Couple of queries re: SSD drives

wibble1

wibble1

wibble1

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I'm considering in buying one of these fancy new drives, either the Vertex or the Samsung.

From trolling around, everyone seems to be using x2 of these in RAID0 and they seem to require a truck load of config.

Do you have to RAID0 them in order to see decent performance, or would 1x 60GB be sufficient (compared to a standard hdd)

Will you need to do all this configuration each time you reformat your drive, i.e. aligning partitions and what not's etc.. What happens when Windows 7 comes out, do I need to troll around to find out what I need to set my drive too etc?

Thanks,
 
A single vertex gives the same Read performance as two Samsung in Raid-0. Two vertexes in Raid-0 give staggering performance but can be quite expensive, especially if you go for two 60Gb or 120Gb vertex. Raid-0 Vertex is not really required to see the maximum, one vertex will blow you away as it is with it being your first SSD.

You would have to do partition alignment regardless of whether you choose Raid-0 or run a single SSD. I don't use Vista or Win7 myself but apparently it automatically defaults to a 1024k offset for the alignment. Some people say it's good enough but some others still prefer a 128k, which is what WinXP 32Bit and 64Bit is more suited to.
 
John24 said:
I use an Mtron ssd and don`t need to do any config, it works as advertised out of the box.
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Possibly not, but small tweaks can give great gains on all SSD's.

It might seem like a lot of work, but it's just an extra 30mins work at the most on top of OS and App install.
 
Gotta say that I'm mighty impressed with my Vertex RAID 0 setup. Best upgrade I ever did. Got some very good help from these forums and also a link from LeJimster about flashing firmware which was very straightforward and took maybe 2 mins per drive once my box was prepped with cables etc. (Thanks for that LeJimster:D)

I actually haven't bothered doing the offset yet, maybe I will someday but for the mo getting read speeds of 400mb/s will do for me ta very much! :)
 
yeah, been browsing the OCZ forum.. I'm using a 34GB Raptor atm (bought in 2004) and it still seems pretty zippy to me. I could be wrong. I've got all my data and programs ona 500GB spin point.
 
I really dont understand those ATTO benchmarks, whats good/bad?

Ignore that... just took a while to figure out :-)
 
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[timko];13756821 said:
Click your link first and see how far that gets you and then click my link above :)
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Oops, that's the first time I've ever done that! Was in a rush this morning to get our youngest to school. Still at least it wasn't hard to figure out :)
 
Clairvoyant said:
Thinking about getting one myself for vista 64. Trouble is they are not cheap. would 30gig be enough.

Silly question I know. :)
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I used 2 of them and a slipstreamed copy of Vista inc SP1 and got rid of things like languages etc as they take up loads of room on the install. Also did a SP1 cleanup which removes all install/backup files etc and saves about 1.2Gb BUT means you can't uninstall SP1 (which I'm not bothered about)

I have done all the std optimisations like putting pagefile onto my Tb sammy drive etc and have loaded thing like Crysis and now have only just got 32Gb left.

I would think that you'll need more than 30Gb for running any Apps off that drive. I did want to get the 60Gb units but they weren't in stock and the 120Gb (which would have stretched my budget) had just gone out of stock too!
 
wibble1 said:
so into my next question, OCZ Vertex or Samsung?
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That wont be a question very soon. Samsung drives are almost sold out at the place we won't name :). Vertex performs better no doubt. Samsung still works out cheaper per GB for a little less performance. But saying "less" when it comes to SSD's isn't as big a difference as you might imagine.
 
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hmmmm.... so my current setup is:

34GB - OS Raptor (98% full)
80GB SATA - My Docs (95% full)
500GB Spinpoint - (60% full)

Should I get rid of my Raptor and 80GB sata and replace with another 500GB spinpoint + SSD? Or would there be any point in keeping my raptor to install programs on it?
 
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