Like clockwork, we've stumbled upon yet another updated SSD shootout almost a year to the day since
the last one, and nearly two years
since the first. Since 2008, we've seen OCZ introduce a new "
garbage collection" algorithm for its Vertex Series 120GB SSD, Corsair introduce its P64 and
PhotoFast make waves with its supposedly speedy G-Monster-V5. The benchmarking gurus over at
HotHardware had the patience to sit 'em all down and break out the rulers, and the long and short of it is this: the Vertex Turbo and G-Monster V5 bested the Corsair, with the PhotoFast drive in particular showing remarkably strong performance in read / write tests. Of course, all of the units were quite a bit quicker than traditional HDDs, but the folks at
HH maintained that
SSD pricing is still way out of reach for many consumers. But hey, if you've got the means to lay down $3 per gigabyte, feel free to tap that read link and ingest.
posted Sep 2nd 2009 6:59AM
For those prices they can keep em
only 10 years ago we were paying more than double that...
...for platters!
Here's a suggestion - don't even read the above article. Instead focus on the testing done by AnandTech. It's a long read, but it's perfection and will make you question all other reviews:
http://anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631
You may want to start with the previous article if you need a good understanding of why SSDs do the things they do:
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531&p=1
OCZ Vertex 60GB is $200 after $20 rebate on newegg. That's perfect for an OS install and a few games. Everything else can be relegated to the normal HDD. Well within my price range for the computer I'm building now.
@J - wow, yes, thanks! fantastic article on anandtech.
PCI Express SSD's are where its at. Bring em' on!
Except that a lot of BIOSs won't let you boot from PCI express. I tried to get this to work on a Lenovo laptop but the BIOS just won't play. It's a pity because PCIexpress SSDs are among the cheapest out there, and very fast!
That's what I thought - I was planning to put one in my umbp. But the reviews say that for one, the ExpressCard SSD is only 100MB/s read and 60 or so write, rather slow by SSD standards. And even worse, it gets extremely hot. Which also means it uses lots of power, shortening battery life. This is for the one model that actually makes use of the eSATA connector in the ExpressCard slot. All the others were using USB and therefore way too slow.
So far, the available options for the ExpressCard slot are a huge disappointment.
We've been looking into FusionIO cards for a server solution. Anyone have any first-hand experience with their products?
http://www.fusionio.com/
For me a new SSD drive was on top of my list when I build my new system. Why, because it is the only component introduced in the last two years that can increase the speed of how I work. I can save several minutes per day of waiting for programs to start and files to load. I go so far to say that withing the first month you get your return on investment for the higher cost compared to the older tech HDD's. Alone the system boot-up process take less than 15sec compared to 2-3 minutes with a magnetic disk.
I had a 30GB OCZ Vertex as my primary drive until Saturday. The drive is excellent and well worth the money if you need to go with SSD. My issue was that all I ran from it was the OS and I redirected all of my programs and files to either my 1TB data drive or network storage and some apps just don't play well with not being on the "C" drive. There are a few that don't even honor the fact that I changed the ProgramFiles path in the registry (here's lookin at you Adobe).
I'm not willing to spend the cash on an SSD large enough to hold everything that I need to have on the C drive so I had to go back to the *old* spinning drive.
I agree completely with zsyco - it is exactly my experience with SSD. Once we have capacities adequate for the typical requirements of the C drive, they'll be the cats pajamas.
That would be a problem with your operating system, no?
That sounds like a big OS. I currently have 4.5 GB in /windows plus 20 GB in /program files, so I can fit the OS and all my apps in a 30 GB drive. And to be on the safe side you can go for a 60GB SSD which is not that much expensive. I'm going for an OCZ Agility soon (less than $200).
I think we're still about a 12-18 months away from a truly viable SSD that makes sense. When a reliable 256 can sell for about 400-bucks and be supported by the vendor, is when I’ll commit.
Regards,
I think we're closer to that than you think. Although the prices have temporarily spiked because of supply issues, I fully expect prices (with various discounts etc) to be about $2.40/GB by November-December on the OCZ and Intel drives (OCZ will be ~10% cheaper than Intel, always.) It's not a stretch that they could really plummet at this point and hit $1.50/GB a few months after that. That will get you to 256 GB for around $400. 12 months would be a good target, but it could happen in 9.
I'm willing to bet that there are enough enthusiasts that will pay ~$3/GB for performance on the smaller drives, which should bring the pricing down considerably as they saturate the market. Again, assuming there are no more supply chain issues.
I don't know if I'll be able to hold out like you're planning on doing. I think I may take the plunge with Windows 7 at the end of this month.
$400 for a 320GB SSD is the about the sweet spot for me, which comes out to about $1.25/GB. I will likely cave and buy a couple if the price is "close".
I just got a 120gb OCZ Agility (indilinx controller) for $234 from newegg, so below $2/Gb. :-)
Well its now listed for $309
"But hey, if you've got the means to lay down $3 per gigabyte, feel free to tap that read link and ingest."
$3 per Gigabyte is Nothing!
Try paying $2 per Kilobyte. I remember when 3.5" floppies were that much or more.
[special note] I know that we can go back even further to 5.25" or 8" floppies or Tape backups or Punch Cards [/special note]
Sure, there was a time when memory cost several dollars per bit (not byte)! There is an interesting graph here .
"Try paying $2 per Kilobyte. I remember when 3.5" floppies were that much or more."
Given that a 3.5" floppy held 1.44 megabytes, you used to pay over $3,000 per floppy disc? I've got boxes of old ones I can let you have for just a few hundred dollars each, less if you buy lots.
What I find interesting is that everybody compares SSDs with SATA or PATA discs, this is not comparing like with like as SSDs cost an order of magnitude more, a fairer test is between SSDs and Fibre Channel discs which are mainly 15,000 rpm and have far better reliability than SSDs. The major difference is that for FC you need a rather expensive interface and the energy consumption of the SSDs is lower. The actual speed difference between SSD & FC is minimal.
Of course when they start making SSD FC media.....
The article doesn't broach the erase speed problem virtually every MLC drive has experienced and which the Vertex has mostly solved. Having been burnt by this on several drives I suspect the other 2 drives don't handle this well. It's really an oversight on the author's side, as pretty much all MLC drives work great until they've had every cell written once, and then the performance can drop below a disk based drive, permanently.
heh heh, "butt heads"
Yeah I'm not sure of the quality of this article...
Anandtech's SSD articles are really good, though.
In my opinion, the top SSD right now is Intel's X-25M G2. Nothing else comes close and its not that much more expensive. It's random access time is way faster than the closest Vertex....
If you'd bother to read the AnandTech article, you will see that Indilinx does come close, even beating Intel in some benchmarks.