SSD Solid state drive

[z0de]

There was a tma on the old forum but it looks like it didn't make it over. I'm looking to get one and would like a recommendation or two. The vertex 3 seems like the obvious best but it expensive and hard to find in stock. I'm looking for something in the 80gig+ ideally 100gig+ range.

[Helen]

I bought a OCZ Vertex 2 (32nm) its 60gb but its fucking awesome.

Are the new Intel ones released yet?

[Frools]

Are the new Intel ones released yet?
no but they are shit anyway

vertex3 / sandforce 2000 are going to be the winbutton for this generation, intels shit is weak and barely any better than their previous version

[Stoffl]

I think vertex 2 still got the best price/performance ratio, gonan get me a 2nd 120gb one today. 8-)

[fng]

I'm seeing the C300 recommended a lot these days. Mostly by people angry at OCZ. All I can say is I saw it on sale a few times so you might want to look for good deal.

[Rudolf Miller]

The Vertex 3 is super crazy fast especially if you hook it up with SATA III

[sarabando]

1 whats a solid state disk
2 why are they good
3 why are they so fukken expensive?

[fng]

1 it's like a big usb stick but replace your hdd
2 they are fast and quiet
3 cause 'dem NAND memory are in high demand I guess

[Mrenda]

2 why are they good


Because shutting down your computer is no longer something to dread because of the start up time. You'll be restarting your computer for shits and giggles.

[Aphyd]

Vertex 2E in my laptop and desktop. Bootloader to browser in 10 seconds. 8-)

[Helen]

Vertex 2E in my laptop and desktop. Bootloader to browser in 10 seconds. 8-)

Really is nice isn't it. :companioncube:

[dellie]

I bought a OCZ Vertex 2 (32nm) its 60gb but its fucking awesome.

Are the new Intel ones released yet?

I bought the 50gb just a week before the 60gb came out for the same prize.. i raged a bit..
but then i booted in 10 seconds and was happy again :mrgreen:

[Ryas Nia]

There was a tma on the old forum but it looks like it didn't make it over. I'm looking to get one and would like a recommendation or two. The vertex 3 seems like the obvious best but it expensive and hard to find in stock. I'm looking for something in the 80gig+ ideally 100gig+ range.

1. RealSSD C300
2. Vertex 2 (32nm not 25)
3. Intel X25-M

or wait till summer when the Vertex 3 and C400 are out. The down side to the new SSD's is you have to buy the larger ones to get the awesome speed the ~100gb ones tend to be 1/2-1/3 slower than the ~200gb SSDs.

[Kovid]

Putting your OS and Eve on the SSD what performance increases have you noticed besides the startup time?

Specifically in eve has it had any noticable effect on system loads, bring up the market window and searches. I would think not since they loading from the server but I thought I'd ask anyways.

And video performance, fps? I am guessing no.

I'm just looking for any actual observations from owners on anything besides application startup.

[Stoffl]

If eve and the cache folders are on a dedicated SSD theres a noticeable difference in system loadtime, session changes and the likes.

Obviously it won't affect FPS.

[whispous]

90gb Vertex 2 checking in

Just installed it in a new pc, booted stupidfast.


No further information as I had to send the RAM back ¬_¬

[Wrack]

The biggest improvement when getting an SSD is that you no longer get the computer locking up for multiple seconds as it searches for something. This sort of lockup happens at really stupid times too, like switching tabs in a browser. That makes me :rage: so hard when using other people's computers. Just about any SSD solves that problem (1st-gen Jmicron garbage excepted, ofc).

I have a 120 GB OCZ agility that I bought for more than I'd care to admit. Still totally worth every penny.

[EntroX]

i will prolly use my current 80gb vertex 2 on the HTPC i am building since i will deffo want a vertex 3 for my i7 build coming soon(tm)

[killfalcon]

How 'useful' is a 60GB SSD? Are we talking strictly a boot drive with Win7 on it, or can I shove a few other things in there that I would like to load faster (I'm mostly thinking games that spend a million years loading textures and such)?

[fng]

I have a 60gb literally only for os + browser + shit that goes into my documents (savegames mostly) and its 41/56gb free lol. Shit like pagefile etc are on another ssd.

[Bombcrater]

How 'useful' is a 60GB SSD? Are we talking strictly a boot drive with Win7 on it, or can I shove a few other things in there that I would like to load faster (I'm mostly thinking games that spend a million years loading textures and such)?
Win 7 with a few configuration tweaks takes up < 10GB, so there's still a good amount of space an a 60GB drive. I've got an 80GB SSD with Win 7, 8 or so games (including 14GB purely on Eve clients), a bunch of apps, and all the usual document folder shit and still have about 25GB free. You just need to keep an eye on the free space and purge old temp files and any stuff you don't need anymore - a utility like SpaceMonger 1.x (http://www.sixty-five.cc/sm/) is great for that.

[EntroX]

How 'useful' is a 60GB SSD? Are we talking strictly a boot drive with Win7 on it, or can I shove a few other things in there that I would like to load faster (I'm mostly thinking games that spend a million years loading textures and such)?
Win 7 with a few configuration tweaks takes up < 10GB, so there's still a good amount of space an a 60GB drive. I've got an 80GB SSD with Win 7, 8 or so games (including 14GB purely on Eve clients), a bunch of apps, and all the usual document folder shit and still have about 25GB free. You just need to keep an eye on the free space and purge old temp files and any stuff you don't need anymore - a utility like SpaceMonger 1.x (http://www.sixty-five.cc/sm/) is great for that.
10GB?, what are you smoking :lol: maybe *just* after installing.

i wouldn't go under 80gb if i am honest, it gives you 74.4gb useable space, the "windows" folder alone taking 20GB, i also install *everything* except games on the drive and i have little over 30gb of free space, which comparing to a 60gb drive would mean you had 10gb left, i wouldn't feel comftable with that little space left.

and its not like i have ~heavy~ applications installed either, my program files (both x86 and x64) are 6GB~

[Bombcrater]

10GB?, what are you smoking :lol: maybe *just* after installing.

i wouldn't go under 80gb if i am honest, it gives you 74.4gb useable space, the "windows" folder alone taking 20GB
10GB after installation, yes - that's generally when the size of an OS install is measured. There's no reason why it should grow to 20GB unless you're installing apps like a fat man eats cake and doing no housekeeping at all. The Windows dir on my main box (with the 80Gb SSD) clocks in at 14.5GB after more than 18 months use. On my laptop, which has a 40GB SSD and gets cleaned up every few weeks, it's just over 12GB.

80GB is obviously preferable, but 60GB is very usable with some attention.

[Stoffl]

What bombcrater said.


I was running Win7 in a 20!gb partition for a year, simply because It was the only "available" partition I had with enough space and wanted to leave the XP partition untouched.

[z0de]

Wouldn't you want to install games on the ssd though for less loading?

[LoudSpeakly]

Wouldn't you want to install games on the ssd though for less loading?

Sure, and it works wonderfully. But for the smaller sized drives (40-80gig) it needs a bit more maintenance than just dumping everything on a 1TB spinner. Will be less of an issue as larger drives get released, but right now, it's a pain.

[killfalcon]

Wouldn't you want to install games on the ssd though for less loading?

Sure, and it works wonderfully. But for the smaller sized drives (40-80gig) it needs a bit more maintenance than just dumping everything on a 1TB spinner. Will be less of an issue as larger drives get released, but right now, it's a pain.

I can deal with that. It took me ages to go to the terabyte range, so I was removing games when I finished them for years.

Thanks for the info, pretty much exactly what I needed to know.

[Ens]

I recently got a Crucial RealSSD C300 128gb, it's awesome. Capacity isn't really an issue when you're just installing windows, your basic apps and any MMOs onto it. Wouldn't ever go back to using a raptor.

[HankMurphy]

Just remember, the more you write to the drive the quicker you're going to see degraded performance.

Of course that means you don't want windows autobackups in 15000 versions for each file constantly writing to the drive, so disable that. And if it's not obvious, never defrag. Look around there are good articles on how to responsibly manage your OS+ssd (moving or removing page files, all kinds of fun stuff)

Technology does exist to help extend lifetime high performance by limiting writes/block (TRIM). Be advised if you plan on using any type of raid setup (0 to increase speed which is retarded, or 1 to mirror) the TRIM cannot be translated through a raid controller (at least not yet as far as I know).

So, micro manage your OS and apps to minimize all write actions if you want to have both a healthy drive lifetime AND raid.

[Verizana]

Just remember, the more you write to the drive the quicker you're going to see degraded performance.

Of course that means you don't want windows autobackups in 15000 versions for each file constantly writing to the drive, so disable that. And if it's not obvious, never defrag. Look around there are good articles on how to responsibly manage your OS+ssd (moving or removing page files, all kinds of fun stuff)

Technology does exist to help extend lifetime high performance by limiting writes/block (TRIM). Be advised if you plan on using any type of raid setup (0 to increase speed which is retarded, or 1 to mirror) the TRIM cannot be translated through a raid controller (at least not yet as far as I know).

So, micro manage your OS and apps to minimize all write actions if you want to have both a healthy drive lifetime AND raid.

or dont give a shit and next time you install a fresh os run trim and voila good as new.

[Lana Torrin]

The 160Gig version of these http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-revodrive-x2-pci-express-ssd.html were on special at my local computer store a few weeks ago. I cried because I have no money and couldn't even get one at almost half price.

Shits all over everything else I have seen including the SATA3 drives.


Edit: Oh, for those wondering about the optimal setup for these.. SSD is boot disk, get a normal spinning disk for your documents folder (you can mount it directly on that point under Vista and Win7 so none of the aps even know) and let your games install on the SSD. Slow shit is on the slow drive, fast shit is on the fast drive, you dont have to worry about downloads taking up space on your SSD and you can easily do it with a 60Gig drive. Of cource a 160Gig drive is better :companioncube:

[HankMurphy]

or dont give a shit and next time you install a fresh os run trim and voila good as new.

yeah because installing a fresh os and formatting your drive makes a SSD good as new :facepalm:

[whispous]

or dont give a shit and next time you install a fresh os run trim and voila good as new.

yeah because installing a fresh os and formatting your drive makes a SSD good as new :facepalm:


care to enlighten?

[Ryas Nia]

I think people are confused about TRIM and tools that wipe SSD's

You should never need to wipe or format an SSD unless you have a PRE TRIM drive such as the origninal Vertex or X25-M G1.

TRIM works by looking at the data and seeing if its been flagged for removal, when writing to the drive it first looks for unused space to write to and then writes to it. If none is found it then looks for areas of the drive that have been flaged for TRIMing ie has been removed from the file system but not removed from the drive. The drive then writes to these spaces over writing the original data.

http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/storage/Intel/34nmSSD/Review/garbagecollection.png

[HankMurphy]

basically, think of it this way

every time you write to a memory location on a SSD it's like tapping a nail into a board just a little bit.

every time you write to that same segment, you tap the nail a bit further. the further the nail goes down, the more you'll see degraded performance.

now you can write to these things MANY MANY times without degradation, but if you let an OS do it's thing, it might be "managing" your drive into the ground (think of ALL the useless shit windows does that might require a write to the drive). thus my paragraph about minimizing the amount of writes you perform to the drive. now, newer os (win7) have automated settings for SSDs to help, but I would still do your research and go over all the services and actions your OS is set for if you do decide to run a raid.

