http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/ Engadget Comments for http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/Jan 13th 2010 1:03PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
Oh there's a 60 gb version. It's just how much are you willing to pay?]]>Jan 13th 2010 1:34PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/Jan 13th 2010 1:06PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/Jan 13th 2010 6:32PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/Jan 13th 2010 6:34PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/Jan 13th 2010 1:13PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
Correction: 20X the capacity. Don't know what I was thinking, but that just makes the point even more.]]>Jan 13th 2010 1:14PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/Agreed. I just don't see the value here.]]>Jan 13th 2010 1:15PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
Damnit! 12.5x the capacity. Damn, what the hell is wrong with me today? Sigh, been a long day already.]]>Jan 13th 2010 1:15PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/Then again, the ~0.1ms access time makes the SSD ~100-150x faster than the regular HDD. SSDs are for random I/O, not sequential.]]>Jan 13th 2010 1:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/Jan 13th 2010 1:22PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
It makes it 100-150x faster on SEEK time, which is just the time before you start reading data. I concede that on a heavily fragmented magnetic hard drive, that seek time latency could add up, but there is no way this SSD is 100-150x faster than a magnetic drive. I recently upgraded a 160GB 7200 RPM laptop drive with Samsung's 256GB SSD (which is close to the king of the hill X-25M in terms of performance) and I see an average 3x boost. Still impressive, but not 100x.]]>Jan 13th 2010 1:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
Seek time isn't a huge deal, especially on a drive that isn't heavily fragmented. Even if you're reading a file that's in 1,000 different fragments (which would be an extreme case and unlikely to happen especially with automatic defrag now in Win7), that's only 5 seconds added to the total transfer time, assuming read speeds are identical and seek time on the SSD is non-existent (which we'll say it is for the sake of argument). It wouldn't take a very large file for a magnetic drive's superior read speed to make up for that gap.]]>Jan 13th 2010 1:29PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
To put it in perspective - my Eee 901 with a fast RunCore SSD easily outperforms my MacBook Pro in booting and launching applications - those are both heavily I/O based and rely on huge amounts of tiny files. Now as soon as I need the CPU for anything, the MacBook Pro crushes the Eee - but imagine an SSD inside a fast system (perhaps a new Core i5/i7?) - well, it sure makes me drool.

Sadly, I just don't see the point in a 40GB SSD - seems good for booting and then has room for nothing else, and in a laptop you're not typically going to have an extra drive bay. I have 64GB in my Eee, and even that feels small.]]>Jan 13th 2010 1:37PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
Fair point. And you're right, when I upgraded from my 160GB 7.2K RPM drive to the Samsung 256GB SSD, my Win7 start time went from about 42 seconds to 13 seconds. Not an order of magnitude of difference (though I suppose it could have been if I'd started with a crappier magnetic drive) but nothing to sneeze at either. I guess I just wonder whether the seek time alone on this low-end SSD will give it sufficient performance to justify its cost in spite of its limited capacity. Benchmarks will tell, I suppose.

On a somewhat unrelated note, I'm glad I got my SSD when I did. I got it for $404 through a corporate discount while it was retailing for $479, and now the retail is $719!! That's a whopping 50% price hike. Either Samsung is having trouble producing these in large quantities or suppliers have realized people will pay a lot more for these things.]]>Jan 13th 2010 2:12PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/Jan 13th 2010 1:16PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
Your 1TB drive might have given you better performance given its platter density (despite its slower RPMs). I don't really see the logic in purchasing this; for an HTPC I would have guessed running silent might have been part of it, but assuming your media is going to be on the 1TB drive and therefore that that drive will be spinning pretty much any time you're using it, that benefit is sort of nullified. But to each his own, I guess.]]>Jan 13th 2010 1:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/I rather have the system drive be independant of the storage for many reasons. The size is perfect for my purpose and thought of using SSD as there won't be much writing to it. The HTPC will also serve as the media server and encoding station.]]>Jan 13th 2010 1:32PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/Jan 13th 2010 1:53PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
I have, and as I've mentioned in other posts, I actually own a Samsung 256GB SSD. I understand the benefits of performance SSDs, I'm simply questioning the value of THIS particular model considering its surprisingly low read speeds compared to others. Although as others have indicated in this discussion, I suppose the faster seek time may still make this a better performer than the average magnetic drive.]]>Jan 13th 2010 3:07PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
Look at the link I posted below, for random R/W(the majority of system I/O), this drive is significantly faster than OCZ's samsung based drive. ]]>Jan 13th 2010 3:33PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
First of all, the drive in this article isn't included in the lineup featured in your linked article. The X-25M in your article is a completely separate product from the X-25V featured here. Second of all, the OCZ version of the Sammy drive I have uses a JMicron controller, which is widely regarded as one of the worst controllers available. The Samsung version uses one of Samsung's own controllers.

If you're interested, though, the two links below contain reviews of the Samsung version of this SSD (though frustratingly, neither includes random read/writes):

http://www.laptopmag.com/review/storage/samsung-ssd-256GB.aspx
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/03/17/review_storage_ssd_samsung_mmd0e56g5/]]>Jan 13th 2010 4:42PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
Look again, the Kingston SSDNow V(purple line) on those charts is essentially the same drive as the X25-V.

Frankly, I have no interest in seq. R/W speeds. Think about how little time you spend opening, or saving files larger than 2MB. Not working on those files but actually writing them.

Samsung's controllers are much better than j-micron, but they still lag behind Intel and Indilinx. ]]>Jan 13th 2010 5:17PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/You're making a few errors here.

*All* Samsung drives have poor 4KB random write performance. This is not a problem with either the X25M, the X25V or the Kingston rebadges.

