Got my Intel X25-M 80GB SSD up and running

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: n7
Wow.

Just installed Vista on here...decided to go with a clean install so i can go very minimal on what i install (due to space issues).

Holy crapping fast.

I find my old Raptor a lot snappier than my 7200rpm drives, but z0mg this makes the Raptor feel ancient.

These things are expensive...very pricey, but man...everything just feels so much faster.

Good to hear they are worth upgrading to over the 150 GB Raptor. I was worried they would not feel but faster than a Raptor.

Can you do more than one thing at once without the SSD feeling slow? Like opening firefox and your email program ? Scanning your computer for viruses and opening firefox ? I know the Raptors did pretty well here but how does the SSD do with multiple tasks at once.

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: pcslookout

Originally posted by: n7
Wow.

Just installed Vista on here...decided to go with a clean install so i can go very minimal on what i install (due to space issues).

Holy crapping fast.

I find my old Raptor a lot snappier than my 7200rpm drives, but z0mg this makes the Raptor feel ancient.

These things are expensive...very pricey, but man...everything just feels so much faster.

Good to hear they are worth upgrading to over the 150 GB Raptor. I was worried they would not feel but faster than a Raptor.

Can you do more than one thing at once without the SSD feeling slow? Like opening firefox and your email program ? Scanning your computer for viruses and opening firefox ? I know the Raptors did pretty well here but how does the SSD do with multiple tasks at once.

Well, i just did a little testing for you.

I had WMP playing music off the SSD, while copying 20 GB of stuff onto the SSD, while installing GRID to the SSD, while running a SuperAntispyware scan on the SSD, while typing in Wordpad, while typing this in Firefox, with Steam in the background.

And it's damn near perfectly smooth :Q
Certainly faster than my Raptor was when doing heavy disk-based multitasking.

I did experience some weird game lockups in L4D last night, but i've talked to a few people who said they have had similar, though not for as long as mine were.
I figure it could be a server issue, a game issue, newer nV driver issue, or hopefully not, a SSD issue.
I will see if it continues, & if it does, i'll see if it happens with the game on another drive, but i doubt it's the SSD.

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: pcslookout


How many SSD hard drives can you raid together? Is there a limit?

You will run out of bandwidth from either the host or bus long before you reach the addressable limits using SAS expansion.

Most will reach the limits of their wallets before either.

 

[frostedflakes]

Originally posted by: Rubycon

Originally posted by: pcslookout


How many SSD hard drives can you raid together? Is there a limit?

You will run out of bandwidth from either the host or bus long before you reach the addressable limits using SAS expansion.

Most will reach the limits of their wallets before either.

Those damn wallet bottlenecks.

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: n7

Originally posted by: pcslookout

Originally posted by: n7
Wow.

Just installed Vista on here...decided to go with a clean install so i can go very minimal on what i install (due to space issues).

Holy crapping fast.

I find my old Raptor a lot snappier than my 7200rpm drives, but z0mg this makes the Raptor feel ancient.

These things are expensive...very pricey, but man...everything just feels so much faster.

Good to hear they are worth upgrading to over the 150 GB Raptor. I was worried they would not feel but faster than a Raptor.

Can you do more than one thing at once without the SSD feeling slow? Like opening firefox and your email program ? Scanning your computer for viruses and opening firefox ? I know the Raptors did pretty well here but how does the SSD do with multiple tasks at once.

Well, i just did a little testing for you.

I had WMP playing music off the SSD, while copying 20 GB of stuff onto the SSD, while installing GRID to the SSD, while running a SuperAntispyware scan on the SSD, while typing in Wordpad, while typing this in Firefox, with Steam in the background.

And it's damn near perfectly smooth :Q
Certainly faster than my Raptor was when doing heavy disk-based multitasking.

I did experience some weird game lockups in L4D last night, but i've talked to a few people who said they have had similar, though not for as long as mine were.
I figure it could be a server issue, a game issue, newer nV driver issue, or hopefully not, a SSD issue.
I will see if it continues, & if it does, i'll see if it happens with the game on another drive, but i doubt it's the SSD.

Wow n7 impressive. You did a lot of multitasking there! Thanks. Glad to hear it was smooth. Hope you fix your L4D issue. That sucks.

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: Rubycon

Originally posted by: pcslookout


How many SSD hard drives can you raid together? Is there a limit?

You will run out of bandwidth from either the host or bus long before you reach the addressable limits using SAS expansion.

Most will reach the limits of their wallets before either.

Can you always get another host or bus? Like a pci card that some people have to do if they don't have a raid controller?

