SuperSSpeed SLC VS. Anything else

[B Gates]

I got way off track in the TRIM thread and apologize for that so I 'm making a different thread. This is a thread to explore The new SuperSSpeed SandForce SLC 128GB $275 drives. Some think Vertex 4 or others may be faster so we can explore that here. I am of the opinion they are the fastest consumer SSD ever made.

check this out:
http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab323/obamaliar/060_zps6bfd6e43.png

this is a SANDFORCE drive with INCOMPRESSIBLE data. This is the worlds fastest SATA III drive its 128GB SLC costs $275 its this drive: http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/mydigitalssd-128gb-2.5-inch-supersspeed-sata-iii-6g-slc-sandforce-ssd/

this was run on 11.6 driver

AS-SSD:
http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab323/obamaliar/070_zpsf0f55400.png

[B Gates]

a bit below a Vertex 4...and the write latency... read latency is faster than the V4 and it has nearly twice the performance of the V4 in real world testing. The Vertex 4 isn't even in the same league. When in RAID 0 these drives really put the V4 in RAID 0 to shame. here are the access times in raid 0:
http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab323/obamaliar/041_zps3403ba22.png
http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab323/obamaliar/040_zpsfadbd62e.png

full reviews coming very soon

[B Gates]

i don't know which real world you speak of, but for half the storage (and a sandforce controlled drive to boot..arg), and at a $100 premium over a 256gb V4, plus questionable support (never heard of this 'brand'), it must be performing unmentionable acts for you, to praise it in such a manner...sorry, off topic...
here this will explain it better:
http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab323/obamaliar/089_zps15699449.png
Workstation is the same as a typical user environment. Notice TWICE the performance of a V4

http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab323/obamaliar/080b_zpsbfc9b5b5.png

Drives filled 50% with data. Notice Vertex 4 scores 39,000 and the SuperSSpeed scores 69,000 one is a Ferrari the other a Buick

[B Gates]

after seeing vantage tests give compressible results for supposed incompressible situations...i guess i don't value it as 'real world', though it's nice to see slc at such low prices. would be nice to see it in other ssds controlled by something other than sandforce, and as for the 'parent' company being in the US, that's great, but after going through many US based forums of other companies, i guess i would want to know a bit more re their support, especially with something 'new' like this coupling of slc on the sandforce targeted for consumer use in the US (i'll have to check them out), but we are way off topic at this point... What do you value as real world? Vantage is as real world as it gets and so is PassMark.

[B Gates]

What kind of stripe size did you use for the V4's?

64K for all but those were SuperSSpeed drives not V4's. V4's access times in RAID 0 look like this:
http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab323/obamaliar/040_zpsa4bf5f9e.png
http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab323/obamaliar/041_zps1546d336.png

you can see that the V4's in RAID 0 have a read latency thats 4 times slower than the SuperSSpeeds in RAID 0 and a write latency thats 2 times slower than the SuperSpeeds

[Brother Esau]

I am new to SSD drives and was slow to adopt because I wanted to wait a few years until the technology matured. How are these drives in terms of reliability and stability compared to the Intel 520 Series?

[B Gates]

I am new to SSD drives and was slow to adopt because I wanted to wait a few years until the technology matured. How are these drives in terms of reliability and stability compared to the Intel 520 Series? There will be a full review up at http://www.rwlabs.com/ this weekend. The reliability on paper is better than the 520 because the S301 has 100,000 P/E cycle SLC NAND and the 520 has 5000 P/E cycle MLC NAND. Only time will tell how reliable something new is otherwise.

[Brother Esau]

Time tells all that's for sure. I have read that the nand on the super speed are pretty much enterprise level grade nand bu my question is how stable is the firmware of super speed?

[B Gates]

The SuperSSpeed uses 5.03 firmware. This is new firmware has great performance so far and it has restored TRIM for drives on 5 series firmware http://www.rwlabs.com/article.php?id=692 but again this is new firmware so time will have to tell.

[Brother Esau]

Is that your website Bill?

[B Gates]

Is that your website Bill? I review SSD's for that site.

[Brother Esau]

Thank you.

[tived]

looks very nice - and i can see you get what you pay for

looking at your graphs, you mention the V4 but it does not look like its the drive that give the SuperSSpeed to most competition - or did i miss something, like the Intel 520 seems to fare better then the V4

Henrik

[B Gates]

The 520 is was the previous champ. I was talking about the V4 because another guy was comparing the V4 to the SuperSSpeed Drive. You are correct the 520 is the closest competition.

[Brother Esau]

A little off topic here but kinda the same. B. Gates what is your take on the latest Intel RST Drivers 11.6.0.1030 just using them for the AHCI Driver instead of the default MSAHCI Drivers are they stable or is there a problem with them as I have seen that some have posted issues to the effect that Intel forgot to add something for the system info or something to that effect.

[B Gates]

I've tested 4 or 5 different drives with 11.6 and the performance is great:
http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab323/obamaliar/driver_zpsfc6adaeb.png
I would definitely recommend you use 11.6 over MSAHCI. Memory leak is fixed too.

