Corsair Blog: 25nm SSD Transition

[Yellowbeard]

Corsair Blog - 25nm Transition Q/A

 

[IGemini]

Corsair looks pretty optimistic about the transition. If the benchmarks are accurate, it's a pretty modest performance change for a 25nm 115F-A drive compared to the 120F, with the only real significant decrease with 4K read time performance. I'd be satisfied with those numbers.

 

[DaveSimmons]

"How can I tell what technology my drive is based on?

All Corsair 25nm-based Force SSDs will have a part number that ends in "-A". And, if the same capacity is already offered in 34nm technology, we will be very clear about noting any lowered specifications. For example, our current 34nm F80 is sold with a guaranteed read speed of 285 MB/s and write speed of 275MB/s; the F80 "-A" will have specifications of 280 MB/s and 270 MB/s, respectively. You will be able to tell what you have by looking at the part number that is printed on the drive."


This is a much better approach than OCZ. Based on OCZ's using the same model numbers (then charging customers a fee to swap to get the performance they expected based on the model) they will not be getting any business from me any time soon.

 

[frostedflakes]

Thumbs up to Corsair, nice to see them laying out in clear, concise terms exactly what the transition to 25nm means for consumers and making sure to differentiate products based on 25nm NAND from 3Xnm. This is what OCZ should have done.

 

[jmet]

A company that gets it. ;p

 

[Castiel]

Love corsair SSD's

 

[GundamF91]

they made better memory than OCZ too!

But does 25nm NAND chip mean less write resistance? I thought it wont' have as many write cycles.

 

[Emulex]

corsair and ocz assemble - they do not make memory

 

[hans007]

corsair and ocz assemble - they do not make memory

i doubt they even assemble. they just brand things.

its just like all the video cards are made by all the same people and companies put pretty heatsinks on them.

 

[jimhsu]

See, this is honest marketing, unlike what OCZ has done so far:

- Disclosure of the transition beforehand
- Segmentation of the product into 34nm and 25nm models
- Disclosing relevant, accurate storage and performance numbers
- Most of all, passing the cost savings to the consumer.

If I didn't already have a SSD, Corsair would be getting my business.

 

[Emulex]

yeah still avoid sandforce SF-12xx drives. trust me. the firmware is not stable.

cold start boots, sleep issues. still there. maybe 2-3 % but was always 0% in indilinx and intel and samsung and jMicron (lol).

 

[Hayte]

Yeah I'm still getting sleep issues from time to time. Cold booting after a firmware update doesn't bother me but yeah. The last 2 updates blue screened on me and it happens to Corsair Force users too. Its just messy.

I hate OCZ Toolbox but I suppose its better than not having a toolbox at all. Pretty much everyone bought an SSD to use a primary system disk and yet you can't do anything with OCZ Toolbox as long as the drive is your primary system disk. Firmware update has been disabled and they don't release installers anymore. So if you either need to boot from another system disk and if you don't have one you need to download and install the firmware through a Linux distro (!!!) or you need to boot into PartedMagic which looks long and complicated.

You can't secure erase the drive as long as there is any partition allocated space on the drive. A problem if your SSD is a system/boot drive because it will have a system reserved partition. You can't get rid of it using Win7 Disk Management. I can't remember how I managed to remove the one on my disk but it is possible. It is also messy. I was stuck with a drive that wouldn't boot on its own because bootsect was on another disk. Bah!

Once again Intel sets the standard in good business practice, after market (firmware) support and they have the best toolbox out there right now.

 

[Old Hippie]

Thumbs up to Corsair, nice to see them laying out in clear, concise terms exactly what the transition to 25nm means for consumers and making sure to differentiate products based on 25nm NAND from 3Xnm. This is what OCZ should have done.

That Blog article was posted Feb 18th well after OCZ got their tit in the wringer.

I appreciate the information but it's no where near as altruistic as you make it sound......more like they didn't want to fall in OCZ's hole.

 

[frostedflakes]

Why do you even need to secure erase if you're using Win 7? TRIM should prevent performance degradation.

 

[Hayte]

TRIM doesn't work like it does on Intel and Indillinx drives. Sandforce has always been cryptic about how their proprietary technology works, and its clear that the OCZ staff on their forums are guessing at how their products actually work, based on scraps of information that Sandforce techies have deigned to tell them.

