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Author Topic: SSD drives  (Read 16097 times)

DarkPenguin

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« on: March 18, 2009, 05:28:40 pm »

Anand Lal Shimpi did a huge writeup on the state of SSD drives.

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531

If you do not want to read all 31 pages here is the short version.  Get the Intel drives if you want the fastest product available.  Get the OCZ Vertex (<-- specifically the vertex series.) drives if you want faster than any regular hard disk and do not want to spend the $$ for the Intel drives.

Great article, btw, if you are interested in such things.  It really explains a lot.
« Last Edit: March 18, 2009, 05:29:48 pm by DarkPenguin »
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Ronny Nilsen

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« Reply #1 on: March 19, 2009, 04:28:07 am »

Thank you, that was interesting. My next machine will have a SSD for the OS.

Ronny
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francois

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« Reply #2 on: March 19, 2009, 06:21:05 am »

Quote from: DarkPenguin
Anand Lal Shimpi did a huge writeup on the state of SSD drives.

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531

If you do not want to read all 31 pages here is the short version.  Get the Intel drives if you want the fastest product available.  Get the OCZ Vertex (<-- specifically the vertex series.) drives if you want faster than any regular hard disk and do not want to spend the $$ for the Intel drives.

Great article, btw, if you are interested in such things.  It really explains a lot.
Thanks for the short version. I wonder how the SuperTalent UltraDrive SSD would fare against Intel and OCZ SSDs. They posted a 14 page PDF whitepaper (http://www.supertalent.com/datasheets/Supe...epaper_v1.0.pdf).
« Last Edit: March 19, 2009, 06:21:22 am by francois »
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Francois

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« Reply #3 on: March 19, 2009, 08:47:57 am »

Seems like it may take a while for these to come into the realm of affordable...
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francois

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« Reply #4 on: March 19, 2009, 09:16:31 am »

Quote from: pom
Seems like it may take a while for these to come into the realm of affordable...
256GB SSDs are still expensive but with more competition I hope that prices will come down faster.
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Francois

dalethorn

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« Reply #5 on: March 19, 2009, 10:11:32 am »

Quote from: francois
256GB SSDs are still expensive but with more competition I hope that prices will come down faster.

$5/gb seems cheap enough for a special-purpose drive. I'd strongly suggest turning off certain O/S services such as logging and temp. Internet files if the SSD is going to be the write-to drive.
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DarkPenguin

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« Reply #6 on: March 19, 2009, 10:27:48 am »

Quote from: pom
Seems like it may take a while for these to come into the realm of affordable...

I think it depends on what you are doing with them.  How much do you need for LR/ACR Cache and CS4 scratch?

Edit:  I think I put my LR catalog on the drive.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2009, 10:53:26 am by DarkPenguin »
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francois

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« Reply #7 on: March 19, 2009, 11:33:14 am »

Quote from: dalethorn
$5/gb seems cheap enough for a special-purpose drive. I'd strongly suggest turning off certain O/S services such as logging and temp. Internet files if the SSD is going to be the write-to drive.
Actually, the local price is more like $3.50/GB even for the top OCZ or Intel SSDs but it might be a "typo" to lure naive customers…
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Francois

Jack Flesher

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« Reply #8 on: March 19, 2009, 12:10:10 pm »

I'm not convinced on them yet...  To my thinking, you can RAID-0 say 4 fast 640G or 1TB 7200 spinners, get 10 or 12 times the capacity and about 2x the I/O speed for the about half the net cost as a single 256G SSD.  Granted, the array will use more energy, but doesn't suffer from the stutter and read-write issues of SSD.  Granted again, putting 4 SSD's in RAID-0 sounds very cool, but the cost is currently prohibitive.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2009, 12:25:07 pm by Jack Flesher »
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Jack
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DarkPenguin

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« Reply #9 on: March 19, 2009, 03:03:53 pm »

Quote from: Jack Flesher
I'm not convinced on them yet...  To my thinking, you can RAID-0 say 4 fast 640G or 1TB 7200 spinners, get 10 or 12 times the capacity and about 2x the I/O speed for the about half the net cost as a single 256G SSD.  Granted, the array will use more energy, but doesn't suffer from the stutter and read-write issues of SSD.  Granted again, putting 4 SSD's in RAID-0 sounds very cool, but the cost is currently prohibitive.

The Intel x-25m and x25e and OCZ Vertex drives seem to have fixed the stutter issue.  What are the read-write issues you speak of?
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Panopeeper

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« Reply #10 on: March 19, 2009, 04:03:45 pm »

Thanks for the link; I did not know about any of those potential problems.