[Brother Esau]

I've tested 4 or 5 different drives with 11.6 and the performance is great:
http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab323/obamaliar/driver_zpsfc6adaeb.png
I would definitely recommend you use 11.6 over MSAHCI. Memory leak is fixed too.

Seeing how I am new to this SSD thing. The Program that you have above what is that for just raid or caching? Does it serve any purpose for a single SSD Drive installed on a system?

[B Gates]

Yes you can create raid volumes with it as long as you have set RAID in bios. You can use it for caching too. The program is just the GUI that comes built into the driver when installed in windows.

[DooRules]

Hard for me to see past the price quite frankly. Any of the drives I have now will most likely outlast my lifetime, so saying this will will last twice as long doesn't really do much for me. Does better in benching sure,( some bench's, not all ) but not going to be noticeable in an OS environment imho. My plextors are plenty fast enough for me. :)

[jax7480]

I was asking for stripe size for V4's because after a lot of testing with 2 of these drives in Raid0 (2, 128GB) the best stripe size (surprisingly enough) was found to be 4K.
Would be more that happy to test those SuperSSpeed SLC, but unfortunatelly, I do not leave is the US.

[B Gates]

I was asking for stripe size for V4's because after a lot of testing with 2 of these drives in Raid0 (2, 128GB) the best stripe size (surprisingly enough) was found to be 4K.
Would be more that happy to test those SuperSSpeed SLC, but unfortunatelly, I do not leave is the US. 4k is fastest for Vantage

[jax7480]

Not only.
I have made tests in IOMeter, Anvils SU, AS SSD and Vantage. Vantage had the biggest differences, but all others benches were fast or faster (with 4K) as well.
OS was installed in the drives at all times.
This is only in V4's. All other drives hate 4K stripe.

[Nizzen]

I got way off track in the TRIM thread and apologize for that so I 'm making a different thread. This is a thread to explore The new SuperSSpeed SandForce SLC 128GB $275 drives. Some think Vertex 4 or others may be faster so we can explore that here. I am of the opinion they are the fastest consumer SSD ever made.

check this out:


this is a SANDFORCE drive with INCOMPRESSIBLE data. This is the worlds fastest SATA III drive its 128GB SLC costs $275 its this drive: http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/mydigitalssd-128gb-2.5-inch-supersspeed-sata-iii-6g-slc-sandforce-ssd/

this was run on 11.6 driver

AS-SSD:
http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab323/obamaliar/070_zpsf0f55400.png

For comparing:
one Plextor m3p 128gb @ LSI 9207 no cache.
http://i413.photobucket.com/albums/pp219/Nizzen/ASSSDsimplem3p9207srv08R2_zps0751b884.png

VS. Anything else:
http://i413.photobucket.com/albums/pp219/Nizzen/ASSSDLSI8xR0softsrvR2_zps202df92b.png
8xr0
Yes I want 8x SuperSSpeed SLC :D

Well this is Xtreme storage, so here is 12xR0 software raid...
http://i413.photobucket.com/albums/pp219/Nizzen/Asssd12xR0_zps325b49f1.png

[B Gates]

WOW! Thats pretty awesome Nizzen:up:

[A||uSiOn]

I would think the new Samsung 840 100K IOPS will give them a big run for the money :)

[Gilgamesh]

New Samsung 840 Pro 256GB :)

http://www.custompcreview.com/reviews/samsung-840-pro-series-256gb-ssd-review/15768/3/

http://www.custompcreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/crystal-disk-mark-samsung-840-pro-series-256gb-ssd-custom-pc-review.jpg

http://www.custompcreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/as-ssd-samsung-840-pro-series-256gb-ssd-custom-pc-review.jpg

http://www.custompcreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/anvil-compressible-samsung-840-pro-series-256gb-ssd-custom-pc-review.jpg

[B Gates]

Very impressive but I can almost guarantee you that when tested with data on the drive and using non-synthetic methods the S301 will come out on top

[Gilgamesh]

I'm sure that 128GB (275$) with 50% of data on the drive can always beat an 840 Pro 256GB (270$) with 25% of data.

But 75% vs 38%?

Are you preparing reviews of Samsung 840 Pro, and I hope, an 840 TLC nands?

[B Gates]

I probably wont sample that drive until its released. I'm not sure what you mean by 75% vs 38%? If you mean do I think the S301 75% full has better performance than a 840 Pro at 38% then I would guess that it would but can't be sure until i test it but I would bet the 840 will fall short.

[B Gates]

here is a review to look at http://www.storagereview.com/samsung_ssd_840_pro_review notice workstation performance because that is similar to a typical user environment. The 840 is probably not going to do that great when its 50% full.

[Zaxx]

Can't wait for the SuperSSpeed 60s to make it out...at probably ~$160 each, I'd muuch rather have 2 of these in R0 vs a single 120GB for a slight premium, heh...who wouldn't. Will be interesting to see if Intel's latest process shrink yields lower prices...wonder if any 20nm SLC has even surfaced yet.