TRIM tries to tap the nails that haven't been tapped before (or will go to the ones least written to over time) thus minimizing the impact of writing to the drive as a whole.

Do a raid? you won't have that. Doesn't mean you can't run a raid, just means you should understand what you're losing when you lose trim and manage your system accordingly.

[Ryas Nia]

its a moot point seeing as under very heavy load a normal MLC drive will last about 10 years of reads/writes with TRIM active. Get over the fear already, your mechanical HD is more prone to death before your SSD.

Also, Gamers != heavy users, its a strange misconception that everyone has. They all think damn im a power user i must require more hardware and use bullet proof stuff. The only difference between a 13 year old girl surfing facebook and you a gamer, is that you need a decent gfx card. Chances are that the 13 year old girl actually writes more data and puts more stress on an SSD than you do since most your reads/writes will be sequential (movies music) or highly random reads (loading levels, textures, game data) which puts no stress on the SSD.

[Helen]

Ryas makes sense, I've read many times that the life span of a SSD is huge even under heavy usage.

[Bombcrater]

basically, think of it this way

every time you write to a memory location on a SSD it's like tapping a nail into a board just a little bit.

every time you write to that same segment, you tap the nail a bit further. the further the nail goes down, the more you'll see degraded performance.
No, that's not correct at all. Flash memory performance doesn't degrade gradually - it's more like a cliff edge.

The smallest write that can be performed on an SSD's flash memory is one page - a page typically being either 4KB or 8KB, depending on the drive. If the page being accessed is empty then the drive can simply write data into it, which is quite quick. But if the page already contains some data - even if it's garbage that's no longer needed - then the drive has to read the existing data, combine that with the new data, erase the entire page, then write the buffered data into the flash page. That's slow, particularly the erase pass.

But there's nothing between these two states - flash is fast for the first write, slow for any subsequent writes because of the required erase pass. It doesn't get any slower with further use.

TRIM works by telling the drive which pages have data in them that's no longer required (because a file has been deleted or changed size) so the drive can build a list of those pages and erase them during idle time when the drive isn't doing anything else. TRIM is nice, but contrary to popular opinion not essential. Good garbage collection is a lot more important; it looks for flash pages that are used but only partially full and combines the data from them into as few pages as possible, erasing the pages that are freed up so they're back to full performance.

[HankMurphy]

Interesting, that throws in the trash what I thought I'd known about ssd.

I had known the performance difference between a first time write and a subsequent writes. I could have sworn there was also an associated degradation to the performance of the nands themselves beyond Xthousand writes.

So clean up for a drive... (take a drive that has been used without trim and install into a system that will use it), can you restore it to 'like new'? Do you need a particular tool? I would imagine a regular format doesn't gain you much as it's a write operation itself. (but as i've been wrong twice, i'd rather not assume!)

[Ryas Nia]

Interesting, that throws in the trash what I thought I'd known about ssd.

I had known the performance difference between a first time write and a subsequent writes. I could have sworn there was also an associated degradation to the performance of the nands themselves beyond Xthousand writes.

So clean up for a drive... (take a drive that has been used without trim and install into a system that will use it), can you restore it to 'like new'? Do you need a particular tool? I would imagine a regular format doesn't gain you much as it's a write operation itself. (but as i've been wrong twice, i'd rather not assume!)

No you dont need any sort of cleaning tool, a dirty drive in a TRIM aware OS with a TRIM aware SSD = like new performance after limited use.

[fng]

Do I need to "run" trim or Seven does it?

[Ryas Nia]

7 does it, IF you have everything setup right when you install.

AHCI has to be on for it to work at the time of install

you can check using http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_ ... ldID=18455 (http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=18455)


I think you can also check whether or not TRIM is enabled by accessing the Command Promt (running as Administrator); then go to C:\Windows\system32 and enter:

> fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify

The result will be one of the following:-

DisableDeleteNotify = 1 (Windows TRIM commands are disabled)
DisableDeleteNotify = 0 (Windows TRIM commands are enabled)

You can also try this cmd i found, not tested myself because my test SSD's are X25 G1's so no trim :(

[fng]

Yeah it's ok then, thanks.

[Bombcrater]

So clean up for a drive... (take a drive that has been used without trim and install into a system that will use it), can you restore it to 'like new'? Do you need a particular tool? I would imagine a regular format doesn't gain you much as it's a write operation itself. (but as i've been wrong twice, i'd rather not assume!)
You have to wipe the drive using a utility that performs an ATA compliant 'secure erase'. That basically tells the SSD's controller to erase all the flash and set everything back to factory-fresh state. Formatting, deleting partitions, etc, doesn't work. Nor does TRIM if the drive has been accessed by non-TRIM aware OS. A TRIM-aware OS like Windows 7 can only track its own writes, so if something else writes to the drive and creates dirty pages Win 7 never knows about that and no TRIM commands will be issued for those pages because as far as the OS is concerned they're empty and untouched. Garbage collection may well clean up those pages in time, but that depends on the drive. Some SSDs have very good GC, some almost none at all.

[TimMc]

I was planning on getting an 60 or 80gb SSD for a windows boot disk. Should I wait for next generation or just get current? Will small drives no benefit much from the next generation?

And in this generation, which is better? Crucial or OCZ?

[TZeer]

What do you mean with next generation?

Are you talking about the already released SSD`s?

Here`s a pretty good summary.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-ssd-price-per-gb-ssd-performance,2880.html

[TimMc]

I mean people are talking about waiting for OCZ vertex 3.

[mjukis]

To really get the improved performance from the next gen SSDs (vertex 3 etc) you'll need a 6gbps sata interface. Even IF you have that, there's not a whole lot of things that require that sort of hard drive throughput. For regular consumers the main benefit is still the near instant seek times for files.

[Ryas Nia]

I was planning on getting an 60 or 80gb SSD for a windows boot disk. Should I wait for next generation or just get current? Will small drives no benefit much from the next generation?

And in this generation, which is better? Crucial or OCZ?

no newer generation SSD's will be slower in smaller formats than existing drives. so if you want something small it wont help you any to wait other than cost which sounds like its not a big deal if your thinking about getting an SSD.

[TimMc]

Cool thanks. I'm ordering a boot drive and windows 7 now.

[Devec]

As much as I would like to purchase a SSD drive to keep a windows + most used programs boot onto it I know that every program tries to install itself on the drive appointed the main one by the windows installation. Okay most programs let you choose but I think I will wait until the bigger disks (500 gigs and up) start becoming affordable as well so it doesn't become a hassle.

[Katamarino]

I would buy an SSD and install Win 7...but I'm scared of having to reinstall my Radeon 4870 drivers :D If I just don't touch it for now, it should keep working...

[Ryas Nia]

I would buy an SSD and install Win 7...but I'm scared of having to reinstall my Radeon 4870 drivers :D If I just don't touch it for now, it should keep working...

upgrade your existing install to win 7, use Clonezilla to transfer everything to SSD profit :)

[Ryuichi]

I just bought and installed a Corsair F120 as an OS drive and I've got to say it's fucking awesome. My machine spends longer telling me how much ram I've got than loading Windows.
:monocledowns:

I used EASEUS to clone my HDD (could have done a fresh install but pc was brand new like last week with Win 7) to migrate the OS and then formatted my 1tb platter drive for data use.

I moved My Docs/Pictures/Downloads etc using Win 7 location feature, have installed Steam and all other game data to the HDD, everything seems to be running fine. Disabled indexing, system restore, and defrag; have left superfetch and prefetch on for now.

[mjukis]

Anyone running an SSD should be doing backups regularly by the way. HDDs fail, but they might at least send you clues to that it is about to shit the bed. An SSD will just refuse to boot one day and then you're SOL.

[Ryuichi]

Yeah, but you only really really need to worry about that if you're keeping data other than the OS install on the SSD. Most people, I suspect, don't (due to size vs cost) so you really only need to clone your OS install once to have a reasonable failsafe should the thing die on you. Everything on the data drive should be backed up regularly still ofc.

[Wrack]

As much as I would like to purchase a SSD drive to keep a windows + most used programs boot onto it I know that every program tries to install itself on the drive appointed the main one by the windows installation. Okay most programs let you choose but I think I will wait until the bigger disks (500 gigs and up) start becoming affordable as well so it doesn't become a hassle.

Even before SSDs, I've been using hard disk partitions for years, keeping most programs on E: instead of C:, and never once had a problem with a program that wouldn't agree to being installed where I wanted it.

[TimMc]

Installed my SSD and windows 7 today. Very nice to be able to press the power button, turn around and its loggin in.

However my netgear wireless pci card hated windows 7, seems those idiots haven't updated its drivers in well over a year of complaints from what I've read online. Went out and got a new one.

[Dark 0men]

I think SSDs in desktops are a gimmick, but they are excellent laptop drives. I got a 180GB Vertex 2 in mine and it's better than any spinny laptop disk can ever be. Also: it has no drive heads that get all tangled and shit when I wave my laptop around.

Here's some megabuttes per second:
$ sudo hdparm -t /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
Timing buffered disk reads: 602 MB in 3.01 seconds = 200.13 MB/sec

[Idara]

I think SSDs in desktops are a gimmick, but they are excellent laptop drives.

Okay.

[Bombcrater]

I think SSDs in desktops are a gimmick
Umm, yeah. :roll:

[Dark 0men]

Tell me more about shuffling files around so that they fit on a 60GB disk :)

[Waagaa]

Tell me more about shuffling files around so that they fit on a 60GB disk :)

You have a 180GB SSD in your laptop, why 60GB in your desktop?
If you install Windows right and don't have 10+ games installed, you can put it all on the SSD.

Stuff that goes on SSD:
- Swapfile
- Programs
- Games
- OS

Reroute your documents to a data-disk. Your system shouldn't take more than 15-20GB. Leaves 100GB for games/apps on a 128GB SSD.

[Stoffl]

Tell me more about shuffling files around so that they fit on a 60GB disk :)


As Waaga said, just redirect your my documents/videos/pictures/Music folders to a harddisk.

And empty your Temporary Files/Temporary Internet files folders from time to time.

[Frug]

Tell me more about shuffling files around so that they fit on a 60GB disk :)
Tell me more about how you can't figure out how to put your OS on one drive and store your movies/downloads/porn on a giant hard drive elsewhere.

If that's really too hard for you, then you should wait until SSDs are huge and cheap and designed to work for grandma who doesn't know where the program files folder is.

[Frug]

its a moot point seeing as under very heavy load a normal MLC drive will last about 10 years of reads/writes with TRIM active. Get over the fear already, your mechanical HD is more prone to death before your SSD.

