Comparing SSD's

[alostpacket]

Also Samsung dropped like all their prices a day or two ago. But they still aint cheap heh.

 

[Mehta23]

I read a review that the 830 was quicker than the 840, but not as good as the 840 Pro.

With prices coming down here, I think I am going to - sadly- postpone my SSD and get me a Nexus 7.

Still, if I'm lucky, I can get a SSD for my Birthday ;-)

But I'm still looking at getting that SanDisk Extreme 240GB. By April, it should be less than

 

[SUroot]

I've just cloned my 7200 rpm HDD to an SSD and man, can I see the difference. I think they're so much faster in general that at the high end, you won't really feel much between one SSD and another (to an extent)

 

[Mehta23]

May not be able to get the tablet now, but looking at the SSD's again - prices have increased. The one £125 sandisk is now at least £135, which is very closely priced to some other drives.

 

[Savage Shadows]

Why not go for smaller but top performance SSD, put your OS and most used heavy CPU and GPU intensive programs on there, and keep your HDD for everything else?

 

[Mehta23]

Good point, and it was what I was asking about earlier on in the thread. But Windows , we've said, is around 20GB at least, I think SpeedDeamon said it was even 40GB. Then I have quite a few large games and files that I'd like on there, so even if I could fit all my stuff onto a 120GB drive, I was told that a 240Gb would be more sensible, and I'd then have more space for future stuff

Also, I'l give you an idea of the pricing here in the UK:
Samsung 840 Pro ( I'm assuming this is high performance enough) is

 

[johnlgalt]

But if you bought 2 smaller capacity drives you could still have the space you wanted, just spread on different drives.

I the price break is still around 150 GB then it makes sense to get two smaller drives. However, if the price break is high, say around 240, then it makes sense to get the larger drive.

For maximum performance, you'll need multiple SSDs and a RAID setup, which really goes far beyond what you're looking for, though.

I took my older 80GB SSD and made it my repository for the user tree and manually installed a couple of my larger, but less HD intensive games there, keeping the 180 more free for business and compiling a well as Mass Effect

 

[Mehta23]

Two sandisk 120gb drives are £140.
One 240gb is £129.

£11 quid doesn't sound bad, I should have ough space and airflow, it just means I'll have to rotate the hdd cage and maybe get some more case fans.

Quick research shows that one big drive seems to be favoured. Although the performance on them could be different now - im referring to forum posts that are more than a year old

 

[Mehta23]

I got an email from Scan, and they've reduced their OCZ Octane down to £113. Good deal I think. SATA 3 ( I think)

Max Read: up to 535MB/s
Max Write: up to 270MB/s

Whereas the Sandisk Extreme 240GB, for £129

550MB/s read speeds and 520MB/s

I know those figures don't necessarily mean much, but I definitely know that the Sandisk offers the right kinds of speeds in the right areas, compared to SSD's that are quite a bit more.

So... Octane vs Extreme....

Edit:

Found this comparison, and it looks like the 4K random ( which I've been told is the most used) is a lot better with the Sandisk.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/[primary-term]/sandisk_extreme_ssd_240gb_review

But the octane is quite a bit faster in other places. May have to do more research and get that application to analyse which bits are used more.

Also, I need to check the price of a 120gb octane, but i only have 2 sata 6gbps, so if I get 2 SSD's, my hdd will have to go on a 3gbps slot. OK ? Or is it worth getting a pcie adapter thingy

 

[johnlgalt]

I got an email from Scan, and they've reduced their OCZ Octane down to £113. Good deal I think. SATA 3 ( I think)

Max Read: up to 535MB/s
Max Write: up to 270MB/s

Whereas the Sandisk Extreme 240GB, for £129

550MB/s read speeds and 520MB/s

I know those figures don't necessarily mean much, but I definitely know that the Sandisk offers the right kinds of speeds in the right areas, compared to SSD's that are quite a bit more.

So... Octane vs Extreme....