[Highendtoys]

Samsung didn't send anyone who tests with data on the drive. My drive(s) come in two weeks and I'm sure Jon will have some as well.

I'm tired of seeing people post bull:banana::banana::banana::banana: articles and YouTube videos of SSDs with data that doesn't mean :banana::banana::banana::banana:.

[m.oreilly]

Hard for me to see past the price quite frankly..
bill, doo makes a good point, since your outfit are selling these drives, if i'm not mistaken. bill, it looks like you are espousing your drive as a 'Ferrari among bricks'. sounds like a barker's hyperboli, of items you are selling. is this allowed?

[B Gates]

bill, doo makes a good point, since your outfit are selling these drives, if i'm not mistaken. bill, it looks like you are showing 'superior benching', along with your very questionable hyperbole, of items you are selling. is this allowed? Hi Mike,
I'm not selling any drives nor is Chris they are being sold by MyDigitalSSD. It's true that they are signature editions signed by the person I work for but that has nothing to do with the drives superior performance. The reason why this drive is superior is simply because it's the only drive with SLC NAND. Chris could have just as easily picked any other drive to do a signature edition of but this drive is a stand out. The drive was benched exactly the same as any other drive we bench and its superior because it proves itself to be, not because of perceived skewing in its favor. We believe a drives performance is best determined by how it performs with data on it. This makes sense doesn't it? I made this thread for the purpose of examining whether or anyone such as yourself who may want to discuss our findings or dispute them in any way could do so directly and easily. The SLC drive is simply faster than any MLC drive to date. I would NEVER say it was if I didn't have proof to back it up and believe it to be so, even if it was my mothers signature edition. If you believe my assessment is incorrect then this is the place to prove it. If you can prove that I will gladly acknowledge that and openly declare my assessment to be incorrect. One other point. I purchased 2 of these drives these were not samples. I spent my hard earned money on them because to me they are well worth it.

[Ourasi]

Hi Mike,
I'm not selling any drives nor is Chris they are being sold by MyDigitalSSD. It's true that they are signature editions signed by the person I work for but that has nothing to do with the drives superior performance. The reason why this drive is superior is simply because it's the only drive with SLC NAND. Chris could have just as easily picked any other drive to do a signature edition of but this drive is a stand out. The drive was benched exactly the same as any other drive we bench and its superior because it proves itself to be, not because of perceived skewing in its favor. We believe a drives performance is best determined by how it performs with data on it. This makes sense doesn't it? I made this thread for the purpose of examining whether or anyone such as yourself who may want to discuss our findings or dispute them in any way could do so directly and easily. The SLC drive is simply faster than any MLC drive to date. I would NEVER say it was if I didn't have proof to back it up and believe it to be so, even if it was my mothers signature edition. If you believe my assessment is incorrect then this is the place to prove it. If you can prove that I will gladly acknowledge that and openly declare my assessment to be incorrect. One other point. I purchased 2 of these drives these were not samples. I spent my hard earned money on them because to me they are well worth it.

Overall performance, you might be right that the SLC SSD is faster then the Samsung 840P especially server workloads etc, and sertainly in a non-TRIM OS as SLC rewrites much faster then MLC does. I've had a few X25-E's in my time, so I know the benefit of SLC and I would still own them if Intel did not screw me on TRIM..

However, an area the Samsung 840P looks to be faster and pretty substancially so, is random read QD(1)2-6, this is where my priority are as always. RR QD2-6 will not loose steam on the samsung when it's filled to an reasonable level (XS OS levels, sub 50-60%), Sandforce on the other hand do loose abit of steam on RR QD2-6 as it fills up to the same levels, don't know if this SLC edition is more resilliant, and won't find out myself as the SLC drive is nowhere to find in norway..

Would have liked to see the SuperSSpeed use another controller like the latest marvel, I think that would have been even more impressive, and it's not to late for that..

As for the linking between the reviewsite and this SSD in this manner, it might seem a little iffy imho, add the SuperSSpeed "talkup" by you, working for the same site, and a few eyebrowes might be raised on XS ;) No pun intended, just voicing my opinion, and I tend to love me a good conspiracy in the late night hours..

As for the SSD itself, it would, for that price, probably be in my box already if I could get one here, but the Samsung 840P will be here on the 15th and I want one.. I'm wondering why an SSD-maker like this again do not get it into the shelves in norway, we are buying SSD's like butter here, and have a few bucks to spend (!). This is a fiering offence by the resposible party imho...

[B Gates]

Overall performance, you might be right that the SLC SSD is faster then the Samsung 840P especially server workloads etc, and sertainly in a non-TRIM OS as SLC rewrites much faster then MLC does. I've had a few X25-E's in my time, so I know the benefit of SLC and I would still own them if Intel did not screw me on TRIM..