Also, Gamers != heavy users, its a strange misconception that everyone has. They all think damn im a power user i must require more hardware and use bullet proof stuff. The only difference between a 13 year old girl surfing facebook and you a gamer, is that you need a decent gfx card. Chances are that the 13 year old girl actually writes more data and puts more stress on an SSD than you do since most your reads/writes will be sequential (movies music) or highly random reads (loading levels, textures, game data) which puts no stress on the SSD.
Thank you for this actually.

I've been looking into it and it seems people are still mixing outdated knowledge with a genuine desire to spend extra time tinkering, and as a result I've stayed away from SSDs. But all things considered, they finally seem practical and I'll probably go for one.

[EntroX]

vertex 3's are out:
http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-agilit ... 5-ssd.html (http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-agility-3-sata-iii-2-5-ssd.html)

[Raine Woot]

> actually needing sata3 for full speed

I came, everywhere. I really want one.

[EntroX]

> actually needing sata3 for full speed

I came, everywhere. I really want one.

if they release a 80gb i will be all over it, i even have a buyer for my vertex2 8-)

[Verizana]

just recieved some vertex 3 MAX IOPS version a few days ago, 75k IOPS instead of 60k. jizzzzz

[z0de]

THATS NEARLY 20K MORE IOPS

[Helen]

THATS NEARLY 20K MORE IOPS

:obama:

[Verizana]

THATS NEARLY 20K MORE IOPS

:obama:

yeah but its exclusive :ugeek:

[Gran Masakari]

Just purchased one of these (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148357&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL051011&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL051011-_-EMC-051011-Index-_-SSD-_-20148357-L0C) for $99 yesterday.

Heard good things about the C300 on SA, and will definitely review for everyone here. My plan is to use this for now and then upgrade to a Vertex 3 when it becomes economically feasible for me (read: someone buys one for me for graduation).

[EntroX]

Heard good things about the C300 on SA, and will definitely review for everyone here. My plan is to use this for now and then upgrade to a Vertex 3 when it becomes economically feasible for me (read: someone buys one for me for graduation).

i approve of this approach (since i plan to do the same thing kinda :V)

[Verizana]

In the next two weeks Corsair will release their newest flagship SSD. With 550 read and 520 write a massive 85k IOPS, it will come in 60gb, 120gb and 240gb sizes.

:)

[Loganbacca]

Is that the force series 3? I hear that apparently they're going to be priced similar to current last gen SSD's, i.e. 120GB @ $220.

[Waagaa]

Stuck a OCZ OCZSSDPX-1RVDX0160 (Retail, PCIe x4, RevoDrive X2, MLC, ECC) (http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-revodrive-x2-pci-express-ssd.html) in my system today.
Thing runs like a charm now.

Also: SATA is for sissies. :) Real men SSD via PCI-Express :)

[Mimiru]

Stuck a OCZ OCZSSDPX-1RVDX0160 (Retail, PCIe x4, RevoDrive X2, MLC, ECC) (http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-revodrive-x2-pci-express-ssd.html) in my system today.
Thing runs like a charm now.

Also: SATA is for sissies. :) Real men SSD via PCI-Express :)

Am i doin it right?

http://i.imgur.com/u8mqe.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/eA0gC.png

[Raine Woot]

http://defaultprime.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/SpyHeadAsplode.gif

[Loganbacca]

Noice, lookit dem IOPS, and bazillions of gigglebites, too bad it'd probably cost the better part of a small countries yearly budget.

[Arele]

Corsair is coming out with a lower MSRP and better specs then Vertex 3's. Nice to see OCZ getting second (Adata just released their info too, so possibly 3rd place) after all the shit they've pulled in the past and not so distant past.

[Waagaa]

Stuck a OCZ OCZSSDPX-1RVDX0160 (Retail, PCIe x4, RevoDrive X2, MLC, ECC) (http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-revodrive-x2-pci-express-ssd.html) in my system today.
Thing runs like a charm now.

Also: SATA is for sissies. :) Real men SSD via PCI-Express :)

Am i doin it right?

http://i.imgur.com/u8mqe.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/eA0gC.png

Yeah, that's nice if you're Facebook.. :) Facebook actually runs on Fusion-io.. :) But sorry, I don't have EUR 150k lying around.. Instead I chose the EUR 400 option. :) Did do an awesome VDI implementation the other day with one of these... One server booting 100 clients in less than a minute. \o/

[EntroX]

Stuck a OCZ OCZSSDPX-1RVDX0160 (Retail, PCIe x4, RevoDrive X2, MLC, ECC) (http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-revodrive-x2-pci-express-ssd.html) in my system today.
Thing runs like a charm now.

Also: SATA is for sissies. :) Real men SSD via PCI-Express :)

Am i doin it right?

http://i.imgur.com/u8mqe.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/eA0gC.png

jesus fucking christ :o

[Helen]

Stuck a OCZ OCZSSDPX-1RVDX0160 (Retail, PCIe x4, RevoDrive X2, MLC, ECC) (http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-revodrive-x2-pci-express-ssd.html) in my system today.
Thing runs like a charm now.

Also: SATA is for sissies. :) Real men SSD via PCI-Express :)

Am i doin it right?

http://i.imgur.com/u8mqe.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/eA0gC.png

jesus fucking christ :o

So when you getting that?

[Rudolf Miller]

Stuck a OCZ OCZSSDPX-1RVDX0160 (Retail, PCIe x4, RevoDrive X2, MLC, ECC) (http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-revodrive-x2-pci-express-ssd.html) in my system today.
Thing runs like a charm now.

Also: SATA is for sissies. :) Real men SSD via PCI-Express :)

Am i doin it right?

http://i.imgur.com/u8mqe.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/eA0gC.png

jesus fucking christ :o

So when you getting that?

do fucking want

[Waagaa]

I can get you one for EUR 150K, special FHC price!

[EntroX]

I can get you one for EUR 150K, special FHC price!

make it 130 and i'll think about it.

[Waagaa]

I can get you one for EUR 150K, special FHC price!

make it 130 and i'll think about it.

Fuck that, I need to earn money too!

[EntroX]

diaf

[Raine Woot]

And we laughed about 70 quid a month

[Gran Masakari]

So, got my new 64 gigabyte Crucial C300.

As I only have SATA II, I can't get the max performance out of it, but holy balls is it fast compared to my old SATA I Raptor.

Haven't had any stuttering issues with it. The only issue so far is the lack of space, but since I'm mainly using it as an OS drive, it's not that much of an issue. Also, got the drive for 99 USD so I can't complain much.

I've installed SC2 and OS + Office and a few other apps and still have about 1/3 of the drive space left.

Boot time from when I press the start button on my desktop to when my system idles after logging in is around 30 seconds, if that. I'll try and time it next time and give a more accurate number.

If you guys have any questions, let me know.

[balistic void]

My new rig has 128GB C300. Faster boot is all you get. Fuck all difference in my productivity compared to old box with e50 SATA-II hard disk. Nice koolaid you guys got there.

[Stoffl]

:facepalm:

[Gran Masakari]

My new rig has 128GB C300. Faster boot is all you get. Fuck all difference in my productivity compared to old box with e50 SATA-II hard disk. Nice koolaid you guys got there.

Strange, because I definitely notice all my applications loading up much more quickly. Loading times in games have been significantly reduced as well. Maybe it's just the switch from SATA to SATA II, but I dunno.

[balistic void]

Can't fit Steam onto SSD, dunno how to split games. I got my work stuff on the SSD tho (visual studio, office+excel etc). Loading times have minimal effect on productivity. Hey I love my new machine, it can run games at 2560x1440 and loads fast. But for actual work, compiling programs and running them etc I see no difference. The old machine is still setup behind me, so it's easy to compare. Old machine was only a year old tho, cheap athlon with no ssd.

[whispous]

You are an idiot

[fng]

Can't fit Steam onto SSD, dunno how to split games.
http://www.stefanjones.ca/steam/ To change steam games location.

[balistic void]

Thanks, had been wondering how to do that.

[Rudolf Miller]

Can't fit Steam onto SSD, dunno how to split games.
http://www.stefanjones.ca/steam/ To change steam games location.

+internets to you sir

[Seamus]

Gonna get a 64g ssd tomorrow most likely - any feasible way of cloning OS & eve to the ssd, but leaving the bulk of the machine on the original disk? Looked into it a little and its ofc possible, but anyone actually done it with a free and not shit way?

[Muffinsrevenger]

Just re-install windows, you should do that every now and then anyway

[Helen]

Just re-install windows, you should do that every now and then anyway

Fresh install best install.

[Seamus]

cheers, will do (although it makes me sad to do things slowly and properly.)

[balistic void]

Installing brand new windoze 7 on an ssd is stupidly fast, and you don't even have to click "next next next" that much.

[Muffinsrevenger]

Installing brand new windoze 7 on an ssd is stupidly fast, and you don't even have to click "next next next" that much.

Took me about 10min, and that was with using a USB2.0 port since lolopticaldrive
Ofc, i did notice when i was all done that i had accidently used my 32bit version of w7, so :welp:

[Waagaa]

Can't fit Steam onto SSD, dunno how to split games. I got my work stuff on the SSD tho (visual studio, office+excel etc). Loading times have minimal effect on productivity. Hey I love my new machine, it can run games at 2560x1440 and loads fast. But for actual work, compiling programs and running them etc I see no difference. The old machine is still setup behind me, so it's easy to compare. Old machine was only a year old tho, cheap athlon with no ssd.

you should see a huge compile boost, are you doing your actual compiling on the SSD?
Or do you have one of those write-challenged SSD's? :)

My compile times of for example Hippo CMS went from 1m30s to 15sec on the same machine. :)

[balistic void]

Can't fit Steam onto SSD, dunno how to split games. I got my work stuff on the SSD tho (visual studio, office+excel etc). Loading times have minimal effect on productivity. Hey I love my new machine, it can run games at 2560x1440 and loads fast. But for actual work, compiling programs and running them etc I see no difference. The old machine is still setup behind me, so it's easy to compare. Old machine was only a year old tho, cheap athlon with no ssd.

you should see a huge compile boost, are you doing your actual compiling on the SSD?
Or do you have one of those write-challenged SSD's? :)

My compile times of for example Hippo CMS went from 1m30s to 15sec on the same machine. :)

It's not that big a compile, but there are many seperate projects and post-build steps etc. Took about 15 seconds before, and about the same now :( That's for a normal incremental build btw, ie I make a small change and recompile. Pretty sure a lot of the files are cached in ram or something with windows7.

[Verizana]

What manufacturer is your ssd?

[balistic void]

Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB. Don't get me wrong, it makes for fast boot and program loading etc. Am just a bit disappoint that it's not making my main work stuff faster. Am also disappoint with sandy vag, no difference for work purposes really. Awesome for games tho!

Steam is awesome now that I have split some games onto SSD thanks. Shogun2 noticably faster loading between maps etc.

[Pattern]

Are SSD's still poor if you frequently re-write stuff? Thinking of getting a new work mbp with one in it as the primary drive... Creates/removes 10-20gb of shit every week? Otherwise I might just go for broke on ram.

[Aea]

Are SSD's still poor if you frequently re-write stuff? Thinking of getting a new work mbp with one in it as the primary drive... Creates/removes 10-20gb of shit every week? Otherwise I might just go for broke on ram.

