Question(s) about Solid-State Drives (SSDs)

This morning I was reading through this review of several different SSDs. The review also used a standard desktop HD and a 'hybrid' drive for comparison. I was really surprised by the huge variance in performance between the different models of SSDs. In one test, brand "A" would be at the top of the list, and the next test it would be the worst (by a HUGE margin), and in other tests it would be in the middle, and in yet other tests it would be about the same as the other drives tested. This 'all over the place' phenomenon was not applicable to just a certain make or model; it applied to all makes and models. In other words, no one model was consistently in the top or the bottom (or the middle). What's up with that?

 

Probably depends on how they benchmarked them.

Where did you read the reviews?

Seagate's hybrid drive has been getting pretty good reviews thus far, and there are adapter kits out there should you want to put a 2.5" SSD drive in your desktop. With the hybrid, the OS is installed on the SSD portion, and the speed is much better than a platter style HDD.

 

I agree with mekanic. I have an Intel X25-V 40GB drive and I love it though it was not a wise choice money wise. It was a treat to myself though since I hardly ever reboot it was a stupid choice on my part.:-o Mind you, the fantastic boot and program launch time is amazing! :major

Something that really tickles me is the 15 sec. boot time and the 1M MTBF spec.! Ten times any HDD MTBF!

 

There are two flavors of SSDs: SLC and MLC (single level cell and multi level cell).
In general, because SLC dives are less complex they have longer MDF, less storage capacity, higher costs and theoretically outperform MLC drives. So be sure the comparison is between the same flavor of ssd; that would account for differences.

 

So which is generally faster: the SLC or the MLC?

I posted a link in the first post above, just click on the underlined "this review" in my first post....

 

:confused My Win7x64 takes about 15-20 seconds to boot to the login screen, then less than 3 seconds to a functional desktop... that's on a std 7200rpm 750gb SATA HDD. 15sec for an SSD seems a bit slow, or is that normal for SSDs? When opening programs, it's more-or-less immediate, sometime Firefox takes 2-3 seconds, but anything else opens immediately...

 

Duh!!!!

 

Single level cell is faster and more reliable.

Here's the fastest off the shelf SSD 'MLC' I've seen and its affordable,this is on my Christmas list:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/ocz-revodrive-120gb-review/1

Anyone know of anything 'single drive' thats faster than this I'd love to see it,a review with a drive that blows this away in any test would be cool.

Here's whats coming to a store near you soon: 1400MB/S R/W Holy Sheet!

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/2TB-...-SSD-Read-1400MB-s-Write-1400MB-s-512MB-Cache

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...pgrades/223173-know-your-ssds-slc-vs-mlc.html

 

Personally, I wouldn't call a 120gb SSD that costs almost $400US "affordable", but that's me.

The OCZSSDPX-ZD2P882T is crazy! roflmao It's a 2tb SSD that plugs directly into a PCIexpress slot! Nuts! Only $8700US. Such a deal. roflmao

Back to reality, Rikky's last link above is very informative, and I've added it to my bookmarks.... thanks Rikky!

(BTW- I actually timed my Win7 X64 boot time, it takes about 2-3 seconds to get thru the initial power on and the motherboard POST, another second for the PC to check the DVD drive (it's set as the 1st boot device), then almost exactly 13 seconds to the password/login screen, then about 2-3 seconds to a fully functional desktop)

 

I have purchased, and installed a Seagate Momentus XT 500gig 2.5" laptop Hybrid Drive, mainly based on this review,

As you will read in that review, the drive is an intermediate step (for now) between most current laptop drives and a fully SSD drive ( and a hell of a lot cheaper than a full SSD )

Seagate's Momentus XT Reviewed, Finally a Good Hybrid HDD
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3734/seagates-momentus-xt-review-finally-a-good-hybrid-hdd

As I installed Windows 7 32 bit Ultimate on it, at the same time, I am not able to compare it to my old laptop drive.

It boots up quickly, but shuts down slowly. That is probably my fault as I have been tweaking settings, programs, etc., and have probably stuffed up somewhere along the line.

Hope this review helps.

Bazza

 

Well I can't afford any SSD:-D I still use my old 32gig raptor as my OS drive.

Its next on my list though.