OCZ Apex

I've just reinstalled Vista64 OS, but this time I aligned the drives myself using Diskpart and an offset of 256k. I then carried out a full format with a 4096 allocation unit size.


ss1.jpg

As you can see above I'm still only getting 148mb/sec which is about the same as before, but this time there is less lag and fewer freezes, but there are still some...:(

Any of you guys know which would be a good controller card for me to get bearing in mind the motherboard I have and the available connections (PCI Express x1 and PCI 2.2), Vista64 OS and not a lot of money to spend:rolleyes:.

Would something like this http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CC-025-AD&groupid=701&catid=49&subcat=424
or this http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=281255 do the job?

Or am I going to have to get something like this http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CC-000-3W&groupid=701&catid=49&subcat=424 .... or better?
 
Would love to try one of the Vertex drives, as HDD have been one of the main bottlenecks of PCs for years, but they're just still far too expensive for a reasonable size at the moment. The test results do show theres some real potential in the tech though. 150+MB Sustained read off one drive, with less than 1ms seek time? Yes please!
 
IYoung said:
Would something like this http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CC-025-AD&groupid=701&catid=49&subcat=424
or this http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=281255 do the job?

Or am I going to have to get something like this http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CC-000-3W&groupid=701&catid=49&subcat=424 .... or better?
Click to expand...

Seems the issue is the cache size once again. 16 KB x 2 is patheticly small. Anyway it seems you need one of the more expensive controllers with lots of cache on them.
 
From looking at the Apex thread in the OCZ forum, it appears that if you plan to put 2 of these in RAID0, you really need a (true) hardware SATA RAID card, as they are quite poor on the ICHxR (in RAID0)....so basically you need at add about an extra £200 to your budget to get these running as they should.
 
Its annoying how many people are being ripped by these "value" drives.. as by the time you buy a controller card with cache you end up spending nearly as much if not more than the overly expensive Intel drives. And the reviews allowed on these products are so miss leading. Iyoung, i would try the steadystate software from M$ it sounds like it will work.. although it looks like youll loose all the performance gains at the same time because of how its doing it (hopefully im wrong and performance wont take much of a hit).

Mjgr33n make sure you pop on some benchmarks when you get your vertex drive.. as these look like the only ones that might tempt me.

Cheers
ROfu
 
ROfu said:
Its annoying how many people are being ripped by these "value" drives.. as by the time you buy a controller card with cache you end up spending nearly as much if not more than the overly expensive Intel drives. And the reviews allowed on these products are so miss leading. Iyoung, i would try the steadystate software from M$ it sounds like it will work.. although it looks like youll loose all the performance gains at the same time because of how its doing it (hopefully im wrong and performance wont take much of a hit).

Mjgr33n make sure you pop on some benchmarks when you get your vertex drive.. as these look like the only ones that might tempt me.

Cheers
ROfu
Click to expand...

Am not sure how you mean ripped? you think a 1/4 of the cost should buy you a drive faster then intels? tbh this fantasy of yours might come true with the new OCZ vertex drives but in general you get what you pay for.

The apex drives can work very well if setup correctly take some time to read how its done over on the OCZ forums! you be suprised how good these can be as a single drive on a standard ICHX controller OCZ froum make it very clear that the Apex drives need tweaks to perform to there full potential and give you all the info there to do the tweaks
 
when i say ripped, i mean quite simply not given all the information you need to make an educated decision to start. Yes places like Overclockers have great forums, which you can look though and find plenty of information. but for normal consumers, who are looking for a replacement drive for a laptop or home computer with all the listed advantages (faster access times, no moving parts and quoted longer lifespans) No where does it say that you need to configure these drives to the point of setting up partition alignment. When was the last time you needed to put this much effort into another storage solution? buying a regular Sata/IDE hdd .. normaly means plugging it in and using it. Buying a Sata SSD simply doesn't, with so many issues there should be some warning for these, as they are sold not just to overclockers and enthusiasts.

And the Apex arent first generation drives. they dont even use first generation Jmicron controllers (I believe they are updated versions - same manufactuer though).
So any normal consumer wishing to get all the benefits of an SSD drive cant just plug and play without issues.

Yes Intel drives work better because of their price. but thats like comparing a western digital Raptor to a bog standard 5200rpm laptop drive.. Ironically they BOTH still work as they should, one is just faster, unlike SSDs where the controllers being used can actually Stop your system responding, not just "slower" STOP and stutter. Cost shouldn't mean that your bought product doesn't actually work properly. I can accept you get a slower drive or even a smaller lifespan.. but it should still work

So back to my original comment, Yes consumers are being ripped. because unlike generic HDDs which they will be replacing they don't simply just "work" Irrelevant to speed.

Cheers
ROfu
 
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Ok firstly apologies as i think i misinterpretted your previous post. SSD's of any variety though are not really plug and play, even intel ones should have partitions aligned and indexing etc turned off.

The thing with SSD is that the Current OS's dont have proper support for the new technology Windows 7 might help improve this but we will have to wait and see.

THe Vertex Drives are going to be the Plug and Play Drives you seek and be very competetive with intel drives in terms of performance but 1/4 the cost. like the intels they will work fine with no OS tweaks but will work better with them and last a lot longer too.

SSD is currently an enthusiastic market imo and until windows 7 (hopefully) always require a good amount of windows tweaking.

and at IYoung you dont need an expesive controller card jsut pop over to the OCZ forums and follow there guides lots of ppl are very happy there with there APEX drives but all have used the OS tweaks provided on there.

The OCZ Apex use 2 Jmicron controllers and for simplistiy of description sake use a sort of intenal raid 0 to improve the stuttering problems. that occured in the earlier generation drives
 
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