The SSD Relapse: Understanding and Choosing the Best SSD
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 30, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
PCMark Vantage: Used Drive Performance
Immediately after finishing my PCMark Vantage runs on the previous page, I wrote one large file sequentially to the rest of the drive. I then deleted the file, rebooted and re-ran PCMark Vantage. This gives us an idea of the worst case desktop performance of these drives as you create, delete and generally just use these drives.
The biggest difference here is that the Samsung based OCZ Summit drops from 5th to 9th place. All of the drives get slower but the Indilinx drives hardly show it. When it comes to dealing with write speed, SLC flash does have the advantage and we see the X25-E and Vertex EX rise to the top of the pack. The G2 is slightly faster than the G1 and the Indilinx drives follow in close pursuit.
The mechanical drives don't change in performance since they don't get slower with use, only as they get more full.
Again we see the two SLC drives at the top, this time followed by a mixture of Indilinx/Intel drives, and the Samsung based Summit is at the bottom of the pack before we get to the HDDs.
The spread in SSD performance here is only 10% between the slowest non-Samsung drive and the fastest. That tells me that we're mostly CPU bound, but the worst performers other than the Samsung drive are the two Intel X25-Ms. That part tells me that we're at least somewhat bound by sequential write speeds. Either way, the Indilinx drives have a good showing here.
Intel followed by Indilinx SLC with Samsung in league with the MLC Indilinx drives. This is an SSD's dream.
Despite the improvements, the G2 can't touch the much lower write latency of SLC flash here. The Indilinx and Intel G1 drives intermingle while the Samsung drive pulls up the rear. All are faster than a regular hard drive of course.
In the multitasking test we once again see Intel rise to the top. The Samsung drive does surprisingly well and the Indilinx drives continue to perform admirably.
The breakdown between SSDs here is almost linear. The X25-E leads the pack, followed by OCZ's SLC drive. The G2 and G1 are next, then a ton of Indilinx MLC drives. The slowest SSD? The Samsung based Summit of course.
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valnar - Wednesday, September 2, 2009 - link
Anyone?antinah - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
For another great article on the SSD technology.I'm considering an Intel G2 for my brand new macbook pro, and if I understand what I've read correctly, performance should not degrade too much although OSX doesn't support trim yet.
I also doubt Apple will wait too long before they release an update with trim support for osx.
I just recently switched to mac after a lifetime with pc/windows. Anything i shoud be aware of when I install the SSD in a mac compared to pc running windows? (other than voiding the warranty and such). I'm thinking precations regarding swap usage or such.
Best regards from norway
Stein
medi01 - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
So I absolutelly need to pay 15 times as much per gigabyte as normal HDDs, so that when I start Photoshop, Firefox and WoW, straight after windows boots, it loads whopping 24 seconds faster?That's what one calls "absolutelly need" indeed and you also chose amazingly common combination of apps.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
You can look back at the other two major SSD pieces (X25-M Review and The SSD Anthology) for other examples of application launch performance improvements. The point is that all applications launch as fast as possible, regardless of the state of your machine. Whether you're just firing it up from start (which is a valid use scenario as many users do shut off their PCs entirely) or launching an application after your PC has been on for a while, the apps take the same amount of time to start. The same can't be said for a conventional hard drive.Take care,
Anand
Seramics - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
its not abt the 24seconds but rather the wholly different experience of near instantaneous u get wit ssd tht cannot be replicated by hddsmedi01 - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
Nobody starts mentioned apps together directly after boot.I've played WoW for a couple of years, and never had to wait dozen of seconds for it to start.
Most well written applications start almost instantly.
And the whole "after fresh boot" is not quite a valid option neither, I don't recall when I last switched off my pc, "hibernate" works just fine.
The "you get completely different experience" MIGHT be a valid point, but it was destroyed by ridiculous choice of apps to start. And I suspect that it is because NOT starting stuff all together and right after boot, didn't show gap as big.
kunedog - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
Anand, I think your article titled "Intel Forces OCZ's Hand: Indilinx Drives To Drop in Price" (http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=36...">http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=36... could also use a follow-up, primarily to explain why the opposite has happened (especially with the Intel drives). Is this *all* attributable to Intel's disaster of a product launch? Maybe not, but in any case it deserves more attention than a brief mention at the end of this article.zero2espect - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
great work again. it's for this reason that i've been coming here for ages. great analysis, great writing and an understanding about what we're all looking for.one thing that you may have overlooked is the difference in user experience due to the lack of hdd "buzz". fortunate enough to find myself in posession of a couple of g2160gb jobbies, one is in my gaming rig and the other in the work notebook. using the notebook the single biggest difference is speed (it makes a 18mo old notebook seems like it performs as fast as a current generation desktop) but the next biggest and very noticible difference is the lack of "hum", "buz", "thrash" and "vibrate" as the drive goes about it's business.
thanks anadtech and thanks intel ;-P
Mr Perfect - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
Anand,Would you happen to know if there are different revisions of the G2 drives out? Newegg is listing a 80GB Intel drive with model #SSDSA2MH080G2C1 for $499, and another 80GB Intel with model #SSDSA2MH080G2R5 for $599. They are both marked as 2.5" MLC Retail drives, and as far as I can tell they're both G2. What has a R5 got that a C1 doesn't? The updated firmware maybe?
Thanks!
PS, dear Newegg, WTF? 100% plus price premiums? I'm thinking I'll just wait until stock returns and buy from another site just to spite you now....
gfody - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
It looks like the R5 is just a different retail package - shiny box, nuts and a bracket instead of just the brown box.Why Newegg is charging an extra $100 for it.. just look at what they're doing with the other prices. I am losing so much respect for Newegg right now. disgusting!