[Closed] SATA Solid State Drives (SSD) - Questions

A friend had one in his desktop, no idea of make/model but it booted up almost instantly, his only complaint was he couldn't hit F11 quick enough to get into setup!

Quite small though, he only ever had windows and one or two games on it at any one time. Seemed pointless having windows on there seeing as he never actualy turned the PC off!

I have an SSD in my Acer One.
It works pretty well, BUT to optimise for the Windows pagefile/small read/writes I use a small driver utility that caches them first. Some SSDs apparently can be ery slow at small read/writes.

this util:
http://flashfire.org/xe/

info here
https://wiki.cc.gatech.edu/epl/index.php/FlashFire

I dont use a pagefile on mine as got full use of my 4Gb memory so maybe not an issue? Also I get the theory bu theose programs are only for 32bit OS not 64bit - I wonder if I'll get a better output when I get my retail copy of Windows 7 this month?

Well just bought the Intel X25-M 160GB 34nm MLC G2 SSD - supports TRIM used in Windows 7:

In Windows 7, Microsoft promises a substantial increase in read and write speed of SSDs. First and foremost, Windows 7 will partition the SSDs more efficiently to lessen the redundant read-write cycles. Also, when Windows 7 detects an SSD, it will automatically disable defragmentation, since defragmenting can reduce the lifespan of Solid State Drives. Read times are usually boosted when drives are defragmented, but since flash memory already has a high read rate and slow write rate, defragment is unideal for SSDs.

Secondly, Windows 7 will also come with a feature called "trim" which will cut down on the amount of data to be deleted, increasing the SSD’s lifespan and allowing it to delete garbage data in advance. It also uses ATA commands to increase the SSD write speeds.

And thirdly, Microsoft is planning to start a certification program for SSDs. This will probably be an extension of their Windows 7 Capable sticker program. In order to win “the logo of approval,” SSDs must give priority to reading data rather than slow writes and use a native SATA interface.

sounds good - but Im not splashing out on W7 anytime soon 😉

I use RC1 at the moment and I have found its faultless really - Vista MKII 🙂

Some SSDs apparently can be ery slow at small read/writes.

This is completely the opposite of my preconception. I thought SSDs would be very good at small random read/writes since no moving parts means they have effectively zero seek time. I thought it was sustained read/writes of large files that let them down?

Aparently not Graham from what I have read esp on toms hardware reviews etc 🙂

Ooooh interesting...

Not all SSD manufacturers are forthcoming with failure rates so be careful as reliability still appears to be an issue.

I thought I would go with intel as they seem to have good backup - I don't know about failure rates but my HDD went after 6 months on my current laptop so I fanatically back up these days 🙂

Lots of good info here (the comments are worth reading too):
[url= http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001304.html ]The State of Solid State Hard Drives (CodingHorror, Oct 2009)[/url]

Cheers Graham - yeh some good comments on these - well the 2nd generation drives - I get my windows 7 soon (using RC1 at the mo)and I am going to convert my old SATA HDD to a eSATA drive (320Gb) and then use my SSD internally so should fly................ along 🙂

Hmmm!

Hmm exactly - you are also not supposed to defrag them as its turned off in Win 7 by default - defragging a G2 SSD is aparently detrimental ?

WOOOOOOOOOWWWW - this drive is sooo fast - just installed RC1 on this drive to test it before 7 comes out nexty week and I have to say I can'r believe how fast it is even without intel specific SATA drivers installed and NVidia drivers installed - wooohoww 🙂