First day w/ First SSD :)

[bob4432]

after a successful clone of my 15k main drive to an ocz v2 30GB ssd and using it for the day, i can say there is a very noticeable difference between the two. what i thought was snappy w/ the 15k drive is damn near now instant w/ the ssd. the difference is approximately going from a 7.2k hdd to a 15k, just that much snappier, so i am sure the people w/ a 7.2k hdd will be even that much more impressed than i am having been use to 15k performance for years now.

i picked this one up cheap w/ the rebate from newegg a week or so ago, got it yesterday and cloned the drive today. needless to say, i will not be going back to normal hdds as my main drive unless there is catastrophic failure of this thing. for me, the setup will be ssd main drive w/ programs and then either 15k scsi or 7.2k sata as data drive depending on what deals i find on the scsi drives. but currently, this ssd mated w/ a 250GB seagate 7200.10 (single platter) data drive is working nicely for my uses.

i was able to lean my install drive down to ~28GB, so it fit on the 30GB ssd w/ 1.9GB to spare - pretty tight, but i wanted to test these out and not spend mucho $$ for the larger ones. i am running xp pro, so that w/ the adobe suite and office, solidworks and some misc programs along w/ 2 games and my important files i am full.

fwiw, i did do all of the tweaks as suggested on the ocz forum for ssds before i had it, so i don't know how much they help, but i haven't felt stutter/stumble unless i have intentionally overwhelmed the drive, in which case any drive would be overwhelmed.

ATTO Benchmark

HDTach Benchmark

i haven't been an early adopter for years, but for the price of this one i figured "what the hell" and have been thoroughly impressed.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Yeah, i was very impressed with my old scsi setup. Ultra 320 PCI-X card and 320 Maxtor 36gb drive. I'd love to get one of these new SSD drives

Congrats!

 

[coolVariable]

I tried the Patriot version of that drive.
Found performance NOT to be acceptable in comparison to a 7.2k laptop HDD.
Returned the little @#$@#

Am a BIG fan of SSDs otherwise and will definitely jump on the wagon once the intel drives come down in price, the next gen SLC drives are out or the next gen MLC drives (with cache/non-JMicron controller).

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: coolVariable
I tried the Patriot version of that drive.
Found performance NOT to be acceptable in comparison to a 7.2k laptop HDD.
Returned the little @#$@#

Am a BIG fan of SSDs otherwise and will definitely jump on the wagon once the intel drives come down in price, the next gen SLC drives are out or the next gen MLC drives (with cache/non-JMicron controller).

wow, that would be pretty bad. was this w/ the ocz tweaks? from what i understand is that they are all basically the same w/ the exception of the intel ssds, just in different packaging...

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: BTRY B 529th FA BN
Yeah, i was very impressed with my old scsi setup. Ultra 320 PCI-X card and 320 Maxtor 36gb drive. I'd love to get one of these new SSD drives

Congrats!

thanks. once you get ssd you will feel the same way you did w/ the scsi setup

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: coolVariable
Am a BIG fan of SSDs otherwise and will definitely jump on the wagon once the intel drives come down in price, the next gen SLC drives are out or the next gen MLC drives (with cache/non-JMicron controller).

Anyone know for sure when this will start to happen? I know Toshiba just announced their new lineup of 43nm drives with capacity up to 512GB (!!) but I'm holding out until the stutter issue is fixed (ie - new controller as mentioned above).

 

[imported_TimBob]

Originally posted by: Denithor

Originally posted by: coolVariable
Am a BIG fan of SSDs otherwise and will definitely jump on the wagon once the intel drives come down in price, the next gen SLC drives are out or the next gen MLC drives (with cache/non-JMicron controller).

Anyone know for sure when this will start to happen? I know Toshiba just announced their new lineup of 43nm drives with capacity up to 512GB (!!) but I'm holding out until the stutter issue is fixed (ie - new controller as mentioned above).

OCZ vertex is available for pre-order at some sites, including Amazon. It looks like they will be out in January.

 

[ArizonaSteve]

I'm waiting for some reviews on the OCZ Vertex before I go out and get a 128GB version to replace my twin raptors (74GB each).

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: ArizonaSteve
I'm waiting for some reviews on the OCZ Vertex before I go out and get a 128GB version to replace my twin raptors (74GB each).

Same here, except replacing just one 74GB raptor.

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: ArizonaSteve
I'm waiting for some reviews on the OCZ Vertex before I go out and get a 128GB version to replace my twin raptors (74GB each).

That's pretty much my take, also. Wait for confirmation that they've fixed the problem before dropping the bucks.

Wonder how much difference Windows 7 will make on SSD versus Vista or XP? Supposed to be "optimized for ssd" or something, right?

 

[coolVariable]

Yep ... this was with all the (useful) tweaks.
Maybe running steadystate or the EWR (sp?) improves it more ... but I think the technology needs to be usable in day-to-day usage ... not in some totally crappy hypothetical situation.

Win7 is not REALLY optimized for SSDs (just disables defrag and some stuff).

I am waiting for the Vertex too (or for the SLC drives to drop in price).
The new Microns are already approaching the top of my price range (too slow and to energy hungry though ... and IOPS are apparently worse than for the intel MLC drive).
I think in Jan/Feb we will see a major drop in prices.

I am hoping to see fast SSDs for $250 (60GB) and $400 (120GB).
That should suffice for system drives.

End of January we should have some reliable data/reviews of the next gen controller and whether it fixes the writing issues.
Until then ... stay away from SSDs (especially the cheap ones).

 

[her209]

Are most of these drives 3.5" or 2.5"?

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: her209
Are most of these drives 3.5" or 2.5"?

all i have seen are 2.5"

 

[IntelUser2000]

That's pretty much my take, also. Wait for confirmation that they've fixed the problem before dropping the bucks. Wonder how much difference Windows 7 will make on SSD versus Vista or XP? Supposed to be "optimized for ssd" or something, right?

From what I read Windows 7 is optimized for the crappy SSDs. More advanced SSDs might actually run slower because the algorithm might be optimized for pre-Windows 7, you never know.

 

[Denithor]

But they'll patch it up with a Hotfix, no doubt.

 

[coolVariable]

Originally posted by: IntelUser2000

That's pretty much my take, also. Wait for confirmation that they've fixed the problem before dropping the bucks. Wonder how much difference Windows 7 will make on SSD versus Vista or XP? Supposed to be "optimized for ssd" or something, right?

From what I read Windows 7 is optimized for the crappy SSDs. More advanced SSDs might actually run slower because the algorithm might be optimized for pre-Windows 7, you never know.

Win7 "optimization" only disables some services (e.g. defragmentation).
It is essentially the top 2-3 tweaks listed on the OCZ forums ... not much more.

Real optimization would require a new file system to fit how the SSDs work vs. HDDs