Useful SSD Articles

[randomizer]

I was not looking to post links to benchmarks, just information about SSD technology.

 

[tecmo34]

Justin just made a new SSD Section, so you might want to move this to that section's, as a sticky :

 

[randomizer]

Done and done

 

[shmcphrsn]

I know that the drive defrag should be turned off but I was wondering Should I Defrag My Registry?

 

[LAMINI]

I have a pair of IntelX25s on my laptop in RAID0 (SAGER P9280, two of them). I also have a pair on a desktop raid0... and on another laptop. why would someone spend that amount of cash for HDDs? These are all for work purposes (the desktop/laptop are mine). They have paid themselves back long ago. There are reviews around the net regarding Intel SSDs stating productivity increased to the point an 8 hr day can be 7hrs when using an SSD. Open a 10mb photoshop file in 2-3 seconds and not 20, believe it... boot/startups of computers in fractions of the time, yup... 200mb+ transfer rates, google hdtach for SSDs. A little overpriced? yes. But thats the price for newer technology... the point is that its cost efficient. much faster reboots, much faster file transfers... only catch other than price is the size... but thats why you run the OS on the fast drives and backups on the slower/larger drives.

Laptops are/were dying for SSDs (majority of them are slow 5400rpm) are they horribly slow compared to a modern quad/6 core desktop. Not talking about the "toy" laptops or netbooks junk, talking about work/productivity (did I mention IO on these things are rediculous?). generate much less heat, use less power (more battery life), run circles around stockOEM laptopHDDS, shutdown/boot times are rediculously fast (compared to typical laptops). been running them over 6 months so im over the "concerns" / "immaturity" of SSDs. Ive done the research, Ive done the testing, verification, theyre the way to go (make sure youre on Win7/Server2008 and latest chipsets to take advantage of latest ICH10+/trim technologies). good stuff...

 

[tritonofg]

I have a pair of IntelX25s on my laptop in RAID0 (SAGER P9280, two of them). I also have a pair on a desktop raid0... and on another laptop. why would someone spend that amount of cash for HDDs? These are all for work purposes (the desktop/laptop are mine). They have paid themselves back long ago. There are reviews around the net regarding Intel SSDs stating productivity increased to the point an 8 hr day can be 7hrs when using an SSD. Open a 10mb photoshop file in 2-3 seconds and not 20, believe it... boot/startups of computers in fractions of the time, yup... 200mb+ transfer rates, google hdtach for SSDs. A little overpriced? yes. But thats the price for newer technology... the point is that its cost efficient. much faster reboots, much faster file transfers... only catch other than price is the size... but thats why you run the OS on the fast drives and backups on the slower/larger drives.

Laptops are/were dying for SSDs (majority of them are slow 5400rpm) are they horribly slow compared to a modern quad/6 core desktop. Not talking about the "toy" laptops or netbooks junk, talking about work/productivity (did I mention IO on these things are rediculous?). generate much less heat, use less power (more battery life), run circles around stockOEM laptopHDDS, shutdown/boot times are rediculously fast (compared to typical laptops). been running them over 6 months so im over the "concerns" / "immaturity" of SSDs. Ive done the research, Ive done the testing, verification, theyre the way to go (make sure youre on Win7/Server2008 and latest chipsets to take advantage of latest ICH10+/trim technologies). good stuff...

LAMINI,
I also have a laptop with two SSDs in a RAID 0 Config (all important fils are backed up to a server w/ RAID 5) and was wondering how you got Windows to recognize the logical raid volume as a SSD? Mine simply states "unknown" and did not automatically turn off defrag..etc.

OCZ DIY 17" Laptop
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9100
Intel® GM45 Chipset +ICH9M
NVIDIA® Geforce™ 130M GT w/512MB GDDR3
4 GB DDR3 RAM
Two OCZ 30GB SSD's in RAID 0

 

[dEAne]

For me SSD still not the storage to choose.

 

[MRFS]

FYI:

http://downloadmirror.intel.com/18455/eng/Intel_SSD_Toolbox_User_Guide.pdf

... appears up-to-date e.g.:

"7. Version 9.6 of the Intel Rapid Storage Technology drive supports the Trim command, but
for non-RAID configurations only."


