MB on board cache for single array) plug 2 or 4 2.5" 7200rpm 160GB HDDs into RAID0 and forget about SSD. And if you need very fast disk for recent files when you work - buy plenty of RAM (e.g. for i7 24GB is max). Ditch swap/pagefile altogether just for a kick-off. And then create RAM disk. With 24 GB easily 12GB is enough. Running such setup for sometime, and 12GB is just enough for everything unless you want to record BlueRay or something like that. When you finish work synch data from RAM Disk to HDD and Voila (and if you don't have UPS you can setup synch command/program every minute so data won't be lost). Like I said it works perfectly, in particular with huge directories 50k, 100k and more files inside).
SATA6 SSD are interesting I admit, but faaar to expensive at the moment.
Yes but you forget that 24GB of ram is going to cost you a lot more than this drive, a couple hundred pounds/three hundred dollars. Plus you can't boot from it and in a enterprise environment it is unworkable as with power failure you have data loss.
However, some filesystems can use free memory to use as cache for the rest of the filesystem, sitting on hard drives and then use ssds as a cache after memory, with the slower mechanical drives providing storage space. In enterprise, this usually brings highest performance for the cost with excellent reliability. But it is far from mainstream.
Originally Posted by Saivert lol srsly Hakuren? and that you say will be cheaper than a "proper" SSD? I don't think so.
Proper RAID controllers are very expensive. Maybe you can get someone used. But other than that don't expect much performance from the cheaper range of RAID controllers. Also you would have a point if you went with something like VelociRaptor in RAID. Still inconvenient and not cheaper than just getting a SSD.
Also those Areca controllers are not sold everywhere. some of the better ones are difficult to get hold of. Sometimes have to source them from enterprise suppliers.
At least that is my impression of it.
Um, don't know man but I just ordered one and and it cost 80 dollars more than a vertex 2 120gb. We'll see how performance is :)
Hahaha interesting replies there, I am going to take a guess and say that TRIM is tough to implement for a RAID solution since the data may be across different disks and then you have the problem of parity data in more complex RAID structures.
Aren't there manufacturers utilities though that can you can run to do this garbage collection on the SSD's? You could set up an SSD RAID array and then just run this utility every so often and restore the performance.
Originally Posted by general22 Hahaha interesting replies there, I am going to take a guess and say that TRIM is tough to implement for a RAID solution since the data may be across different disks and then you have the problem of parity data in more complex RAID structures.
Aren't there manufacturers utilities though that can you can run to do this garbage collection on the SSD's? You could set up an SSD RAID array and then just run this utility every so often and restore the performance.
Or just backup the whole drive every so often, wipe it a couple times and then move the data back on.
Originally Posted by TheUn4seen SSDs are a dead end, only wannabe "enthusiasts" use them. If you need performance, you buy a proper RAID controller and several 10k or 15k disks - it seems expensive, but in fact the price per GB isn't much worse than SSDs, and you get useable diskspace.
Consumer SSDs don't make much sense, I can only see one good reason to use them - they're quiet. But to have some actual data you still need a mechanical HDD, so that advantage dies here, especially if you consider the cost factor of consumer SSDs.
Also, putting such emphasis on TRIM is silly. It's limited to one OS and the lack of it can be easily worked around.
again why would any one on Bit-tech or normal users use 7 10k or 15k HDDs (ok maybe if it was something Very special like case mod or enterprise or high end workstation stuff but you could use SLC based SSD'S then but that does cost you) that's just stupid and would cost more then 1 SSD thats 256GB
Most users who Post about SSDs are bad are Most likely Never Used an SSD before or they used the FirstGen SSDs that lacked TRIM or used an JMmicron based SSD (the Best way on How to Not make an SSD)
i started on the S128 yes it was Slow at data rate{slower then an HDD :P} and Write random access did suck an little (only issue was Steam unlocking Pre-downloaded games), but it all made up for it in Random Read I/O as really thats all you should be looking at when getting an SSD and Any SSD above an Vertex or M225 (256GB i have now got it before it went up £100) personally just buy the cheapest SSD you can as they are all got good Random I/O now, i would not even Bother to look at what speed they can read and Write at when Reading/Writing sequential data as that's not what happens on an Real OS from day to day
by having to manually run the Trim tool every so often is they only way with an M225 or vertex SSD with Vista or XP
if you need speed and your willing to Spend that much just for Data rate + storage get 1 256GB or 128GB SSD and 2-4 raptors in RAID 0 or 5 (make sure you use the up to date Intel matrix driver so TRIM still works on the None raided SSD)
if you have Never used an SSD or an good SSD form the start you do not know what your missing with Near instant response to programs and files (msot of the time its lower then 1ms< you Throw random at an HDD aka Vista for very good example they die under I/O and become unresponsive )
there currently is an bug in the firmware (like intel) if you fill This SSD to the point it runs out of space the drive becomes degraded permanently and what makes it worse with the IBIS or Revdrive you can not perform an low level format to it to fix it you have to RMA it currently, if tests was performed after drive had been put into an degraded state the review is invalid
under Norm use the SF-1200 even under raid the GC works well (anandtech tested it) as long as you do not Fill the disk to the point it runs out of space, but for the price of these cards i would recommend an Single SF-1200 or Single C300 based SSD, unless you require the High I/O RAID SSDs is pointless (i had an play with an Corsair F40 and i was Quite surprised on the slight speed improvement it had given, thats Real world not benchmarks like boot up and updates and programs)
Comments 1 to 25 of 26
ReplyAre these SSDs faster than that old Gigabyte RAMdisk?
