G.Skill Falcon SSDs

[VaultDweller]

I hadn't seen any news or announcements regarding new SSDs from G.Skill, but today I noticed a new line of Falcon drives on NewEgg. They're based on an Indilinx controller and have 64MB of cache - so it looks like the hardware is the same as the Vertex, and the performance should match if the firmware is good.

Anyone want to take one for the team and buy a unit to test?

 

[Idontcare]

How are they priced compared to Vertex? Am too lazy to look it up myself at the moment.

This is something I don't get about OCZ's business model though...normally when you outsource everything about a product build as OCZ has done with their SSD's (including firmware creation) you try to lock some manner of exclusivity deal with the actual OEM so you aren't competing with identical hardware with a different label slapped on it.

It is typical to have geographic exclusivity...for example OCZ would contract to have the north american market exclusively for their OCZ branded SSD, whereas GSKILL might contract for exclusivity in Asia, Super Talent for Eurozone, etc.

DELL operates this way with their laptops for example.

But it appears that OCZ did not negotiate for exclusivity. Does anyone know "who" actually manufactures these SSD's that Super Talent/GSKILL/OCZ all sell as their own label?

 

[alcoholbob]

Good point. My mom's company recently found that the hard way. They developed a software in conjunction with Microsoft but didn't realize the oversight on their contract was nebulously worded and Microsoft just started selling the software to everyone they could make a buck off with.

Obviously legal did not do their homework for OCZ.

 

[VaultDweller]

Originally posted by: Idontcare
How are they priced compared to Vertex? Am too lazy to look it up myself at the moment.

They're cheaper.

Falcon (64GB, 128GB, 256GB): 209,339,729
Vertex (60GB, 120GB, 250GB): 219,425,799

The G.SKILLs don't have any space set aside for wear leveling as the Vertex drives do, so I'm not sure how close the two products really are.

Competition is good, regardless. The 128GB drives are pretty well priced, so 2x128GB might be an option in my future. I hope the drives hold up to scrutiny.

 

[alcoholbob]

I don't believe the extra space is for wear leveling. The Vertex drives were shipping with full addressable space. Up until the 1199 firmware the 120G Vertex drives were showing up as > 122GB drives formatted.

But the earlier firmware was running into problems with the drive crashing after reaching write capacity so the drives now show up at 119GB formatted.

 

[Glenn]

Before anyone drops a dime on a Gskill drive, they might want to go to the support forums. The discussions aren't about the new falcon drive but they are indicative of the level of support to expect from gskill, (which is none!) Here is a link to the latest discussion in their SSD forum and you will see what I mean.

Gskill Support Forum Discussion It would be funny, if it weren't so sad! I solicit all of those who read this to join in not buying anything from a company with this attitude!

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Glenn
Before anyone drops a dime on a Gskill drive, they might want to go to the support forums. The discussions aren't about the new falcon drive but they are indicative of the level of support to expect from gskill, (which is none!) Here is a link to the latest discussion in their SSD forum and you will see what I mean.

Gskill Support Forum Discussion It would be funny, if it weren't so sad! I solicit all of those who read this to join in not buying anything from a company with this attitude!

I'm not saying your perspective is without merit, but here's the first GSKILL response in that thread you linked and I must say it is quite reasonable and direct to the point from my perception:

Originally posted by: GSKILL TECH Administrator
multi-task is the drawback of current MLC SSD. we try 1000 of tweaks but none of them can help. there is nothing we can do about it because it is hardware/tech limitation.
Titan SSD or SSD with cache, both of them still have little multi-task problem. it is just the way that SSD is for now.....

We can RMA and replace you a new SSD that is no problem. just fill out the form and we will issue you a rma number.

They openly acknowledge the problem as defined by the consumer, they communicate that it is a hardware limitation that no amount of engineering resources are going to mitigate (and they tried), and they explain that even the alternative hardware has problems in this area of drive performance.

Compare this to how OCZ handled the first 6 months of customer complaints regarding stuttering. If anything you just boosted my opinion of GSKILL.

That's not to say I'd buy the SSD, I need multi-task capability and a drive like that would be a step back for me performance-wise.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: Idontcare
Compare this to how OCZ handled the first 6 months of customer complaints regarding stuttering.

