Ten 60 GB SandForce-Based Boot Drives, Rounded-Up

[hixbot]

Please evaluate raid 0 performance, garbage collection etc.

 

[Wisecracker]

I understand the inherent problems in introducing 'pricing' into the equation, but I snagged 2 OCZ Agility 3s for roughly the same price as a single SSD 520.

The 520 has dropped to around $120 now - the Agility 3s are $75 after rebate (and most likely will need a firmware update).

It's not a big deal, really, but you can either RAID (had no interest) or use it in another rig (in my case, a Zacate notebook).

 

[superflykicks03]

[citation][nom]fkr[/nom]I recently built a nice Z68 based 2500k i5 system. My question is what will give the best overall performance. Assuming i am only able to buy a 60GB SSD, should I use it as an I/O cache drive (intel SRT) or as a boot drive. I see reports of gaining 80% of the performance you would get from a SSD only. These stats seam high but with performance of SSD's degrading as they fill up and cache improving with use I just wonder where these technologies actually end up. I read through tom's forums and I just don't know where we end up in this debate. SRT users love it SSD only users love that. As for how I use my computer I play allot of games, browse the web using several different browsers, word, excel, powerpoint, windows media center to xbox for video, skype, light picture editing. thanks[/citation]

I thought about this myself with my own recent build. I would look at this article at Anand to answer some of your questions:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4329/intel-z68-chipset-smart-response-technology-ssd-caching-review/4

Game loads and boot times are nearly as fast as SSD, probably close to that 80% figure you mentioned. The problem will be ultimately things getting kicked out of the cache as you use your computer, so the "SSD like" performance gains are 1) not quite as fast, and 2)inconsistent. The cool thing is you can install 500GB worth of games on a HDD and the ones that you are playing more frequently will load faster as they cache to the SSD. The other issue is that Intel SRT tech is relatively new, and with new tech, you run a higher risk of unforeseen problems.

Ultimately, this solution is not going to be as fast or consistent as a pure SSD solution. It is better in my opinion to install your frequently used programs to SSD (including games) and run them directly from there. If you don't like manually moving programs around (its can be a pain and require third party software with STEAM) and managing space on a small SSD, then perhaps SRT would be a better solution for you.

 

[lakshitharxx]

great article..

 

[Tavo_Nova]

and i thought they rounded up 10 ssd in raid 0 or something ahahaha lol was like omg thats fast until i started reading lol

but this is great too

 

[Tal Greywolf]

When I built my current system (i5-2550k, Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 motherboard), I decided to go in an unusual direction. I purchased a Kingston SSDnow mSATA 64GB drive, which went into the mSATA slot on the Gigabyte board. I also had a SanDisk Ultra 120GB SSD, which became the 2nd drive in the system. The Kingston has just the OS installed on it, and the SanDisk has just program files installed.

Now, I'll state that with this arrangement, the boot times and access times are definitely an improvement over the old boot drive (which is now the E: drive, a 600GB Velociraptor). I do have to remember that programs installed have to go onto the D: drive, but I've managed to keep the drive space usage fairly reasonable. Right now I have 34.7GB free on the Kingston, and 81.6GB free on the SanDisk (that includes a full install of Office 2007 as well as the complete install of Adobe CS5 Production Premium). Combined with 16GB of onboard memory, the system is definitely overdesigned for what I use it for, and probably will remain so for at least another year or two.

 

[gagunga]

The MTF could be watched more closely. We had a lot of OCZ Vertex and Agility in our Desktop-PCs and at least the half of them failed within 3 months. OCZ is exchanging them, without asking many questions, but you have a lot more downtime on PCs than with HDs.

 

[gagunga]

The MTF could be watched more closely. We had a lot of OCZ Vertex and Agility in our Desktop-PCs and at least the half of them failed within 3 months. OCZ is exchanging them, without asking many questions, but you have a lot more downtime on PCs than with HDs.

 

[gagunga]

The MTF could be watched more closely. We had a lot of OCZ Vertex and Agility in our Desktop-PCs and at least the half of them failed within 3 months. OCZ is exchanging them, without asking many questions, but you have a lot more downtime on PCs than with HDs.

 

[Dingola]

So if I'm considering running 2x 60GB SSDs in RAID 0 config (back ups to network storage), should I go for 2x Crucial M4's or 2x 60GB Mushkin Enhanced Chronos Deluxe?

 

[Guest]

All of the performance claimed is incredibly over inflated!
They claim around 480 MS/sec while they really do between 80 and 110...
Sure I can write very, very fast files that are filled with same character, because I can compress them to "1 byte" (+header). But that is a fake scenario. So all I need is a faster compression and I can claim 1000 MB/sec because compression was faster.

Thanks for testing the uncompressable writes!

 

[wakkoguy]

I am in the market for a 120gb SSD and before I read this article I was deciding between the Intel 520 and the Vertex 3. Even though this is based on the 60gb model, should I forget those two and go with the 128gb m4?