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: pcslookout

Can you always get another host or bus? Like a pci card that some people have to do if they don't have a raid controller?

Switch to an enterprise level platform with multiple sockets and better memory support. (>64GB system ram)

My 10 15K array outperforms SSD's in these synthetic benchmarks because they run in its cache which reads and writes at 2.8GB/S. :Q

The next generation of SAS2.0 hosts will support giant cache sizes (8GB+) and multiple XPU/multi core XPU. Combined with enterprise SAS SSD's will afford across the board infinitesimal access time and simultaneous 2GB/S STR across an entire logical drive! The fact that this will be available on the desktop affordably is amazing as to get this level of IOPS and space costs hundreds of thousands of dollars currently! :Q

 

[videogames101]

Originally posted by: Rebel44

Originally posted by: HumbleDan

HumbleDan, I would recommend more memory. An Intel X25-M SSD can read at about a peak of roughly 250MB/s (http://www.intel.com/design/fl.../mainstream/index.htm), so it's not going to churn through 12GB in 5-10 seconds. And Intel has argueably the fastest SSD available for purchase now. For manipulating large files quickly, you want more DRAM - how much do you have now?

................

What about Raid 0. Can it gives average of 400 MB/s transfer ?

If you want 400+ MB/s you need 2 Intel SSDs in RAID0

HAHA, SSD's in RAID 0, that must be insane fast!

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: videogames101

Originally posted by: Rebel44

Originally posted by: HumbleDan

HumbleDan, I would recommend more memory. An Intel X25-M SSD can read at about a peak of roughly 250MB/s (http://www.intel.com/design/fl.../mainstream/index.htm), so it's not going to churn through 12GB in 5-10 seconds. And Intel has argueably the fastest SSD available for purchase now. For manipulating large files quickly, you want more DRAM - how much do you have now?

................

What about Raid 0. Can it gives average of 400 MB/s transfer ?

If you want 400+ MB/s you need 2 Intel SSDs in RAID0

HAHA, SSD's in RAID 0, that must be insane fast!

ludicrous speed!

 

[pcslookout]

Wow!

 

[IntelUser2000]

Some of the biggest reason for the X25-M for laptop users.

Battery life and cool running drive.

Every battery life tests I have seen with X25-M shows battery life increase, which can't be said for other SSDs.

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

You guys think the X25-M is fast? Look at the Intel® X25-E.

 

[Dadofamunky]

That's it. My next major upgrade is gonna be 2 or 3 of those Intel drives in RAID 0 when the time comes. With disk imaging I don't even have to reinstall. Prices will come down and capacity will go up, thanks to Intel.

Looks like the single biggest architectural bottleneck in our chosen platform has been cracked open! It makes sense that Intel was the one to do it, even though I sure never expected them to. I thought it'd be one of the big drive manufacturers. I wonder if Seagate and Western Digital are starting to get moving on this finally? When they get products out, that's when prices will start to drop, is my guess. Maybe they'll oEM Intel's design.

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
My 10 15K array outperforms SSD's in these synthetic benchmarks because they run in its cache which reads and writes at 2.8GB/S. :Q

That's about the same speed as I've seen for a RAMdisk. The controller must be on a PCIe slot for that kind bandwidth, right?

The next generation of SAS2.0 hosts will support giant cache sizes (8GB+) and multiple XPU/multi core XPU. Combined with enterprise SAS SSD's will afford across the board infinitesimal access time and simultaneous 2GB/S STR across an entire logical drive! The fact that this will be available on the desktop affordably is amazing as to get this level of IOPS and space costs hundreds of thousands of dollars currently! :Q

Incredible performance indeed! 2GB/s for the whole array...
/drool

Originally posted by: Dadofamunky
Looks like the single biggest architectural bottleneck in our chosen platform has been cracked open! It makes sense that Intel was the one to do it, even though I sure never expected them to. I thought it'd be one of the big drive manufacturers. I wonder if Seagate and Western Digital are starting to get moving on this finally? When they get products out, that's when prices will start to drop, is my guess. Maybe they'll OEM Intel's design.

Well...sort of. These drives are very fast but shortly we will reach the maximum throughput of the SATA connection (375MB/s). Your standard hdd (even ssd variety) aren't goint to even approach the speed of enterprise-level solutions anytime soon if what Ruby said above develops. I seem to recall that they're working on the next SATA standard which will double bandwidth to 750MB/s (6Gb/s versus today's 3Gb/s drives). But I think with increasing cache size the days of the SATA interface may be numbered (I would personally hate to see my shiny new SSD limited by its interface bandwidth!).