However, an area the Samsung 840P looks to be faster and pretty substancially so, is random read QD(1)2-6, this is where my priority are as always. RR QD2-6 will not loose steam on the samsung when it's filled to an reasonable level (XS OS levels, sub 50-60%), Sandforce on the other hand do loose abit of steam on RR QD2-6 as it fills up to the same levels, don't know if this SLC edition is more resilliant, and won't find out myself as the SLC drive is nowhere to find in norway..

Would have liked to see the SuperSSpeed use another controller like the latest marvel, I think that would have been even more impressive, and it's not to late for that..

As for the linking between the reviewsite and this SSD in this manner, it might seem a little iffy imho, add the SuperSSpeed "talkup" by you, working for the same site, and a few eyebrowes might be raised on XS ;) No pun intended, just voicing my opinion, and I tend to love me a good conspiracy in the late night hours..

As for the SSD itself, it would, for that price, probably be in my box already if I could get one here, but the Samsung 840P will be here on the 15th and I want one.. I'm wondering why an SSD-maker like this again do not get it into the shelves in norway, we are buying SSD's like butter here, and have a few bucks to spend (!). This is a fiering offence by the resposible party imho... take a look at post 3 which shows real world testing with data on the drive. look at how marvell drives fare. the samsung 830 256gb although not on those charts fares the same as Marvell drives do. What is your opinion of those results? I am just making a guess on the 840 but I suspect it will not score 69,000 at 50% full.

[Ourasi]

Vantage is fun to test, and fun to get insane results, and easy to test TRIM, but as an realworld bench it is useless. I've tested extencively if a drop in Vantage from 170k to 100k - close to half the speed according to that test - by filling the SSD's from 7% to 50%, coud be seen elsewhere, and nothing have ever come close to that, not even in the same ballpark.
Infact, I timed starting 30 apps@7% simultaniously vs. 50%, and the difference was 0.xx%. I tested all the IOmeter patterns, and the difference was almost the same as my timed results... Vantage is close to being useless from a realworld performance perspective on SSD's imho, as the guys who made it admitted. Mind you, PCM7 has gone to far, and are artificially keeping the scores between HDD and SSD to close, and are pretty useless aswell, infact even more useles as it can't be used for anything beneficial (like working TRIM) at all imho..

Edit: My spelling laying down in the dark on the sofa typing with the oddest of fingers, might produse some odd words, but I do see them and try to edit while rolling my eyes in shame and annoyance...

[B Gates]

Vantage is fun to test, and fun to get insane results, and easy to test TRIM, but as an realworld bench it is useless. I've tested extencively if a drop in Vantage from 170k to 100k - close to half the speed according to that test - by filling the SSD's from 7% to 50%, coud be seen elsewhere, and nothing have ever come close to that, not even in the same ballpark.
Infact, I timed starting 30 apps@7% simultaniously vs. 50%, and the difference was 0.xx%. I tested all the IOmeter patterns, and the difference was almost the same as my timed results... Vantage is close to being useless from a realworld performance perspective on SSD's imho, as the guys who made it admitted. Mind you, PCM7 has gone to far, and are artificially keeping the scores between HDD and SSD to close, and are pretty useless aswell, infact even more useles as it can't be used for anything beneficial (like working TRIM) at all imho..

Edit: My spelling laying down in the dark on the sofa typing with the oddest of fingers, might produse some odd words, but I do see them and try to edit while rolling my eyes in shame and annoyance... what do you think of PassMark testing? I see what you are saying but thats not the point of Vantage fill testing or how it works. What you are saying is that if Vantage fill testing shows for example a 40% performance drop off when data is added then why dont we see a 40% slower boot time or 40% application loading time? Vantage fill testing simply gives us an accurate representation of one drives performance verses another with data on it not the percentage of performance lost as the drive is filled up. Fill testing with Vantage and ranking drives with its results consistently provides results that are corroborated by other non-synthetic methods used in the industry. Take PassMark for instance. PassMark creates a test file on the drive and plays it back reading and writing to determine performance. This is as real world as it gets. Passmark Workstation results are always 100% in line with Vantage Fill testing. All SSD's slow as data is added to them and some more than others. Vantage fill testing simply exposes realistically which drive actually has better performance in a measurable way with data on the drive.

[Ourasi]

I haven't testet it myself, but from what I can see, they have an IOmeter aproach to their testing, looks ok to me from a server perspective if it uses correct compression levels, allthough I do not agree that the Workstation pattern copy real world correctly if they do intensive reads and writes at the exact same time. The reason, is that a typical workstation may have the same daily pattern of the test's 80/20 R/W, but not R&W at the same time like I think they do here. A typical SSD freak like me, have RR(+some sequential read) QD#1-6 in short burst, all day, with a tiny amount of mainly 4-32kb RW QD#1-2 more or less always in the background. Some writes during work/surfing and other stuff (downloads goes to HDD storage), but seldom or never at the same time as the intensive read. This, in my case, amounts to ~90/10 R/W per day, so not far off the workstation 80/20, so in theory the test is correct, but not in execution. This is why the QD1&QD4 RR results of the 840P looks so tempting for my usage, writes RW&SW have been more then good enough for a long time among the good SSD's, and have lower priority for me, for an OS SSD... My old C300, wich up to now has been the king in RR QD1-6, is as fast or faster then a Intel 520 at boot and apploading, thanks to it's strengths at low QD RR. And, the Intel is twice as fast in vantage :eek: ..