Ah, I remember the RAMdisk.
IIRC, reviews put it somewhere around 100MB/sec, which is much slower than SSDs. Remember, that was 'ancient' PC-3200 DDR memory. Hey, that might even be in F3 territory.
Now I feel like an old fart for remembering how excited everyone was when we moved from PC-2400 to PC-2700 and then PC-3200. And the big move from 100mhz to 133mhz FSB. Now my RAM is like PC3-12800 or something silly like that.
Edit - Checked another benchmark site. Surprised me. RAMdisk is still significantly faster than anything mechanical, and on par with some older SSDs.
Silly Question #2 - Firmware upgrades, not sure if this is still that case, but the 1st Gen SSDs required that any RAID setup be unmapped for individual drive firmware upgades. How is that handled by this integrated solution? When I got my first SSD (1st Gen Vertex 120GB), firmware upgrades were a weekly release!
Cheers,
SouperAndy
and that it suffers from performance degredation is an obvious byproduct
originally it was stated by ocz on their forums that trim wouldnt matter because it would be so fast.
but OCZ are essentially saying that they are not going to support the drive.
the review mentions nothing about the fact that they had to be recalled because they simply didnt work?
Why would you choose this instead of a normal SSD for use in a small HTPC? The SSD is smaller, doesn't require a PCI-e slot (or riser card) and will be significantly cheaper (for the same capacity).
Yes, it's 100% bootable, although the loading of the raid controller does add a few seconds to boot times.
Well, if you already have a micro/pico formfactor board that doesnt have Sata 6Gbps ports..
I'm talking really compact here, probably in a custom case.
You remove the power and SATA cable requirement and with a flexible riser you could position the card parallel (maybe even under) to mobo plane.
Cheers,
SouperAndy
Maybe because TRIM is supported only by Windows Vista/7... In more professional environments SSDs are useless (price/negligible size/very short longevity under heavy stress) and I'm not surprised that no-one else cares about TRIM apart from Macroco$t.
In all honestly I couldn't care less about Revo or SSD as a whole. You can't escape from fact that it is a dead end. Want performance. Buy proper RAID card (at least 256MB on board cache for single array) plug 2 or 4 2.5" 7200rpm 160GB HDDs into RAID0 and forget about SSD. And if you need very fast disk for recent files when you work - buy plenty of RAM (e.g. for i7 24GB is max). Ditch swap/pagefile altogether just for a kick-off. And then create RAM disk. With 24 GB easily 12GB is enough. Running such setup for sometime, and 12GB is just enough for everything unless you want to record BlueRay or something like that. When you finish work synch data from RAM Disk to HDD and Voila (and if you don't have UPS you can setup synch command/program every minute so data won't be lost). Like I said it works perfectly, in particular with huge directories 50k, 100k and more files inside).
SATA6 SSD are interesting I admit, but faaar to expensive at the moment.
Proper RAID controllers are very expensive. Maybe you can get someone used. But other than that don't expect much performance from the cheaper range of RAID controllers. Also you would have a point if you went with something like VelociRaptor in RAID. Still inconvenient and not cheaper than just getting a SSD.
Also those Areca controllers are not sold everywhere. some of the better ones are difficult to get hold of. Sometimes have to source them from enterprise suppliers.
At least that is my impression of it.
do you even get what Trim does anyway seem more like an Rant where this is not
1 256GB SSD vertex based SSD (M225 or Trim supported SSD's but not JMmicron based SSDs) for out way the cost and speed (that your not likely notice) of ram Ramdrive setup and Ram it self, its like when you raid 2 SSD all your getting is more data rate and bit more random access (until the disk runs out of empty blocks then Write Tanks in speed) that only server Disk I/O loads loads is where you could tell an difference, Why i always say Buy the size of SSD you need Do not raid them or you lose TRIM support and in turn ends up slower then 1 SSD no matter how many SSDs you raid as each SSD with have an Write access time of 100+ when the drive is not trim'ed (OK yes Read access and random read would go to 300-800MB/s or random 100MB/s+ but Real would use you not notice that unless server Disk I/O loads are in play)
do note RAM drives are fast thought but have to be Very specific to use an system in that way
And windows 7 or maybe 2008 R2 server (as its basically win7 just optimised for server use) supports Trim, Not Vista or 2008 server or lower (even thought its not that hard to add Trim support to the NTFS.sys driver as its what does it when an delete command is processed)
DONT
RAID
SSDs
Insofar as Haruken's post goes, it's so far off the mark for what any sensible consumer would buy I don't even know where to start.
