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New Samsung SSDs?

I see they're using an in house controller, and from the specs, they are obviously well behind the more proven setups. They have no breakthroughs in their controller that translates to better performance- despite using the newer 30nm MLC. The price would have you think they really have something there.

Obviously, one would be much better served by one of the higher performing, more tested, and less expensive alternatives. I don't think this drive even deserves an actual review.
 
FishAk said:
Obviously, one would be much better served by one of the higher performing, more tested, and less expensive alternatives. I don't think this drive even deserves an actual review.
Click to expand...

i dont see it as being obvious, and i dont understand why it wouldnt deserve an actual review? Do you work for sandforce or something? Competition is always good.

I'm personally really curious to see how it performs, as it's priced in the same range as the Sandforce controller SSDs. I didnt see it on the horizon or any previews of it, so would love for one of the sites to review it.
 
poohbear said:
Do you work for sandforce or something? Competition is always good.
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LOL, I'm retired. I don't work for anyone.

Nothing is better than competition to spur innovation. The Samsung isn't competition. Perhaps you didn't go to the Samsung site to see the specifications for their drive. Yes, it is certainly priced up there with the best SSDs, but if you look at the specs, how can that price be justified?

Additionally, the sub-par performance hasn't been tested in the real world by real users, so the better drives have an advantage there also. Many bugs in the more established drives have already been found and dealt with. The Samsung is just starting this process.

Do you think a review will discover something better about this drive than Samsung is advertising? A good review, will be an honest evaluation of a product. These tend to deflate, rather than inflate the manufacture's claims of performance.

I think you will find a review of the Samsung SSD a waist of your time to read.
 
The advertised read & write speeds looked impressive enough to me, i'm sure it'll perform just as well as the latest generation SSDs, i doubt the average user will notice a difference given the specs. We'll wait and see.
 
Samsung doesn't have to worry about SandForce or Intel for the most part because they have the oem contracts to have their ssds remain in new laptops regardless. Have we even seen an Intel or SandForce controlled drive as part of a manufacturer build available to the public?
 
Since reliability is on the top of my list of importance I have decided to avoid the Samsung for simple fact its not proven yet.

So I have narrowed it down to these:

Intel X25-M 80GB
G.skill phoenix pro 60GB
Crucial C300 64GB


Any recommendations?

I have done research and as far as speed goes the G.skill and crucial are the fastest, but are they as reliable as the intel?

Thanks
 
Have you looked at the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro? The C300 is the drive to have if you are SATA3 or soon to be SATA3.
 
redlinez33 said:
Intel X25-M 80GB
G.skill phoenix pro 60GB
Crucial C300 64GB
Click to expand...

Both the Intel and the Phoenix have the same practical usable space. The Intell has been out longer, and is more proven. The Phoenix has considerably more performance.

The Crucial can gets higher marks due to it's SATA III interface, but it wont help if you have SATA II. Additionally, the usable space is probably about 45 or 50Gb.

Consider the Vertex 2. It has the same specs as the Phoenix, but uses supported firmware, whereas the Phoenix uses SandForces pre-release firmware to get the same small file IOPS.
 
FishAk said:
Obviously, one would be much better served by one of the higher performing, more tested, and less expensive alternatives. I don't think this drive even deserves an actual review.
Click to expand...

Move over Nvidia, ATI, Intel, and AMD fanboi's, make room for Sandforce fanbois! It's TNG!
 
FishAk said:
The Crucial can gets higher marks due to it's SATA III interface, but it wont help if you have SATA II. Additionally, the usable space is probably about 45 or 50Gb.
Click to expand...

lol dude what are u talking about??? i used the crucial c300 in a sata1 mobo and it was blazing, everything opened instantaneously! i can only imagine how much faster it'll be when i hook it up to my Sata2 mobo. ur statement that "it wont help if u have SATAII" is absurd. its CHEAPER than the sandforce drives, so it should definitly be considered if cost is an issue as it performs on par w/ the sandforce drives. like i said before, the avg user wont notice a difference in performance between the c300 and the sandforce drives, they're all fast as hell as they're the latest and greatest. price should be the determining factor, and in this case the c300 wins out.

seriously, sandforce fanbois need to take a break and sit down.
 
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Let's not forget Samsung is the lowest-end on SSDs; they fall into the 'JMicron' class; not comparable to Sandforce, Intel or even Indilinx. Just try some random I/O on Samsung SSDs and in some cases it goes slower than an HDD! Samsung's SSD controller is optimized for high sequential speeds instead, something that might be happening more in the future with cheap SSDs that want to produce big numbers. However, in real use they would fall behind a better SSD with more random I/O performance. Also reliability is in question for any SSD which isn't used that much in the wild. Firmware issues seem to be the biggest threat to SSDs at this stage. Should improve over the years as the market matures.
 
I have narrowed it to crucial and intel.. Intel because of it being proven, and crucial because of return/warranty. Deal directly with manufacture the whole time.