The X25-E SLC was also a monster in workstation, so if heavy intensive reads during intensive writes is the usagepattern in question, SLC is sweet.. Thats why everyone should know their usagepattern before they buy...

[B Gates]

I haven't testet it myself, but from what I can see, they have an IOmeter aproach to their testing, looks ok to me from a server perspective, allthough I do not agree that the Workstation pattern copy real world correctly if they do intensive reads and writes at the exact same time. The reason, is that a typical workstation may have the same daily pattern of the test's 80/20 R/W, but not R&W at the same time like I think they do here. A typical SSD freak like me, have RR(+some sequential read) QD#1-6 in short burst, all day, with a tiny amount of mainly 4-32kb RW QD#1-2 more or less always in the background. Some writes during work/surfing and other stuff (downloads goes to HDD storage), but seldom or never at the same time as the intensive read. This, in my case, amounts to ~90/10 R/W per day, so not far off the workstation 80/20, so in theory the test is correct, but not in execution. This is why the QD1&QD4 RR results of the 840P looks so tempting for my usage, writes RW&SW have been more then good enough for a long time among the good SSD's, and have lower priority for me, for an OS SSD... My old C300, wich up to now has been the king in RR QD1-6, is as fast or faster then a Intel 520 at boot and apploading, thanks to it's strengths at low QD RR. And, the Intel is twice as fast in vantage :eek: .. so are you saying that a C300 is faster that a 520 in real world?

[B Gates]

look at this drives 4k read
http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab323/obamaliar/061-1.png

this is the fastest drive when reading compressible 4k but the drive is slow

[B Gates]

Can you show that a c300 is faster than a 520 at booting and app loading than a 520 because I would respectfully disagree. The c300 has terrible latency.

[Ourasi]

Your CDM picture is 0fill, 100% compressible, and it's the C300's QD#2-6 that matter the most, QD#1 is not as important. The 520 have both read and write latency at almost the same levels as the C300 when used a little, atleast in AS SSD..

C300 boot:
http://bildr.no/thumb/1081541.jpeg (http://bildr.no/view/1081541)
520 boot:
http://bildr.no/thumb/1282428.jpeg (http://bildr.no/view/1282428)

The difference is around a second+ on average, over 20+ boots on the same fresh image. I was abit dissapointed and surpriced to say the least, and the same story is told by the 30+ simultanoious apptest, allthough the difference there is smaller in %...

[B Gates]

What are you using to measure boot time? I would like to try it.

[Ourasi]

The Intel SSD 520 240gb scores 63mb/s vs. C300 256gb at 93.5mb/s in Random Read QD#3 4kb (Anandtech, and the C300 is up there with the best of the best even today, in this test), and as I've said, with my usage pattern, the C300 is better on average, the reason the 30 apptest is closer between them, is that there is some sequential reads in some apps, and the Intel is stronger there.

With this said, I do not mean the C300 is better for everyone compared to the Intel, I'm just saying it's better for me (and I might be one of not so many, as usual)..

[B Gates]

I enjoy discussing stuff with a person as well informed as you I really appreciate your time:up:

[Ourasi]

Added Bootimer in my previous post, hope it works as it should, I know UAC might prevent it from rebooting, but my guess is that this "feature" is pretty much gone in your setup ;)
Doubleclick, answer yes to reboot, wait for result after reboot without touching mouse & keyboard, enjoy..

[B Gates]

here's what I'm getting with slc sandforce
http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab323/obamaliar/boottime.png on sata 2 port

[B Gates]

If you don't mind my asking what did you use to test app launching?

[Ourasi]

Just manual timing from my shootingtimer, starts when i click the mouse on the .bat file and stops when i click the mouse when all apps are loaded. A little margin of error is there, since my reaction is slower then my shooting timer (that is within 5ms from i start the .bat) when clicking at the end. But on the other hand, starting 30 apps takes a bit of time, so a few hundreds is of little consequence when the difference is several seconds..

Good bootime BTW, you will notice that the full aero and GFX/sound drivers will slow the bootime, I have a 3.xxx time, but not fully operational and eyecandy OS was one of my rules in my SSD-bench thread, so I stick to my own rules... The thread btw is now at 200k views and 247 pages, so we norwegians do like our SSD's ;)

You can try it yourself: start a notepad, add these lines:
start /d "C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer" iexplore.exe
start /d "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Messenger" msnmsgr.exe
start /d "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Mail" wlmail.exe
start /d C:\Windows explorer.exe

I guess all these are installed, remove those that are not. Save the notpad as Favorites.bat, make a shortcut on you destop or startmenu, and launch as a normal shortcut. This is the proper way to start apps on SSD's, not one at a time... The apps above is startet when im booted onto the desktop every day, the hassle of launching one app at a time is over for me...

