Intel X25-M G2 yet another post....

[OrionTC]

Firstly i apologise for another post about these drivers but im slightly confused and have a few questions:

1) The X25-M drives on overclockers have no G2 in the description but they do have a G2 in the product code(SSDSA2MH080G2C1). That would indicate its the 2nd gen drive with trim support?

2) I have read that intel released the trim support for this drive but later recalled it due to bricking drives. Am i to assume there is no trim support for this drive at present? i read that trim can be simulated using HD erase or similar software. I'm a little worried about using 3rd party software on a drive.

3) Would the X25-M G2 give noticable differences in MMORPG playing? ie load times and zone times. Im happy with a 80g drive for OS/one MMO, my 36.7g raptor doesnt fit any game at the moment so i have to use my 7200rpm 1tb storage drive for my MMORPGs which is surely hurting performance? I have read numerous reviews but i can't seem to find a decent one that does game comparisons from IDE drives to SSD drives.

4) Is it possible for me to house an SSD drive on a Asus P5K Pro Intel P35? can you buy external controller cards or do they have to be specific onboard controllers? Or are the controllers purely on the SSD drives themselves?

5) Is the Intel X25 the king of SSD drives atm in a price/performance way?

thanks in advance.

 

[mdovey]

1) The X25-M drives on overclockers have no G2 in the description but they do have a G2 in the product code(SSDSA2MH080G2C1). That would indicate its the 2nd gen drive with trim support?

Yes, that is the product code for a G2 SSD. If you were to receive a G1 SSD it would have the product code SSDSA2MH080G1C1 (or simlar), and you would be able to return it on the basis that it wasn't the item ordered - although this is unlikely to happen.

2) I have read that intel released the trim support for this drive but later recalled it due to bricking drives. Am i to assume there is no trim support for this drive at present? i read that trim can be simulated using HD erase or similar software. I'm a little worried about using 3rd party software on a drive.

Indeed we are still waiting for a TRIM firmware from Intel. Whilst HDD Erase can return a used X25 back to the performance of a newly purchased unused X25 it does so by wiping the entire content of the disk, so not something you would do on a regular basis.

However, as discussed in other thread there are two things to note:

i) the firmware adds a new command called TRIM which "cleans" up the disk to improve performance. This is either called automatically by the Windows 7 driver or manually via the Intel SSD Tools utility. It doesn't matter how long the disk was used before the firmware update, the TRIM command will still do the same amount of clean up and the same amount of performance improvement. You don't need to wait until the TRIM firmware before using the SSD, in the same way you wouldn't have waited to use a mechanical until you could buy a defragment tool!

ii) unless you are repeatedly writing and deleting 100Gbs per day, it would take months (maybe even years) of normal use before the degradation becomes noticeable.

3) Would the X25-M G2 give noticable differences in MMORPG playing? ie load times and zone times.

It may help if there are large amounts of data to be read from disk. Network speed however may be more of a bottle neck.

4) Is it possible for me to house an SSD drive on a Asus P5K Pro Intel P35? can you buy external controller cards or do they have to be specific onboard controllers? Or are the controllers purely on the SSD drives themselves?

The X25 connects to any motherboard with has SATA2 ports (the P5K pro has 6). You will need a SATA2 cable though (these should have come with the motherboard or computer - or else order one when you order the disk!).

5) Is the Intel X25 the king of SSD drives atm in a price/performance way?

Despite the firmware hiccup, it is highly regarded. If you don't need 80GB but can make do with 40GB the 40GB Kingston is also highly regarded (as it is basically at X25M with less memory). In terms of price/performance, 2x 40GB Kingstons in a RAID0 array (your motherboard supports RAID0) slightly pips a single Intel 80GB. However, Kingston have not announced whether they plan to release a firmware supporting TRIM!

However, in real world performance (as opposed to benchmark statistics), there isn't much to chose between the latest G2 disks from the various manufacturers (I suspect you'd not be able to distinguish in a blind test), so I don't think you'l have any cause to regret getting the Intel X25-M.

Matthew

 

[OrionTC]

thx for the post that answered all my questions!

i would need an 80g drive through considering every MMO these days is at least 15+ gig +win 7 on top of that wouldnt leave much room on a 40g drive.

 

[Jabbs]

I have Arma 2, Left 4 dead 2, Shattered Horizon and the beta add-on installed on windows 7 with the usual things you install after and i have now 33.8 gig left so imagine if you had 16 gig left on the 64 gig models wouldn't leave you much headroom.