ADATA S596TB-64GM-C any good?

[psyside]

I want to get one SSD as a boot drive.

A-DATA S596TB-64GM-C?


What i would like to know is the following,



1. How does this thing compare to other decent SSD?

2. In what segment of performance figures it does good and in what poor? how good is the new Jmicron controler on this thing?

3. How does ADATA S596TB-64GM-C rank in terms of reability comparing others brands? quallity build, support etc.

4. I got an Gigabyte GA-X58 board, and i have already raid0 setup using the blue sata ports. Basically i want to know what port should i be using for my new SSD, does it make a difference?

5. Do i need to left free space before instaling the OS on the SSD? i head that you should not format it to full advertised capacity? if so how much space should i left free?

6. Do i need to turn off pagefile or anything else?

7 Is it safe to use torrents, i heard that writing is very bad for SSD?

8 What should i enable/disable before instaling the SSD in Bios?

9. Any more suggestion of what i should do or not, would be appericated :up:

P.S. Its my first SSD so take it easy :)

[psyside]

Bump, :( i'm in a hurry need to get this thing in few hours!

[F@32]

Hey,

1. How does this thing compare to other decent SSD?
It's not one of the best out there in terms of $/performance drives. RealSSD C300 64Gb, Intel X-25M Gen2, or Adata S599 are better drives.

2. In what segment of performance figures it does good and in what poor? how good is the new Jmicron controler on this thing?
RealSSD Marvell, SF-1200/1222 or Intel are better controllers.

3. How does ADATA S596TB-64GM-C rank in terms of reability comparing others brands? quallity build, support etc.
Check their reviews on newegg.com

4. I got an Gigabyte GA-X58 board, and i have already raid0 setup using the blue sata ports. Basically i want to know what port should i be using for my new SSD, does it make a difference?
All of your ICH10R ports are utilized? If there is still at least one non used, you should be able to add your SSD as non-RAID member and I believe Windows should be able to see it.

5. Do i need to left free space before instaling the OS on the SSD? i head that you should not format it to full advertised capacity? if so how much space should i left free?
I usually leave 10Gb or so unpartitioned.

6. Do i need to turn off pagefile or anything else?
Windows 7 sill needs pagefile even if you have 12Gb of RAM. Set pagefile to constant 2Gb and leave it alone. Disable prefetch, superfetch, indexing and defrag.

7 Is it safe to use torrents, i heard that writing is very bad for SSD?
Bad idea, I'd put those on HDD.

8 What should i enable/disable before instaling the SSD in Bios?
If you had it by itself, I'd say - enable AHCI mode. But you are already running RAID, so you should be all set.

9. Any more suggestion of what i should do or not, would be appericated :up:

P.S. Its my first SSD so take it easy :)

[psyside]

Thanks for the replay dude, i bought the disk is decent overall, but the time required to install programs or games is quite long, other then that its ok. As far as i understand the issues during instalation are due to the low write speeds of the disk, and i think to replace it with some other Sandforce based disk. I just cant stand seeing it strugle even worse then HDD, during instalation and game loading times..


1. Ocz vertex 2 (50gb)i heard its better then the extended version due to wearing issues and lower performance consistency

2. Crucial C300 (64GB) great read but slow write speeds = slow games/programs instalation as well, i guess? :(

3. Corsair Force F60, i heard there was some problems with the firmware on this unit, but still it should perform similar/same to vertex 2 because they share the same controller.

So what would be best pick from this 3 if i decide to swap the S596?

[Rubycon]

You can get the ADATA S599 based one here for $99!

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0351760

A few of those in RAID0 should scream. :eek:

[F@32]

Thanks for the replay dude, i bought the disk is decent overall, but the time required to install programs or games is quite long, other then that its ok. As far as i understand the issues during instalation are due to the low write speeds of the disk, and i think to replace it with some other Sandforce based disk. I just cant stand seeing it strugle even worse then HDD, during instalation and game loading times..
- I'm as impatient as you are, lol. Now you've learned the lesson to do at least some basic research on bleeding edge tech ;-)



1. Ocz vertex 2 (50gb)i heard its better then the extended version due to wearing issues and lower performance consistency

2. Crucial C300 (64GB) great read but slow write speeds = slow games/programs instalation as well, i guess? :(

3. Corsair Force F60, i heard there was some problems with the firmware on this unit, but still it should perform similar/same to vertex 2 because they share the same controller.

So what would be best pick from this 3 if i decide to swap the S596?

The most time proven drive at the moment is Intel X-25M G2. Get the 80Gb version and you are all set. If $200 is a bit too much, I'd go C300 64Gb. Properly aligned (1024KB offset), with OS tweaks and latest ACHI drivers it will fly, trust me and many others who actually ran them.


You can get the ADATA S599 based one here for $99!

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0351760

A few of those in RAID0 should scream. :eek:
Yep, this is SF1222 based drive and it is really sweet for the money.

[psyside]

Thanks F@32 & Rubycon!

I can get easy S599 but here is the issue, the performance are not consistant. You can get an very fast unit or low performing one, go figure.. guess its because of the firmware, so i'm not sure. Anyway here goes.


