NEW OCZ Vector

[zlejedi]

Ramdrive? Are we back in times to stuttering Jmicron controlers ?

Also am i reading this right that Vector 256GB warranty is void after 36,5 TB writes ?

 

[Twotenths]

Not at all. It's just that you don't want drive failure to occur beyond warranty age of your SSD where you will lose your data and if you have a large amount of ram you could dedicated some of it to a Ramdrive which will in effect lessen read and writes that happen during installs that use a temp folder to expand file sizes before installing the app. This expansion could occur on the ramdrive instead. It has nothing to do with j-micron controllers or warranties. It's just a way of making your SSD last longer beyond the warranty period. You would add extra years to your SSD lifespan.

 

[Mfusick]

But SSD already lasts longer than I'd keep it ....

 

[Coup27]

I've been reading up about this topic mainly because I was looking to purchase a Samsung 840Pro and wanted to know what was different between the SSD's. Most SSD drives use 2 nand controller chips for data storage and recovery. The Pro version uses 3 nand controller chips. You mention TLC which has a lower read and write life expectancy. I believe that you can get around this if you create a Ramdrive and direct all the temp files and intensive read and writes to run on the Ramdrive. That will decrease the actual read and writes to the drive itself and thereby improve it's life expectancy. That may be a way to make TLC drives attractive to buyers if you incorporate the Ramdisk software with the purchase of these drives.

I think you need to go back and start reading again. I haven't a clue what you're on about with 2 NAND controller chips vs 3 NAND controller chips. Both the 840 and the 840 Pro use the same design with a single controller. the 840 Pro uses MLC NAND (2-bit per cell) and the 840 uses TLC NAND (3-bit per cell).

Unless you are a very heavy write biased user or use professional level software you will not wear out a TLC based drive within a sensible time frame (maybe 5 years).

If you are a very heavy user then purchase an MLC based drive, where again you are unlikely to wear it out in a sensible time.

 

[Twotenths]

Your probably right but you paid today's prices for it so you want to get as much value as possible. In 5 years you could probably get a drive 5 times the size for the same price as you paid for this one. If you buy upgrades regularly or replace the whole system after a few years. Then it won't matter. But if you buy a system and wait till the cobwebs finally gum it up replacing it after 10 years or so then then what i suggest might make a difference. I don't know your habits but I know quite a few people that do just that. Run it till it dies then buy a new one.

 

[Coup27]

You're looking at a worse case scenario without actually doing the numbers. Have a look at this article done by Kristian Vatto:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6459/samsung-ssd-840-testing-the-endurance-of-tlc-nand

At the bottom there is a table of NAND endurance for both MLC and TLC NAND. Even on a 128GiB SSD with 10GiB of writes per day, it will last 11.7 years. I don't even write 10GiB a month on my SSD so I have no fears about my SSD lifespan at all. The lifespan only increases for larger capacity SSDs or the use of MLC instead. Really, if you are a normal user then you have nothing to worry about.

 

[Twotenths]

It's a good article and does go into enough detail to realize that you don't have to worry about lifespan. You don't do a lot of read writes to make a dent on lifespan. What I was referring to earlier was regarding the nand controllers. Not the nand storage chips. I read an article that explains the difference between the earlier drives and the newest ones. According to what I read most drives utilize 2 controller chips to direct the read and writes to the correct places on the storage nand chips. The newest 840 Pro has 3 controller chips and can therefore distribute the data on the storage chips faster increasing data transfer speeds or read write speeds.

 

[josephjpeters]

It's a good article and does go into enough detail to realize that you don't have to worry about lifespan. You don't do a lot of read writes to make a dent on lifespan. What I was referring to earlier was regarding the nand controllers. Not the nand storage chips. I read an article that explains the difference between the earlier drives and the newest ones. According to what I read most drives utilize 2 controller chips to direct the read and writes to the correct places on the storage nand chips. The newest 840 Pro has 3 controller chips and can therefore distribute the data on the storage chips faster increasing data transfer speeds or read write speeds.

Cores you mean? I believe the MDX has 3 and Barefoot 3 has 2.

 

[Twotenths]

It's just semantics you understand what I mean so you call it cores the article called it controller chips. It's all moot now anyways.

 

[Coup27]

The Samsung 830, 840 and 840 Pro have all used a 3 core SSD controller.

 

[Twotenths]

It must have been an older post that i was reading then. I was trying to compare the 840 with the 840Pro and found an article about it. That is what I based my reply on