You can do some things to enable TRIM support (I know many people who have done it) which will make that sort of thing much faster. But it's not official until OSX Lion.

[Bombcrater]

Are SSD's still poor if you frequently re-write stuff? Thinking of getting a new work mbp with one in it as the primary drive... Creates/removes 10-20gb of shit every week? Otherwise I might just go for broke on ram.
Go for it, no question. Modern SSDs are much better at avoiding slow downs due to dirty flash pages, but the truth is even a degraded SSD is massively quicker than any laptop hard drive.

[mira o'karr]

ssd was great in my new computer for the 2 weeks that it lasted before it decided to die on me.

furious. :( :cut:

edit:

bizarro world.

i took the SSD out after fiddleing with the bios for ages and not being able to make it show up.
tried the drive in a usc sata hotswap and it was recognized no worries.
would let me upgrade the firm ware of it though.
when i got this computer (didnt build it myself) the SSD was set as first sata device and the storage HDD was set as second.
so after the SSD was still working as usb i plugged it back in switching it to second sata position behind the HDD.

bingo i can see it in BIOS again.... but.... i cant set it as a boot device.
i reboot the computer and voila despite not being set as boot, it boots into windows fine.

what the ...

now i am stuck at trying to remove windows install i did on the storage HDD.
fuck win7 and its nasty ownership.
got rid of the windows folder and program files(x86) by renaming it to windows.old and removing it via disc clean up tool.
however this is not working for the regular program files folder :(
pissed off

any way drive is a OCZ Vertex 2 Series 120 GB
had not seen any issues with it when googling but obviously now that i had the problem i found quite a few similar probs.
hopeing the firmware flash has removed this disappearance issue.

[Verizana]

computer stuff breaks randomly.

[Formos Funus]

Thinking to buy a SATA 6gbps controller + Vertex 3 120GB MaxIOPS this week. I've an old motherboard (Foxconn Bloodrage), it has no 6gbps connectors, my RAID controller doesn't either :psyduck:

[Verizana]

most of the time sata3 controllers without raid are an extention to the marvell controller and wont work on sata2 only motherboards so look out for that.

[Loganbacca]

ssd was great in my new computer for the 2 weeks that it lasted before it decided to die on me.

furious. :( :cut:

edit:

bizarro world.

i took the SSD out after fiddleing with the bios for ages and not being able to make it show up.
tried the drive in a usc sata hotswap and it was recognized no worries.
would let me upgrade the firm ware of it though.
when i got this computer (didnt build it myself) the SSD was set as first sata device and the storage HDD was set as second.
so after the SSD was still working as usb i plugged it back in switching it to second sata position behind the HDD.

bingo i can see it in BIOS again.... but.... i cant set it as a boot device.
i reboot the computer and voila despite not being set as boot, it boots into windows fine.

what the ...

now i am stuck at trying to remove windows install i did on the storage HDD.
fuck win7 and its nasty ownership.
got rid of the windows folder and program files(x86) by renaming it to windows.old and removing it via disc clean up tool.
however this is not working for the regular program files folder :(
pissed off

any way drive is a OCZ Vertex 2 Series 120 GB
had not seen any issues with it when googling but obviously now that i had the problem i found quite a few similar probs.
hopeing the firmware flash has removed this disappearance issue.
I had some odd problems like this after changing my motherboard, I put it down to me messing about with the bootloader to dual-boot Linux with the original install. In the end I wiped the bootloader and created new partition tables on both hard drives (2x standard HDD's, no SSD), plugged in the OS drive, installed Windows, then pugged in the data drive, now it works fine.

[spiralJunkie]

for my new buid, thinking of getting one of these
Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive [CT064M4SSD2]
for the OS and 'most played' games, then
OCZ Agility Series 30GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-1AGT30G) [OCZSSD2-1AGT30G]
as 'other pograms', and a normal HD for data

does that make sense?

[Verizana]

not really m8, just get a 120gb vertex 3, those m4 drives even tho they are fast they have crap write speeds at almost the same price as the ocz's, if you don't want to spend that much on the vertex then get the agility 3, i can vouch for both as i sell a shitton to people and company's and not a single one has come back to my knowledge.

[spiralJunkie]

not really m8, just get a 120gb vertex 3, those m4 drives even tho they are fast they have crap write speeds at almost the same price as the ocz's, if you don't want to spend that much on the vertex then get the agility 3, i can vouch for both as i sell a shitton to people and company's and not a single one has come back to my knowledge.
k cool, but why is my idea bad?

[Verizana]

because instead of buying 2 ssd's you could buy 1 that is faster for everything for roughly the same money

[fng]

Larger capacity=better speed. But why would you bother with a 2nd ssd for programms? That's what I do and it sucks. If you're on a budget try "older" ssd like the c300 it's often on sale.

[Formos Funus]

most of the time sata3 controllers without raid are an extention to the marvell controller and wont work on sata2 only motherboards so look out for that.
The search for SATA 3 controllers is slightly dissapointing.

The only one that I almost considered was the Highpoint RocketRAID 620, but mixed results on the internet about it.

The rest are mostly motherboard add-ons.

The only ones left are from brands like Highpoint, LSI, Adaptec, which all are 200~300 Euro. Than again they are very good, support 4~8 drives, tons of RAID options and even saw one card with 512MB buffer. I know RAID cards/controllers are not something to be a jew about, but I it's slightly taking the piss.

Even my own 2-port RAID card I have now, old as fuck, is still for sale for 165 Euro. A drop of 30 Euro from 2 years ago :shock: Man, that's tbh the first time I saw a piece of hardware keeping its value :lol:

[Mimiru]

Are SSD's still poor if you frequently re-write stuff? Thinking of getting a new work mbp with one in it as the primary drive... Creates/removes 10-20gb of shit every week? Otherwise I might just go for broke on ram.

http://lifehacker.com/5786538/trim-enabler-increases-solid-state-drive-performance-in-os-x/

Seemed to work fine v0v

[spiralJunkie]

so I decided to make all drives on my new pc SSDs. splerging money has never felt so good

[Stoffl]

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4088/4845221225_3e2fb5e473.jpg

[Aphyd]

^^ totally have that on my laptop. :D

[EntroX]

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4088/4845221225_3e2fb5e473.jpg

i cant find that sticker :(

i had both that one and the EVGA one saved for my new case but i cant find them now :(

i guess i'll buy new ones :V

[spiralJunkie]

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4088/4845221225_3e2fb5e473.jpg


putting it on my wheelchair. that and the intel ssd 'speed demon' one

[Loganbacca]

I'm thinking of getting an SSD because I'm gona have to reinstall Windows very soon anyway.

I was considering just getting a Vertex 2 because they're quite a bit cheaper than Vertex 3's over here now, although I have noticed an awful lot of negative responses about drive failures and the like in the past month or two on Newegg about the Vertex 2's. Is that all due to the change to the smaller manufacturing process? should I avoid them and just go for one of the newer drives?

If go for the newer drives, which one?
Intel 510, OCZ Agility/Vertex 3 or Corsair Force 3?

At the moment pricing for the 120GB versions of those SSD's over here looks like this (all in NZ$):
$425 - Intel 510
$430 - Corsair Force 3
$440 - OCZ Agility 3
$450 - OCZ Vertex 3

Which one is probably the best value for money? And what is the reliability/quality of them like? because while speed is nice, I'd rather not have it die after a couple of weeks.

[Snowman]

I just bought a 120gb Vertex 3 for my new desktop which I will pair with a 1.5tb WD Black.

I might have to make two duplicates at 60% of the size to deal with assigning non-default install locations.

[Loganbacca]

Never mind, ordered a Vertex 3. I figured it's only a $25 difference at the end of the day for the extra performance.
Will report back after I get it.

[Tordin Varglund]

Current setup:

i7 870
Asus P7P55D
8GB HyperX
HD 5870
1x shitty old 1tb drive.

proposed upgrade:

240gig Vertex 3 (http://prisguide.hardware.no/produkt/oc ... mer-145744 (http://prisguide.hardware.no/produkt/ocz-vertex-3-240gb-25-tommer-145744))
storage drive

Reason:

I want to run my OS, pluss steam, other games, on the SSD for lower response and searching times. Actually fuck that, Vertex THREE just sounds good and i want it in my computer and i can afford it. But no, really i just want a faster, decent sized "work/general usage-drive". All porn etc will be stored on a normal 7200rpm drive.

Problem:

Now i used to be pretty good at this computer thing, but SSDs are completly new to me. It would seem my MB according to ASUS webpage comes with SATA 3.0Gbit/s, while the Vertex drive will easily break that, meaning i might as well be running a slower one.

a. Do i have to shell out for a new MB? (which is dumb cause i dont want to pay for a new one now that the socket is outdated)
b. I heard there are some sort of controllers or something fancy like that which i can run them though. is this cheap or expensive? (I dont even know if this issue is hardware related or if i can somehow "upgrade" to 6.0Gbit/s though a firmware update.)
c. Are theese: http://www.prisguide.no/produkt/ocz-rev ... 0gb-143260 (http://www.prisguide.no/produkt/ocz-revodrive-x2-240gb-143260) a valid alternative? They cost quite a bit more, and looks to like they are better, but if i otherwise need to get a new mobo, its pretty much the same price.

For price comaparison, $/€/£1 is about 5.5/7.8/8.8 NOK.

EDIT; Think i found something: http://www.prisguide.no/produkt/asus-u3 ... 0/detaljer (http://www.prisguide.no/produkt/asus-u3s6-usb-30---sata-6gs-123450/detaljer)
Does this thing work? Addition of USB 3.0 would be awesoem aswell so thats actually a very good deal IMO if i can use it.

EDIT2; According to Asus website it is compatible with my mobo 8)

[Loganbacca]

The current Revodrives I believe have some limitations such as no TRIM support (which helps reduce the drop in drive performance over time), other than that I'm not sure... it takes up a PCIe slot that could be used for something else? The next gen of Revodrive X3's are supposed to have TRIM support though.

That USB3/SATA3 adapter is probably the better route to go, seeing as you also get the +2 USB 3 drives, and a second SATA3 port. Might be best to check if it supports TRIM though, looking at the stats it neither confirms nor denies it, it does support Native Command Queuing though, is that what TRIM needs to work?
While the PCIe controller card won't be as fast as native SATA3 in the chipset, it will be a lot faster than SATA2.
Also check that you've got a free PCIe x4, x8 or x16 slot on your motherboard.

[Tordin Varglund]

Only thing other than my GPU on my mb is an x-fi card in a standard PCI slot.
Also i thought TRIM was something dependant on the actual SSD itself and ran the process all onboard the drive?

[Loganbacca]

Garbage collection is what the SSD itself can do. TRIM is operating system based.
So basically TRIM is what the OS uses to help the SSD optimise garbage collection (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

By the way, does anyone know of some good guides for redirecting OS directories and optimising disk usage on SSD's?

[Tordin Varglund]

Looked a bit around, seems like the controller has a rather shit reputation with ordinary 3Gbit/s SATA II controller on the mainboard actually giving better performance..