MRFS

 

[buwish]

This next topics has been merged by Buwish
■ Intel Solid-State Drive Toolbox -- User Guide

 

[xdantespardax]

It will be interesting to see how SSD's develop over the coming months/years. I bet in a few years time when everyone has them, we won't believe how slow hdd's were! Even if it's only a few seconds faster, once you get used to that extra snappiness you probably wouldn't want to go back.

xdantespardax

 

[alphanode]

I didn't see this link in the list, but I think it's really helpful to anybody doing an install of windows 7.

Tweeks to make to windows 7 when running an SSD:
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?63273-*-Windows-7-Ultimate-Tweaks-Utilities-*&p=442158&viewfull=1#post442158
http://thessdreview.blogspot.com/p/windows-7-ssd-performance-optimization.html

PS: Just saw a post by randomizer talking about how these tweaks are pointless. I think the writeups explain well why these tweaks aren't pointless. Also, although writes reduce the life of HDDs as well, i would say the damage to SSDs is much more severe, especially if you consider that many of these writes can be very small and may cause pages of data to be deleted to modify only a few bits (something I leard by reading the links you posted - I know that things like queuing are suppose to help this, but better to stop it from happening all together). Just my 2c.

 

[hemburger]

I didn't see this link in the list, but I think it's really helpful to anybody doing an install of windows 7.

Tweeks to make to windows 7 when running an SSD:
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?63273-*-Windows-7-Ultimate-Tweaks-Utilities-*&p=442158&viewfull=1#post442158
http://thessdreview.blogspot.com/p/windows-7-ssd-performance-optimization.html

PS: Just saw a post by randomizer talking about how these tweaks are pointless. I think the writeups explain well why these tweaks aren't pointless. Also, although writes reduce the life of HDDs as well, i would say the damage to SSDs is much more severe, especially if you consider that many of these writes can be very small and may cause pages of data to be deleted to modify only a few bits (something I leard by reading the links you posted - I know that things like queuing are suppose to help this, but better to stop it from happening all together). Just my 2c.

I'm a bit of a noob to SSD's, so can someone knowledgable verify this with a learned answer

 

[hemburger]

P.S I think this article is in need for an update by the moderators to remove all of the obselete information!!

 

[23mike]

What specifically is obsolete? I like a good history lesson.

I wasn't concerned about SSD, but, got one in a build I'm working on as part of package deal. Thought I'd use the drive for the OS and swap files, but now I know swap files wouldn't be a good idea.

 

[zxcvbnm44]

A look at the NAND itself. How an SSD works at the lowest levels:

http://www.lostcircuits.com/mambo//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=69&Itemid=1
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=65372

Write caching, wear levelling and the importance of partition alignment:

http://www.lostcircuits.com/mambo//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=72&Itemid=1

A broad overview of everything SSD (including TRIM):

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531

http://anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631 (A follow-up of the previous Anandtech article. Touches on a few more details, but it's more of a review of OCZ drives than a good overview of SSDs. Worth reading if your SSD has an Indillinx controller.)

More links will be added when I find them or when somebody else points me to them

Here is a guide to setting a SSD up in Win7. If you don't mind going to TweakTown for the info.

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/3116/tweaktown_s_solid_state_drive_optimization_guide/index.html

 

[tecmo34]

Tom's has come out with two recent articles on SSD...

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/flash-ssd-nand,2741.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/windows-7-ssd-trim,2705.html

 

[mark_k]

Tom's has come out with two recent articles on SSD...

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/flash-ssd-nand,2741.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/windows-7-ssd-trim,2705.html

wow there went 1.5 hours of my life......lol

thanks for the link.

 

[wolfram23]

^ That toms hardware article, it shows how power saving features slow down SSDs. That is pretty incredible. I wonder how C states C3 vs C6 will affect it?

Looks like Active State Power Management for PCI Express is easily the worst offender of bottlenecking SSD speeds. I'm not even sure how/where to disable this... must be a BIOS option.

