SSD vs Spindle Hard-drive / Reviews & Recommendations [Archive]

Rothgar

04-27-2011, 10:56 PM

Uwopo

04-27-2011, 11:36 PM

I've been using SSDs for EQ2 for a while. Originally had a 30GB OCZ that I used for just EQ2 and the difference in zoning was very noticiable. Running a 120GB Corsair Performance series now for OS and a few programs, EQ2 included.I setup a symbolic link from the logs and the TestServer directories within the EQ2 dir and pointed them to a normal HDD to decrease the space used (TestServer) and wear (logs) on the SSD.SSD is no silver bullet for lag, but it's certainly a significant performance increase for the OS and to decrease EQ2 loading and zoning times.

IceStormx

04-27-2011, 11:46 PM

<cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>IceStormx wrote:</cite><blockquote>HiIs there any benefit at all from gaming in Everquest II on SSD from Spindle Hard-driveWould zoning loading PQ's and the Great Divide and boxing ect benefit from a SSD?also looking for recommendations and reviews on SSD's when used in Everquest II mainlyand looking for recommendations and reviews for different SSD models with a size of 40GB 80GB 120GB on SATA IIand last but not least would Everquest II + Win7 and drivers ect fit on a 40GB or 80GB or would I need 120GB to be on the safe side?</blockquote>I have an SSD at home and we use them in our development machines here at SOE. EQII will definitely benefit from it because resources will load much faster.40gb would be a bit small for Windows + EQII, but 80gb should be fine.</blockquote>Thanks for the fast responseWhat do you think of these 2 SSD models they are the two I have been looking at currently<a href="http://www.intel.com/design/flash/nand/320series/overview.htm" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.intel.com/design/flash/n...es/overview.htm</a><a href="http://www.intel.com/design/flash/nand/mainstream/index.htm" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.intel.com/design/flash/n...tream/index.htm</a>

Lantis

04-28-2011, 01:51 AM

Intel products are generally good, but personally I prefer OCZ's Sandforce-based products. I have a Vertex 2 120 GB, and it's really nice. That drive can be had for a really good price these days, since the Vertex 3 being released this spring is replacing it.However, those new drives (the Vertex 3 or Intel's 520 line) require you to use a SATA 6 GB/s controler, or else you won't get the full benefit of their performance - in which case they will be only slightly faster than last year's products. Best to spend 100$ less then, unless you expect to upgrade your motherboard over the next 6 months.

Chefren

04-28-2011, 01:47 PM

I have this one and I'm happy: <a href="http://www.corsair.com/solid-state-drives/force-series/cssd-f120gb2-brkt.html" target="_blank">http://www.corsair.com/solid-state-...20gb2-brkt.html</a>120Gb is not huge if you also want to have other games than EQ2 on it.Oh and don't use SSDs with any other Windows version than Windows 7, make sure your controller is set to AHCI mode in the bios and make sure you do a clean os reinstall on your new drive. If you don't do that, the OS will not TRIM the drive automatically and its performace will degrade over time. Obviously also leave any SSD without TRIM support in the store if anyone sells them anymore.EDIT: The clean install also aligns filesystem and SSD allocation units to optimize performance on a more general level so there are two performance reasons to do this instead of trying some Norton Ghost migration or similar.

Lantis

04-28-2011, 03:01 PM

Good advice on Windows 7 and AHCI.That Corsair drive is more or less the same as the OCZ Vertex 2 - same controler, so probably nearly the same specs. I'd go with whichever is easier to obtain / less expensive / company you prefer.Another bit of advice: don't go crazy on running benchmarks, as these will actually decrease your drive's performance. WIthout going into the technical details as to why, my advice is to run a benchmark while it's plugged as a secondary drive. Once done, do a Secure Erase (if using an OCZ Vertex 2 you can do that using the OCZ TOolbox). THis will return your drive to "factory cleanliness". Once that's done, then you can either do a clean WIndows install, or use a disk imaging tool that is able to properly align partitions on an SSD (Acronis True Image 2011 is one of them).I believe Paragon also makes a tool to align mis-aligned partitions.If you're the technical type, one excellent source of information on SSD is Anandtech. They do a lot of in-depth reviews of SSDs, going into the technical details you might be craving for, rather than just blindly run benchmarks and show numbers <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

IceStormx

04-28-2011, 04:03 PM

Thanks for repliesHow do I tell if my motherboard supports AHCI ?I currently have this motherboard<a href="http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM2Plus/M4N78_PRO/#overview" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AM...8_PRO/#overview</a>and is there anything els I should know about SSD after installing OS to optimize it and make it last lounger?