[Snowman]

By the way, does anyone know of some good guides for redirecting OS directories and optimising disk usage on SSD's?
I too am looking for information related to this.

[Waagaa]

Windows or Linux?

Windows: look for junctions / symbolic links.. It's not that hard.. (http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows- ... ows-vista/ (http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/using-symlinks-in-windows-vista/))
Linux: man ln or man mount

:)

[Wrack]

By the way, does anyone know of some good guides for redirecting OS directories and optimising disk usage on SSD's?
I too am looking for information related to this.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows- ... ows-vista/ (http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/using-symlinks-in-windows-vista/)

You want to use the /J option

However, I've found that there's not really much you want to offload from the SSD. The point of the SSD is to make your files fast, so you want them on the SSD. The only thing I currently have symlinked off of my SSD is the windows update download directory (C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution). Everything else is either small enough to not worry about, or something that I care about performing quickly. I do have hibernation completely disabled though, the hibernation file would be another good one to offload.

People often recommend setting your swap file to be off the SSD, to reduce wear to the flash, but I disagree. If you have enough RAM, writes to the swap file will be minimal, and when stuff is written, you want retrieving it to be fast.

[Waagaa]

The c:\users folder is nice to symlink to your storage drive.

[Wrack]

The c:\users folder is nice to symlink to your storage drive.

Sure, if you want to potentially wait on a mechanical disk every time an application tries to hit something in Users\AppData, which is often. \Users is where half of everything that matters on your computer is, if you take that off the SSD, what's the point in having one?

Symlink (or just don't use) my music/pictures/videos individually if space is an issue.

[Waagaa]

The c:\users folder is nice to symlink to your storage drive.

Sure, if you want to potentially wait on a mechanical disk every time an application tries to hit something in Users\AppData, which is often. \Users is where half of everything that matters on your computer is, if you take that off the SSD, what's the point in having one?

Symlink (or just don't use) my music/pictures/videos individually if space is an issue.

You gave the answer yourself.. You can also just symlink off the music/pictures/videos/documents/downloads..
Yes, the users tree grows like mad.. especially on an "end user" system, because they DL everything into users\username\downloads..

[Loganbacca]

Thanks for that, symlinks should be exactly what I need.

[Rudolf Miller]

Someone give me a breakdown of how exactly Z68 chipsets work with SSD's to be more awesome?

I got a 120gb Vertex 3 and an Asus Z68 mobo and I'll be putting it together today, but I wanna know the nerdy details of its operational capabilities.

[Snowman]

Also going to symlink some steam games.

[Bombcrater]

Someone give me a breakdown of how exactly Z68 chipsets work with SSD's to be more awesome?
Intel provides a special SATA driver for Z68 boards that uses an SSD as a big cache for a hard drive. It's quite effective; not as good as using an SSD directly, but much faster than just the hard drive on its own. The cache is limited to a certain size (64GB I think) and any space on the SSD beyond that can be used as normal for storage. The big limitation is that you can't use the SSD as both cache and boot drive - enabled caching and you are restricted to using a hard drive to boot from.

All the magic for this is in the driver, there's no new hardware in the chipset, so I'd expect to see it hacked to run on P/H series chipsets pretty soon.

[Rudolf Miller]

Someone give me a breakdown of how exactly Z68 chipsets work with SSD's to be more awesome?
Intel provides a special SATA driver for Z68 boards that uses an SSD as a big cache for a hard drive. It's quite effective; not as good as using an SSD directly, but much faster than just the hard drive on its own. The cache is limited to a certain size (64GB I think) and any space on the SSD beyond that can be used as normal for storage. The big limitation is that you can't use the SSD as both cache and boot drive - enabled caching and you are restricted to using a hard drive to boot from.

All the magic for this is in the driver, there's no new hardware in the chipset, so I'd expect to see it hacked to run on P/H series chipsets pretty soon.

So you're telling me to use this ~awesomely~ I'll need a boot SSD and a caching SSD?

merr.

Point is kinda moot though if anything getting used off hard drives is typically just media files right? There's not much extra speed needed out of there. And if I got a second SSD, may as well just move steam onto that sucker and whip off games at ludicrous speed. Am I right?

[Arele]

The point is to give a large performance boost to mechanical boot / OS drives via the use of a small ssd for caching. Just keep videos and all that junk on a traditional 7200rpm drive, or get a WD green and enjoy the head parking annoyances.

[Loganbacca]

Wooooo, this thing is amazing. So glad I got the Vertex 3.

Only thing that's got me worried at the moment is it's kinda "stalled" a couple of times. The first time was when I was running the Win 7 SP1 installer and it stalled at the end, just sat there, could still move the mouse but not actually open anything. After hitting the reset button it fired up and continued installing.
Second time was when I was installing Microsoft Security Essentials just now, while it was running the update it stalled and a couple of tabs in chrome that I had just started loading brought up a "waiting for cache" message in the corner. I hit "cancel update" in MSE which brought up the UAC confirmation prompt which seemed to resolve it and it continued on after I cancelled cancelling it.
Now keeping in mind I've been having a few issues (http://failheap-challenge.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2377) with my mobo (the SATA controller in particular), could this be the SSD itself or more likely to be the mobo?
I was having some weird issues with my OS drive before switched to the SSD yesterday as well, seemed like OS file corruption, bluescreens while playing video and games and the like, some folders taking a long time to open, maybe the whole bus on the board is screwed causing graphics and HDD issues?

[Rudolf Miller]

The Vertex 3 SSD actually has a lot of rage around it atm. Check your firmware. If it is 2.06 then it is likely to be god damn retarded. You'll ideally want to get to 2.09 and there's a linux client OCZ has provided to update the firmware.

[Loganbacca]

Yep, it's 2.06, I'll update it tomorrow.

[Rudolf Miller]

You can look up the finer points, but what I gathered is that its primarily a "sata timing fix" which is why the computer randomly hangs and blue screens. Also why the blue screens are non productive. The bluescreen can't report any data because the vertex 3 is essentially non-existent.

Also hoping this is a fix, but the linux client from ocz failed to boot for me, so I'm gonna use a full on ubuntu live CD and try from that. If it works, than 1/2 computer problems I have right now are solved.

[Loganbacca]

Updated it via booting up my old Win 7 install (still sitting on the other drive as I haven't reformatted that yet).
Clicking "update firmware" updated it to 2.08, you mentioned there was a v2.09?

Otherwise my SSD is working fine now that I've changed which SATA port it's plugged into, stupid motherboard.

[Rudolf Miller]

Updated it via booting up my old Win 7 install (still sitting on the other drive as I haven't reformatted that yet).
Clicking "update firmware" updated it to 2.08, you mentioned there was a v2.09?

Otherwise my SSD is working fine now that I've changed which SATA port it's plugged into, stupid motherboard.

There is a 2.09, but if I remember my research right, 2.08 was the "original fix" and 2.09 is the "optimal fix" basically, if you have no more BSOD issues, you're good.

[Tordin Varglund]

http://i54.tinypic.com/5ulpap.jpg :razor:

[Airow]

so... I have a bit the dumb right now...

I want to update/upgrade my "old" comp a little so SSD is a good investment I guess. I have an intel motherboard with a 975X Express chipset ( http://ark.intel.com/chipset.aspx?familyID=22688 ) and I know it can use S-ATA but I read that the new SSDs use SATA 2 or SATA 3... so is this just some techno babble and the new SSDs still use S-ATA connectors or is this something new?

for reference in my motherboard manual they note that it can handle S-ATA (3Gb/s)

[Bombcrater]

SATA comes in three versions - 1.5Gb/sec, 3Gb/s and 6Gb/s. The latter two are sometimes incorrectly called SATA 2 and SATA 3. All three are (with a couple of minor exceptions) backwards and forwards compatible - you can, for example, plug a 6Gb/sec drive into a 3Gb/sec port and it'll work, or a 1.5Gb/s drive into a 6Gb/s port. With SATA 3Gb/s on your motherboard you'll be fine. Most SSDs are 3Gb/s, and even the new 6Gb/s ones don't really lose that much performance overall plugged into a 3Gb/s port.

[Airow]

SATA comes in three versions - 1.5Gb/sec, 3Gb/s and 6Gb/s. The latter two are sometimes incorrectly called SATA 2 and SATA 3. All three are (with a couple of minor exceptions) backwards and forwards compatible - you can, for example, plug a 6Gb/sec drive into a 3Gb/sec port and it'll work, or a 1.5Gb/s drive into a 6Gb/s port. With SATA 3Gb/s on your motherboard you'll be fine. Most SSDs are 3Gb/s, and even the new 6Gb/s ones don't really lose that much performance overall plugged into a 3Gb/s port.


ah great :) thank you very much! +rep

[Loganbacca]

For anyone who's interested, I've made a couple of batch files for making Symlinks because it's :effort: to manually enter file names for every file in command prompt.

First one is for symlinking files:

mklink "%~dp0%~nx1" "%~f1"

Second one is for symlinking directories:

mklink /J "%~dp0%~nx1" "%~f1"

Drop the batch file into the directory you want the symlink in, then drag the file you want symlinked onto the batch file.

If you haven't done much with batch files, copy the text in one of the code boxes into a text document, then rename the text file with a .bat extension.

[Dahak]

I'm looking into getting one of these myself since my tower has a spare 3.5" slot. I've been noticing that a lot of the Kingston drives have been up for cheap (with rebate), but there's also a lot of mixed review about them, mostly "dead after x months" kinds of things. Is Kingston a bad brand or is it just to be expected that a certain number of SSDs will be faulty and die prematurely?

[Bombcrater]

Kingston's reliability varies across their different drive families. Their current Toshiba-based V+ drives are mostly in-line with industry norms - that is, about the same as Samsung or Crucial, but better than OCZ - while their older Intel-based drives are just re-badged X25-Ms and thus are pretty much bomb proof.

[Loganbacca]

What are the Corsair Force 3 drives like? I noticed one on the last page, but I've heard something about firmware issues. I know they're SF-2281 based, so should be on par with the OCZ drives by now right?
Asking because I just spotted one on sale locally, so I'm thinking I might pick one up for my brothers new PC build.

[Tordin Varglund]

Ive had mine for about two weeks now, and i have nothing bad to say about it. I use it as my windows drive and a general storage drive (which is why i wanted the 240gb version). so far everything is working perfectly, but i dont know if its working better than say a vertex would. Its lightning fast, read/write speeds are through the roof and response times are literally nill. But as far as i know the last one is the same on basically every SSD. This is my first anyway so i dont have much to compare it to except for standard 7200 drives.

[Loganbacca]

I've got a Vertex 3 myself, I suspect the general feel of the drive will be pretty much identical though. I've ordered the Corsair now anyway, should be interesting to see how it handles compared to my Vertex in a couple of weeks once the build is complete.

I don't use mine for bulk data storage, just as a system drive. So far loading most programs is almost instant, and loading up to the desktop + extra apps (and I have quite a few running) is about 3-4x quicker than my 7200 drive. Only game I've got on it is Mass Effect 2 (everything else is symlinked to the HDD), although I can't say I noticed any quicker loading times on it, loading the program itself though is instant.