I'm very curious about something else, though, and that is in regards to file paging... The same article mentions it's not so good to use on SSDs, which has been covered and makes sense that it can prematurely wear it. Now, I'm currently running with 8GB RAM... the article mentions a RAM disk, which I've heard about, but how could you put file paging on that and how could it even help?? I always thought FP was for when you didn't have enough RAM, and also in the case of a BSOD type event or you run out of memory, it was like a "back up" RAM option... if you put FP on a RAM disk isn't it basically just like having no file paging?

 

[flamenko]

Here is a guide for tweaking SSDs as well as a site that seems to keep up with the technology.

 

[GEOD]

It will be interesting to see how SSD's develop over the coming months/years. I bet in a few years time when everyone has them, we won't believe how slow hdd's were! Even if it's only a few seconds faster, once you get used to that extra snappiness you probably wouldn't want to go back.

xdantespardax

very true x -and with the PCI-E interface SSDs and fiber optics replacing SATA cables for conventional SSDs,I believe we are in for another quantum leap in personal computers. And to everyone contributing-GREAT collection of SSD info here-I'm just getting into them now and its great being able to get all this intel in one place-Thanks to all

 

[varis]

Is there any good FAQ or write-up on the subject "do I need an SSD for my mid-range gaming box"? Actually I'm surprised it's not a sticky on the forum already Would suppose this to be a hot topic, but is the technology just changing too fast for sensible and re-usable answers to be given?

I'm not sure about SSDs, but I know that HDDs transfer very slowly between partitions, so if you think you'll be moving large amounts of data between partitions regularly, consider just using folders instead and keeping all data in the same partition.

I don't think this is a physical media issue, it is an issue with how filesystems work. A partition basically holds a filesystem - which is an OS-level concept, on the physical drive there's just blocks, and the concept of a file doesn't exist there. Files are logically separate from the directory (folder for you windows users) tree organization of a file system - when you move file X from directory A to directory B, just the directory structure needs to be changed, and the file itself can remain intact (so no need to read or write the file -> very nice for performance). If you want your file X on a different partition, that partition's filesystem will need to create a new file Y, which will get its contents copied from file X.

 

[wolfram23]

SSDs are always an improvement over HDD, but generally only in terms of loading and saving times. If you're looking for gameplay performance an SSD won't really do much.

While there's some truth to what you say on the reasons HDDs are slow, it definitely is a physical limitation. The HDD has to copy information on one part of the platter, and then move the head and write it, back and forth, again and again. There's a limit to how much it can read at a time. Not sure exactly, but I think it can only store the info in the cache so for a lot of people that's like 8 or 16mb.

 

[varis]

While there's some truth to what you say on the reasons HDDs are slow, it definitely is a physical limitation. The HDD has to copy information on one part of the platter, and then move the head and write it, back and forth, again and again. There's a limit to how much it can read at a time. Not sure exactly, but I think it can only store the info in the cache so for a lot of people that's like 8 or 16mb.

The way I've understood it, filesystems/OSes work around the HDD physical limitations somewhat. The filesystem actually lives in RAM for a part and is cached there to the maximum extent possible, for performance reasons. Why wouldn't the OS first read say 64 MB from disk in one go, cache it in RAM, then write it in one go, to avoid moving the head? Depends on the OS of course - I suppose this wouldn't happen in Windows 98, but there's been optimizations like this in Linux for a long time and something similar must be in today's Windows 7 too. But if you want to know how it really works, you should be talking to a filesystem expert and not me

 

[seller417]

http://www.90minds.com/2009/01/11/the-pros-and-cons-of-ssds-solid-state-drives/

This is a helpful article for the novice enthusiast. Should be named 'SSD 101'

 

[thirteenthcor]

So I've noticed that PCIe x4 SSD's are on the market, but Mobo support is iffy... Does anyone have a resource listing wiki/FAQ on how to make one work, or how to "tell" if my mobo will boot successfully off a PCIe SSD?

Sorry if this is in the wrong place, and thanks in advance.

If this has been posted elsewhere, link me?