Lantis

04-28-2011, 06:36 PM

<cite>IceStormx wrote:</cite><blockquote>Thanks for repliesHow do I tell if my motherboard supports AHCI ?I currently have this motherboard<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM2Plus/M4N78_PRO/#overview" target="_blank">http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AM...8_PRO/#overview</a>and is there anything els I should know about SSD after installing OS to optimize it and make it last lounger?</blockquote>That motherboard supports AHCI. Make sure you enable it in the BIOS just before installing Windows. Do not change it while you are still running an existing version of Windows, or it will fail to boot (putting it back to Legacy or IDE mode will resolve it).Performance-wise, if you are going with a Sandforce-based drive like the OCZ Vertex or the Corsair drive posted previously, a few basic things are important to know:1) Never fill up the drive, or it will have trouble recovering to a normal performance. SSDs work best if you make sure to always keep a minimum of 10% of free space on them for optimal results, so background garbage-collection can optimize the data structure. If you ever go under, say, 2-3 GB free, you might start experiencing performance issues. THe common recommendation then is to leave your Windows at the login screen overnight. The minimal amount of disk activity then will let the drive spend more time doing garbage collection.2) Never, ever defragment an SSD. Windows 7 is intelligent enough to not attempt to do so when an SSD is detected, but third party software might not. Defragmentation will give zero performance gain, and will reduce the life expectancy of your SSD.3) Each memory cell has a finite number of write cycle it can handle. If you use your drive in a normal scenario, the drive should last at least 6 years without any problem.4) Don't run benchmark software that write large amounts of data, or it will eventually cause performance degratation as your drive will struggle through garbage collection to reorganize data. If you do, run a Secure Erase (this is NOT the same thing as formatting BTW) to put your drive back into a clean state.5) Windows 7 keeps detailed log of boot time in the Event Viewer. This is a good way to see if you are truly gaining on boot time.And as a final note, a few urban myths:1) Some people recommend disabling System Restore. I strongly advise against that. System Restore is often your last chance to recover a corrupted Windows configuration without having to backup and reinstall from scratch. Just today I spent over an hour trying to salvage a customer's laptop where a Windows Update had failed to install itself, and the customer had disabled System Restore (which would have resolved the issue in five minutes).2) Same thing with tweaks involving modifying the SuperFetch behaviour and such - just leave it alone. You will still benefit from these, as some files will be pre-loaded in RAM while the drive is idle, making start up time of some applications still be faster.

