Old Generation SSD vs New Gen?

[Termie]

Your new system probably is a bit faster, but there's a lot of factors at play. You're comparing an older platform to a new one. How much free space was on your old ssd? The write speed was curiously low - i got 80+ mb/s on my old intel 80gb g2 ssd.

Not to pick nits, but did you time it with a stopwatch? The tangible difference you feel could be a placebo.

That doesn't mean that it wasn't a worthwhile upgrade. The Intel was small and those drives are getting long in the tooth. I bet if you wiped the intel clean (thus getting a full TRIM pass) and reinstalled or imaged it back, and there was an adequate amount of free space on it (10gb+), it would feel exactly the same as the samsung in a blind test. When you "know" a faster drive is in the machine it feels faster... Especially for things like app launches that are very read/response time dependent.

Some differences are more obvious. I upgraded my external usb 3.0 drive from a vertex 2 50gb to an agility 3 120gb. Copying video files, etc to the ssd from a new barracuda 3tb to the external drive jumped from about 60mb/s to about 100+mb/s avg. The vertex 2 had putrid uncompressible write speed.

You're probably right, JiffyLube. In fact, the performance of my x-25m had degraded over time, very likely due to the fact that it was nearly full. Here's the benchmark when I first got it:

That's something I should have noted, and it's something people upgrading from smaller SSDs should not forget...you'll get a huge bump in performance on an SSD just from moving up to a larger drive, because an SSD's performance drops fast at it reaches its capacity limits.

 

[taltamir]

I know neweg SSD's have smalled NAND which makes them degrade faster, but it will have better performance for a while. This is the reason I will never get an SSD (with current tech)

SSDs last about an order of magnitude longer then HDD for normal usage.
Its just that nobody bothered actually MEASURING the longevity of individual components of the HDD, but those motors and heads and metal disks have a rather short lifespan.

Actually, when I think about it under normal conditions the SSD should be the longest lasting component in your system by quite a bit. Simply because of how much more usage the RAM, CPU, PSU, and GPU see as well as they high amounts of electricity that runs through them (except the RAM which is low power).

Your LCD will need a lamp replacement, an OLED will have pixel burnout, a mobo has so many things and are cheaply built so something eventually fails on it...

Your DVD might last longer simply due to never ever being used.

 

[bryanW1995]

I just went from an 80GB Intel G2 to a 256GB Samsung 830.
In daily use, I would not be able to tell the difference.
The new drive is just as fast as I remember the Intel being when I first got it.

The biggest difference is the space.
It's great not having to worry about what I put on the drive.

There is also a difference in load times of games with big maps, probably about 20% faster, but that is still pretty trivial.

If you're not completely sure, wait until black friday and there will probably be a deal you can't refuse.

generally no real change in how the OS feels when using it. Some increase in read speed but mostly only noticable in bentch marks (180 to 400MB/s sort of thing / doubling).

Most difference I found (80GB G2 to 256GB Performance Pro) was increased write speed (handy for some tasks) and the extra space. Otherwise not worth the change.

Side note, once my new Ivy computer is working and setup how I like it, I am going to convert the intel G2 to a cache drive for my games (600GB V'Raptor). Overkill I know, but I picked up a third drive, a 512GB M4, from a sale a few weeks back, so having 800GB or so of SSD in my current system, I can spare the 80GB.

These experiences are similar to my own. I used an 80gb x25m g2 for about 27 months, then upgraded a few months ago to 2 x 256gb m4's in RAID 0. I ran the rig for a week or so with just one ssd, it was a bit snappier, but not enough snappier to justify a new purchase. However, once I went to the 2 x 256gb m4's in RAID 0, it immediately became obvious what I was missing. I think that for you to be able to justify the upgrade on speed alone you will want to go to RAID 0. Also, with 512gb of space, I was able to unplug my 2tb wd green, and I haven't used it since installing the RAID array. It's nice to not have to wait forever for the hard drive to spin up anymore...

 

[taltamir]

I went from a G2 intel X25-M to an intel 520 and I do notice it being faster. Its not the huge massive change of going from spindle to SSD, but it still is an improvement.
Especially considering the write cap on the G2.

 

[thelastjuju]

One thing to add that I don't think has been mentioned:

TRIM requirements or any other third party approaches are no longer necessary with the newer generation of SSDs as they have built in, INTERNAL garbage collection methods that are completely separate and independent from TRIM.

 

[taltamir]

One thing to add that I don't think has been mentioned:

TRIM requirements or any other third party approaches are no longer necessary with the newer generation of SSDs as they have built in, INTERNAL garbage collection methods that are completely separate and independent from TRIM.