Anyone know how much space the crucial and intel have after being formatted? Are they truly 64GB / 80GB respectively or do they loose some?

Thanks
 
LOL I was talking about the Samsung drive compared to the top SSDs on the market. You were the one to focus on the SF drive Poohbear. I am a fan of whatever is the best at the moment. I have no loyalty to any one outfit- unless it can prove it's value. If that makes me a SandForce fan boy right now, I accept the label. We'll see if Intel can make me their fan boy in a few months with their G3 SSDs.


poohbear said:
ur statement that "it wont help if u have SATAII" is absurd.
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You are right about the C300's speed, and the fact that average user probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference in performance- if they don't fill the drive. I tried to say that the speed boost of the C300 above SATA II speeds wouldn't be realizes by someone without a SATA III interface. I didn't mean to imply that the C300 isn't fast on SATA II. It will saturate SATA II with sequential operations.




However, The C300 is week in two areas. 4k random writes, and capacity. You have to admit that being able to fill the SF drives to capacity without taking a performance hit is a real advantage. The JMicron controller of the C300 doesn't do any compression, so the only spare aria available is the default 7 percent.


redlinez33 said:
Anyone know how much space the crucial and intel have after being formatted? Are they truly 64GB / 80GB respectively or do they loose some?
Click to expand...

No they are not, yes you loose some. The controller sets aside 7 percent of the flash to use as spare area. However, most agree that 7 percent isn't enough to counter write amplification, and retain performance. The better controllers can do better with less extra space, but in general, most think you should keep between 20 and 30 percent set aside.
 
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If you want a proven product, the Intel has been on the market for quite a while, so yes.

But with the Intel selling for $200, and the Vertex 2, $150, you could get more performance for less money. True the Vertex 2 hasn't been in the wild as long, but they both have essentially the same usable space as each other. They both have great small file speeds, so you might not feel that much difference between them though.
 
this is all new technology, so reliability is not exactly known. Flamenko on these forums will tell u the vertex 2's have a high failure rate, something like 2 in 10, and it happens after a few weeks or months, not from the get go. so just beware of that.

if u're using it as an OS drive it shouldnt really matter, but i wouldnt store crucial data on an SSD wherein u dont know its long term track record.
 
I wouldn't go with a Crucial drive unless you're getting the 128GB or bigger. The smaller drives take noticeable performance hits compared to their bigger brethren. The notorious C300 speeds are only achieved by the larger drives. The smaller ones are in the ballpark, but they're not up to the SF drives at those sizes.

If you're looking for reliability above all, go Intel.
If you're looking for performance below 128GB go SF.
If you're looking for performance at or above 128GB and you don't have SATA3 flip a coin between SF and Crucial.
If you're looking for performance at or above 128GB and you have SATA3 go Crucial.

FishAk said:
However, The C300 is week in two areas. 4k random writes, and capacity. You have to admit that being able to fill the SF drives to capacity without taking a performance hit is a real advantage. The JMicron controller of the C300 doesn't do any compression, so the only spare aria available is the default 7 percent.
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A few corrections here, Fish:
- The C300 drives are using a Marvell controller, not JMicron.
- The SF drives *do* take a performance hit if you fill them up, look at Anand's graphs in his articles.
- The ability of the SF controller to use free space beyond the over-allocated amount has nothing to do with compression. The Intel controller also uses all available free space just like the SF controller does.
 
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lokuts correction for you, the cruciial 64gb takes a performance hit in write speeds, not the MUCH more important read speeds. it still achieves 350mb/s reads which is insane (on a sata3 controller, on sata2 it maxes it out @ 276mb/s, which is still in insane territory). those write speeds are hardly noticeable though as the smaller drives don't need insane write speeds, its a small drive for the OS and common apps, not for writing/rewriting large files, so its a moot point.

seriously, for the cheaper price i'd go crucial as they perform just as well, better w/ sata3, than the SF drives.
 
poohbear said:
lokuts correction for you, the cruciial 64gb takes a performance hit in write speeds, not the MUCH more important read speeds. it still achieves 350mb/s reads which is insane (on a sata3 controller, on sata2 it maxes it out @ 276mb/s, which is still in insane territory). those write speeds are hardly noticeable though as the smaller drives don't need insane write speeds, its a small drive for the OS and common apps, not for writing/rewriting large files, so its a moot point.

seriously, for the cheaper price i'd go crucial as they perform just as well, better w/ sata3, than the SF drives.
Click to expand...
I would just refer you to these graphs and encourage you to read Anand's explanations of each of the tests in his Storage Bench. You can't look at random reads in isolation and expect that to carry the day when other stats are so weak. Please note that the 64GB Crucial drives are not on these charts, only the >= 128GB ones, so the numbers for the 64GB would be even lower.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3812/the-ssd-diaries-crucials-realssd-c300/6

Sometimes I wonder how many people on these forums actually read Anand's articles...
 
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