Kelno

05-15-2011, 06:37 AM

To OP, SSD or 10k RPM hard drive is absolutely critical to decent modern performance of EQ2, imo. This game has a serious addiction to disk access, I don't know if this is due to poor prediction for asset preloading, or simply the architecture of how the games art assets are stored, but on my laptop, switching to an SSD from a 5400rpm drive got me an average boost of around 25 FPS. This is an extreme circumstance, but even a less radical change on my desktop from a 7200rpm drive to a velociraptor netted a significant performance gain (5-15fps). Compare this with the upgrade to 4GB from 2GB of RAM on the laptop (5fps, MAYBE), or from 4GB to 8GB on the desktop (not even noticeable). I can only conclude that that bottleneck for EQ2s data flow is disk access, rather than RAM utilization.As for the info on AHCI and TRIM - this is incorrect, at least for any SSD I've used or heard of. I've owned and used Intel x-18M G2s, Crucial RealSSD c300, and Corsair Nova drives, and TRIM operated in IDE emulation mode for all of them. That being said, a modern OS is needed to adequately support TRIM, this means Windows 7 or a Linux system using kernel 2.6.28 or better, and excludes Windows XP & Vista, any Mac OS, or outdated Linux kernels.About the common fear that the finite erase cycles on SSDs is a relevant issue - this is not the case with modern drives. Most have sufficent erase cycles to continuously write data for 50 years or better before hitting their limit. Your mileage may vary with different drive manufacturers, but the technology has significantly improved in the last few years. In addition to this, keep in mind that the more free space you leave on the drive, the better its performance and longer its lifespan. Simple math will tell you that if you leave the drive 50% empty, it will, on average, have to erase cells 50% less often, and thus will last twice as long.What previous posters have said about defragging. Don't do it. Ever. It doesn't accomplish ANYTHING other than using erase cycles. This is because the actual PHYSICAL location of data on the SSD is invisible to windows - that is handled by the drive's firmware, so as to maximize usage and minimize erase cycles. The firmware only reports a logical map of drive usage, since the actual location on the drive does not matter the same way it does with spinny disks.Disabling system restore can be a smart move. But only if you are comfortable with reinstalling your OS, and keep proper backups. If you have to go to geek squad when you get a virus, don't do it.Leave superfetch alone. If your system has multiple drives, keep in mind that you can move the page file off the SSD. This will decrease performance, but will also decrease load on the SSD in regard to write cycles and disk usage. If you have 8GB of RAM (which you really should), you will rarely be using your page file anyway, so this can be a good option, especially if you got a small SSD. Disabling Hiberation or moving the hibernation virtual disk to a traditional hard drive will also save you a good chunk of space on your SSD, as it is equal to the capacity of your RAM.

IceStormx

07-02-2011, 05:22 PM

<cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>IceStormx wrote:</cite><blockquote>HiIs there any benefit at all from gaming in Everquest II on SSD from Spindle Hard-driveWould zoning loading PQ's and the Great Divide and boxing ect benefit from a SSD?also looking for recommendations and reviews on SSD's when used in Everquest II mainlyand looking for recommendations and reviews for different SSD models with a size of 40GB 80GB 120GB on SATA IIand last but not least would Everquest II + Win7 and drivers ect fit on a 40GB or 80GB or would I need 120GB to be on the safe side?</blockquote>I have an SSD at home and we use them in our development machines here at SOE. EQII will definitely benefit from it because resources will load much faster.40gb would be a bit small for Windows + EQII, but 80gb should be fine.</blockquote>I have another question about SSD's I keep seeing IOPS in specifications and I have never seen them on spindle hard-drives are they important and what are they needed for and will I need them for gaming?

TSR-JoshuaM

07-02-2011, 06:31 PM

IOP's represent input/output operations per second. Higher the better <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

IceStormx

07-02-2011, 07:51 PM

Does AHCI require a floppy disk to enable?

TSR-JoshuaM

07-02-2011, 07:54 PM

I'm not quite sure but I hear AHCI has heeps of issues with SSD since they are not made to address re-ordering of commands in the queue like a standard HDD. I see people getting higher synthetic benchmarks in AHCI mode but losing stability...

IceStormx

07-02-2011, 08:10 PM

<cite>TSR-JoshuaM wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'm not quite sure but I hear AHCI has heeps of issues with SSD since they are not made to address re-ordering of commands in the queue like a standard HDD. I see people getting higher synthetic benchmarks in AHCI mode but losing stability... </blockquote>On my old motherboard I always had to hit F6 to run a sata hard-drive at all or the os wouldn't see it but on my current 1 it sees them all and I don't even remember seeing an option for F6 option in win7 like xp had I ask because I found an article in knowledge base<a href="http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3592/session/L2F2LzIvc25vLzEvdGltZS8xMzA5NjQ2NTE4L3NpZC9sM2lWdV 94aw%3D%3D" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers...2lWdV94aw%3D%3D</a>and the way it describes installation sounds like my old motherboard and not current 1I also found the driver for AHCI on download page under utilities<a href="http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM2Plus/M4N78_PRO/#download" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AM...8_PRO/#download</a>and would the driver be forced floppy install or can I use a cd?

TSR-JoshuaM

07-02-2011, 08:14 PM

To be honest I do not know. That's probably best answered by WDC or Asus.