And regarding WD/Seagate/etc making OEM drives under Intel's design...um, doubtful. Kingston has already been announced as an OEM for Intel's drives.

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: Denithor

That's about the same speed as I've seen for a RAMdisk. The controller must be on a PCIe slot for that kind bandwidth, right?

Yes PCI-E 8X ELECTRICAL requirement.

 

[Kindjal]

All this talk about the Intel X25-M finally caused me to jump on one of these new SSDs.

Here are my results from some typical testing suites: Intel X25-M Results on 12-23-2008

Enjoy!

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: Kindjal
All this talk about the Intel X25-M finally caused me to jump on one of these new SSDs.

Here are my results from some typical testing suites: Intel X25-M Results on 12-23-2008

Enjoy!

WTF nice.

My results are way worse for some reason...

 

[IntelUser2000]

WTF nice. My results are way worse for some reason...

Results between users can vary a lot. The only thing you can do is make sure everything else is set up well.

-Does the drive have NCQ enabled?? The drive supports NCQ with 32 concurrent operations
-Is it running on SATA2-300?

I'm on XP and had to use special techniques to get AHCI enabled so I can get NCQ enabled.

Kindjal and n7, how much space has been used for the drive??

From n7's post

I did experience some weird game lockups in L4D last night, but i've talked to a few people who said they have had similar, though not for as long as mine were.

The Intel drive and the controller uses advanced algorithms that tries to optimize performance according to usage patterns. But, during the time the drive takes time to get used to that, performance can dip. It will take around 3-4 weeks total usage to stabilize. The X25-E does similar.

Yes, there are first generation drives that doesn't have this issue. But the reason that the Intel drive does this has to do with the wear levelling + lowering the write amplification factor to increase the drive longevity.

The drive loses top performance temporarily because it pays extreme attention to have the controller write evenly as possible to each part of the drive so no section will fail suddenly.

Look at my results:

1st one, Oct 23, 2008
http://img246.imageshack.us/my...mage=hdtunex25mfs9.jpg

2nd one November 4, 2008:
http://img401.imageshack.us/my...age=hdtunex25m2rb3.jpg

Test I did December 10, 2008:
http://img511.imageshack.us/my...dtunex25m3laterdn4.jpg

As you can see on the last pic, the dip shown at 20% disappeared after prolonged usage.

Crystaldiskmark:
http://img145.imageshack.us/my.php?image=x25mcdmzz3.jpg

Isn't it strange the sequential write speed is slower than the 512byte random write results? It has to do with the dynamically optimizing controller. Crystaldiskmark also records BEST result of the 5 tests as the final value.

(System:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
Intel DG965WH
GMA X3100
2x1GB DDR2-800
X25-M(main drive), WD360 36GB Raptor, Seagate 160GB SATA)
Windows XP SP3

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Dadofamunky
That's it. My next major upgrade is gonna be 2 or 3 of those Intel drives in RAID 0 when the time comes. With disk imaging I don't even have to reinstall. Prices will come down and capacity will go up, thanks to Intel.

Looks like the single biggest architectural bottleneck in our chosen platform has been cracked open! It makes sense that Intel was the one to do it, even though I sure never expected them to. I thought it'd be one of the big drive manufacturers. I wonder if Seagate and Western Digital are starting to get moving on this finally? When they get products out, that's when prices will start to drop, is my guess. Maybe they'll oEM Intel's design.

seagate CEO: "No we don't have any SSD drives in the work, but we are aware of certain storage patents that we own that are infringed upon by SSD technology"

PS. not a direct quote of what he said, but my recollection of what he said, I did not sarcastically modify the wording though, he did say that SSD is an infringement on their patents and that they aren't making any in about those words.

 

[Kindjal]

When I set up my drive, I did a clean install of Windows XP and followed all of the OCZ's SSD drive tips. (OCZ XP32/64 SSD Tips).

I'll check later to see how full the hard drive is but if I had to guess, I would say around 30GB.

I haven't timed how long it takes to bootup or shutdown but I would guess around < 30 seconds (including the BIOS Post). My shutdown was taking >45 seconds - so I searched around for some additional WinXP tweaks and got my shutdown times <15 seconds (approx).

 

[pm]

seagate CEO: "No we don't have any SSD drives in the work, but we are aware of certain storage patents that we own that are infringed upon by SSD technology"

PS. not a direct quote of what he said, but my recollection of what he said, I did not sarcastically modify the wording though, he did say that SSD is an infringement on their patents and that they aren't making any in about those words.