If anything you just boosted my opinion of GSKILL.

Quality, price, performance, customer service... What's not to love about G.Skill? :thumbsup:

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: VaultDweller

Originally posted by: Idontcare
How are they priced compared to Vertex? Am too lazy to look it up myself at the moment.

They're cheaper.

Falcon (64GB, 128GB, 256GB): 209,339,729
Vertex (60GB, 120GB, 250GB): 219,425,799

The G.SKILLs don't have any space set aside for wear leveling as the Vertex drives do, so I'm not sure how close the two products really are.

Competition is good, regardless. The 128GB drives are pretty well priced, so 2x128GB might be an option in my future. I hope the drives hold up to scrutiny.

Thanks for the info. That's a crazy price difference for the 128GB-class models.

I'm looking forward to the day I can buy 4x60GB for <$400...got my raid card right here just waiting for some 4-way raid0 action.

 

[Pernsworth]

These aren't fat housewives at Wal-Mart, returning a Eureka vacuum cleaner. You don't get that kind of "customer service" out there on the unprofitable "bleeding edge". These are all (supposed to be) grown-ups (with lots of money), and a full-awareness that they are spending a premium for the priviledge of being a beta-tester for a new toy that has little to no real-world value or benefit. They can whine all they like, but don't expect me to buy-in to the idea that the entire G. Skill company is somehow "tainted" because some emotionally underdeveloped hardware geek is dissatisfied with his overpriced toy.

G. Skill is a fine company that produces high-quality hardware, and they support it with very good customer service, even if these Germans have some problems with the American idiom; they are running rings around most of the asian manufacturers with their pidgeon engrish.

 

[aceO07]

Originally posted by: VaultDweller
Falcon (64GB, 128GB, 256GB): 209,339,729
Vertex (60GB, 120GB, 250GB): 219,425,799

Wow. The vertext 120GB price has really gone up. I remember it was only $310 at some point and was averaging $350 at most websites before.

 

[VaultDweller]

Yeah. I actually do my shopping at newegg.ca, and the 120 GB Vertex drives used to be $425 CAD. Then they disappeared for a while*, and when they reappeared they were up to $525 CAD. Supply and demand, I guess.

* I hate how newegg.ca often loses availability for items that are still in stock at newegg.com, even though the Canadian site ships from the same warehouses.

 

[alcoholbob]

OCZ is providing a lot of support for enthusiasts who want to do tweaking, which is true, although it's messy and all over the place (and most of them are in the archives at this point).

At the same time, they do alot of deny any problems of their drives, and any time someone mentions "RMA" the mods there get pretty sensitive and start pointing fingers at the rest of the OPs hardware chain. It's true they work hard, and I doubt the mods themselves are bad people but are merely operating under the directive's of corporate.

G-skill at least has the balls to point out that MLC inherently has multitasking issues--which is true. The Indilinix controller that's gotten so much hype from will still suffer from stutter (me and a few other gamers found this out--in addition LegitReviews did as well). It's been something I've suspected for quite a while--there's something fundamentally broken about MLC architecture. MLC NAND is a budget product with an enthusiasts' price tag. (and the rate the price on MLC Nand is dropping vs SLC should give you a clue too).

But cost of SLC *SHOULD* be going down. Right now (according to OCZ) demand for SLC is going up, and major fabs are retooling to return for SLC manufacturing (previously it had been a consistent transition to MLC).

The best analogy I can make is, SLC is the IPS LCD panel of SSDs and the new MLCs are like VA panels, while the Jmicrons are the TNs.

OCZ is coming out with a SLC line and they hope that if there are enough enterprise orders this can drop SLC NAND prices. Although right now they are looking at $740 for the 60GB SLC Vertex and $1450 for the 120GB...pretty close to Intel territory.

But performance is at another level--the Indilinix controller is the same--but the NAND is better, and the initial numbers are phenomenal for the new Vertex EX series. I'm keeping a close eye on this one...

 

[taltamir]

MLC and SLC use the exact same solid state chips, its just that the controller in SLC aims for either 0.5x volts, or voltage point A (lets call it, 1x volts). While an MLC controller will put voltage points 0.5x, 0.66x, 0.83x, and 1x on the exact same chip and read each one of them as a different data set.
I called it X but actually its a constant.

