Final Words

TRIM is a huge step forward in SSD maturity and readiness for the masses. There are only so many people who have the patience to listen to a NAND flash explanation to understand why their luxury storage device gets slower the more you use it. TRIM not only simplifies the problem but it makes SSDs work the way they should. When you delete a file TRIM ensures that the file is no longer tracked by the SSD. And it just works.

The driver limitations are a bit annoying, especially given Intel knew this was coming. Difficulty in coordinating schedules is one of the downsides of having such a huge organization.

It's also ridiculous that Intel has done nothing to take care of it's original X25-M G1 customers. Those who spent over $600 on Intel's first SSD deserve to be taken care of but instead they get no TRIM support and no SSD Optimizer. Both of these are things that Indilinx has offered it's customers before Intel. Vertex owners have had a wiper tool since before Intel ever announced intentions to enable TRIM on the G2.

The write speed improvement that the Intel firmware brings to 160GB drives is nice but ultimately highlights a bigger issue: Intel's write speed is unacceptable in today's market. Back when Indilinx first arrived there was no real threat, but today Intel is facing a much more mature group of competitors. Our heavy trace benchmark is a prime example of why this is an issue. I fully expect Intel to address it with the third gen drive next year but it makes buying a drive today unnecessarily complicated.

From a compatibility standpoint, Intel has the advantage. It's just a much larger company than Indilinx and has the ability to do more compatibility/reliability testing.

The performance side is a bit more difficult to break down. The more sequential writing you do to your drive the more you'll stand to benefit from Indilinx's higher write speeds. In nearly all other situations the two controllers perform similarly or Intel is in the lead. The fact that both controllers support TRIM makes it even more difficult.

The easiest way to decide continues to be to buy the largest drive you can afford. 64GB? Indilinx. 80GB? Intel? 128GB? Indilinx and 160GB Intel. If you're buying an Indilinx drive the rate of firmware releases pretty much dictates that you'll want to buy from OCZ or SuperTalent. None of the other Indilinx manufacturers have Windows 7 TRIM support yet (Crucial has now posted a firmware update with TRIM support). The additional testing and exclusive agreements that OCZ/ST have with Indilinx provide their customers a tangible advantage in this case.

Kingston's 40GB option is super interesting. Anyone who's sold on SSDs will probably opt for a bigger drive but if you're on the fence, the Kingston solution might be for you. The write speed is disappointing but for application launches and boot time it's got the speed. If Newegg can keep these things in stock at $85 after rebate it's a gold deal. I'd prefer the price without the rebate but these things are still selling at a premium unfortunately.

Next year SSDs will get even more interesting. I attended a couple of Intel's SSD tracks at IDF this year and got a glimpse into what Intel is working on. Through TRIM and other architectural enhancements Intel is expecting to deliver much higher consistent performance on its future SSDs, regardless of how full they are. We can also expect to see a decoupling of capacity from the number of channels the controller supports; right now Intel has a couple of oddball sizes compared to the competition, but future designs will allow Intel to more closely mimic HDD capacities regardless of controller configuration.

I still firmly believe that an SSD is the single best performance improvement you can buy for your system today. Would I recommend waiting until next year to buy? This is one of the rare cases where I'd have to answer no. I made the switch last year and I wouldn't go back, it really does change the way your PC behaves.

Introducing the AnandTech Storage Bench - Real World Performance Testing
Comments Locked

162 Comments

View All Comments

  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link

    Thanks guys :)

    Take care,
    Anand
  • jimhsu - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link

    Since I've been wondering about the free space issue, will there be a test where a drive is benchmarked vs. the amount of free space available? My guess is that the graph will be an exponential decay with the "noticeable" regime at 20% free space. Anyone cares to do this (say, at 90%, 80% ... close to zero free space)?
  • Crittias - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link

    So, without TRIM, is there anything else G1 owners can do? Can I manually wipe the drive and reinstall my OS every few months? If so, should I?
  • mataichi - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link

    I have the G1 and in Anand's previous SSD Anthology article he tells how to get back to 100% performance using HDDERASE.

    http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=35...">http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=35...

    This is total crap that Intel is not supporting the G1.
  • DanH - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link

    Buy the G2, clone the G1 to it and sell the gen 1. Really. It is not a big loss of money to do it.
  • lorax1284 - Tuesday, December 15, 2009 - link

    Basically, you suggest we pass our problem on to someone else who is less informed. It's called "Ethics". Look into it.

    Just because Intel has none doesn't mean I'm going to abandon mine.
  • klil - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link

    The only option you, a G1 owner, have to make your drive's performance back to ~100% is to do a full format of the drive. I'm pretty sure it would have to be done very frequently, each time you write 80/160GB of data to the drive... nothing else you can do, sorry =(
    Intel's wipe ultility (SSD Toolbox) only works with the G2 (for use with Windows XP/Vista) and TRIM only works with the G2 as well (for use with Windows 7-to replace the Toolbox)... =(
  • Zoomer - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link

    One can always try the Indillinx tool, after making a full backup, of course. Heck, 80GB would be less than two blu-rays.
  • klil - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link

    Another great article by the one and only Anand Shimpi, king of SSDs
    So, basically Intel made a very stupid move by only allowing SSD Toolbox AND TRIM on G2 drives. I would like to know if its due to architectural changes (perhaps?), maybe you know it but can't reveal it to anyone... if I weer you i would edit out the part when you say the G3 are coming next year... or else Intel will kill you, they just lost a custumer for the G2 (me)

    But would it make sense for them to release the SATA 6 G3 drives next year if their on-board ICH10 and MCH P55 does not support it? Maybe the P57 and X68 will? Who knows?

    I'll still be waiting for those Gulftowns... =D
  • Bakkone - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link

    Don't think its that much of a secret that we will se a new generation next year. We need a version that uses Sata3 (6Gb).

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now