[killfalcon]

My new Vertex doesn't show up in Windows Explorer.

The BIOS believes in it. It's connected to a SATA-3 bridge, and has power. But I can't open or format it in windows 7 (which is installed on a different drive), at all. It shows up in the device manager, which naturally claims that the device is working properly, but it's not got a volume letter.

Any ideas? I've probably missed something dumb like a jumper or a driver or something.

[Girt]

Looking to get one of these drives soonish. I'm after some recommendations? Preferably 100+ gig, not stupidly expensive.

tia

[Loganbacca]

What does disk management show up? also, not sure if IDE mode hinders them or anything, might want to check the sata ports are set to AHCI anyway (need it for TRIM atleast).

EDIT: Girt - If you don't want to spend around what the current Vertex 3's are worth, try looking for a Crucial RealSSD C300, they should be a bit cheaper.

[fng]

My new Vertex doesn't show up in Windows Explorer.

The BIOS believes in it. It's connected to a SATA-3 bridge, and has power. But I can't open or format it in windows 7 (which is installed on a different drive), at all. It shows up in the device manager, which naturally claims that the device is working properly, but it's not got a volume letter.

Any ideas? I've probably missed something dumb like a jumper or a driver or something.
diskmgmt.msc ?

[killfalcon]

diskmgmt.msc ?

Never heard of that before. Still, it worked, so thank you. :)

[Dahak]

Looking to get one of these drives soonish. I'm after some recommendations? Preferably 100+ gig, not stupidly expensive.

tia

Check Gizmodo daily for their "Deal of the day" bit. I got my Kingston 128 for $120 by just waiting for the right day. Kingston in particular seems to be doing a lot of price cuts and rebates on their SV series. It's served me well for the couple of weeks I've had it.

[Zeekar]

God i want those prices here. My 90 gb vertex 2 set me back 150 euros and it was a good deal.

[Bombcrater]

Got a 96GB Kingston V+100 last week for £95. Can't argue with a price like that.

[cillisia]

Got a 96GB Kingston V+100 last week for £95. Can't argue with a price like that.

I saw that deal recently, was half tempted to get one, already have a vertex 2e 60gb though...

[arian snow]

I am currently looking at the Intel 320, 120Gb for my X220, however there is apparently is a problem with it reverting to 8mb:
http://www.techspot.com/news/44694-intel-confirms-8mb-bug-in-320-series-ssds.html

[Verizana]

http://media.bestofmicro.com/W/6/300534/original/vertex3_120.png

[Rudolf Miller]

http://media.bestofmicro.com/W/6/300534/original/vertex3_120.png

i wonder what crack theyre smoking and if they've actually tested it. because the issues with the sandforce controllers and the firmare makes it a reeeeeeeeaaaalll bitch.

i finally got my firmware up to 2.09, and so far it works. but seriously, it never should have been a problem in the first place.

[Aea]

Co-worker moved from SSD laptop to non-SSD Mac Mini, needs more IOps, any recommendations? There's two drive bays to thinking 128GB SSD + 750GB SDD or 128GB SSD + 128GB SSD RAID 0. Thoughts or recommendations? It's got a thunderbolt port so he's holding out for fast external data.

Also considering during SSD RAID 0 on my laptop, I have two of the higher end 60GB Vertex's ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227394 ), is they worth it + eSATA large data or not? Should I get a bigger drive?

My current usage profile:

$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 57G 25G 30G 46% /
/dev/sdb1 459G 95G 341G 22% /media/sdb1

I can feasibly replace the disk drive w/ an HD mounting bay, put a 1TB disk in there. Obviously overkill, but I have most of the parts already doing nothing and I've used the disk drive, uhm, once.

[Liptonez]

In Germany we have a huge computer online shop called Alternate, think of Amazon selling only computer parts. It's literally so fucking huge you wouldn't believe it.

Good thing about that is, a lot of people post their reviews there. And many many people have had problems with OCZ drives, lots of them get sent back and exchanged. I, too, wanted to get an OCZ drive, but 5-10%ish failure rate is quite terrible, imo. I heard Intel and Corsair do the best ones, and yeah they're also the most positively voted there.

Corsair is well known for their quality RAM, so I think one can rest assured that their SSDs aren't crap either. Intel seems to delivar too, but honestly, their SSD speeds are shit.

So I'm gonna get myself a 120ish GB Corsair drive this week, will post then. FYI price for 120gb in germany is somewhere around 170-180€.

Edit: Actually I wrote bullshit. In that shop, Intel SSDs have 99% 5 of 5 stars, Corsair 4 ish (which generally means tons of 5s and then people 1ing with broken drives), Crucial (which is actually the one I'm gonna order) is hovering around 5ish. Every producer has some 50-100 votes over various SSDs. Can link if people want, but it's mostly german.

Also secretly hoping for PCI-E SSDs to go down in price. 1500MB/s read go!

[firefoxx80]

Was about to buy http://www.ebuyer.com/product/268693, but just read that Corsair have had a massive recall. :( Looks like I'll have to wait a week or two, then order.

[arian snow]

The new revisions of Corsair are allready on the market, OCZ will not acknowledge that they need to recall, even though the recall is because of faults with Sandforce 2281.

I am getting a Crucial M4 128Gb for my laptop and a 256Gb for my stationary, they might not be as fast as some of the Sandforce drives but they are reliable, which is very important for me.

[Rudolf Miller]

OCZ will not acknowledge that they need to recall, even though the recall is because of faults with Sandforce 2281.



As an owner who got the latest firmware upgrade, I can tell you it's possible they may have fixed it.

Who knows though, *shrug*

[arian snow]

As an owner who got the latest firmware upgrade, I can tell you it's possible they may have fixed it.

Who knows though, *shrug*

Okay, the OCZ Sandforce 2281 drives seems to have problems still, with the 2.09 firmware. The OCZ forum is a pretty scary place to visit for potential customers.

[Rudolf Miller]

Okay, the OCZ Sandforce 2281 drives seems to have problems still, with the 2.09 firmware. The OCZ forum is a pretty scary place to visit for potential customers.

Confirmed. The rage on that forum almost trumps CCP >.>

[Aea]

Confirmed. The rage on that forum almost trumps CCP >.>

Which is a shame, hence two of http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148448 these were ordered today =)

[Girt]

Was looking at this

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/corsair-force-series-3-120gb-25-sata-6gb-s-sandforce-ssd-read-550mb-s-write-510mb-s-85k-iops

and then I saw this

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/120gb-corsair-force-series-gt-sata-iii-ssd-sandforce-sf2200-read-555mb-s-write-515mb-s-85k-iops.

I'm on the brink of experiencing this awesomeness you all speak of, but..

How does the std Corsair force stack up against the force GT? Is it really worth the extra cash? Also how do they compare to the Vortex 3 in terms of performance? I'm wondering whether or not I will notice the difference in performance between the 3. Or have I missed a trick and should be considering something else?

Halp :psyduck:

[cillisia]

Was looking at this

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/corsair-force-series-3-120gb-25-sata-6gb-s-sandforce-ssd-read-550mb-s-write-510mb-s-85k-iops

and then I saw this

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/120gb-corsair-force-series-gt-sata-iii-ssd-sandforce-sf2200-read-555mb-s-write-515mb-s-85k-iops.

I'm on the brink of experiencing this awesomeness you all speak of, but..

How does the std Corsair force stack up against the force GT? Is it really worth the extra cash? Also how do they compare to the Vortex 3 in terms of performance? I'm wondering whether or not I will notice the difference in performance between the 3. Or have I missed a trick and should be considering something else?

Halp :psyduck:

tbh the cheaper one will be fast enough, doubt the real world speed will be much different. definitely get a 120gb one though, or 2x 60gb ones in a raid array. I have a single 60gb and am constantly battling for enough free space to keep it healthy

[arian snow]

Was looking at this

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/corsair-force-series-3-120gb-25-sata-6gb-s-sandforce-ssd-read-550mb-s-write-510mb-s-85k-iops

and then I saw this

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/120gb-corsair-force-series-gt-sata-iii-ssd-sandforce-sf2200-read-555mb-s-write-515mb-s-85k-iops.

I'm on the brink of experiencing this awesomeness you all speak of, but..

How does the std Corsair force stack up against the force GT? Is it really worth the extra cash? Also how do they compare to the Vortex 3 in terms of performance? I'm wondering whether or not I will notice the difference in performance between the 3. Or have I missed a trick and should be considering something else?

Halp :psyduck:

Just get the regular force 3 you will not notice the difference. I actually ended up with a Force 3, 120Gb in my X220 running Gentoo Linux and it's blazingly fast and completely stable even under heavy use (the Crucial I had ordered ended up being backordered and I got a deal in the Force3).

Also Corsair >>> OCZ, so Force series over Vertex allways imo. Corsairs customer service and quality control is miles better.

[Girt]

tbh the cheaper one will be fast enough, doubt the real world speed will be much different. definitely get a 120gb one though, or 2x 60gb ones in a raid array. I have a single 60gb and am constantly battling for enough free space to keep it healthy

Yea I'm definately going for the 120gb, been using the 74gb raptor for years and am fed up with juggling stuff around, esp now I'm on win7. Think i'll go with the std force and save some money.


Also Corsair >>> OCZ, so Force series over Vertex allways imo. Corsairs customer service and quality control is miles better.

:companioncube: Corsair

Edit: I eventually got my Corsair SSD and OMFG, how did I live without this for so long!! Quite simply the best upgrade I have ever installed. These things are stupidly fast!

Thanks for the info guys!

[Liptonez]

I got my Crucial SSD a couple weeks ago. And yeah, it's one of the best things that has happened to my PC in a long time. I don't think Windows boots terribly faster, but the login screen shows no loading progress, after login you can instantly do whatever. EVE definitely loads faster now. Installed Crysis again also to find out about my 6870, and yeah especially that loads a lot faster now (and without freezing all the time).

Worth every penny.

The only thing that is annoying the shit out of me now, my PC likes to freeze when waking up my data hard drives. Gotta see how I can fix that.

[balistic void]

Control panel -> power management -> change to high performance instead of balanced. Or change the specific setting in there for when hard drives go asleep.

[Liptonez]

Control panel -> power management -> change to high performance instead of balanced. Or change the specific setting in there for when hard drives go asleep.
Yeah thanks, I think that should do it. Now there's hoping that I don't constantly hear them damn HDDs.

[Wrack]

Yeah thanks, I think that should do it. Now there's hoping that I don't constantly hear them damn HDDs.

If you do... http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=19147

[Itiken]

Anyone know how SATA SSD's stack up against the internal PCI-E SSD's I've seen available on the market recently ?

[BLEURRRRGH]

Anyone know how SATA SSD's stack up against the internal PCI-E SSD's I've seen available on the market recently ?

Two months old: http://www.guru3d.com/article/ocz-revodrive-3-x2-review/9

[Daneel Trevize]

Go go early adopters.

[Itiken]

Two months old: http://www.guru3d.com/article/ocz-revodrive-3-x2-review/9


We can think of a thousand words to describe the RevoDrive 3 X2 series but I'll just put it all in one work, delicious.