Peogia

07-02-2011, 09:13 PM

<cite>TSR-JoshuaM wrote:</cite><blockquote>To be honest I do not know. That's probably best answered by WDC or Asus.</blockquote>Asus support isn't feasible as they do not reply in a timely mannerI finally found the AHCI setting in bios there is allot of settings I don't under stand in there I think boot times from 0 to 35 sec or something not sure any advice on AHCI bio settings would be greatalso I downloaded that AHCI driver from Asus's web site and ran the disk maker exe it had in it and it searches for a floppy and cannot find cd/dvd rom<img src="http://l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/emoticons7/46.gif" width="24" height="18" />

IceStormx

07-02-2011, 09:35 PM

I put in my Motherboard Support CD Setup Programand it failed to boot with error messageMotherboard Support CD does not support this operating system (WNT_6.1P_64_MCE.)

IceStormx

07-03-2011, 09:00 AM

TSR-JoshuaM

07-03-2011, 12:05 PM

The performance increase, load times, and everything else affected makes it worth it.

Lantis

07-03-2011, 02:37 PM

<cite>IceStormx wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>TSR-JoshuaM wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'm not quite sure but I hear AHCI has heeps of issues with SSD since they are not made to address re-ordering of commands in the queue like a standard HDD. I see people getting higher synthetic benchmarks in AHCI mode but losing stability... </blockquote>I really hope SSD is worth all the trouble/migraines and $just found another design flaw<a rel="nofollow" href="http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5697/related/1/session/L2F2LzMvc25vLzEvdGltZS8xMzA5NjkyNTAwL3NpZC9udzFtaj J5aw%3D%3D" target="_blank">http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers...zFtajJ5aw%3D%3D</a>surprisingly this kind of info wasn't available in Asus's knowledge base</blockquote>That has nothing to do with SSDs. This is for hard disks that use 4K large sectors - typically disks larger than 2 TB (and a few 2 TB models as well).SSDs all use 512 KB sectors.

Lantis

07-03-2011, 02:42 PM

Regarding AHCI:1) Usually you only need to create a boot floppy when installing under Windows XP. Windows Vista and Windows 7 both ship with Intel AHCI drivers, so if your motherboard has an Intel chipset, you don't need any boot floppy/CD to install.2) If you have an nVidia based motherboard with a newer chipset that is not supported, then the simplest method is to copy the required driver files (usually an inf file, and one or two other .sys files) on a USB disk, and provide that at boot time. This will allow you to load them even if your CD-ROM is also plugged to a SATA controler and therefore is having issues finding drivers located on a CD (tho it shouldn't). Sounds like your CD doesn't support Win7, you will have to download a Win7 compatible driver from Asus's site. However, try first to install Windows without providing a driver - it might have everything needed already.AHCI is worth it, even with hard disks. Every new Windows 7 system I build for my customers are set to AHCI.One last word: if you have an nVidia-based motherboard, then there lies your headaches, not with AHCI. nVidia's disk controler has always been quirky (even back to the nForce 400 days).

IceStormx

07-09-2011, 07:39 AM

Thanks for replies I finally got it up and runningThe Asus/Nvidia driver caused corruption and required a hard reboot with errors such as my motherboards controller didn't support bootable AHCI when trying to load the driver from a DVD-R (I am currently out of CD-R's) it was the newest AHCI driver from Asus web site it also told me to contact manufacturer and up date itI got it running by using the Windows 7 default driver as recommend by LantisThe Windows 7 Index score wasn't as high as I had hoped it to be (it is still the lowest score of all components<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/136dd33cba83140c7ce38db096d05aed.gif" border="0" /><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" />) but things now explode when I do anything on PC and my transfer rate when downloading has more then tripled I us-to download at a little over 1.10MB with a 7,200RPM 32MB cache High Performance spindle hard-drive and with the SSD it was well over 3MB was quiet shocking as I had no idea my spindle hard-drive was bottlenecking my ISP connection toThank you for everyones help<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />

TSR-JoshuaM

07-11-2011, 06:08 PM

That's great stuff, I am hoping to get an SSD soon myself (when I can afford it!)