Imagine if HDD drives had 4 polarity angles: - / |
instead of two angles: - |

you would double capacity for the same area, but at the cost of performance. This is exactly what MLC does, MLC is double the space at 1/10th the longevity, and a fraction of the speed.
And highly flexible controller could switch from MLC to SLC operation with just a firmware update.

It is unfair to say that MLC drives are not enthusiast speed though, they struggle in some ways, but have amazing access times and sequential reads (and nice seq writes) compared to any spindle drive. This is sort of a CRT vs LCD argument... Eventually all SSDs will be better, at the time though its better to pick and choose carefully.

 

[taltamir]

As for the exclusivity thing... why would OCZ have exclusivity over someone elses product? they didn't make it, should eVGA have exclusivity over some nvidia video cards?

 

[alcoholbob]

Originally posted by: taltamir
As for the exclusivity thing... why would OCZ have exclusivity over someone elses product? they didn't make it, should eVGA have exclusivity over some nvidia video cards?

If it wasn't worded originally in their contract then OCZ would have no exclusivity. If you are asking why OCZ should have pursued exclusivity, I would say, to help re-coup their joint R&D costs with Indilinix. Of course it's possible OCZ is in fact getting royalty payments out of each controller getting sold to OEMs. Hopefully they are, otherwise OCZ corporate made an amateur mistake.

 

[PUN]

Originally posted by: Idontcare
Does anyone know "who" actually manufactures these SSD's that Super Talent/GSKILL/OCZ all sell as their own label?

Indilinx is made by a small company in Korea. They developed this controller back in Sept 2008 and contracted it out to OCZ. They are in the making of a controller capable of doing 600mb/s compare to 240mb/s we have now. According to them, it should be out by the end of this year.

 

[skriefal]

Originally posted by: Astrallite
If it wasn't worded originally in their contract then OCZ would have no exclusivity. If you are asking why OCZ should have pursued exclusivity, I would say, to help re-coup their joint R&D costs with Indilinix.

If OCZ wanted exclusivity they would almost certainly have had to pay Indilinx much, much more money. If Indilinx can't resell the controller to other OEMs then that 'lost' revenue would need to come from OCZ. How much more? 10X is likely, with more being very possible. Such an increase would likely require that OCZ price their drives out of the market.

The same is true for your mom's company (mentioned above). They didn't get exclusivity on the software they collaborated on with Microsoft, but in exchange they got the software for much cheaper than it would otherwise have cost (probably -- I obviously don't have all of the details). And they got to impact the development of the software such that it worked how they want it to work, versus having to accept software designed by some other company with differing requirements.

 

[alcoholbob]

Originally posted by: skriefal

Originally posted by: Astrallite
If it wasn't worded originally in their contract then OCZ would have no exclusivity. If you are asking why OCZ should have pursued exclusivity, I would say, to help re-coup their joint R&D costs with Indilinix.

If OCZ wanted exclusivity they would almost certainly have had to pay Indilinx much, much more money. If Indilinx can't resell the controller to other OEMs then that 'lost' revenue would need to come from OCZ. How much more? 10X is likely, with more being very possible. Such an increase would likely require that OCZ price their drives out of the market.

The same is true for your mom's company (mentioned above). They didn't get exclusivity on the software they collaborated on with Microsoft, but in exchange they got the software for much cheaper than it would otherwise have cost (probably -- I obviously don't have all of the details). And they got to impact the development of the software such that it worked how they want it to work, versus having to accept software designed by some other company with differing requirements.

Okay I misunderstood the usage of exclusivity. I think more importantly, did OCZ have anything to gain with their work with Indilinix such as profit sharing? I certainly hope so, because they built a mountain of free press for Indilinix and did months of free consulting work by helping them develop their firmware.

If for all they did, they only got the Indilinix controller for cheaper, that's a huge loss for them. Eventually Indilinix's manufacturing costs will go down, and OCZ will keep paying the same price for the controllers while new partners will be paying for less. This is basically the same problem Sony and Microsoft are having right now...paying 2006 prices for 2006 video cards while you are I paying $100 for a video card twice as fast.

 

[taltamir]

If for all they did, they only got the Indilinix controller for cheaper, that's a huge loss for them

Really? i see no reason why it wouldn't be cost effective, that is, that they would make money.