Thanks for the link. My idle interest is stilled for the day. Props.

[Zekk Pacus]

Well assuming your board has the bandwidth to support an x4 PCI-E SSD then in theory there's a lot more performance to be had from them, but they're also way more expensive (120gb Revodrive 3 is £300, most SATA3 120gb SSDs are £150-180) and I'm not sure how robust the support for them is.

SATA3 has theoretical max throughput of 6Gbit/s, each lane on a PCI-E v2.0 controller is 5Gbit/s, but you lose 20% of speed to the 8/10 encryption so in theory it's a lot faster but in practice?

EDIT: GODDAMN YOU VBB. Why doesn't this forum do what the old forum did and tell me 'zekk someone answered all the questions three pages ago while you were looking up shit'.

[BLEURRRRGH]

Thanks for the link. My idle interest is stilled for the day. Props.

Ironically, I asked myself the same question earlier today so all I had to do was browse through my history and pull out the link :P

[TZeer]

Pretty interesting thread where they are trying to find out how much use a SSD can take, before it go bonkers.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?271063-SSD-Write-Endurance-25nm-Vs-34nm/page58&

[Lumy]

CORSAIR Force 3 Series 120GB @ 170 € (including VAT):
Yay or nay?

[Zekk Pacus]

Force 3s have had ENDLESS problems and they keep dropping out of the supply chain, which is never a good sign. Corsair customer support is usually pretty good but apparently they're just flat-out refusing to admit some of the problems exist.

[firefoxx80]

Just got a Force 3, haven't had any problems with it yet.

The problems seem to be affecting all Sandforce based SSD's if I understand correctly?

[Bombcrater]

Yep, all Sandforce based models seem to be having problems. There's something very, very wrong with either the Sandforce controller or the firmware it's running and nobody as yet has a clear idea of what the root problem (or problems) is, far less how to put it right. And the two biggest manufacturers (OCZ and Corsair) being neck-deep in an Egyptian river doesn't inspire confidence that situation will change any time soon. Their forums look like something from the bad old JMicron days: endless problems, lots of denial, and 'fixes' that are one step up from voodoo.

[Aurora148]

what are the problems with the sandforce models?

[Loganbacca]

BSOD F4 primarily, i.e. drive related problem.

I've got a Vertex 3 and did have the issue, haven't had it since updating to the latest firmware (2.11) and updating the Intel RST drivers + removed the Intel management drivers.

What usually happens is the system either crashes straight into a BSOD or programs will gradually stop responding as they try accessing the SSD (which the system is no longer detecting), which usually results in either a complete lock up or BSOD. Sometimes after rebooting the system wont detect the drive until you do a complete power down and cold boot.
Interestingly it quite often won't drop the drive while the system is going full speed during a stress test or the like, the issue is usually when your doing something casual with occasional disc access like web browsing while listening to music (I used to reliably get mine to crash with a web browser open, mp3 playing and Terraria running). From the comments I've read on the OCZ forum some of the OCZ staff believe the issue may be related to the drive going to sleep and Windows failing to wake it, however they've also suggested it could be linked to Sandy Bridge CPU power saving functionality. Who knows.

As I say though, my drive has been running stable for the past few weeks, and my brother's drive (Corsair Force 3) has also been running fine, and we haven't touched the firmware on that at all.

[Bombcrater]

The problem with Sandforce drives dropping out when lightly loaded is almost certainly a power management issue, yeah. The firmware doesn't appear to handle SATA Link Power Management correctly, it seems to get confused and doesn't wake up when commanded to. But there's a whole range of problems not related to that: drives randomly bricking, data corruption, intermittent detection in the BIOS, etc.

My pet theory is that there's two seperate problems here. One is Sandforce's 6Gbit SATA controller being somewhat marginal, even when running in 3Gbit mode - possibly a timing issue, given that it misbehaves worse on some motherboards than others - and, second, bugs in the on-the-fly data compression that the controller uses when writing to flash. I think Sandforce has been a bit too ambitious with their design without the R&D or validation resources to pull it off.

I upgraded the Intel-based SSDs in my PC and laptop recently and never even considered buying a Sandforce drive for a single second. They're quick in benchmarks, but the real-world gap between one and a more solid, reliable (and usually cheaper) drive is fairly minimal. Not nearly enough to justify the risk. In the end I went for a Kingston V+100 for the laptop and a Crucial C300 for the PC. The Kingston is a rock, I've never heard of anyone having any significant problems with them, and the C300 has gone through enough firmware revisions that they seem to have caught all the bugs now.

[Loganbacca]

I'd have to agree with you there, in real-world scenarios most SSD's are going to be much of a muchness as far as everyday speed goes, the real bottleneck for loading programs and the OS tends to be all the small files which any SSD can load quick due to the fact they're flash memory based with 0 seek times. Better to go for a reliable drive than a benchmark record setting drive.

[Lumy]

Sooo, should I just avoid SSDs with Sandforce controller? Buy older model instead, something of 2 Series? There is OCZ Vertex 2 Series 120GB at price I'm comfortable with (about same).

[arian snow]

Well, I have been running a Sandforce2281 Corsair 120GT, and it works fine so far, completely stable after a month of heavy usage, I run Linux (Gentoo).

Still as if I where a regular user I would probably opt for a Crucial, especially if I was running Windows.

I would definitely get a Corsair over a OCZ, support is much better, and they even did a recall of their drives to replace the sandforce controllers with newer revisions.

[Lana Torrin]

Well, I have been running a Sandforce2281 Corsair 120GT, and it works fine so far, completely stable after a month of heavy usage, I run Linux (Gentoo).

Still as if I where a regular user I would probably opt for a Crucial, especially if I was running Windows.

I would definitely get a Corsair over a OCZ, support is much better, and they even did a recall of their drives to replace the sandforce controllers with newer revisions.

Does anyone know WHICH sandforce controllers are buggy?? I just got a note from my friendly local PC store that they have new Corsair Force GT Series 3 SSDs in stock and looking around they use the SF-2200 and SF-2280 controllers...

They have them at a very tempting price, but I don't want to kill my system..

Edit: They are also trying to tempt me with some RevoDrive 3 X2's... http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/revodrive-3-x2,2967.html

[Loganbacca]

Confirming it's the SF-2xxx controllers which are the buggy ones.

[arian snow]

Does anyone know WHICH sandforce controllers are buggy?? I just got a note from my friendly local PC store that they have new Corsair Force GT Series 3 SSDs in stock and looking around they use the SF-2200 and SF-2280 controllers...

They have them at a very tempting price, but I don't want to kill my system..

Edit: They are also trying to tempt me with some RevoDrive 3 X2's... http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/revodrive-3-x2,2967.html

Tbh I would just get the GT3 if the price is attractive, if you can live with a 120Gb. Even though I usually use a RAM drive for compiling the drive I have installed have been used pretty heavily, and it's rock solid, not a single kernel panic or other "weird shit".

But yeah the 2281s are the buggy ones, but post recall Corsair models are pretty solid AFAIK. In fact all SSD drives have had problems at one time or another, the Crucial/Microns has had slowdowns, Intel 320 has had the devastating 8Mb bug (which prompted me to get the GT3 instead) ...
That isn't to say the SSD's haven't matured enough for the average user! because they most certainly have, HDD aren't 100% safe either and consumer hardware will allways suffer from quality issues.

Reminds me of the ancient computer saying:
"Real men don't do backups, real men cry alot"

Still as true as it ever was, never trust your storage devices, allways do backups.

[Zekk Pacus]

Question time:

I currently have my Windows 1TB drive partitioned into a 120GB C: partition for Windows, and an 880GB partition for other shit.

What's the best way to ghost that 120GB partition onto an SSD, and are there any practical advantages/disadvantages to doing so, rather than doing a clean install (which I don't want to do because it's :effort: )

[Bombcrater]

But yeah the 2281s are the buggy ones, but post recall Corsair models are pretty solid AFAIK. In fact all SSD drives have had problems at one time or another, the Crucial/Microns has had slowdowns, Intel 320 has had the devastating 8Mb bug (which prompted me to get the GT3 instead) ...
The SandForce problems are, imho, much more serious because they're that rare combination of a bug that is both unpredictable and undefined. SandForce doesn't seem to know what's happening, why it's happening or how to fix it. Contrast that with Intel, who discovered what was behind the 8MB bug, publicly announced the cause, fixed it, tested the fix and shipped new firmware all in a matter of a few weeks.

For me it's the uncertainty that kills SandForce drives stone dead. Buy one and you don't know if it'll work with any stability. And the SF controller seems to be quite sensitive to the environment its running it, so even if the drive does run fine initially there's no guarantee that any future change in system config won't cause it to go ape-shit. And with the m4 on the market now SandForce no longer has any substantial performance advantage to offset the instability.


Still as true as it ever was, never trust your storage devices, allways do backups.
Can't be said enough times. It's not if you'll need those backups, but when.

[mira o'karr]

BSOD F4 primarily, i.e. drive related problem.

I've got a Vertex 3 and did have the issue, haven't had it since updating to the latest firmware (2.11) and updating the Intel RST drivers + removed the Intel management drivers.

What usually happens is the system either crashes straight into a BSOD or programs will gradually stop responding as they try accessing the SSD (which the system is no longer detecting), which usually results in either a complete lock up or BSOD. Sometimes after rebooting the system wont detect the drive until you do a complete power down and cold boot.
Interestingly it quite often won't drop the drive while the system is going full speed during a stress test or the like, the issue is usually when your doing something casual with occasional disc access like web browsing while listening to music (I used to reliably get mine to crash with a web browser open, mp3 playing and Terraria running). From the comments I've read on the OCZ forum some of the OCZ staff believe the issue may be related to the drive going to sleep and Windows failing to wake it, however they've also suggested it could be linked to Sandy Bridge CPU power saving functionality. Who knows.

As I say though, my drive has been running stable for the past few weeks, and my brother's drive (Corsair Force 3) has also been running fine, and we haven't touched the firmware on that at all.

i had this too, BSOD then drive not picked up in bios .. to the point where i removed the SSD and went back to a regular one.
BSOD persisted though and it turns the DVD drive was causing the issues. after i disabled the drive in device manager and hooked the SSD back (OCZ as well btw) i havent had the issue again.

[Loganbacca]

There seems to be all sorts of weird scenarios that are resolved from just as numerous solutions with the Sandforce drives.

Since posting that comment my drive went funny again and dropped from my system, so I went through a sequence of resetting my bios, re-flashing the drive and reinstalling the drives drivers in the OS, we'll see how long it lasts this time before dropping or bluescreening again. Seriously SandForce, get your stuff together.

It seems to be much less of an issue now though, so I'm going to stick it out and see what happens with the firmware updates and the like.

EDIT: never mind, crashed again :(

[Vax]

why is the Intel 510 nearly 100 bucks more expensive than the Crucial M4 or Samsung 470?