Edit:

Found this comparison, and it looks like the 4K random ( which I've been told is the most used) is a lot better with the Sandisk.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/[primary-term]/sandisk_extreme_ssd_240gb_review

But the octane is quite a bit faster in other places. May have to do more research and get that application to analyse which bits are used more.

Also, I need to check the price of a 120gb octane, but i only have 2 sata 6gbps, so if I get 2 SSD's, my hdd will have to go on a 3gbps slot. OK ? Or is it worth getting a pcie adapter thingy

Max write of only 270? Are you sure that is a true SATA III drive? You can use a SATA II drive on a SATA III connection (I know, I did it with my Intel X25-M Gen2 until I bought the Cherryville drive) but the HD is still the bottleneck in that case.

I it were me and I were buying, I'd opt for the slightly more expensive Sandisk b/c of the overall speed. But, it will be highly dependent on your use of it....

 

[Mehta23]

For some reason , I forgot about the max speeds.

Now its 2x 120gb sandisks vs one 240gb

 

[Mehta23]

Would have 2 smaller SSD's on a 6gbps slot and then my hdd on a 3gbps be alright?

I could get a pcie adapter so the hdd is on another 6gbps slot.

Also, would 2 SSD's be faster? Cos I thought the bigger ones had better performance...

 

[Mehta23]

Anyone?

 

[Speed Daemon]

Would have 2 smaller SSD's on a 6gbps slot and then my hdd on a 3gbps be alright?

I could get a pcie adapter so the hdd is on another 6gbps slot.

Also, would 2 SSD's be faster? Cos I thought the bigger ones had better performance...

With a serial interface like SATA or SAS you'll need one port per disk.

You can use two SSD drives in a RAID0 stripe set for greater throughput. I am in the habit of buying a good RAID HBA card with battery backup for things like that. I'm guessing that you're constrained by what's available on the motherboard? Only 2 6 BGps ports?

Spinning disk HDD technology isn't going to saturate a 6 GBps connection (or even a 3 GBps one), so yes you should try to use the quickest ones for the SSDs.

 

[Mehta23]

Really? So I should get two smaller SSD's (sandisk 120gb £140) and Lowe the pcie adapter?

Will order soon

 

[Speed Daemon]

Really? So I should get two smaller SSD's (sandisk 120gb £140) and Lowe the pcie adapter?

Will order soon

Before you do, you should know that if you lose data on one drive, the array can quit functioning. RAID0 offers no data protection, only speed. And if it fails, it's much harder to try to recover data from than a single drive.

Because SSDs do lose data more quickly than magnetic storage (under normal operation), I'd only use a RAID0 array to speed up access of very large files like uncompressed video. If I was using it for a boot partition, I'd mirror the RAID0 array with a duplicate one in RAID 0+1, which means 4 drives and a fairly costly RAID controller. (You can use the software RAID functionality that some motherboards offer, but those don't offer the same level of protection as a good battery-backed one.)

You can use the 2 smaller SSD drives in JBOD configuration, with one as your boot/system disk and the other for data.

 

[Mehta23]

The biggest files used would be images / videos that I'm editing. Happy for them to be on hdd.

Would your last option be better than one big ssd?
Also... SSD's lose data?

 

[SUroot]

How much performance does raid0 add to ssd (if its possible to quantify) compared to a 7200?

 

[Speed Daemon]

RAID0 (which technically isn't RAID because there's no redundancy) reads and writes data from/to several drives in a round-robin fashion. In theory you could string an unlimited number of drives together, although there are practical limitations. If you have SSD drives that can saturate a 6GiBps SATA channel, one will yield 6GiBps throughput, 2 will yield 12GiBps, 3 for 18GiBps and so forth. So you could use RAID0 to build a VERY fast virtual drive!

The downside is that RAID0 isn't redundant. Every drive is a link in the chain, and more drives means more things that can fail. And in RAID0, when one link fails, the entire chain is broken. That's why RAID0 is rarely used alone.

