Hi,
Anybody else here using the new SSD drives yet?
If so, what do you think so far?
There are several issues to talk about so i thought it would be a good idea to start a thread.
SSD Hard Drives, Anybody use them?
SSD Hard Drives, Anybody use them?
LEDs vs Bulbs, LEDs are winning.
Re: SSD Hard Drives, Anybody use them?
I use them in laptops because they speed boot-up significantly. I've steered clear of them otherwise due to their limited lifespan and expense.
Kurt - SF Bay
Re: SSD Hard Drives, Anybody use them?
Hi,
[Lets see if this post makes it to the board, i saw errors on login]
Oh ok so it does speed bootup in laptops. I havent seen too much difference in the desktop computer.
I used to think that the SSD would only live a short time too, but then i did some number crunching. Originally i was afraid to use 'hibernate' because it uses over 3GB of hard disk space, and i dont think it is possible to move the file to another disk. Anyway, it wants to store a new hibernate file every time you shut down (of course). That means it uses one write cycle for an entire 3GB of cells every time you shut down in hibernation (but i think it does it for some reason anyway unless hibernate service is shut off). So what does this mean for 40GB of free space, taking into account the wear leveling feature of somewhat recent SSD drives? Well to make this simple i'll use 4GB, because the page file (that can be moved though) takes up 1GB (i have it set low). So 4 goes into 40 10 times, so that means i can hibernate 10 times before using one complete write cycle for every free cell on the drive. Now each cell (supposedly) has a 10000 write cycle life, so multiply 10 times 10000 and we get 100000 shut downs, which if done twice a day, comes out to 137 years. Lets say they overestimate the write cycle life by a factor of 3. That means only 33333 shut downs, which is still about 46 years.
I started thinking about this because i saw some data from a site that was calculating the life span of their SSD. I saw numbers in the hundreds of years for a typical home user (NOT a server). I couldnt believe it either, so i did my own number crunching and that's when i decided to try one of these little guys. I say "little" because it's only about 3/8 of an inch thick (0.375 inches) and about 1 inch less wide than a mechanical hard drive, and about 1 inch less length too. So it's really small, and quite amazing for what it does. The power consumption is very low too.
So what you can do if you like is to do your own little disk audit, to figure out how many bytes of stuff you store to your hard disk on a regular basis like every day. You can then figure out how long a SSD drive would last in your desktop system. You might be surprised because i know i was. What makes this possible is the relatively new 'wear leveling' technologies.
Read and write speed sequential is around 475 Megabytes per second (not megabits), read and write 4k blocks varies between about 20 Megabytes per second and 59 Megabytes per second. Compared to the SATA hard drives which do about 120MB/sec and 2MB/sec (yes that is 2 Megabytes per second for 4k blocks).
I was also surprised at how slow the SATA drives are with 4k blocks which makes some file transfers take a LOT longer than they would if they were stuck together as one big file.
[Lets see if this post makes it to the board, i saw errors on login]
Oh ok so it does speed bootup in laptops. I havent seen too much difference in the desktop computer.
I used to think that the SSD would only live a short time too, but then i did some number crunching. Originally i was afraid to use 'hibernate' because it uses over 3GB of hard disk space, and i dont think it is possible to move the file to another disk. Anyway, it wants to store a new hibernate file every time you shut down (of course). That means it uses one write cycle for an entire 3GB of cells every time you shut down in hibernation (but i think it does it for some reason anyway unless hibernate service is shut off). So what does this mean for 40GB of free space, taking into account the wear leveling feature of somewhat recent SSD drives? Well to make this simple i'll use 4GB, because the page file (that can be moved though) takes up 1GB (i have it set low). So 4 goes into 40 10 times, so that means i can hibernate 10 times before using one complete write cycle for every free cell on the drive. Now each cell (supposedly) has a 10000 write cycle life, so multiply 10 times 10000 and we get 100000 shut downs, which if done twice a day, comes out to 137 years. Lets say they overestimate the write cycle life by a factor of 3. That means only 33333 shut downs, which is still about 46 years.
I started thinking about this because i saw some data from a site that was calculating the life span of their SSD. I saw numbers in the hundreds of years for a typical home user (NOT a server). I couldnt believe it either, so i did my own number crunching and that's when i decided to try one of these little guys. I say "little" because it's only about 3/8 of an inch thick (0.375 inches) and about 1 inch less wide than a mechanical hard drive, and about 1 inch less length too. So it's really small, and quite amazing for what it does. The power consumption is very low too.
So what you can do if you like is to do your own little disk audit, to figure out how many bytes of stuff you store to your hard disk on a regular basis like every day. You can then figure out how long a SSD drive would last in your desktop system. You might be surprised because i know i was. What makes this possible is the relatively new 'wear leveling' technologies.
Read and write speed sequential is around 475 Megabytes per second (not megabits), read and write 4k blocks varies between about 20 Megabytes per second and 59 Megabytes per second. Compared to the SATA hard drives which do about 120MB/sec and 2MB/sec (yes that is 2 Megabytes per second for 4k blocks).
I was also surprised at how slow the SATA drives are with 4k blocks which makes some file transfers take a LOT longer than they would if they were stuck together as one big file.
LEDs vs Bulbs, LEDs are winning.
Re: SSD Hard Drives, Anybody use them?
I have an ASUS EeePC with a SSD in it. When I originally got it, it had a 16G slow memory in it and it booted quite slow and ran poorly. Later I upgraded to a faster 32G module and also faster RAM and it now runs about as fast as you would expect a 1.2Ghz processor to run XP.
This was not the same form factor as a PC style SDD but dispite the different form factor, it still interfaced with SATA.
In general the SDD have specs comperable to a HDD. If the specs indicate it is faster, you should expect faster performance. The cost is still at a premium but that could change later. The reliability is quite good, better perhaps in a mobile device which might get bumped around a bit. The biggest disadvantage is thay are not available in the super large sizes HDDs are. I don't think there is a 1 or 2 TB SDD out there yet and if it were, would cost a fortune.
PS, that ASUS also takes advantage of a 32G class 10 SDHC as a second drive. Its removable but it can be treated as perminant to the point of installing programs or even an OS. It however is still a bit slower than the SSD. I have not run timing comparisons of them though.
I've also noticed a few motherboards with CF Flash sockets right on the mobo for whatever (I suppose boot code, special programs, unusual distributions of programs or encryption keys, Embedded controller applications, I'm not sure what it was intended for except a generic interface)
This was not the same form factor as a PC style SDD but dispite the different form factor, it still interfaced with SATA.
In general the SDD have specs comperable to a HDD. If the specs indicate it is faster, you should expect faster performance. The cost is still at a premium but that could change later. The reliability is quite good, better perhaps in a mobile device which might get bumped around a bit. The biggest disadvantage is thay are not available in the super large sizes HDDs are. I don't think there is a 1 or 2 TB SDD out there yet and if it were, would cost a fortune.
PS, that ASUS also takes advantage of a 32G class 10 SDHC as a second drive. Its removable but it can be treated as perminant to the point of installing programs or even an OS. It however is still a bit slower than the SSD. I have not run timing comparisons of them though.
I've also noticed a few motherboards with CF Flash sockets right on the mobo for whatever (I suppose boot code, special programs, unusual distributions of programs or encryption keys, Embedded controller applications, I'm not sure what it was intended for except a generic interface)
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