Lantis

07-11-2011, 08:20 PM

Glad you got everything stable <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />As a reference, here's my own Windows 7 Performance Index (note that these can't be compared with Vista indexes):<img src="http://www.lostrealm.ca/temp/perfindex.jpg" width="945" height="239" />My SSD is an OCZ Vertex 2 120 GB.Josh: with the release of the Vertex 3 (which you should stay away from for the time being, as they are trying to nail down a random BSOD that seems to occur on some hardware configurations), the Vertex 2 has dropped a lot in price. The Vertex 2 is still really fast - they should be able to push Sata 3G close to their limit, while the new generation of drives needs Sata-6G to run at their full speed.

Jacquotte

07-22-2011, 06:23 AM

<cite>IceStormx wrote:</cite><blockquote>HiIs there any benefit at all from gaming in Everquest II on SSD from Spindle Hard-driveWould zoning loading PQ's and the Great Divide and boxing ect benefit from a SSD?also looking for recommendations and reviews on SSD's when used in Everquest II mainlyand looking for recommendations and reviews for different SSD models with a size of 40GB 80GB 120GB on SATA IIand last but not least would Everquest II + Win7 and drivers ect fit on a 40GB or 80GB or would I need 120GB to be on the safe side?</blockquote>should you get one, stick with top range drives.. the harddrive is the primary bottleneck in modern systems and should not be skimped onconsider: Corsair Force GT seriesOCZ Vertex 3 seriesCrucial C300 seriesPatriot Wildfirepersonally, i would recommend <a href="http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-vertex-3-max-iops-sata-iii-2-5-ssd.html" target="_blank">this ssd</a>if you dont get a proper ssd, you might as well not bother <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> they are an amazing upgrade and your pc will love you for it

Jacquotte

07-22-2011, 06:31 AM

<cite>Lantis@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>Glad you got everything stable <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />As a reference, here's my own Windows 7 Performance Index (note that these can't be compared with Vista indexes):<img src="http://www.lostrealm.ca/temp/perfindex.jpg" width="945" height="239" />My SSD is an OCZ Vertex 2 120 GB.Josh: with the release of the Vertex 3 (which you should stay away from for the time being, as they are trying to nail down a random BSOD that seems to occur on some hardware configurations), the Vertex 2 has dropped a lot in price. The Vertex 2 is still really fast - they should be able to push Sata 3G close to their limit, while the new generation of drives needs Sata-6G to run at their full speed.</blockquote>you should sell that and get a never model, the difference is like light and dayi had a vertex 2 30GB, a tiny bit slower than yours, but the new series of ssds are lighyears in frontwe are talking 30k iops vs 80k iopsalso, the new drives are sata3 / sata600 - so if you run raid on them you will see a huge difference, should you have the supporting hardware (pci-express raidcontroller sata3 / onboard sata3)

Lantis

07-22-2011, 12:45 PM

Vertex 3 has stability issues OCZ are still working on, so I'd stay away from Sandforce 2000-series SSDs until they officially resolve that. Things were looking good as they got in touch with an OCZ forum member who was close to them, so their engineers could finally reproduce and observe the issue.Beside, since I put my PC in standby mode at night, I reboot it maybe once every 2-3 weeks. Opening Firefox and Thunderbird don't generate much disk I/O, and I got both %TEMP% and my Firefox cache located in a ram disk (hard to beat that <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> ). Spending hundred of dollars on a new SSD + SATA 6 GB controler just to speed up EQ2 load time between the "Waiting for server" messages isn't worth it. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Jacquotte