Assuming you have a Samsung PB22-J, using the S3C29RBB01 (same as the OCZ Summit), it's very fast for sequential reads and writes... but according to Anandtech benchmarks, 4KB random writes on a fresh drive are only 4.4MB/sec, dropping to 1.2MB/sec for when a drive's been used.

For comparison that same 4KB random write test on the Intel controllers does closer to 35MB/sec

You say that Windows boots fast, and I'm sure it does - but I bet it wasn't that quick to install.

You might say why do I care? Well, if my life consisted entirely of reading and writing 8gb mkvs as fast as possible, then I wouldn't. But at the moment I'm looking at SSDs for a corporate workstation rollout.

The standard build is only about 18GB but installing Windows Updates and updating applications through Group Policy, etc can be really slow for users (random IO, lots of writes). Having a drive like the X25V will dramatically improve end user performance.

I firmly stand behind people here who say the best combination is one of these 40GB 'boot' drives, and a 2TB WD magnetic for bulk storage.]]>Jan 13th 2010 7:47PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
]]>Jan 13th 2010 1:19PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/It 's been there and other shops for like 2 weeks.

In fact, slickdeals.com has already had forum posts with deals down to $110

http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1798359
and
http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1789824]]>Jan 13th 2010 1:23PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
I only see two possible uses for this:
1) Laptops with two storage bays, so boot is on the SSD and user data on a large HDD
2) Users who have less than 40GB total data, so it all fits on the SSD

I just don't see either one being a common scenario. Now if we were talking some sort of mini-PCIe card so the SSD wouldn't occupy a drive bay, it might be interesting (although then, how is it different from the products offered for netbooks from RunCore and the like?).

Just don't get the reason for this product to exist.]]>Jan 13th 2010 1:32PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
Its cheap and large enough to fit an OS and some programs. If you still dont see the point, learn more about SSDs.]]>Jan 13th 2010 8:45PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
HTPC where data should be stored on a separate drive anyway. Or heck, any desktop PC where data should be stored on a separate drive anyway.

Get my point? Unless it's a laptop, important data really should be stored on a separate drive anyway!]]>Jan 14th 2010 12:11AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/Jan 13th 2010 1:33PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/2) Not many people care about write speed on small capacity SSD drives, what's the read speed? That's one of the most important tidbits you can provide for SSD specs and you fail to provide it?

]]>Jan 13th 2010 1:36PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/Jan 13th 2010 1:37PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/Jan 13th 2010 1:42PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/Jan 13th 2010 1:44PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/Jan 13th 2010 1:48PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/Jan 13th 2010 1:52PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/Jan 13th 2010 2:17PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
This is why.

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3667&p=6

For get sequential, random R/W is makes your computer work. ]]>Jan 13th 2010 3:06PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/Jan 14th 2010 5:17AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
Basically, programs are made of a bunch of little files, SSDs are really good at reading lots of little files in different places very quickly. They're not so good at reading or writing great big files.

What that means is things like opening programs, or folders or just moving around the computer will be quicker than a HDD, but copying large files might be slower. ]]>Jan 14th 2010 11:08AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/Jan 14th 2010 2:00PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
Sorry, I should have been more clear. When moving big files, a fast HDD will be faster than a slow SSD.

This drive, the intel x25-v, is slow at moving big files.

Here is a chart about big files.
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3667&p=5

This drive should be similar in performance to the purple line. ]]>Jan 16th 2010 2:39AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/Jan 16th 2010 1:02PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
Check again at the end of 2010, Intel wants to double the size of their SSDs for the same price. ]]>Jan 16th 2010 8:01PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
so for situations where you mostly just read from the disk (os disk), it has a very much lower access time than a hdd (0.065ms), and a much higher read speed (170MB/s).

this together makes it an awesome disk for workstations (os + office, maybe 2-3 other apps), or media centers (networked storage for the data, in my case, windows home server), etc.

yes, write is slow. but no, write doesn't matter much.

i get mine tomorrow. by then i will have 1 160gb intel ssd, two 80gb intel ssds, and one 40gb one.

i will never, ever, touch hdds again. they just absolutely suck for having an os on them, compared to any ssd, especially the intels.


oh, and the one who noted the samsung he got is about 3x as fast in feel than the hdd he had. well, the intel is MUCH faster in feel than a sammy (have those, too, kicked all of them).]]>Jan 13th 2010 1:59PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
That was me with the Sammy SSD. My findings are anecdotal and based on my previous Seagate 160GB 7.2K HDD. While I haven't compared my SSD to Intel's offerings, the benchmarks I've found on multiple sites don't seem to indicate that they're "MUCH" faster than mine. But considering my 256GB SSD was $479 (not counting the corporate discount I got) when the 160GB X-25M was almost $700, I didn't really feel the need to spend that much more money for less capacity just for a bit more performance. Of course my SSD's price has now been jacked up to $719 and that same 160GB X-25M is now $500, so I guess the playing field has changed somewhat.]]>Jan 13th 2010 3:14PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
why? one thing that points towards it, is the fact that they have very low random read write performance, and nearly no parallelisation. that means a single big workload makes the ssd work slower for the rest of the os. and as most os-workloads are tiny blulks of tons of things, it starts to be feelable.

anyways, i had to pay 700$ for my intel back in it's days, too. but i payed it gladly to get rid of a samsung. and till today, i don't miss the samsung at all.

so i'm happily installing my newest member of the family, the 40gb intel, into my media center now.]]>Jan 14th 2010 8:09AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/Jan 13th 2010 2:18PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/
Correct. ]]>Jan 13th 2010 3:00PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/intels-40gb-ssd/Jan 13th 2010 3:07PM