Did I buy a crappy SSD?

[SirCanealot]

Hi guys,

I work in a store and we've had this SSD lying around for a while. I've wanted one for ages now since boot up times really drive me mad (the 300 gig raptor I put in helped things out a little bit, but not enough!), so I thought I'd take it home and test it out. Basically, I can do a staff refund, so I thought I may as well have a play around with it

It seems to be an older model and it's reviewed here: http://www.behardware.com/articles/743-5/samsung-64-gb-mlc-ssd.html
Possibly should have noted the date of the review before I bought it...

Basically I got this for around £80. Was that worth it?

I'm thinking this isn't really something I should keep though. It doesn't seem to have Trim support from what I can tell, and I benchmarked with HDTune and wasn't that impressed:
Min: 30.2 MB/Sec
Max: 88.6
Average: 80.0

I just ran the same benchmark on my Raptor 300gig and got back (though obviously the access times are much slower):
Min: 39.9
Max: 123.8
Average: 98.0

So my raptor on average is faster?!

So it seems like this might have been a good drive in 2008... But in 2010 in this pretty crappy?

Edit: Note I have my HDs set to IDE mode in the bios! Tried setting it to ACHI and Windows wouldn't boot, so I assume I'd need to reformat for that. Would that effect speed at all?

Thanks, all!

 

[rush_syndrome]

Take it back. The benchmarks with the Raptor say it all. There are lots of other drives which are priced similarly which offer true SSD performance.

Personaly, I would find the extra and go with a C300 64 at around £115.

 

[SirCanealot]

Take it back. The benchmarks with the Raptor say it all. There are lots of other drives which are priced similarly which offer true SSD performance.

Personaly, I would find the extra and go with a C300 64 at around £115.

Cheers, I think I will

I hear they're moving to another node with SSD memory soon, so I'll probably wait for that and save my money. Knew I should've researched properly first off instead of going "omg, SSD, SSD, SSD!"

 

[Marvin]

To be fair that particular SSD is now pretty old, and they've been through a few generations since then. Look at the new Corsairs (like the F60) - read and write speeds at ~280MB/s.

 

[Lunatic Dreyfus]

Ah, I see another person has one of those 'old' Samsung's. My slightly later mid 2009? variant was equally disappointing, after a bright start.

If you want some 'cheap' trouser exploding SSD happiness... Get a Crucial c300.

 

[explicit4u]

I hear they're moving to another node with SSD memory soon, so I'll probably wait for that and save my money. Knew I should've researched properly first off instead of going "omg, SSD, SSD, SSD!"

lol, yeah Intel should be releasing <30nm nodes towards the latter part of the year, could even be early next year.

 

[Zarf]

Looks like an old 90/70. It'll still do a decent job as a boot drive.
For £80 though i'd take it back for a refund, A corsair F40 is only £15 more, and more than twice as fast whilst supporting TRIM (sustained write speeds still around 70MB/s).
The 64GB C300 isn't too much more either if you need more room.

Even one of the 64GB Patriot PS-100's from here is only £70. I've heard mixed reports on here about them bricking during firmware updates, but the specs are pretty good.

 

[Bane]

Basically I got this for around £80. Was that worth it?

That's not much cheaper than what they went for brand new March 2009.

If it's a MMCRE64G5MPP-0VA it cost me £97 (after Quidco). And is still going strong in an old laptop, although performance has nosedived.

There's no firmware update if the same model, so stuck with VAM0501Q that doesn't support Trim. And I tried Samsung firmware update over the weekend, but only supports VBM* firmware versions.

 

[mrtckane]

does the performance nosedive on all ssds?



those are poor speeds for your raptor there pal, this is what you should be getting

mine is the slowest one available too.
and yes, it's full.

 

[TheCenturion]

To be honest, SLC drives are much better than MLC. I think the one you got was an MLC

 

[SirCanealot]

lol, yeah Intel should be releasing <30nm nodes towards the latter part of the year, could even be early next year.

I think I'll wait on that. Tracked down a good deal on a good 45nm quad, so I'll go for that this time instead

does the performance nosedive on all ssds?
those are poor speeds for your raptor there pal, this is what you should be getting

All drives without some kind of trim/garbage collection, yes

And my poor speeds were probably because I was doing something on the PC when I benchmarked. I did another one without touching the PC:

About the same now!

Edit: And yes, it was an MLC... >_>

However I noticed this:

Ultra DMA mode 5 instead of 6? Does that matter any more, or is it just a legacy thing?

Thanks for the responses, all!