07-25-2011, 10:14 AM

<cite>Lantis@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>Vertex 3 has stability issues OCZ are still working on, so I'd stay away from Sandforce 2000-series SSDs until they officially resolve that. Things were looking good as they got in touch with an OCZ forum member who was close to them, so their engineers could finally reproduce and observe the issue.Beside, since I put my PC in standby mode at night, I reboot it maybe once every 2-3 weeks. Opening Firefox and Thunderbird don't generate much disk I/O, and I got both %TEMP% and my Firefox cache located in a ram disk (hard to beat that <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /> ). Spending hundred of dollars on a new SSD + SATA 6 GB controler just to speed up EQ2 load time between the "Waiting for server" messages isn't worth it. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>1st part sucks to hear2nd part is your personal opinion and you are entitled to it <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />the OP was looking for an SSD, just didnt want him to get one that was on par or slower than a black edition mechanic drive. a 6GB controller is only neccesary of you are going to buy multiple drives for a raid setup, since the bandwidth will suddenly become the bottleneck pushing those 1,000mb/s readtimes.running two clients and log-files on the same pc for me causes disk activity, i only have 8GB of ram so surely more of that would help. Switching from a vertex 2 SSD to three hybrid disks in raid-0 helped alot for me personally. a single SSD from the newest generation can easily best that by 40%.eq2 is the only game i really play. and playing it from 3-10hours a day should be the best possible experience, so no; i dont mind spending another 300$ to make that timeinvestment even more enjoyable .. this is my personal opinion <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />

Gaige

07-25-2011, 10:53 AM

Lantis

07-25-2011, 01:55 PM

<cite>Gaige wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Lantis@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>Vertex 3 has stability issues OCZ are still working on, so I'd stay away from Sandforce 2000-series SSDs until they officially resolve that. Things were looking good as they got in touch with an OCZ forum member who was close to them, so their engineers could finally reproduce and observe the issue.</blockquote>No one should ever buy OCZ anything. If you're buying a SSD, buy an Intel~<img src="http:\i.imgur.com/84idn.png" /></blockquote>The Intel 320 SSD has an issue that can cause the SSD to crash, lose data, and appear as an 8 MB drive in the BIOS. Intel's latest comment was they finally acknowledged the issue, and said a firmware was underway to resolve it. So no, Intel isn't a surer bet either (some of those newer Intel drives don't even use an Intel controler BTW).So, bottom line is more: don't buy an SSD that was just released. Since this isn't a mature technology yet, firmwares tend to take more time to iron out issues. I bought my Vertex 2 when Sandforce 1200 drives had been on the market for quite a few months already, so known issues had been found and ironed out by then.

Gaige

07-25-2011, 02:59 PM

<cite>Lantis@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>The Intel 320 SSD has an issue that can cause the SSD to crash, lose data, and appear as an 8 MB drive in the BIOS. Intel's latest comment was they finally acknowledged the issue, and said a firmware was underway to resolve it. So no, Intel isn't a surer bet either (some of those newer Intel drives don't even use an Intel controler BTW).</blockquote>They also said that they would replace anyone who had a drive with an issue as well. That is why I buy Intel, because they have amazing customer service and stand by thier products, unlike OCZ~As for the 510 using a marvell controller, I don't believe Intel ever stated it didn't. You act as if OCZ makes their own controllers, which they don't. An Intel drive with a marvell controller is still covered by Intel's warranty and customer service, not to mention their firmware.<a href="http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/236468/intel_acknowledges_ssd_320_bug_working_on_firmware _upgrade.html">http://www.pcworld.com/businesscent...re_upgrade.html</a>