It hasn't been mentioned because it's wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM

1. Garbage collection has been around longer then trim. Whats relatively new is idle time garbage collection.
2. TRIM works by allows GC to be amazingly more efficiency. Massively reducing write amplification and as long as you have enough spare area your speed drops to 98% / 99%+ (on a typical drive) of brand new speed and stabilizes there.
While with GC without TRIM (on a typical drive) your speed drops to about 60% every time you write data and and then recovers to about 90% of max over several hours while burning through your writes to do so.

 

[hhhd1]

These experiences are similar to my own. I used an 80gb x25m g2 for about 27 months, then upgraded a few months ago to 2 x 256gb m4's in RAID 0. I ran the rig for a week or so with just one ssd, it was a bit snappier, but not enough snappier to justify a new purchase. However, once I went to the 2 x 256gb m4's in RAID 0, it immediately became obvious what I was missing. I think that for you to be able to justify the upgrade on speed alone you will want to go to RAID 0. Also, with 512gb of space, I was able to unplug my 2tb wd green, and I haven't used it since installing the RAID array. It's nice to not have to wait forever for the hard drive to spin up anymore...

In real world, is the RAID 0 speed difference noticeable ?

 

[thelastjuju]

It hasn't been mentioned because it's wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM

1. Garbage collection has been around longer then trim. Whats relatively new is idle time garbage collection.
2. TRIM works by allows GC to be amazingly more efficiency. Massively reducing write amplification and as long as you have enough spare area your speed drops to 98% / 99%+ (on a typical drive) of brand new speed and stabilizes there.
While with GC without TRIM (on a typical drive) your speed drops to about 60% every time you write data and and then recovers to about 90% of max over several hours while burning through your writes to do so.

Its not wrong at all though.. one of the differences between the oldest and the latest generation SSDs is the necessity of TRIM.

The earliest versions of the type of garbage collection you speak of used to wipe out your data every time, and this has DEFINITELY changed.

I've had a 64gb M4 in my office PC, which runs WinXP (for legacy software purposes), lacking TRIM support, for the past 6 months... and I wouldn't have been able to even do that with any of the early generation SSDs without fiddling around with some sort of third party approach to TRIM.

I really don't care about benchmarks, and SSD's are fast enough to a point where you will not notice if you are temporarily not able to utilize 100% of its potential. SSD's are all about dramatically increased READ speeds for me anyway.

 

[kbp]

In real world, is the RAID 0 speed difference noticeable ?

With large file transfers......YES.
For normal day to day web-browsing NO.

 

[DominionSeraph]

I just upgraded my Vertex 2 128gb to a Vertex 3 128gb on a Sata 2 port and noticed the difference.

If OCZ is cross-shipping their RMA's, that will make a difference in speed.

 

[hal2kilo]

I understand your concerns but i would take an SSD over a HDD (for an OS drive) simply because there are no moving parts to wear out. If you get REALLY lucky you may have a HDD stay alive longer than 5 years but I would put my money on an SSD for longevity.

Yea, the people who worry about wearing out their SSDs crack me up.

They will, probably get rid of it before half of it's life is over just because there will be something out there even faster and bigger to replace it.

 

[taltamir]

Its not wrong at all though.. one of the differences between the oldest and the latest generation SSDs is the necessity of TRIM.

TRIM is still necessary.

The earliest versions of the type of garbage collection you speak of used to wipe out your data every time, and this has DEFINITELY changed.

There has never been a GC that wiped out your data, ever.
There was a procedure where users would secure erase the drive to return it to a new unused state.

I've had a 64gb M4 in my office PC, which runs WinXP (for legacy software purposes), lacking TRIM support, for the past 6 months... and I wouldn't have been able to even do that with any of the early generation SSDs without fiddling around with some sort of third party approach to TRIM.

Nonsense, even without idle time GC and TRIM you are only going to drop to about 2/3rd of the drive max speed and stay there.

I really don't care about benchmarks, and SSD's are fast enough to a point where you will not notice if you are temporarily not able to utilize 100% of its potential.

Oh, so you don't care for being proven wrong scientifically? its all about "emotions" and feeling?
Well that is fine for "feeling fast enough" but you are making nonsense false claims about how trim and idle time GC work, and that does not get excused with "it feels fast enough for me".

SSD's are all about dramatically increased READ speeds for me anyway.

A top of the line SSD is 2-3x faster on sequential reads/writes, and 100x faster on random reads/writes then a HDD.
The big difference people notice is the random speed, both read and write.
Not because random is more important, but because 100x improvement in speed is more noticeable at a glance then a 2x improvement. Especially since in many case your storage is not the bottleneck.