Samsung 64GB 2.5" SATA-II MLC Solid State Hard Drive

Don't suppose you benched at all with just one disk in? Quite interested to see on the same system with same limitations/software/os/cpu etc, etc, how much they improve in raid, also how good on is solo.

Its getting so tempting, more than anything because I'm getting more fed up with raid and setting it up/having to back it up when moving to a new computer which I do pretty frequently.

Is something really crappy with the OCZ Apex drives, as they are cheaper than vertex with better numbers on read and write? not really looked into it but seen a couple 120 apex's going fairly cheap and not a huge amount more than the samsungs.

I think recent prices coupled with the idea of ditching raid completely and getting similar read/write out of a single drive even if it is small is very appealing, just need to find some uber quiet storage drives.
 
Hey drunkenmaster,

The Apex is 2 cheap jmicron controllers in internal raid-0 with like 62kb of cache or something silly. The vertex uses a totally different controller with 32 or 64 Mb of cache on it. Don't be fooled by sequential read/write speeds. The vertex is tuned towards more I/O's than the apex so you'll find its much better for multitasking, it boots faster, things install faster.. Random writes are considerably faster.. So it makes for a faster drive all around. Also OCZ are in the process of working on a firmware update that keeps the I/O performance and improves the sequential read/write speeds. So the vertex is going to get better.
 
Hey drunkenmaster,

The Apex is 2 cheap jmicron controllers in internal raid-0 with like 62kb of cache or something silly. The vertex uses a totally different controller with 32 or 64 Mb of cache on it. Don't be fooled by sequential read/write speeds. The vertex is tuned towards more I/O's than the apex so you'll find its much better for multitasking, it boots faster, things install faster.. Random writes are considerably faster.. So it makes for a faster drive all around. Also OCZ are in the process of working on a firmware update that keeps the I/O performance and improves the sequential read/write speeds. So the vertex is going to get better.

its less that but, most of the earlier problems on the jmicron drives seems to be largely down to the misallignment issue causing massive I/O drop, with at least some of that eliminated I'm just wondering how fast they are. Also because you're looking at sub £150 for the 60gb apex, and £200+ for the vertex.

I think I might just "live" with one sammy for now, pay £100, and get something better when I have more disposable cash, and when the drives improve further.

I'm still not sure with a 60gb drive what I'd do, dual os's partitions seems like a bad idea and Windows 7 is irking me more and more the more I use it so probably just a cut down Vista install. But my games directory is massive as is, at maybe 50gb of games I play fairly regularly. I don't know, just put my most used 2 games on the ssd and live with the others on a normal drive, I'm not sure tbh. I download copious amounts of stuff aswell and wonder if I should write it straight to the normal hdd's so I end up with more free space on the ssd, which seems a good idea, however I'd then have my backup hard drives running constantly and I'm trying to get away from noise.

bah, its just a pain, do i go for a 30gb vertex, a 60gb samsung or something inbetween like the apex and pray i don't have stuttering and other issues. the obvious answer is, if I win the lotto tonight I'll order a raid card and stick 5 of the vertex 250's in a raid 0 :p

EDIT:- the other thing is, the £100 seems a kick in the teeth mostly because I delayed on the initial SLC batches at the insanely good price and now that £100 seems expensive, i might give it a punt though see how it goes, if its good I could always get another and reinstall or decide to use it till bigger and better come along. The only other issue is most ssd testing I've seen is done on Intel mobo's, hopefully amd's southbridges are holding up well and working well with them also.
 
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i just got mine today over all windows seems a bit snappy,er than before was hoping for more to be honest.

hd tune was used single drive usinmg vista64 ahci mode

lowes of 35mb,s
highs off 160mbs

spikes where all over the place lol.

HD TACH
i get 107.5
average read 124.8
access 0.1ms

my hd,s are getting 193mbs so my hds are quicker then????


does that seem correct???????
 
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What cradle / adapter do you guys suggest for mounting 2.5" SSD in 3.5" bay ?

Something like this if you want to do it on the cheap. Or search for StarTech for a IMHO a more flexible (but expensive) solution.

Here's my StarTech Dock installed in my Antec 900. It's not the cheapest solution but it looks good and is very useful if you plan on using your drives for hotswapping or quick upgrades. (although tbh, I'm not sure if the Sammys support that feature).

 
hmm, found the io test on the OCZ site, my hitachi's in raid stack up admirably for £88,

2.1k i/o's, 27.33mb/s , 0.46ms , max of 194 but very rare it got that high, 2.8cpu%.