[B Gates]

SandForce/MLC on sata II port
http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab323/obamaliar/sfmlcsataII.png

and interestingly enough SandForce/MLC SATA III port is slower:
http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab323/obamaliar/sfmlcsataIII.png

[B Gates]

Just manual timing from my shootingtimer, starts when i click the mouse on the .bat file and stops when i click the mouse when all apps are loaded. A little margin of error is there, since my reaction is slower then my shooting timer (that is within 5ms from i start the .bat) when clicking at the end. But on the other hand, starting 30 apps takes a bit of time, so a few hundreds is of little consequence when the difference is several seconds..

Good bootime BTW, you will notice that the full aero and GFX/sound drivers will slow the bootime, I have a 3.xxx time, but not fully operational and eyecandy OS was one of my rules in my SSD-bench thread, so I stick to my own rules... The thread btw is now at 200k views and 247 pages, so we norwegians do like our SSD's ;) Norsemen are legendary for their computer genius for sure.

[Ourasi]

I edited in my last post how to make a .bat file and some commands you can try if you have the apps in the commands installed, plug and play, and the only way to start apps on SSD's ;)

There are some tricks to make bootime more stable, disable readyboot will make it more stable but is abit tricky, and will on average be a little slower. But it will fluctuate some with readyboot on.

[B Gates]

I dont have messenger or live on my computer. You should write up a little app kind of like ANVIL that would run a real world test. It would be another awesome piece of software from Norway.

[Ourasi]

I can try to get Anvil to put an read only applaunch bench on his app, he is one of my threads most frequent quests and contributors after all ;) Spesifically Seqential read - Random Read QD#1 - Random Read QD#2 - Random Read QD#3 - Random Read QD#4 - Random Read QD#5 - Random Read QD#6 - With a fixed realistic compression level of an average app. And give a total score in this alone. That would be the closest a sythetic bench would be to giving a realworld applauch score.

If you post what apps you would like to have in your .bat, I can give you the commands, just write their adress and the name of the .exe, then you can test as many apps as you'd like..

[B Gates]

That would be neat If he would do it. Everyone tests with drives empty and as secondary drives so would this work in that scenario to test a secondary drive?

[B Gates]

Can you give a link to the thread you are referring too?

[Ourasi]

Yes, you can freely choose what drive you will from the dropdown menu, empty or filled, your choice. I'll give him a nudge or two to see what he thinks, a beta with this added might not be to much work as he have some already...

Here is the link to the thread: http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?showtopic=1149834

[B Gates]

look what happens when I RAID 0 them on SATA II ports and install os on array. This is the random test.

http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab323/obamaliar/060-3.png

[Highendtoys]

Just to make a quick point. If the drives were crap then Jon would say they are crap. Jon bought his drives on his own at retail. Also, if they were crap I wouldn't of put the package together. After I reviewed the S301 SLC (regular version) my email was flooded from people asking where to buy them. At the time they were limited to Hong Kong so I thought about how to bring them to the US. At the same time I wanted to kick around the idea of playing a product manager for a couple of weeks so that is what I did. I learned quite a bit. There are only 50 drives so in the grand scheme of things there aren't enough to make me a competitor to anyone. It was my way of having a little fun and one of these days I can show my grand kids something cool.

When all is said and done I'll make less than a grand on the 50 drives so this wasn't done for money either. If you really care to know the money is just getting put back into equipment for testing other products. What I have in the works with power testing and real world NAS testing will cost around 10K so it's not even like the Sig Edition SSD project is taking a big chunk out of those projects.

This is just a really cool drive that was put together for enthusiasts and friends.

It is fast as hell though. Too bad Samsung had to come along with a product that appears to be just as fast right now. We'll see what happens when the Sammy is ran at 50% full.

[Boogerlad]

When the Samsung is 50% full, this drive would be 100% full at similar price points.

[DooRules]

Just to make a quick point. If the drives were crap then Jon would say they are crap. Jon bought his drives on his own at retail. Also, if they were crap I wouldn't of put the package together. After I reviewed the S301 SLC (regular version) my email was flooded from people asking where to buy them. At the time they were limited to Hong Kong so I thought about how to bring them to the US. At the same time I wanted to kick around the idea of playing a product manager for a couple of weeks so that is what I did. I learned quite a bit. There are only 50 drives so in the grand scheme of things there aren't enough to make me a competitor to anyone. It was my way of having a little fun and one of these days I can show my grand kids something cool.

When all is said and done I'll make less than a grand on the 50 drives so this wasn't done for money either. If you really care to know the money is just getting put back into equipment for testing other products. What I have in the works with power testing and real world NAS testing will cost around 10K so it's not even like the Sig Edition SSD project is taking a big chunk out of those projects.

This is just a really cool drive that was put together for enthusiasts and friends.

It is fast as hell though. Too bad Samsung had to come along with a product that appears to be just as fast right now. We'll see what happens when the Sammy is ran at 50% full.