[Loganbacca]

why is the Intel 510 nearly 100 bucks more expensive than the Crucial M4 or Samsung 470?
That is a good question actually, especially seeing as the m4 is slightly better raw performance wise than the 510: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/425?vs=375
The Samsung looks even better as well.

[Rook]

I had the whole freezing, BSOD and drive not being detected by BIOS problem 4 times in 3 days with my OCZ Agility 3. I tried various fixes, including updating the firmware (2.11). It seemed to stop crashing after I installed Intel RST 10.6. To test it I did a fresh install of Windows (after clearing the CMOS) and immediately installed RST 10.6. Haven't had a crash for about a week and the only things different are the version of RST and the firmware.

Of course some of the supposed fixes (from reading the OCZ forum) seem so varied and random that it could still all go completely tits up and I'm back where I started.

[Vax]

That is a good question actually, especially seeing as the m4 is slightly better raw performance wise than the 510: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/425?vs=375
The Samsung looks even better as well.

Yeah well i read up on it a little bit and Intel SSDs are just awesome robust. Seems like there arent much people with ever having problems with the Intel controller. So i guess you pay extra for the certain stability.

[Tordin Varglund]

If i was to buy an SSD today, id get an M4 or 510. Either one is good. I have a Force 3 240gb, and even though it performs well in my case (ive had 1 BSOD, and the system will hang for 1-2 sec ever 4-5 hours), the risk of getting some serious issues with it and having to change it is enough for me to sacrefice the extreme read/write speeds if i was to buy a new one. After all, the biggest advantage of the SSD is the response times, and even the M4 and 310/510 series are way, WAAAY faster than anything a normal HDD will ever provide.

[PraetorNZ]

so if i have games and shit on a ssd but windows on a normal older drive will it make much difference to game load time? i really cant be fucked shifting windows to ssd.
boot time doesnt worry me cause thats usually when i take a dump in the morning

[Lana Torrin]

so if i have games and shit on a ssd but windows on a normal older drive will it make much difference to game load time? i really cant be fucked shifting windows to ssd.
boot time doesnt worry me cause thats usually when i take a dump in the morning

It'll help.. Put your swap on it as well (obviously) as windows tends to try and use swap even if it doesn't need to.. Obviously the optimal way is to put everything on the SSD..

[Navigator Six]

Just had my Vertex pack up after nearly two years of solid use as an OS drive. Checked online and what do you know? it's still under warranty. 8-)

[Bacchanalian]

Interesting random glitch I've encountered with mine. I use an SSD for my windows install and keep most of my games etc on other drives. When playing SC2 with it installed on another drive, I'd randomly hang on load screens and the like. I eventually got the idea to install it on my SSD and it works fine ever since.

[Chrien]

I'm looking at getting a SSD in late November brought over from Hong Kong by a friend (prices are significantly cheaper there than here in Australia), reading above there seems to be support for getting either Crucial M4 or the Intel 510s, are the OCZ Vertex 3s reliable? I'd initially looked at getting one of those. The anandtech benchmarks seem to suggest performance is very similar between the 3.

[Navigator Six]

It looks like there's a bit of a BSOD issue (http://www.anandtech.com/show/4712/the-crucial-m4-ssd-update-faster-with-fw0009) with the new SandForce-based drives (e.g. the Vertex 3) at the moment. Seems like either the 510 or the m4 would be a safer bet.

[Loganbacca]

Yea, don't bother with anything with a SandForce SF-2xxx controller in it at the moment, for the sake of your sanity.

The Vertex 3's are good drives, but the BSOD bug is just too much of a game breaker, go for either the m4 or 510.

[Lana Torrin]

Corsair Force Series 3 SSDs with a batch code starting with UPC 1123 or higher are 'fixed'.

[arian snow]

Well, as mentioned earlier I have a revised Corsair Force GT3, 120Gb, in and X220 running Gentoo.

It has run very stable, with heavy compiling and such things. However I have a problem of the system sometimes stalling completely no kernel panick or anything. At first I thought it was because I was running compiz(openGL window manager), however the problem still persisted with a regular window manager.

I am still hunting down the source of the problem, since it's extremely rare. Kind of on the fence in regards of my Sandforce based SSD, as thats my primary suspect atm.

So beware of sandforce!

[Loganbacca]

Well, as mentioned earlier I have a revised Corsair Force GT3, 120Gb, in and X220 running Gentoo.

It has run very stable, with heavy compiling and such things. However I have a problem of the system sometimes stalling completely no kernel panick or anything. At first I thought it was because I was running compiz(openGL window manager), however the problem still persisted with a regular window manager.

I am still hunting down the source of the problem, since it's extremely rare. Kind of on the fence in regards of my Sandforce based SSD, as thats my primary suspect atm.

So beware of sandforce!
I believe what your describing is basically the BSOD bug. Usually (but not always) in Windows it just results in a BSOD, but quite often it will be pre-empted by the system just failing to respond (like the drive has gone to sleep and stopped responding).

EDIT: Just noticed there's new firmware released by OCZ (2.13). Do I dare flash my firmware? Not until my drive bluescreens again I think, it's been running stable for the past couple of weeks, so I'm gonna leave it running 2.11 for now.


Issues resolved since version 2.11:
· Fixed a corner-case issue in drive recovery after unsafe power cycles
· Further improved bad block managements after repeated unsafe power cycles
· Fixed a issue when a secure erase command was accepted even an uncorrected password
was entered
Needs moar "Fixed BSOD bug" :(

[arian snow]

The problem is that it's basicly money lost, the fault is so arbitrary and rare that it's impossible to reproduce in a testing environment within a reasonable amount of time. I reckon most windows users wont do RMA because they really don't know why their system makes a BSOD or stall once every blue moon, however for me it's totally unacceptable.

Oh and then I have to do my super slick Gentoo install/setup all over again FFffffff....

Btw anand has done some testing on the new Samsung D830
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4863/the-samsung-ssd-830-review


Btw, is the Crucial M4 a wholly safe bet or do does it have to be a Intel 510/320. I cannot have my computer stall in the middle of an presentation before 50 students or at the examn.

[Zekk Pacus]

M4 is safe bet, Intels are bomb-proof though. I know of no issues with Crucial ones, but Intel make great noises about their SSDs being stable.

Also installing my new Force 3, need to shrink my Win7 partition to clone it across....of course Windows has page file sitting right at the end of the partition, so no shrinkable space. FU windows, I really like defragging too, honest.

EDIT: Note to self. If you start a partition resize operation on a non-contiguous partition, LEAVE IT THE FUCK ALONE. Accidentally cancelled a resize operation on my second partition and destroyed everything on the disk. Oh well, clean Windows install. Restarting Windows just for fun, now i'm looking at my BIOS screen like it takes too long....

[EntroX]

whats the best SSD in the 80GB size range speed/price wise.

i want something that will use the pretty much unused sata3 ports on my motherboard.

(i have a buyer for my vertex2)

[Lana Torrin]

whats the best SSD in the 80GB size range speed/price wise.

i want something that will use the pretty much unused sata3 ports on my motherboard.

(i have a buyer for my vertex2)

I was going to say the Intel ones would ne the safest bet but fuck their SATA3 ones are slow. Suck it up and get a corsair one...

[Zekk Pacus]

Even though I bought a Corsair one, I bought it because they're cheap. They quote stats you're unlikely to ever see in real world performance (in particular the write speed is a giant pile of bullshit). If you have a chunk of cash, go Intel or Crucial. If you're looking for cheap, go Corsair. I wouldn't buy anyone else.

[arian snow]

Okay did alot more testing, and it's not my SSD that crashes the system I've found, it seems I suffer from a bug that crashes the x-server in Libreoffice Draw on intel IGP systems (http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-June/013926.html).
So the Corsair Force 3, is in the clear for now, sorry.

[noobcake]

Even though I bought a Corsair one, I bought it because they're cheap. They quote stats you're unlikely to ever see in real world performance (in particular the write speed is a giant pile of bullshit). If you have a chunk of cash, go Intel or Crucial. If you're looking for cheap, go Corsair. I wouldn't buy anyone else.

Even then corsair isn't that bad of a choice. Got my 60 GB corsair SSD in December last year and haven't noticed any considerable performance degradation since then

Sent from my HTC EVO using Tapatalk

[Zekk Pacus]

Corsair drives are always good choices and Corsair have good customer service, it's just whether you can risk the SF-2281 controller falling over on you with no warning. For me anything important is sitting on a mech drive and a USB pen so it's not so much an issue, but if it is go Intel/Crucial over anyone else.

[Jags]

Fuck you OCZ just lost my SSD last night. Luckily I was looking to upgrade soon so had copied off most of my shit,

Anyone know what their warranty is like ? Says in the box 3 years so at least hoping to get a new SSD from them , but buying Corsair as a replacement anyway

[noobcake]

Fuck you OCZ just lost my SSD last night. Luckily I was looking to upgrade soon so had copied off most of my shit,

Anyone know what their warranty is like ? Says in the box 3 years so at least hoping to get a new SSD from them , but buying Corsair as a replacement anyway


lolololol seems more and more people I know who have OCZs in their machines are experiencing the same issue. Alot of these people swore on OCZ SSDs until they shit the bed...

[Lana Torrin]

lolololol seems more and more people I know who have OCZs in their machines are experiencing the same issue. Alot of these people swore on OCZ SSDs until they shit the bed...
One in my eee is still going fine, but yeah, not getting another one with the amount of people complaining about them.

[Navigator Six]

Fuck you OCZ just lost my SSD last night. Luckily I was looking to upgrade soon so had copied off most of my shit,

Anyone know what their warranty is like ? Says in the box 3 years so at least hoping to get a new SSD from them , but buying Corsair as a replacement anyway
I lost my Vertex a few weeks ago after nearly a two-year run with it. The original warranty was just for one year, but the current one (for the Vertex at least) is for two and they were happy to replace it. Anything that's second-gen or greater should have a three-year warranty (http://www.ocztechnology.com/aboutocz/news/138) (there was a page that listed all of the OCZ warranty lengths, but I can't seem to find it right now).

Every time I've lost a HDD before I was at least able to get at it with data-recovery tools. Not so with the Vertex, which went completely caput. Suppose that could be a downside to SSDs. 8-)

[Loganbacca]

Hence why they're best used as OS drives and not storage drives.

[Loganbacca]

Sandforce BSOD bug fix is live: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4973/sandforce-identifies-firmware-bug-causing-bsod-issue-fix-available-today

I'll be updating my Vertex 3 sometime this week, here's hoping it fixes the issues as advertised.

[Zekk Pacus]

Hm. My Force 3 has crashed from sleep once, which was a royal pain in the arse to sort out because it managed to take my boot loader with it. Hopefully Corsair put out a version of this.

[Lana Torrin]

Hm. My Force 3 has crashed from sleep once, which was a royal pain in the arse to sort out because it managed to take my boot loader with it. Hopefully Corsair put out a version of this.

I'm interested to know what they are going to do actually, because according to Corsair , they fixed this issue last month...

[Zekk Pacus]

Same as OCZ claim to have fixed it several times, though. Manufacturer tweaks are all well and good, not sure how many of the firmware revisions have actually had SandForce's hand in them.