Solid State Drives ... anyone use them?

[KyanWan]

http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/flash_drives/ocz_core_series_sata_ii_2_5-ssd

I saw this tech way back when - offered up by Msystems Disk On Chip. I drooled over it. It had so much potential to change the way we use our computers. Accessing files at the speed of memory. It's like the holy grail of hard drives.

It's always been small - but now I'm seeing huge drives available. Well, huge in the sense of SS media 64, 128gb -

Now, it's enough to get a couple of your favorite games AND your OS going no problem. But, the question - anyone use them?

I've been dying to try one out, but I'm one of those sit-back-and-wait people. I don't pick stuff up till it's stable.

From what I've been hearing, they're starting to get good - but I dunno ... not enough people use them yet.

So, anyone have experience with it? Care to blab about it a bit?

 

[Havegooda {A|R}]

I'd like a 128GB one...but DAM those are expensive.

~Gooda~

 

[Evil-Jester]

mmmm SSD = 400$ + for a 120 gig, Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s is about 290$ and in all the reviews the VelociRaptor is way better by 10 fold almost as fast and if you toss 2 VelociRaptor in a raid 0 config you will be laughing so hard you will never have a slow load time

 

[Rogue Sniper]

Im tempted to get a 32gb SSD, so I have bragging rights over my plus, with Vista on it, not only less power and heat but it would boot Vista in like seconds not like a lot of seconds but for 150$ ill wait til next year, but i have heard good reviews

 

[Havegooda {A|R}]

mmmm SSD = 400$ + for a 120 gig, Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s is about 290$ and in all the reviews the VelociRaptor is way better by 10 fold almost as fast and if you toss 2 VelociRaptor in a raid 0 config you will be laughing so hard you will never have a slow load time

A Velociraptor is in no way as fast as a SSD. Plus it uses MOAR POWA, makes more noise, and it has a short(er) lifespan.

~Gooda~

 

[Evil-Jester]

A Velociraptor is in no way as fast as a SSD. Plus it uses MOAR POWA, makes more noise, and it has a short(er) lifespan.

~Gooda~

WRONG i watched a youtube video review were the guy use that same system for both and all the cords were showing to prove it wernt fake and the Velociraptor beet it loading up Vista by 5 seconds at least mabey more and it loaded up games way faster and yes it make take less power and make less noise but who cares a single 120mm fan make more noise then a Velociraptor and to top it off by the time a Velociraptor dies thier will be better ones out and even better SSD when that happens i might get a ssd

 

[Havegooda {A|R}]

WRONG i watched a youtube video review were the guy use that same system for both and all the cords were showing to prove it wernt fake and the Velociraptor beet it loading up Vista by 5 seconds at least mabey more and it loaded up games way faster and yes it make take less power and make less noise but who cares a single 120mm fan make more noise then a Velociraptor and to top it off by the time a Velociraptor dies thier will be better ones out and even better SSD when that happens i might get a ssd

You based your opinion off Youtube videos? I watched a youtube video once where a chick exploded after eating a bunch of Mentos and chugging some coke. Must be possible.

Show me a review, a PROPER review, not one done by some kid in his bedroom, that shows that a Velociraptor can beat a SSD by a significant amount. Proof as in HDTune/HDTach benchmarks, not "boot up speeds". I can make my 80GB boot drive load vista in under 8 seconds if I wanted to prove it.

~Gooda~

 

[trykael]

A Velociraptor is in no way as fast as a SSD.

Yeah...that's not quite true. The SSDs ARE faster, but not by THAT much if you have your HDs in the correct configuration. While their read-speeds are very high, SSD write speeds are nothing to brag about. You guys have already mentioned the price problem. THEN you have the fact that they have a finite number of "write" attempts.

The technology is promising, but right now I'd take a pair of Velociraptors in a RAID 0 array anyday.

 

[xKodiakx]

SSD have the seek time... I doubt that any standard harddrive an beat a SSD with that... it takes longer the the hdd to spin up then the SSD to seek...

read/write speed can go higher in a Vraptor or any other HDD in the right configuration... but it doesn't stay there it goes up n down up n down... SSDs are a constant, that's why they load some things faster because it bursts faster...

raid was not designed for the desktop enviroment...the whole load things faster in raid 0 is mostly in people's heads..

say avg read speed is 100 MB/s on an SSD.. and a Vraptor is 200MB/s (fake)... do you honestly think that will effect your computer's speed? no it won't... unless you are dealing with files 100+ MB all the time... and I doubt windows loads any files that big or any games do... it's all done with lots of small files.