I have full trust in Jon and his methods of testing, was never an issue. If he says they are truly awesome drives that is good enough for me. My point was simply the price. With all the recent price drops going on, on very good drives I might add, it seems very hard for me personally to see why I would pay more than twice as much for one of these as opposed to a much cheaper(price) drive. I get that it is supposed to last so much longer but I swap out components like yesterdays news, as do a lot of you guys. Keep up the good work Bill, like reading your reviews bud.

[SteveRo]

I would think the new Samsung 840 100K IOPS will give them a big run for the money :)

It would be nice to see a head to head compare between the s301 and these new samsung 840's :)

[B Gates]

It would be nice to see a head to head compare between the s301 and these new samsung 840's :) I will do that when I get some 840's

[Highendtoys]

When the Samsung is 50% full, this drive would be 100% full at similar price points.

Mine's blue...blue trumps all, 'nuff said:)

[A||uSiOn]

I will do that when I get some 840's

:) wooo hooooo

SLC = business grade / enterprise no doubt when this become available in quantity we plan to test this in a 24 x 128GB array for some high end VMware customers who run high concurrent user volumes with HA etc etc

Nothing comes even close to these drives, what people miss here is that this SSD basically :banana::banana::banana::banana:s the enterprise market up :) These drives are all 1/10th the cost of literally any other SLC high performance drives so unless ANY retail consumer brand drives come out with SLC i doubt there will be ANY comparison

The only thing I was talking about is the "home grade" customers who look for performance & storage where writing 10,000PE's means nothing :)

[Zaxx]

Chris...any idea how much longer until the SSs hit retail?

[Kain665]

:) wooo hooooo

SLC = business grade / enterprise no doubt when this become available in quantity we plan to test this in a 24 x 128GB array for some high end VMware customers who run high concurrent user volumes with HA etc etc

Nothing comes even close to these drives, what people miss here is that this SSD basically :banana::banana::banana::banana:s the enterprise market up :) These drives are all 1/10th the cost of literally any other SLC high performance drives so unless ANY retail consumer brand drives come out with SLC i doubt there will be ANY comparison

The only thing I was talking about is the "home grade" customers who look for performance & storage where writing 10,000PE's means nothing :)

Yes, with non-existent support these drives will be a hit in the enterprise market. Just do me a favor, send your disappointed customers to me when half their array fails or they have compatibility issues with no support team to resolve it :)

[canthearu]

Yes, with non-existent support these drives will be a hit in the enterprise market. Just do me a favor, send your disappointed customers to me when half their array fails or they have compatibility issues with no support team to resolve it :)

There will still be plenty of buyers who are still prepared to look after themselves and do their own validation (basicly suck it and see). Especially with those kinds of cost savings at stake.

[Kain665]

Then there's also the issue of limited availability. What are any customers running these in any critical environment going to replace them with?

[Highendtoys]

The only thing limited is the blue case and sticker. The regular SuperSSpeed SLC drive goes on sale in the US soon, like next week. The inner PCB is the same.

[SteveRo]

deleted ...

[A||uSiOn]

Yes, with non-existent support these drives will be a hit in the enterprise market. Just do me a favor, send your disappointed customers to me when half their array fails or they have compatibility issues with no support team to resolve it :)

Its almost good as intel's 64GB X25-E support when we asked why did 8 of the 150 we rolled out failed within the first year there answer was send it back to us and we will investigate. Summerised Answer: " These drives were found to have defected parts a replacement drive will be sent out to you"

1. Always have a few hand full of drives spare.
2. Always have different batches in place if possible.
3. Always have rotations in any array of disks when servicing any slave storage node

Please tell me how having a support team for failed drives plays any part of actually maintaining and sustaining any array in house? Any sysadmin won't place the odd's in the hands of the "Enterprise" Support? Let me guess I take it you also know the fact that the Australian market literally has the worse "enterprise" support market when it comes to any SSD based arrays?

[Kain665]

Its almost good as intel's 64GB X25-E support when we asked why did 8 of the 150 we rolled out failed within the first year there answer was send it back to us and we will investigate. Summerised Answer: " These drives were found to have defected parts a replacement drive will be sent out to you"

1. Always have a few hand full of drives spare.
2. Always have different batches in place if possible.
3. Always have rotations in any array of disks when servicing any slave storage node

Please tell me how having a support team for failed drives plays any part of actually maintaining and sustaining any array in house? Any sysadmin won't place the odd's in the hands of the "Enterprise" Support? Let me guess I take it you also know the fact that the Australian market literally has the worse "enterprise" support market when it comes to any SSD based arrays?

Huh, I had no idea. I wonder if these drives are tested to work upside down? :lol:

You make good points, I am just used to a model where manufacturers work closely with customers to resolve any issues they may be having.

[A||uSiOn]

Huh, I had no idea. I wonder if these drives are tested to work upside down? :lol:

You make good points, I am just used to a model where manufacturers work closely with customers to resolve any issues they may be having.

Out of curiosity what manufacturers do you work with that help you resolve dead drive issues and recover your data or give you an explanation why a drive died?