I posted on the forum asking for link to the 4k rw(i assume random write) i think that might be the test that makes me throw in the towel as my drives are doing ok with none random, i know the numbers could be higher but not hugely. But I do assume my drives will provide probably massive drops in random reads/writes, while a ssd should maintain a high level of the sequential performance if not all of it.

What was weird was there were multiple other raid 0 normal drives, including raptors, benched in that thread with the tony's test used, and these hitachi's spanked the living hell out of all the other normal drives.

http://img517.imageshack.us/my.php?image=iometerich102xintelx25e.jpg 2x intel 64gb slc's onboard raid intel ich10r :( someone loan me £1000.

EDIT:- didn't find the 4k rw test, but hdtune random read test pretty much proves what I thought, horrible performance at random access for instance http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=52176 , the random access you get huge i/o ps, where as i got at best 81, and at worst for 1mb transfer sie, 46 :p compared to over 5k from some ssd's raided :p

don't suppose you could run that test could you, want to see how the sammys stack up to the vertex's in that area.


EDIT:- and theres the difference, got the 4k random write test, the same link from before the vertex's in raid take a 20% i/o hit, a 80% total mb/s hit but is still relatively fast(as fast as a slower normal hdd at its best, like a laptop drive so still more than usable and responsive), but same access time.

the 4k rw file on my drives took a 85% i/o drop(compared to 20%), a 95% drop in total mb/s (compared to 80%) and a hefty increase in response times.

Problem is far to much computer use is random and not sequential, which is where well designed ssd's are doing so well. just wish I could afford 2x 30gb vertex's.
 
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My RAID5 array of Samsung F1's on a Perc5/i gets 3k IOPS, 37MB/s, 0.34ms avg, 107ms max.
CPU was at 100%, but i cba to stop my folding@home services. It would be low anyway as the Perc handles all the load.
Will see how my RAID0 raptors on my gaming box fare.
 
2 x Samsung 64Gb in raid 0 with 32Kb srtipe, is something wrong with it?

zwzy1w.png


I haven't done the alignment as my OS is on the drive, I ghosted it on from my old raid array.
 
2 x Samsung 64Gb in raid 0 with 32Kb srtipe, is something wrong with it?



I haven't done the alignment as my OS is on the drive, I ghosted it on from my old raid array.

Try running ATTO, I don't trust HDTach as it was giving me odd results the other day.

Thought id post my first benchy :)


Is this for 2 or 4 Sammys in RAID-0? If its 2, they're similar to mine.. If it's 4, it needs tweaking to find the perfect balance.
 
No this benchmark is with 2 of them in raid 0. The other 2 i use as storage.

So tempted to format again and try these on the SAS ports and see if there is any improvements. Been told there could be. What you think?
 
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Try running ATTO, I don't trust HDTach as it was giving me odd results the other day.



Is this for 2 or 4 Sammys in RAID-0? If its 2, they're similar to mine.. If it's 4, it needs tweaking to find the perfect balance.

I just ran ATTO, results identical to yours.

My system doesn't really seem to boot much quicker. Maybe I need to align. I may ghost my os onto one of my WD 250Gb drives then boot from that and align the drive and restore the os on the ssd.
 
I just ran ATTO, results identical to yours.

My system doesn't really seem to boot much quicker. Maybe I need to align. I may ghost my os onto one of my WD 250Gb drives then boot from that and align the drive and restore the os on the ssd.

I have the opposite to you. My boot times are super fast, but for some reason it takes over a minute to shut down. Annoying.
 
I take it you've used the SSD Tweaker tool?

If so, make sure you've disabled the clear page file.

disableclearpage.png


Thanks for that LeJimster. I just pressed the auto tweak button when i first used the program. Didnt know i had to untick that section.:cool: Shuting down instantly now. :D

By the way.... Are you using a paging file? Ive disabled mine.
 
Yes I am using a paging file, but i've moved it to my old HDD array so it can do as much writing as it wants to :).

Good job you brought this problem up as I just ran SSD Tweaker again and realised I hadn't disabled defrag or system restore *phew* :o.

Now I've disabled them I just noticed I've got about 15Gb of space back \:D/
 
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Yes I am using a paging file, but i've moved it to my old HDD array so it can do as much writing as it wants to :).

Good job you brought this problem up as I just ran SSD Tweaker again and realised I hadn't disabled defrag or system restore *phew* :o.


Glad I can help ;). I've also moved my windows temp and IE cache folders to my raptor to save on SSD writes. :)
 
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