Why ? Hdd Performance

[Velk]

Originally posted by: Fisher999

Originally posted by: Tick
Now, I'm willing to bet your entire computer costs less than that. And by the way, $3500 for a 5 gb drive IS a good price.

I've been "out of the loop" for a while. What ARE SSD drives ??? A form of SCSI ???

Solid state drives are usually basically RAM strapped to a UPS and a backup harddrive. That's why they have access times in the nanosecond range instead of millisecond.

The interface varies, but usually fibre channel I believe.

 

[imported_Tick]

Originally posted by: Velk

Originally posted by: Fisher999

Originally posted by: Tick
Now, I'm willing to bet your entire computer costs less than that. And by the way, $3500 for a 5 gb drive IS a good price.

I've been "out of the loop" for a while. What ARE SSD drives ??? A form of SCSI ???

Solid state drives are usually basically RAM strapped to a UPS and a backup harddrive. That's why they have access times in the nanosecond range instead of millisecond.

The interface varies, but usually fibre channel I believe.

Wow, that question was answered, like... 20 posts ago.

 

[imported_Tick]

Originally posted by: stevem326

Originally posted by: Tick

Originally posted by: stevem326
Yeh, true. It's more like flash memory instead of a spinning HD platter. I was able to find some pretty decent links by going to Yahoo and just typing in "solid state drives".

Yahoo Search Results

Your link is a lot better though...thanks (great info there).

I think I'll just have to be happy with a 15K SCSI Cheetah from Seagate instead

Welcome. In reality, 15k is good enough for a lot of things. However, SSD's still smoke them.

Definitely. I would imagine an SSD against a 15K would be like a 15K against a 5,400 drive...or maybe worse. If I ever win the lotto it's going to be SSD for me. I'll just use the crappy piece-of-junk 15K Cheetah for storage purposes....bwahahahahaha!

Yeh right....

 

[Pariah]

The main applications for solid state storage is not for higher performance, but for significantly better durability. Most SSD drives are not multi GB storage devices in servers or other such environments where you can simply slap more RAM in the system and achieve the same effect. The main uses for SSD drives are in environments where standard HD's simply will not operate, such as high vibration, high alititude, temperature extremes or pressure extremes. They're mostly used in military and heavy industry for this reason, though simple examples in the consumer world are also present. HD based MP3 players are fine for the majority of users, but you would never want to run with one due to the constant shocks and vibrations the drive would have to absorb, so flash based players are the alternative which don't suffer from such problems.

It's also a myth that solid state drives are blazingly fast. As always, it depends on the drive and the application. Access time is usually significantly faster for solid state drives, but sustained throughput is a different issue. The majority of flash based memory is slow even by 7200RPM drive standards. We're talking single digit read speads. Which is why you will often see SSD drives using antiquated interfaces (Wide SCSI, Ulta ATA-33). Something you would not want to be running for an everyday boot drive as it would be significantly slower than a standard HD for simple tasks like applications loading or game loading or anything that requires the streaming of multiple MB's. The "cheap" (sub $1000) SSD drives you will see, are usually hack jobs (volatile RAM stuck on a PCI card that mimics a HD), or slow flash based.

 

[imported_Tick]

Originally posted by: Pariah
The main applications for solid state storage is not for higher performance, but for significantly better durability. Most SSD drives are not multi GB storage devices in servers or other such environments where you can simply slap more RAM in the system and achieve the same effect. The main uses for SSD drives are in environments where standard HD's simply will not operate, such as high vibration, high alititude, temperature extremes or pressure extremes. They're mostly used in military and heavy industry for this reason, though simple examples in the consumer world are also present. HD based MP3 players are fine for the majority of users, but you would never want to run with one due to the constant shocks and vibrations the drive would have to absorb, so flash based players are the alternative which don't suffer from such problems.

It's also a myth that solid state drives are blazingly fast. As always, it depends on the drive and the application. Access time is usually significantly faster for solid state drives, but sustained throughput is a different issue. The majority of flash based memory is slow even by 7200RPM drive standards. We're talking single digit read speads. Which is why you will often see SSD drives using antiquated interfaces (Wide SCSI, Ulta ATA-33). Something you would not want to be running for an everyday boot drive as it would be significantly slower than a standard HD for simple tasks like applications loading or game loading or anything that requires the streaming of multiple MB's. The "cheap" (sub $1000) SSD drives you will see, are usually hack jobs (volatile RAM stuck on a PCI card that mimics a HD), or slow flash based.

That may be, and your right, the majority of SSD's are used in high-stress and high load enviroments. Industry statistics say that about 72% off SSD's are used in this way. Also, some SSD's are slower, and some of them are quite slow. There is a reason some of them use very slow interfaces. HOWEVER, there are also some extremely fast SSD's. Recent advances in flash memory read speeds have allowed huge jumps in acces times. That is why new SSD's are using sATA, PCI-e, SCSI, etc. The high quality drive can deliver much faster access times in all aplications except streaming video, and a few other limited linear access aplications. The absolute best SSD's rival volitile RAM in there speed. I'm not saying your entirely wrong, most of your post was quite accurate. However, thing have changed to some extent, and SSD's are becoming an atractive option for certain aplications.

This is not to say, however, that SSD's are not without downside. For one, they have great cost. Secondly, lower end SSD's can be surpassed by hard drives in many applications. And most SSD's are still used in situations were ruggedisation is the primary goal. None the less, SSD's can still have advantages.

 

[bob4432]

why don't you people defrag more often? at this forum, must of us are not "average" users but much higher.

jur out of curiosity, i have taken out my scsi system hdd (10krpm/8MB/u320 on a u160 pci interface, newer generation fujitsu) and put in a ibm/hitachi 60GB (which has very good times, but not quite as fast in the sustained transfer nor seek times as my scsi). the result was it felt much slower than the benches would have lead you to believe. what is perceived is the seek time, regardless of how well defragged your drive is, obviously the more fragged, the more the seek time will matter. is this the placebo effect because i paid a lot for the scsi? no, because i actually got an exceptional deal at newegg one night and the card, cable and drive came to about $40 cheaper than a 74GB raptor would cost today.

i guess what i am saying is the benches are a good starting point, but common sense needs to be factored in. i am sure that even a couple generation old 15krpm u160 scsi hdd will feel faster than a raptor, even though on paper the raptor will be equal or better in most area except seek time.

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: stevem326
Cool, thanks Tick for that info. SSD drives sound really fascinating and I can't wait to start reading up on them to learn more. I'll never be able to afford one...well, maybe one day...but for now it's just fascinating to think that a HD could actually be that fast.

Amazing...

My sentiments exactly Stevem316