They already sued STEC in Apr. 2008.
http://iblsjournal.typepad.com...4/i-introductio-4.html

It's interesting that Seagate chose STEC to litigate against. STEC has been shipping SSD drives (based on RAM as I recall) for over a decade). Several of the patents that Seagate is saying STEC is infringing are more recent than the products that STEC has shipped that infringe these patents (or at least that's STEC's defense).
http://www.thetechherald.com/a...D-lawsuit-against-STEC

By way of reaction, STEC has described Seagate?s lawsuit as reactionary and anti-competitive, while also outlining that STEC had already designed, manufactured and shipped solid state drives as early as 1994, which is certainly prior to the time (2002-2006) Seagate was issued with the technology patents it is accusing STEC of violating.

 

[taltamir]

i am glad it fell through then
Shame on seagate.

 

[n7]

Okay, wtf happened?

I getting nice CrystalDiskMark numbers before, but i decided to re-run things today (previous benching was not as OS drive).

http://ense7en.com/pics/Intel%...rk%20as%20OS%20wtf.JPG
http://ense7en.com/pics/Intel%...k%20as%20OS%20wtf2.JPG

Why are writes so crap now?

 

[IntelUser2000]

Okay, wtf happened? I getting nice CrystalDiskMark numbers before, but i decided to re-run things today (previous benching was not as OS drive). http://ense7en.com/pics/Intel%...rk%20as%20OS%20wtf.JPG http://ense7en.com/pics/Intel%...k%20as%20OS%20wtf2.JPG Why are writes so crap now?

Alright listen to me carefully. If you want to know the reason read the following.

Question: What's the difference between

this post:

I just received mine. I don't think i have the most up to date Intel chipset drivers, & Vista was doing something with my other HDDs in the background during my testing, so i imagine results could be slightly better, but they are good enough for me Least blurry pic i could get. - damn shakey hands HDTune, HDTach, & CrystalDiskMark numbers This thing is fast! Now i'm going to either re-image or reload my OS onto it, as that's why i got it, of course.

and this?:

Wow. Just installed Vista on here...decided to go with a clean install so i can go very minimal on what i install (due to space issues). Holy crapping fast. I find my old Raptor a lot snappier than my 7200rpm drives, but z0mg this makes the Raptor feel ancient. These things are expensive...very pricey, but man...everything just feels so much faster.

I'm guessing the 1st post is done as a non-OS drive and 2nd post was when you were installing it as an OS drive. Your last post is done after the installation was complete right?

First, what is the space taken up on your X25-M?

It is known by very few that the Intel SSD has a advanced controller that tries to optimize performance according to usage.

In reality that means the 40MB/s in 4KB random writes you get is the performance you get with an empty drive, the best case situation. The controller tries to optimize performance in a way so its kept as close to the theoretical performance as possible. Until your regular usage pattern is figured out by the SSD, your benchmark scores will drastically drop.

You might ask why does the performance drop??

I'm going to explain that in a seperate post dedicated to it.

In the meantime look at my post here:

"1st one, Oct 23, 2008
http://img101.imageshack.us/my...age=hdtunex25m2no1.jpg

2nd one November 4, 2008:
http://img293.imageshack.us/my...dtunex25m3laterki5.jpg

Test I did December 10, 2008:
http://img525.imageshack.us/my.php?image=x25mcdmrp0.jpg

As you can see on the last pic, the dip shown at 20% disappeared after prolonged usage.

Crystaldiskmark
http://img525.imageshack.us/my.php?image=x25mcdmrp0.jpg"

My drive has 30GB out of 74.5GB filled and I run WoW with maybe IE and Ventrilo open. I don't change things a lot. Maybe 1-2 applications every week.

Conclusion: In about 2-4 weeks your SSDs performance will recover. The performance dropped because the drive usage changed suddenly. It went from a storage drive to a OS drive and you formatted the drive and did a fresh install.

Also, keep running Crystaldiskmark again and again. It will rise back up. .

 

[n7]

I'd seen your posts about how performance would likely recover, but i'm not just seeing minor dips, it's write speeds more than halved in CrystalDiskMark, as well as 4k reads gone to crap.

Now that said, i'm in no way unhappy with the drive's performance, it's still feels incredibly fast.

I just am rather confused at how weird the CrystalDiskMark numbers are.
HDTune & HDTach stayed about the same from the SSD being a basically empty storage drive to a over half full OS drive, but Crystal seems to spit out really random numbers...seems to vary alot each run.