Consumer SSDs don't make much sense, I can only see one good reason to use them - they're quiet. But to have some actual data you still need a mechanical HDD, so that advantage dies here, especially if you consider the cost factor of consumer SSDs.
Also, putting such emphasis on TRIM is silly. It's limited to one OS and the lack of it can be easily worked around.
Eh?
you can't think of any reasons other than the noise levels to use a single 2.5" SSD, consuming a couple watts of power and offering genuine benefits in terms of desktop user experience to and alternative of say, spending in excess of £2000 for a decent SAS RAID controller and around 2TB of usable space with 3.5" drives (and a huge case) or 1TB of usable space of 2.5" drives - that still wouldn't offer the user a desktop experience matching a single low capacity SSD in addition to a large SATA storage drive?
You're right, I can't think of any reasons the SSD is a valid option either
TRIM makes sense too. I should imagine an overwhelming majority of the target market for consumer SSDs, being "cutting edge" and all, is on Windows 7 anyway.
SSDs are far from dead, in fact they're only just starting to catch on in the enterprise sector.
I use 15K 300Gb SCSI drives on one of my rigs and they are faster than regular 7,200/10,000rpm drives but not in the same ballpark as a good SSD (like my laptops Intel X-25M G2 160Gb).
STRIPING DRIVES DOES NOT REDUCE ACCESS LATENCY
Yes but you forget that 24GB of ram is going to cost you a lot more than this drive, a couple hundred pounds/three hundred dollars. Plus you can't boot from it and in a enterprise environment it is unworkable as with power failure you have data loss.
However, some filesystems can use free memory to use as cache for the rest of the filesystem, sitting on hard drives and then use ssds as a cache after memory, with the slower mechanical drives providing storage space. In enterprise, this usually brings highest performance for the cost with excellent reliability. But it is far from mainstream.
Um, don't know man but I just ordered one and and it cost 80 dollars more than a vertex 2 120gb. We'll see how performance is :)
Aren't there manufacturers utilities though that can you can run to do this garbage collection on the SSD's? You could set up an SSD RAID array and then just run this utility every so often and restore the performance.
Or just backup the whole drive every so often, wipe it a couple times and then move the data back on.
again why would any one on Bit-tech or normal users use 7 10k or 15k HDDs (ok maybe if it was something Very special like case mod or enterprise or high end workstation stuff but you could use SLC based SSD'S then but that does cost you) that's just stupid and would cost more then 1 SSD thats 256GB
Most users who Post about SSDs are bad are Most likely Never Used an SSD before or they used the FirstGen SSDs that lacked TRIM or used an JMmicron based SSD (the Best way on How to Not make an SSD)
i started on the S128 yes it was Slow at data rate{slower then an HDD :P} and Write random access did suck an little (only issue was Steam unlocking Pre-downloaded games), but it all made up for it in Random Read I/O as really thats all you should be looking at when getting an SSD and Any SSD above an Vertex or M225 (256GB i have now got it before it went up £100) personally just buy the cheapest SSD you can as they are all got good Random I/O now, i would not even Bother to look at what speed they can read and Write at when Reading/Writing sequential data as that's not what happens on an Real OS from day to day
by having to manually run the Trim tool every so often is they only way with an M225 or vertex SSD with Vista or XP
if you need speed and your willing to Spend that much just for Data rate + storage get 1 256GB or 128GB SSD and 2-4 raptors in RAID 0 or 5 (make sure you use the up to date Intel matrix driver so TRIM still works on the None raided SSD)
if you have Never used an SSD or an good SSD form the start you do not know what your missing with Near instant response to programs and files (msot of the time its lower then 1ms< you Throw random at an HDD aka Vista for very good example they die under I/O and become unresponsive )
there currently is an bug in the firmware (like intel) if you fill This SSD to the point it runs out of space the drive becomes degraded permanently and what makes it worse with the IBIS or Revdrive you can not perform an low level format to it to fix it you have to RMA it currently, if tests was performed after drive had been put into an degraded state the review is invalid
under Norm use the SF-1200 even under raid the GC works well (anandtech tested it) as long as you do not Fill the disk to the point it runs out of space, but for the price of these cards i would recommend an Single SF-1200 or Single C300 based SSD, unless you require the High I/O RAID SSDs is pointless (i had an play with an Corsair F40 and i was Quite surprised on the slight speed improvement it had given, thats Real world not benchmarks like boot up and updates and programs)
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