Lantis

07-25-2011, 05:33 PM

<cite>Gaige wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Lantis@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>The Intel 320 SSD has an issue that can cause the SSD to crash, lose data, and appear as an 8 MB drive in the BIOS. Intel's latest comment was they finally acknowledged the issue, and said a firmware was underway to resolve it. So no, Intel isn't a surer bet either (some of those newer Intel drives don't even use an Intel controler BTW).</blockquote>They also said that they would replace anyone who had a drive with an issue as well. That is why I buy Intel, because they have amazing customer service and stand by thier products, unlike OCZ~As for the 510 using a marvell controller, I don't believe Intel ever stated it didn't. You act as if OCZ makes their own controllers, which they don't. An Intel drive with a marvell controller is still covered by Intel's warranty and customer service, not to mention their firmware.<a href="http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/236468/intel_acknowledges_ssd_320_bug_working_on_firmware _upgrade.html">http://www.pcworld.com/businesscent...re_upgrade.html</a></blockquote>Got facts to back up OCZ not standing behind their products? They even asked a few weeks ago for any customer living near them with the Vertex 3 issue to contact them, so they could send an engineer on-site to study the issue as they had trouble reproducing it. I'd consider that a positive thing.And anyway, I never stated OCZ was perfect (didn't I just mention the Vertex 3 issues?) or that they made their own controler, tho they do have a very close relationship with Sandforce, and they also own Indilinx now. I'm simply pointing out that while the X25 line of product might have been the best in terms of reliability, it's a whole different ballpark with their newer products, as you aren't buying a product that is 100% Intel, and therefore subject to potential quality issues. Some products will be as great as their X25 lines, and others... not so much.As for Intel replacing the disk... You'd probably want to avoid having to deal with that at all, as it's a real hassle to lose a disk, especially if you don't have an up-to-date backup (assuming you have even one). OCZ, Corsair, Patriot... everyone else would also replace a defective product. Looking for a company that offers an advanced RMA service might be worth it i for you it's critical to get a replacement ASAP. I'm fairly sure Intel does, I know WD does (tho I wouldn't recommend their SSD products as they are underperforming), no idea about other manufacturers.But the bottom line that I was really trying to explain is: SSDs are still a young technology. Better be safe than sorry, and to go with a more mature product than jumping right at the new product released last month, which might require a couple of firmware updates to become fully reliable. An unstable video card can be annoying, but an unstable storage device can have disastrous consequences. Data corruption cannot always be recovered from through backups if it takes too long for you to notice it, and I doubt the majority of people here keep backups going back months in time (personally I go around 6 weeks back for my desktop).

Jacquotte

07-26-2011, 09:39 AM

<cite>Gaige wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Lantis@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>Vertex 3 has stability issues OCZ are still working on, so I'd stay away from Sandforce 2000-series SSDs until they officially resolve that. Things were looking good as they got in touch with an OCZ forum member who was close to them, so their engineers could finally reproduce and observe the issue.</blockquote>No one should ever buy OCZ anything. If you're buying a SSD, buy an Intel~<img src="http:\i.imgur.com/84idn.png" /></blockquote>intel? oh yes, the x25 is legendary, so legendary that it was the state of the art in year 2008, yes.. 3 years agowhich new Intel drive that you so fondly speak of, can reach 550mb/s read 500mb/s write on a single SSD?my original post was regarding speed, nothing else. If all was about reliability we could all get old, crappy, slow, BUT super stable Lenovo computers, no?in regards to OCZ i am yet to wait for more that 2 hours for a technical response from them, they are fast and accurate supporting their customers, with intel i still think i have a 6 years old support ticket, that was never responded to

Gaige

07-26-2011, 10:50 AM

<cite>Jacquotte@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>intel? oh yes, the x25 is legendary, so legendary that it was the state of the art in year 2008, yes.. 3 years agowhich new Intel drive that you so fondly speak of, can reach 550mb/s read 500mb/s write on a single SSD?</blockquote>You realize those stats have little to nothing to do with system responsiveness and gameplay right and are only for artificial benchmark bragging, correct?You can buy a non-Intel SSD if you want, I mean people use AMD processors right? People buy inferior hardware all the time, I just don't recommend that they do.

Jacquotte

07-26-2011, 11:23 AM

<cite>Gaige wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jacquotte@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>intel? oh yes, the x25 is legendary, so legendary that it was the state of the art in year 2008, yes.. 3 years agowhich new Intel drive that you so fondly speak of, can reach 550mb/s read 500mb/s write on a single SSD?</blockquote>You realize those stats have little to nothing to do with system responsiveness and gameplay right and are only for artificial benchmark bragging, correct?You can buy a non-Intel SSD if you want, I mean people use AMD processors right? People buy inferior hardware all the time, I just don't recommend that they do.</blockquote><h2>"People buy inferior hardware all the time, I just don't recommend that they do." - exactly!</h2>

Gaige

07-26-2011, 11:51 AM

<cite>Jacquotte@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>"People buy inferior hardware all the time, I just don't recommend that they do." - exactly!</blockquote>Can you maybe explain how Intel SSDs are inferior besides using sequential write/read speeds which hardly matter? The fact is Sandforce controllers were PLAGUED with slow downs as you actually filled the drive up (which the Intel drives do not exhibit) not to mention that they're more expensive.I understand you hate Intel for your own personal reasons but they make the best hardware 9x out of 10.