Where i live is really hard to get an Vertex 2 or Corsair Force F60....

Crucial and Intel models, as well hard to find and even if i could order one they are not really good for write speed programs/games instalation which really pissed me off on the S596. So basically i'm looking for an Sandforce based disk, yes i'm picky i know. The pick would be definitely some Sandforce disks, (knowing they suite best for my needs) and have the most close read/write ratio as well as good reputation and generall quallity.


Now what i can get easy are this 2 models, others are very hard to find..

1.Patriot Inferno 60GB model - (PI60GS25SSDR)

2. A-DATA S599 64GB

Now i'm quite confused seeing most of the reviews coming with amaizing numbers behind the S599, beating even the Corsair Force and the Ocz Vertex 2

But..there are few of them who report lower scores, and inconsistent performance, and of top of that i read few Newegg users reviews who stated the same. Now in all fairness all of this drives share the same controler, yes i'm new to SSD but i learned (as Zap, from Anandtech said) that they should peform very similar to each other..right.


Now, i understand that firmware might be and issue or revision used in the tests, but still is this the only reason behind various performance reports?

BTW yes i know that the scores varies because of the compressable/uncompressable data used as test patern for some benchmarks software, like AS-SSD and CDM but i saw lower scores even in ATTO and HD Tune!? now im leaning toward the A-DATA S599 because its like huge 70 euros cheaper from the Patriot Inferno, but i dunno if its worth to risk and get bad revision or some of the random..lower performing units. On top of that there are 2 revisons of S599!? Whats the difference from the first revision of A-DATA S599 and the second, if anyone know some info about it i would like to know...


Does Patriot Inferno series offer alot better reliability? does getting a better brand insure better unit? knowing they use same controler but different firmware, most likely used. Also there are 2 revisions of Patriot Inferno same as A-DATA S599...whats the difference for Patriot series revisions as well? god damn it...

P.S. There are few Sandforce based disks on the market shipped with very good FW whch make them fly around 50K IOPS!, random read/write speed! now as one guy said

"Performance wise, any of the 4 (Vertex 2, callisto deluxe, force60, phoenix pro) with the 50k firmware are almost the same"

Still, the post is kinda old and i'm not sure does this still apply or not.

So i would like to now does any other disks other then this 4 come with that firmware, and if not can i flash lets say S599 with that firmware?

P.S. How can i tell what FW has the product before i buy the disk? if the employ is not informed, is there any sticker or part number which point that info? if there is no way, how this improved IOPS transfer to real world usage? where would one notice the higher IOPS speed most?

Thanks in advance :)

[F@32]

On my way out of the house, so will address your issues later.

One thing I will tell you though, I had SSD from the day OCZ made affordable MLC models. And in all honesty will say that starting with Vertex 1, x-25M G1 I don't experience slow writing issues. Perception of course could be biased, but my Win7 ultimate installs from USB stick in under 20-25min. Given I have 140Mb/s sustained writes from 2R0 x-18m, but I would not worry about bad performance from C300 and X-25M G2.

Now, SF1200, they do sometimes perform bad, especially when aggressive GC kicks in and the drive is over 80%+ full.

[psyside]

Thanks man, your info means much to me. Please answer the other parts of my post because i can't really get an Intel or Crucial model where i live :(

So i'm confused by many models, firmware and revision, need some clarification on that point. Thanks again and sorry for bothering :up:

[F@32]

Thanks man, your info means much to me. Please answer the other parts of my post because i can't really get an Intel or Crucial model where i live :(

So i'm confused by many models, firmware and revision, need some clarification on that point. Thanks again and sorry for bothering :up:

Hey, I don't know if there is an expert on SF firmware versions around here. Unfortunately in most cases it is impossible to tell which firmware is installed on the retail drive without opening the box and plugging it into your system.

I can refer you to this article trying to figure out what's going on with different custom firmware revisions: http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=531 (btw something seems off with C300 performance on their chart)
http://benchmarkreviews.com/images/reviews/storage/OWC-SSDMXRE100/AS-SSD-Benchmark_Results.png

All SF based drives suffer somewhat with lower uncompressible data performance and once their enter steady state (i.e. after multiple writes+trim of the same nand cells)

This is what can be expected in the longer term out of them:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a397/reieev/Misc/SF-ASSSD-Uncompressible.png (http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2010/06/25/sandforce-ssd-test/9)
This is a good article btw: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2010/06/25/sandforce-ssd-test/1

I personally would make my decision based in part on newegg reviews. So, check them out: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&Description=sandforce&bop=And&Order=PRICE&PageSize=20. For what's it worth Guru3d seem to be impressed with Adata S599 one: http://www.guru3d.com/article/adata-s599-100gb-ssd-review. Keep in mind though, that I will always trust findings of good folks on xtremesystems.org over any single tech site review, because gents over here tend to have wider representation of system set-ups and they test begeebus out of their hardware ;-)

I think you'd be fine if you went with Adata or Corsair. I believe OCZ has the edge in terms of user-to-user and manufacturer's support, even though they sometimes bump into problems when first to the market with new products.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
- F@32.

[psyside]

Thanks alot man! that clear some things up for me :)

Now ill have to play the wait game :(