RAID 0 = lowers the lifespan on your comp due to 100% increase of crash chance.... if you use motherboard raid it's sofware and you won't actually get the performance the Internets promised... and there will be more CPU usage across the board...



I personally believe SSD were designed for the laptop market...

 

[Volcom]

so um.....

I heard about SSD but i dont think i'll go in that direction.

If i had infinete ammount of money i'd buy like 4 Velociraptors and put them in Raid 0!!! ahahha

 

[Not-Z]

It's just matter of time until they come with bigger capacity for even lower prices. Right now, I wouldn't get one.

 

[-Jv-]

You don't really get a speed boost from it yet, It only loads a bit fast, you can youtube vids of the difference, it's not even a second in most games. I won't buy one. The price is just to much for so less speed gain...

 

[Morbid #2 - Banned]

The only thing that Solid States are good for right now are OS drives, in my opinion.

 

[KyanWan]

SSD's going to be great for anything that loads. Games - once they get loaded up into memory - will be as fast as your memory.

It's just another few seconds you can shave off of things.

Any read/write will be sped up nicely.

As for raid - Ah ... I dunno. I grew up with partitioning. So having a couple 64 / 128gb drives isn't really an issue for me.

Besides - I use separate drives to sort my files these days.

[ Err ... I won't say what's on em. LOL - don't want to get in trouble ROFL! ( no it ain't pr0n. )]

 

[Morbid #2 - Banned]

SSD's going to be great for anything that loads. Games - once they get loaded up into memory - will be as fast as your memory.

It's just another few seconds you can shave off of things.

Any read/write will be sped up nicely.

As for raid - Ah ... I dunno. I grew up with partitioning. So having a couple 64 / 128gb drives isn't really an issue for me.

Besides - I use separate drives to sort my files these days.

[ Err ... I won't say what's on em. LOL - don't want to get in trouble ROFL! ]

I dont think I've seen anyone put any SSD's in RAID. Is it even possible?

PS: You're not funny, noone gives a crap about what may or may not be on your HDDs

 

[Havegooda {A|R}]

I dont think I've seen anyone put any SSD's in RAID. Is it even possible?

If they use a SATA/SCSI interface, it should be possible, don't see why not.

I can't comment because I've actually done very little research on that subject. Might as well do it in my next class...I've done all the work required for the next 3 weeks.

~Gooda~

 

[Morbid #2 - Banned]

If they use a SATA/SCSI interface, it should be possible, don't see why not.

I can't comment because I've actually done very little research on that subject. Might as well do it in my next class...I've done all the work required for the next 3 weeks.

~Gooda~

If you find anything out shoot me a PM. :3

 

[AWPerator]

For now, SSDs can't keep up with velociraptors. However, SSDs have so much more room to grow when compared to HDD.

A SSD has barley reached any part of its potential, while HDDs can only spin so fast.

 

[Havegooda {A|R}]

For now, SSDs can't keep up with velociraptors. However, SSDs have so much more room to grow when compared to HDD.

A SSD has barley reached any part of its potential, while HDDs can only spin so fast.

I'm still waiting for the reviews/benchmarks. Otherwise, it's just folly.

I can't see how a rotary mechanical drive can outperform a drive that uses ELECTRONS to transmit data nearly instantaneously by a substantial amount.

~Gooda~

 

[jdcskillet]

I like the point that the SSD will not lose memory for far longer than any HDD. The components are way simpler and will only lose the data if an electron is lost when flipping the 1's and 0's. I personally do not believe that any HDD will be faster than an SSD card. Even with relatively slow write speeds, an SSD is simply able to flip bits faster than HDD will ever be able to spin and a laser read the data.

I think that what really needs to be tested is the ability to render something using a SSD vs that of an HDD. Look at it in real terms, will a server be able to quickly access and calculate something that much faster with an SSD drive?

If you want some good information on past and present SSD, I would highly recommend this site. This guy has been around the block a few times and knows what he is talking about.

http://www.storagesearch.com/ssd.html