 

[skriefal]

Originally posted by: Astrallite
If for all they did, they only got the Indilinix controller for cheaper, that's a huge loss for them. Eventually Indilinix's manufacturing costs will go down, and OCZ will keep paying the same price for the controllers while new partners will be paying for less.

Loss? Not really. Again, they get to influence the design of the controller such that it works how they and their customers want, rather than accepting a controller that was implemented to meet the demands of some other OEM. There's value in that. (Real value or perceived value? That's another discussion.) And they were first to market with the Indilinx controller -- there's definitely value there.

None of us can say whether the price per controller is or will be an issue; their contract may already allow for adjustments based upon the cost paid by other vendors.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: skriefal

Originally posted by: Astrallite
If for all they did, they only got the Indilinix controller for cheaper, that's a huge loss for them. Eventually Indilinix's manufacturing costs will go down, and OCZ will keep paying the same price for the controllers while new partners will be paying for less.

Loss? Not really. Again, they get to influence the design of the controller such that it works how they and their customers want, rather than accepting a controller that was implemented to meet the demands of some other OEM. There's value in that. (Real value or perceived value? That's another discussion.) And they were first to market with the Indilinx controller -- there's definitely value there.

None of us can say whether the price per controller is or will be an issue; their contract may already allow for adjustments based upon the cost paid by other vendors.

Intel seems to do just fine keeping their controller all to themselves...as do all the other harddrive manufacturers.

I'm just surprised with OCZ's business model in this area, trying to eek out margins on a product that essentially cannot be differentiated from the other rebranded generics on the market is a brutal way to try and turn a profit.

Imagine if your business model was to buy Intel CPU's, label them as your own, and resell them to compete with Intel's otherwise identical CPU's. You could make some money doing it, buy in bulk getting a volume-discount then resell at MSRP, plus you'd probably carry the warranty yourself so you'd buy OEM from Intel instead of retail. But dam your margins are going to be slim-to-none.

 

[alcoholbob]

According to OCZ, as of 4/22, they sold 500 drives of the 0112 firmware, over 1000 for 1199, the rest being 1275 firmware and newer. Slightly more than 10k drives have been sold.

Right now the competition is selling drives for about the same amount, or even lower than OCZ. I don't claim to know anything about margins, but over a month worth of consulting is worth of millions of dollars in the business field, this is not even including the cost of the original costs of collaboration with Indilinix.

All of this hinges of course, on how long OCZ plans to sell this product in order to help recoup all these costs. Like I said, if Indilinix's controller gets cheaper to make eventually, OCZ will take a hit because it will be paying more than for the controller than its competitors (since you are typically locked to a contract price).

If all OCZ wanted was for "market penetration" of their brand name, then its a pretty ballsy move and may or may not end up coming to bite them in the ass due the current size of the SSD market--although its possible they are hoping for spillover effects to their other product lines. Otherwise, my guess is, they hope they start selling a HELL of a lot of drives before they end up like Microsoft or Sony, paying an exorbitant amount of money for G70/R500 technology 3 years later to help nvidia/ati pay for R&D costs for GT300/RVV870.

 

[jimhsu]

... But dam your margins are going to be slim-to-none.

In many industries, that's life. The innovators profit, while the middle men .. well ...

 

[NickHolland]

FYI: Falcons - buy they are the same thing as the Vertex. Buy the Falcon, flash with Vertex firmware I'd assume. Someone should try.

Originally posted by: Glenn
Before anyone drops a dime on a Gskill drive, they might want to go to the support forums. The discussions aren't about the new falcon drive but they are indicative of the level of support to expect from gskill, (which is none!) Here is a link to the latest discussion in their SSD forum and you will see what I mean.

Gskill Support Forum Discussion It would be funny, if it weren't so sad! I solicit all of those who read this to join in not buying anything from a company with this attitude!

While to some degree I agree, it's also kinda ignorant to expect perfect English and complete understanding from Taiwanese. It's not their fault they don't have the community like OCZ or Corsair (but then again, what East Asian memory company does?). I've read other forums where that guy is going round trying to spread shit about them now because he didn't read up beforehand that JMicron controller SSDs stutter. Tbh, he's the idiot - why would those guys RMA that?? The product works just like any other.