Anandtech: Understanding Solid State Drives

[Goronmon]

Anandtech has a pretty awesome (and long) write-up (http://anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531) that takes an extremely detailed look at the current state of SSDs on the market today. Definitely an interesting read and almost required for anyone looking to purchase an SSD in the near future.

I spent about three weeks working on my review of Intel’s X25-M SSD (http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3403). Most of that was research and writing and re-writing to not only review the product but also to talk about the rest of the SSDs in the marketplace and their deficiencies. Truth be told, I spent more time working on SSDs that weren’t the X25-M than the Intel drive itself. The Intel drive just worked as it should, the rest of them didn’t.

[AniAko]

I guess nobody cares about write endurance anymore?

[Ancalagon]

Thats a very good article, have already read it.

Pity SSD's arent just expensive, they are ridiculously expensive! I mean, a hard drive (okay SSD) for the price of a high end graphics card? Granted, its quite a performance leap, but still...

[LiquidRain]

I guess nobody cares about write endurance anymore?
I'd be surprised if the write endurance of an SSD can't match or outdo the failure rate of my desktop drives. And I treat those things like babies.

The Vertex is still expensive. When Anand said it was 1/2 the price per gig I was expecting something in the $200 range for 80 gigs, which is an extremely tempting proposition. I checked Newegg to find that the 120GB Vertex is actually $450. More expensive than the Intel X25-M! Ugh.

I read the whole article, though, and found it to be very informative. Maybe by the end of the year I can get my hands on a 80-120GB Intel or Vertex SSD for 200. Here's hopin.

[NoName]

Any ASUS eee pc users know what size the removable HD ASUS uses? Would one of these be compatible.

I'd love a larger size (by larger I mean 64-80 gig) which would be fine for Windows 7...

Edit: Also, the quote below is really interesting.
Intel went one step further and delivered 5x what the OEMs requested. Thus Intel will guarantee that you can write 100GB of data to one of its MLC SSDs every day, for the next five years, and your data will remain intact. The drives only ship with a 3 year warranty but I suspect that there'd be some recourse if you could prove that Intel's 100GB/day promise was false.

[Ancalagon]

Any ASUS eee pc users know what size the removable HD ASUS uses? Would one of these be compatible.

I'd love a larger size (by larger I mean 64-80 gig) which would be fine for Windows 7...

Edit: Also, the quote below is really interesting.

I also liked the illustration of what OCZ did to make the Vertex perform well, especially when contrasted to the other companies.

I always find it interesting to hear about the pressure placed on journos by marketers. By interesting I mean it makes my blood boil, but I'm happy anandtech doesnt give in to that shit.

[AniAko]

Any ASUS eee pc users know what size the removable HD ASUS uses? Would one of these be compatible.

I'd love a larger size (by larger I mean 64-80 gig) which would be fine for Windows 7...

Depends on the model. The 1000 comes with a 40GB SSD (with linux) the new s101 only has a 16GB, BUT SuperTalent sports up to 256GB SSD that's supposed to be compatible with the s101, possibly the 1000s.

[NoName]

Depends on the model. The 1000 comes with a 40GB SSD (with linux) the new s101 only has a 16GB, BUT SuperTalent sports up to 256GB SSD that's supposed to be compatible with the s101, possibly the 1000s.

Thanks for that, they have a 64GB designed specifically for ASUS EEE PCs and the 1000 is listed in the product spec as compatible. They also have the best reviews of manufactures with drives that fit ASUS from what I can tell.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820609352&Tpk=fpm64ghae

[Ancalagon]

I just had a thought - what if you put one of these into a PS3?

The other thing I thought of, is that by 2012 or whenever the next gen is released, SSDs will either be standard or be an optional elite extra. Or, we wont have hard drives because everything will be on the Cloud.

[Goronmon]

Or, we wont have hard drives because everything will be on the Cloud.Seriously doubt this. Until uploads speeds are significantly higher than the "mostly useless" level they are at now, this just isn't an option for almost everyone in the US for the foreseeable future.

[TheFlyingOrc]

I guess nobody cares about write endurance anymore?

Is that really going to be a problem for a consumer level device? Should you be getting a new computer before you write to the same memory location several thousand times?

[AniAko]

Is that really going to be a problem for a consumer level device? Should you be getting a new computer before you write to the same memory location several thousand times?

I worry about small partitions, since write endurance takes size into account, and I'm a performance whore. But you're right in general, it's not something consumers will need to worry about.

[Farsight]

I have the OCZ Vertex 120GB, and I can say that if you use your computer extensively (like for work as well as leisure), it's worth every penny ($370 where I got mine). The difference in real-world performance is astounding - it's the biggest single upgrade you can make to the average PC.

That grinding the hard drive does when you try to access multiple files? Gone. Reading and writing is faster, but it's the insane speedup in random access (8ms vs 0.1ms, HD stalling on multiple files vs SSD taking no penalty) that really makes you take notice.

On reliability, good SSDs are rated higher than standard HDs. Also, when SSDs do wear out, their data can still be read, just not overwritten, so the worst part of HD death (data loss) is a non-issue.

If you just use your PC for games / browsing / etc, SSDs are a luxury item. For now. But prices are dropping and sizes are growing and speeds are increasing at an amazing rate. In the next year or two, we may see a 250GB SSD that can push 1GB/s going for $200. These things are advancing so fast that they will soon move to PCI-Express cards because SATA3 can't handle them. When the price comes down, an SSD is essential as the boot drive for any decent system.

[boratika]

I just had a thought - what if you put one of these into a PS3?

This (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2332520,00.asp).

Pity SSD's arent just expensive, they are ridiculously expensive!

But on the plus side, the rate at which their price drops is astronomical.

[Hotcod]

On reliability, good SSDs are rated higher than standard HDs. Also, when SSDs do wear out, their data can still be read, just not overwritten, so the worst part of HD death (data loss) is a non-issue.

this is the biggest thing for me... i don't mind having to replace drives (to a point) i just really really hate losing date when things go wrong

[LiquidRain]

this is the biggest thing for me... i don't mind having to replace drives (to a point) i just really really hate losing date when things go wrong
Backups my friend. You shouldn't trust a single drive to do the job. Ever.

Hell, I don't even trust a single *place.* And every single one of my drives is encrypted to boot.

[Farsight]

One note: don't try one out unless you can afford to buy one. I've only had mine a couple weeks, and I already know I'll never have another PC w/o an SSD in it. I've done entire system upgrades that had less effect on real-world performance than that little billfold-sized drive has had!

[Hotcod]

Backups my friend. You shouldn't trust a single drive to do the job. Ever.

Hell, I don't even trust a single *place.* And every single one of my drives is encrypted to boot.

oh i do back up, like a bitch, but when your working on files of a huge size that you can't dump on a usb... well... losing a day or 2 of work from the last major back up to a hard drive crash has honestly made almost throw things out the window.

With a SSD i'd still be backing up but there will always be a safty net for my work.... never have to lose work again with out having to back up everthing at the end of the night.

I'm running with a laptop at the moment so i can't even just have 2 hard drives running :(