The Inq: Intel Launching Cheaper 34 nm SSDs in Two Weeks Time

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster

Originally posted by: taltamir
actually cookie monster, realistic testing shows that competitors are not any faster; in fact they are usually slower Ignore the ADVERTISED values, and look at the TESTED values. indlinx drives are also more prone to internal fragmentation.

Of course. But even if those competing drives dont reach those advertised values, they still beat the X25-M when it comes write performance. However this doesn't stop the intel SSD from being the best overall.

You need to ask yourself why you should (or would) care about sequential write performance for large files.

The benefits of SSD technology is not in improving sequential large file write/read performance, but rather in reducing latency by orders of magnitude over spindle drives which demonstrably impacts the performance of (1) handling small files (4-64KB), and (2) dealing with random read/writes of small files and heavily fragmented large files.

If your particular computer usage patterns are rate-limited by bandwidth of large files which are not fragmented and your application is doing sequential read/writes with those large files then yes the X25M is really not for you.

And truthfully at that stage no SSD is, you will be far better off performance/cost wise by putting together a bunch of spindle disks into a raid-array and getting bandwidth that way if latency is essentially inconsequential to your particular data access patterns.

 

[fleshconsumed]

No announcement, but looks like the drives are listed in EU with codename Postville. 80GB goes for about 200 euros, 160GB goes for 380 euros. So prices are about the same as the current generation, except we still don't know if these drives support TRIM and what kind of performance can you get out of them.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: fleshconsumed
No announcement, but looks like the drives are listed in EU with codename Postville. 80GB goes for about 200 euros, 160GB goes for 380 euros. So prices are about the same as the current generation, except we still don't know if these drives support TRIM and what kind of performance can you get out of them.

Shoot, so Intel is going to do the fiducially responsible thing for maximizing their shareholder's equity and keep prices the same so the gross margins increase all the more until someone else (OCZ I guess) finally fields a product that challenges the critical performance metrics of Intel's SSDs enough to pressure prices downward...bummer for us consumers.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Well, they are slightly cheaper, 200 euros comes out to $285, of course that is no indication of US pricing so who knows...

I am disappointed that there was no larger reduction in price as well, but I'm also disappointed that there is no 120/128GB option. 80GB is too small for me and 160GB is too expensive. At least let's hope these drives are faster and support TRIM out of the box.

I'm anxious to read reviews on these.

 

[TemjinGold]

Keep in mind EU stuff is usually more expensive than US stuff. That 200 euro drive might even be $200 USD when it gets here.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: TemjinGold
Keep in mind EU stuff is usually more expensive than US stuff. That 200 euro drive might even be $200 USD when it gets here.

Excepting that the current drives (1st gen) are also 200Euro, meaning this isn't about end-user price reduction but rather manufacturer cost reduction (and more profits).

 

[shabby]

I just managed to sell my x25-m for $15 less than i bought it a month ago, cant wait for these new 34nm drives

 

[taltamir]

well... its been longer then a week... and they are supposedly selling in europa... so where are the reviews?

 

[taltamir]

ok, correction, it is listed in TWO major websites in the EU, and both are currently "waiting stock"... so basically you can PREORDER them, but none have been shipped, yet.

 

[IntelUser2000]

I think when Intel meant 50% reduction in SSD pricing "next year", it means overall pricing rather than that per capacity the 34nm SSDs would have been 50% cheaper.

Postville is still SATA2-300 interface. I guess the additional performance and features are something that will be kept secret until close to release.

 

[Rubycon]

When are the SAS/FCAL interface SSDs coming???!

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: Astrallite
Intel X25 series have the highest random write performance of any SSDs. As far as sequential writes, I guess if you wanted to copy and paste a 1GB file 50 times on your hard drive, it might take a little longer than some of the other SSDs.

I wish people would quit posting this BS. Intel's drives are good for the consumer space. They are not the best SSD's out there by any stretch of the imagination. I have tested at least 3 SSD models that are substantially faster (2x) than the X25-E in heavily random IO.

Granted two of these are next-gen parts that are not yet available, but one is available today (and it isn't even their fastest drive):

http://www.stec-inc.com/product/mach8.php

STEC's MACH8 IOPS drive is essentially twice as fast in nearly every benchmark that I run. The closest the Intel comes in write performance is 512K sequential write (101.5 vs 62.8 MB/s). The X25-E IS much faster in sequential read, no question about that. 512K sequential reads on the Intel are 245 vs 105 on the STEC. Note that the STEC Mach8 is not even their top level drive, the Zeus is even faster. All of my numbers are after several days of random IO break in until the drive reaches a steady state performance, then each test is run for 4+ hours (overwriting the drive several times during the test).

Intel drives are quite cheap in comparison, the 200 GB Mach8 IOPS costs $3,000.

Here's an article that touches briefly on this, particularly in the comments:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2.../07/pillars_ssd_intro/

Intel's drives are not even remotely in the same class as STEC, they're just a good value.

Viper GTS

 

[Old Hippie]

Intel's drives are good for the consumer space.

I guess I just assumed we were always discussing consumer electronics, including drives.

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: Old Hippie

Intel's drives are good for the consumer space.

I guess I just assumed we were always discussing consumer electronics, including drives.

Just as long as everyone's clear that these are toys compared to the good stuff.

Viper GTS

 

[allies]

Originally posted by: Viper GTS

Originally posted by: Old Hippie

Intel's drives are good for the consumer space.