Jacquotte

07-28-2011, 06:18 AM

<cite>Gaige wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jacquotte@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>"People buy inferior hardware all the time, I just don't recommend that they do." - exactly!</blockquote>Can you maybe explain how Intel SSDs are inferior besides using sequential write/read speeds which hardly matter? The fact is Sandforce controllers were PLAGUED with slow downs as you actually filled the drive up (which the Intel drives do not exhibit) not to mention that they're more expensive.I understand you hate Intel for your own personal reasons but they make the best hardware 9x out of 10.</blockquote>i don't hate Intel at all - in fact, i am looking forward to see their answer to the new SSDs, also they are the ones that brought decent speeded SSDs down in pricei'm just saying there is no point in recommending someone to buy an ancient technologically outdated piece of hardware what is 3 years old, if what you want is to speed up your load-times and "hdd"-crunching when swapping or running multiple i/o intensive things at once

deadcrickets2

07-28-2011, 10:45 AM

<a href="http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/65" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/65</a>

Jacquotte

07-28-2011, 11:02 AM

<cite>deadcrickets2 wrote:</cite><blockquote><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/65" target="_blank">http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/65</a></blockquote>nice for performance comparison, good find <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />there is no longevity or reliability tests there tho, so to please <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/user/profile.m?user_id=3187">Gaige</a> and for your own sake tbh, a thorough review could be read before any specific decision making <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Gaige

07-28-2011, 11:56 AM

I only buy Intel SSDs, period. I also would never buy OCZ anything after the various scandals involving them in the early 2000s.

Lantis

07-28-2011, 02:31 PM

<cite>Gaige wrote:</cite><blockquote>I also would never buy OCZ anything after the various scandals involving them in the early 2000s.</blockquote>o.OIf you're going to judge a company by going so far back, let's all boycot Intel because of the FDIV scandal.And AMD for omitting to install any kind of thermal throttling in their first Athlon (ever seen those Athlon catching fire videos on Tom's Hardware back then?)[Removed for Content]... I guess I'll have to go back to pen & paper for my MMORPG needs <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/97ada74b88049a6d50a6ed40898a03d7.gif" border="0" />

deadcrickets2

07-28-2011, 03:07 PM

<cite>Jacquotte@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>deadcrickets2 wrote:</cite><blockquote><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/65" target="_blank">http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/65</a></blockquote>nice for performance comparison, good find <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />there is no longevity or reliability tests there tho, so to please <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/user/profile.m?user_id=3187">Gaige</a> and for your own sake tbh, a thorough review could be read before any specific decision making <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Anandtech and HardOCP both do those types of reviews. Like any consumer a little time searching Google goes a long way.

IceStormx

07-29-2011, 07:46 PM

UP DATEI found a use for the left over spindle hard-hard no longer in use in my pc systemInstead of letting it decay in my closet I did a full secure erase on the drive and I have successfully installed it into my Cisco Explorer 8600HDC High-Definition DVR Set-Top Box and replaced the default WD Caviar Blue 160GB 8MB cache with my old 1TB WD Caviar Black 32MB cache the firmware / OS Linux in box showed the Blue with 159GB installed and now with the Black installed it shows 999GB maybe I won't have to rush to delete programs to make room for new shows<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />

TSR-JoshuaM

07-29-2011, 07:48 PM

<cite>IceStormx wrote:</cite><blockquote>UP DATEI found a use for the left over spindle hard-hard no longer in use in my pc systemInstead of letting it decay in my closet I did a full secure erase on the drive and I have successfully installed it into my Cisco Explorer 8600HDC High-Definition DVR Set-Top Box and replaced the default WD Caviar Blue 160GB 8MB cache with my old 1TB WD Caviar Black 32MB cache the firmware / OS Linux in box showed the Blue with 159GB installed and now with the Black installed it shows 999GB maybe I won't have to rush to delete programs to make room for new shows<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Awesome!!