However, there is a very bad error in the article:

When you delete a file in your OS, there is no reaction from either a hard drive or SSD

This is a ridiculous statement (from a reviewer). The consequence is, that an SSD drive is principally not suitable as work disk with constant creation and erasure of files.

Using an SSD as paging or swapping drive (for example by PS) is nonsensical too, because that requires constant rewriting. This leaves the reasonable application as program storage: often read but seldom written. This is useful when starting PS, but I start it once and leave it there (and stop it one-two times a day, for the crap does not have a proper garbage management).
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Gabor

Jack Flesher

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« Reply #11 on: March 19, 2009, 04:17:03 pm »

Quote from: DarkPenguin
The Intel x-25m and x25e and OCZ Vertex drives seem to have fixed the stutter issue.  What are the read-write issues you speak of?

the read/write erasure issue that the article spent about 8 of its pages on...
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Jack
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DarkPenguin

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« Reply #12 on: March 19, 2009, 04:45:13 pm »

Quote from: Jack Flesher
the read/write erasure issue that the article spent about 8 of its pages on...
That's an issue?  I thought it was just how they work.

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Jack Flesher

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« Reply #13 on: March 19, 2009, 04:53:20 pm »

Quote from: DarkPenguin
That's an issue?  I thought it was just how they work.

I think it is how they work; the point is it's an issue as you lose drive capacity AND I/O performance over time unless the erased blocks are swept clean periodically.  The sweeping technology is due out in some future drives if I read the article correctly...
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Ronny Nilsen

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« Reply #14 on: March 19, 2009, 05:15:22 pm »

Quote from: Jack Flesher
I think it is how they work; the point is it's an issue as you lose drive capacity AND I/O performance over time unless the erased blocks are swept clean periodically.  The sweeping technology is due out in some future drives if I read the article correctly...

But this is solved in the Intel and OCZ Vertex, they don't degrade much and "stutter" according to the article. In the future most of the degrading I/O and "stutter" issue will be solved, but with the right drives now,  you will not lose much performance and no capacity loss if I read the article right.

Ronny
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PierreVandevenne

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« Reply #15 on: March 19, 2009, 05:25:18 pm »

Quote from: Jack Flesher
I think it is how they work; the point is it's an issue as you lose drive capacity AND I/O performance over time unless the erased blocks are swept clean periodically.  The sweeping technology is due out in some future drives if I read the article correctly...

One other interesting article about the issue

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=669
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DarkPenguin

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« Reply #16 on: March 19, 2009, 05:39:47 pm »

Quote from: Jack Flesher
I think it is how they work; the point is it's an issue as you lose drive capacity AND I/O performance over time unless the erased blocks are swept clean periodically.  The sweeping technology is due out in some future drives if I read the article correctly...

Fair enough.

For Windows users it sounds like Windows 7 is needed to support the sweeping thing.  Not sure how it shakes out for Mac users.

I'm leaning towards putting a 30gb Vertex (about $100) or an 80gb x-25m (about $350) in the system and putting Lightroom's libraries on it.  Just to sort it out.
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B-Ark

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« Reply #17 on: March 20, 2009, 08:02:28 am »

Very interesting article. I actually read the whole thing.

There was one issue that I thought he glossed over - the fact that SSD's have a limited number of erase cycles (~10,000). With a highly active system, how long will it take before the SSD wears out?
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dalethorn

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« Reply #18 on: March 20, 2009, 05:24:45 pm »

Quote from: B-Ark
Very interesting article. I actually read the whole thing.
There was one issue that I thought he glossed over - the fact that SSD's have a limited number of erase cycles (~10,000). With a highly active system, how long will it take before the SSD wears out?

I think you have to look at who's writing to the drive, to determine the wear factor. If it's just you (deliberate writing by your choice), then it will probably last your whole life, or long enough until it's obsoleted. If it's the O/S writing log files and such, it could be a lot sooner.
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pss

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« Reply #19 on: March 21, 2009, 11:21:32 pm »

Quote from: Jack Flesher
I'm not convinced on them yet...  To my thinking, you can RAID-0 say 4 fast 640G or 1TB 7200 spinners, get 10 or 12 times the capacity and about 2x the I/O speed for the about half the net cost as a single 256G SSD.  Granted, the array will use more energy, but doesn't suffer from the stutter and read-write issues of SSD.  Granted again, putting 4 SSD's in RAID-0 sounds very cool, but the cost is currently prohibitive.

a 4 drive array with regular HDs is just asking for it!
SSDs have several other advantages: you can actually fill the entire drive without speed penalty and they are MUCH MUCH more sturdy (no moving parts)...the vertex series looks very nice, finally great read and write speed in a decent size at a decent price....


there is a youtube video of some guy with a 12 or 14 SSD array....crazy fast and he slaps them around as they are performing tasks....it definitely is the future....
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