I guess I just assumed we were always discussing consumer electronics, including drives.

Just as long as everyone's clear that these are toys compared to the good stuff.

Viper GTS

So in your opinion a BMW M3 is a toy compared to a Lambo?

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: allies

Originally posted by: Viper GTS

Originally posted by: Old Hippie

Intel's drives are good for the consumer space.

I guess I just assumed we were always discussing consumer electronics, including drives.

Just as long as everyone's clear that these are toys compared to the good stuff.

Viper GTS

So in your opinion a BMW M3 is a toy compared to a Lambo?

The difference is that nobody goes around talking about the M3 as if it is the pinnacle of performance.

Surely I'm not the only one here who has a non-consumer use for an SSD, let's set our sights a little higher. Of course I am not suggesting that people rush out and buy an STEC SSD for themselves. But if people on this forum will buy $1,000 Areca RAID controllers surely they would be open to at least learning about something better to connect it to.

Viper GTS

 

[glugglug]

So..... with the new drives coming out in a few days, where is the firmware update to add TRIM to my current X25-M?

 

[cliftonite]

Some pricing:

$245 for the 80 GB

$275 here. So around 20% cheaper if the lower price is the norm?

 

[cliftonite]

$485 for the 160 GB. Its getting there. Hopefully the 160 will come down to around 350 by Christmas time.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Viper GTS

Originally posted by: Astrallite
Intel X25 series have the highest random write performance of any SSDs. As far as sequential writes, I guess if you wanted to copy and paste a 1GB file 50 times on your hard drive, it might take a little longer than some of the other SSDs.

I wish people would quit posting this BS. Intel's drives are good for the consumer space. They are not the best SSD's out there by any stretch of the imagination.

Based on Astrallite's active posting history here in this sub-forum it pretty much goes without saying that there are unstated caveats which are simply understood in speaking to the boundary conditions of statements the likes of which he made.

If we are going to start taking posters to task over technicalities regarding missing fine print and conditional phrases then I suspect these forums are going to get a lot more rancorous, a lot more verbose, and a lot less viewed.

The thread title is in regards to Intel SSD's, and specifically the consumer grade MLC X-25M SSD is referenced in post after post in the thread, no one here is trying to claim Intel makes the bar-none fastest solid-state disk drives that can be bought regardless of price or underlying memory type (SLC/MLC/DRAM/etc).

Although your info was nice to read, the attitude with which it was introduced kind of soured the relevance of it to me personally.

 

[taltamir]

indeed... for example you can buy a 200000$ (yes, 5 zeroes) SSD drive... or rather, more of a block (it is the size of a 2x2x2 ft. block, using custom controllers, boards, etc) that gives you unbeleiveable performance.
The X25 is the best in consumer space, and to be honest, in the majority of business space as well. Most businesses cannot justify specialty hardware and instead just use "consumer grade" hardware. For example, in 2007 I serviced a factory floor computer from 1996 running NT4. It was decided to replace it with a used 200$ computer from a pawn shop down the block running win 2K on a pentium 3.

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: Viper GTS

Originally posted by: Astrallite
Intel X25 series have the highest random write performance of any SSDs. As far as sequential writes, I guess if you wanted to copy and paste a 1GB file 50 times on your hard drive, it might take a little longer than some of the other SSDs.

I wish people would quit posting this BS. Intel's drives are good for the consumer space. They are not the best SSD's out there by any stretch of the imagination.

Based on Astrallite's active posting history here in this sub-forum it pretty much goes without saying that there are unstated caveats which are simply understood in speaking to the boundary conditions of statements the likes of which he made.

If we are going to start taking posters to task over technicalities regarding missing fine print and conditional phrases then I suspect these forums are going to get a lot more rancorous, a lot more verbose, and a lot less viewed.

The thread title is in regards to Intel SSD's, and specifically the consumer grade MLC X-25M SSD is referenced in post after post in the thread, no one here is trying to claim Intel makes the bar-none fastest solid-state disk drives that can be bought regardless of price or underlying memory type (SLC/MLC/DRAM/etc).

Although your info was nice to read, the attitude with which it was introduced kind of soured the relevance of it to me personally.

My apologies to Astrallite, my intent was not to single him out or even to take specific issue with anything he said other than to put my observations in context.

Back on topic...

Postville is supposed to bring some new things to Intel's SSD's, I'm sure the full details will be public soon. It's more than just a flash shrink and cost reduction. If they can get their latencies under control and their SLC capacities up they could serve my needs.

Viper GTS

 

[taltamir]

my guess would be trim.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Viper GTS
Postville is supposed to bring some new things to Intel's SSD's, I'm sure the full details will be public soon. It's more than just a flash shrink and cost reduction. If they can get their latencies under control and their SLC capacities up they could serve my needs.

Viper GTS

Viper do you have confirmation whether the soon to debut 34nm based NAND are going to involve simultaneous release of both SLC and MLC chips, or will it just be the MLC based NAND chips at first?

 

[fleshconsumed]

Originally posted by: cliftonite
Some pricing:

$245 for the 80 GB

$275 here. So around 20% cheaper if the lower price is the norm?

Would be nice if these turned out to be common place prices after the drive is released.

Still, I wish Intel would make 120GB drive around $350 price point. My Vista installation along with all the programs and games (not many, only 3) take 60GB, 80GB would be simply too small for me, and I do not want to pay $500 for 160GB. Guess I could start camping for some promotion/mail in rebate on 160GB drive.