You can use ForceTRIM on a Sandforce drive and it won't do jack. I've done it a few times when the drive goes into a write throttled state. After a while I just accepted this as inevitable. I didn't really notice it anyway so its not a big deal but yeah. Its definitely not like an Indillinx or Intel drive thats for sure.

 

[RhoXS]

... it's no where near as altruistic as you make it sound......more like they didn't want to fall in OCZ's hole.

I feel compelled to offer my two cents.

First, I like and use Corsair's products. Their support and behavior has been excellent. Their active presence this and other forums by the colored beards is refreshingly candid. Everything I can see, without a single exception, indicates Corsair has their corporate cultural act together. However, regardless of the organization, I think it would be very naive to judge anyones performance in the immediate wake of the OCZ gaff. I am sure OCZ also would be waxing towards painful honesty right now if another vendor happened to be first with a marketable product and made the same mistake. This is not a fair time to judge anyone. Welcome to the defective human race and open market competition.

Second, after a considerable amount of thought, I am sticking with Intel. It is my opinion, when I upgrade my excellent 80 GB G2 to a 120 Gb drive in the near future, Intel is most likely to provide the highest probablity of a safe balance between performance, reliability, and longevity at a somewhat competitive price. I am tempted to buy a 120 GB G2 now because I tend to think 34 nm is better technology at this time. However, I really do not need the extra space right now and would rather not spend $230 based just on fear of a new technology.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

At one point, you were able to make a distinction between the old hardware 120G SSD and the newer 120G SSD Vertex 2 drives... looks like they are all using the same part number now.

 

[Emulex]

intel and jmicron and indilinx and samsung (probably a few others) do not exhibit the "Sandforce" timing errors is what i'm saying. these errors plagued every sf-12xx to date. because they all use the same base firmware. i can guarantee you 34nm callisto deluxe in my pc has issues that my G2 microcenter (adata s599) does not. it may not affect everyone but it sure pisses me off enough to go look to getting an intel back into my life. the G3 of course

so save your nickles for a controller that has zero fails man. these things are far too expensive to have such facepalm errors that seem to never get fixed.

 

[Old Hippie]

I am sure OCZ also would be waxing towards painful honesty right now if another vendor happened to be first with a marketable product and made the same mistake.

You just made my point.....Thanks!

 

[drizek]

You just made my point.....Thanks!

Was going to say the same thing.

Still, OCZ was particularly evil in this case. They've been offering all sorts of rebates for the Vertex 2 for the past few weeks and they got a lot of people to buy into the them. At hte same time, they are trying to go after Crucial, Samsung and Intels new generation of drives by putting out engineering samples of their SF25 drives to reviewers using 34nm and claiming to have amazing performance. Is the 25nm Sandforce drive that consumers will get going to be faster than a Crucial C400 at 25nm?

 

[Dadofamunky]

i doubt they even assemble. they just brand things.

its just like all the video cards are made by all the same people and companies put pretty heatsinks on them.

Yet, based on the evidence I'm seeing, they and Crucial are the consensus best choice in this area. Why? You got me. I just assumed both actually added technical value somewhere.

 

[drizek]

Yet, based on the evidence I'm seeing, they and Crucial are the consensus best choice in this area. Why? You got me. I just assumed both actually added technical value somewhere.

They do add value.

QA and firmware.

 

[hans007]

They do add value.

QA and firmware.

i don't thikn they actually make firmeware, they just choose one of different builds sandforce gives them , whichever one they feel is best, and do things like change the amount of reserver flash etc.

the thing the only SSD controller makers who really design their own SSDs are intel , crucial and samsung.

you could not even really buy a samsung branded SSD retail until the 470 series came out. and obviously crucial is micron technology and intel is intel.

all the other ones work mostly the same as the model everyone goes with for say nvidia geforce reference designs.

i do have to give credit to ocz for making those pci-e add in cards. that is actually unique, so in a way they do more than say corsair /mushkin / a-data etc in that regard or well whatever OEM they got to design that for them.

 

[LokutusofBorg]

Crucial uses a Marvell controller. And technically they buy their NAND from a separate company, IMFT. It's a joint venture, but still technically a separate company.

 

[Yellowbeard]

That Blog article was posted Feb 18th well after OCZ got their tit in the wringer.

I appreciate the information but it's no where near as altruistic as you make it sound......more like they didn't want to fall in OCZ's hole.

Just to be VERY clear here, none of our marketing or PR activities were inspired by any of our competitors. That's not how we do business. All of this was in motion long before any of the other turmoil you have been reading about over the net.