Although it's possible to use software RAID, I strongly recommend using a hardware RAID adapter card. A 4-channel card and 4 SSD devices can be used to make one virtual drive that's as much as 4 times as fast as a single SSD. As tempting as this is, I'd make a RAID 0+1 array, with a pair of 2-drive RAID0 arrays being mirrored to keep the data safe in case one or two drives fail. With an 8-channel card and 8 SSD drives, you can make a blazing fast 24GiBps array that's also protected from failure...if you can afford it!

I've seen RAID cards that take regular SD cards, and use them to create a RAID array that looks like a regular SATA drive to your computer. If you have a bunch of identical, large capacity SD cards just laying around, this might be for you. I don't know if it's any cheaper than using actual SSD devices, but it's certainly compact; everything fits onto the adapter card!

BTW, you can use regular "spinning disk" drives in RAID0 too.

 

[Speed Daemon]

The biggest files used would be images / videos that I'm editing. Happy for them to be on hdd.

Now that I'm doing more and more video transcoding, I could use a really fast "scratch drive" to speed up disk I/O whenever it becomes the bottleneck. Right now my old computers don't challenge my "spinning disk" drives, but if I upgrade to a faster one, it could benefit from the speed of SSD.

Would your last option be better than one big ssd?

If you're finding that your workflow is disk I/O bound, then having enough SSD capacity to put your work files on SSD while you're editing them will help. If the one smaller SSD doesn't give you enough space to do this, then adding a second one will give you this space. Another benefit of keeping your system and data physical drives separate is that system disk I/O won't slow down your work. It's a small performance increase, but if you're saving money by buying 2 smaller SSD drives, it's a free benefit.

Also... SSD's lose data?

Yes. All solid state storage has a much more limited number of read/write cycles than their magnetic counterparts. The microscopic microcircuitry is prone to damage from stuff like cosmic rays, as well as regular use. And the faster the SSD, the more prone to data loss they are.

I can only assume that a good SSD will have spare sectors to use when the inevitable failures happen, but the bottom line is that SSD users should plan on replacing their SSD devices sooner than later.

This may not become a problem for people and companies who can afford regular hardware upgrades. But if you're cash-strapped, you might want to start saving for a replacement SSD the minute you buy your latest one. By the same token I'd avoid buying used SSD devices unless they're from the factory and carry a full warranty.

 

[Mehta23]

Glad I'm researching into this now...
But it's seeming like spending a lot of money on these isn't such a good idea...

How long should a SSD last?

Also, 2x 120GB SanDisk Extremes are 10 quid more than a single 240GB.

 

[Slug]

How long should a SSD last?

Long enough.

My own X-25M is over 3.5 years-old and Intel's diagnostics show a total of two reallocated sectors, zero media wear. That's a drive that's been in use daily since installed.

Also, 2x 120GB SanDisk Extremes are 10 quid more than a single 240GB.

It's ultimately your call, but earlier in the thread you mentioned "putting as many games as possible on it". If that's still your plan then one 120GB drive with OS and programs installed to it, and a second devoted to games, would seem an effective solution. Use the 1TB platter drive for transient data and long-term storage.... sorted!

 

[dirtbikerr450]

i use ocz vertex 128gb and i love it

 

[Mehta23]

Long enough.

My own X-25M is over 3.5 years-old and Intel's diagnostics show a total of two reallocated sectors, zero media wear. That's a drive that's been in use daily since installed.



It's ultimately your call, but earlier in the thread you mentioned "putting as many games as possible on it". If that's still your plan then one 120GB drive with OS and programs installed to it, and a second devoted to games, would seem an effective solution. Use the 1TB platter drive for transient data and long-term storage.... sorted!

Well.... I don't need to have games on it. But of course I wants dat speed

 

[Mehta23]

Price of the 240gb has gone up to £135. So the 2x 120gb is £5 more. Still not sure what to do?