[Gogeta]

Out of curiosity what manufacturers do you work with that help you resolve dead drive issues and recover your data or give you an explanation why a drive died?

Getting off-topic, but Compellent, now Dell, is the first SAN appliance recommendation we make to our customers based on their customer support. It would take A LOT of testimony to convince me they aren't the best vendor in the industry because of their support alone, let alone the technology. Data recovery is completely different, however, and can hopefully be avoided with backups and replication.

[A||uSiOn]

I am a tad confused we talking about reliability of SSD drives VS the SuperSSpeed so its on topic I think you have slightly missed the mark here.

1. Dell dont make any drives they just relabel Seagate/Hitachi/Fujistu
2. Dell does not give you any support of why drives failed, how they failed or any data recovery. We have hundreds of hosted dell servers with 4hour replacement critical support but they do not give you ANY further support for any failed drives? I mean if a array fails thats fine they are great it getting the SAN online but for the actual failed drives its ends there. Its dead. End of Story.
3. Why are we talking about support on SAN's ?

[Kain665]

Most enterprise market SSD vendors will provide indepth compatibility support, Failure Analysis, Destroy in Field replacement plans, and other support services when you purchase their enterprise level drives. If you remove these support services from comparable SF2282/2582 + SLC devices from larger vendors, prices will come down to a similar level.

[Zaxx]

Some extremely sweet numbers for a pair of SS 128s in Intel Raid0 w/trim...

http://www.rwlabs.com/article.php?id=711

[JR.]

Hi Bill,

Please may you post an Anvil standard bench for a single SS SLC.

Thanks in anticipation.

Regds, JR

[B Gates]

http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab323/obamaliar/051_zpsa856af52.png

http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab323/obamaliar/050_zps68aef150.png

[Highendtoys]

http://www.rwlabs.com/article.php?cat=&id=701&pagenumber=8

Anvil on a single drive.

[Highendtoys]

Bill you beat me to it. I had it loaded but then got a phone call.

[Zaxx]

Can't wait to see a full review of the SS 64GB drives. Will be putting a pair in raid0...

[JR.]

Thanks Bill, Highend'

Impressive for a 128GB drive :up:

Regds, JR

[SteveRo]

Any word on performance and availability of the SS 64GB?? :)

[Highendtoys]

Email doug at mydigitaldiscount com and tell him how many you want. Zaxx want's a couple and Doug is hooking him up.

[Zaxx]

The 64GB holds up quite well vs the 128GB (easily the fastest 60/64gb SSD on the planet..:P) but the 128GB easily rules the IOPS.
Here they are side by side...

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?280689-Review-SuperSSpeed-HYPER-SLC-%28Sandforce-SF-2281-Intel-SLC-25nm%29

I've got drive #1 covered...saving for drive #2 and then time to look into a Z77 mobo. Man it makes me sick that Intel wouldn't enable raid trim on the Z68s...sok, I'm doubt a lack of trim will wipe the smile off my face when I'm clockin' 1,000MB/s.:D

[Highendtoys]

A guy at Notebook Review bought on the 128GB drives and will have a review online soon. He just emailed me to tell me how fast the drive is. He said, ".....is quick. From fingerprinting to "windows 7 desktop" showing it's 1 to 2 cycles of the "blue ring", and it gets to login before the windows 7 logo joins together. Am thoroughly impressed."

[Zaxx]

Heh...sounds familiar. I remember when I upgraded from my gen1 Apex 60GB to 2 x 50GB Vertex 2 34nm in raid0...I expected some improvement, now if it makes to the fully formed logo I know something is wrong. lol

[B Gates]

my logo doesnt even make it halfway on sata II

[SteveRo]

Email doug at mydigitaldiscount com and tell him how many you want. Zaxx want's a couple and Doug is hooking him up.

much thanks, approx. price?? :)

[SteveRo]

Is someone still planning on doing a head-to-head compare supersspeed vs Samsung 840 pro? :)

[B Gates]

Is someone still planning on doing a head-to-head compare supersspeed vs Samsung 840 pro? :) as soon as I get an 840 Pro I will

[Highendtoys]

When Samsung gets off their ass and sends an 840 Pro.

As for the 60GB price, I have no idea

[thegt1]

Hey highends, any updates on these, i have a p8 p67 deluxe and i don't know if they will allow trim on raid0, cause that is the only reason i have not grab a couple of those. Btw did you get your hands on some 840 pro, this is the one that i want to see against the superspeed, of course on raid 0 set up.

[B Gates]

Hey highends, any updates on these, i have a p8 p67 deluxe and i don't know if they will allow trim on raid0, cause that is the only reason i have not grab a couple of those. Btw did you get your hands on some 840 pro, this is the one that i want to see against the superspeed, of course on raid 0 set up. If you want RAID 0 TRIM for your P67 then look here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6477/trim-raid0-ssd-arrays-work-with-intel-6series-motherboards-too and no the 840 Pro is not faster with data on the drives. There will be a direct comparison soon at RWLabs.com

[Zaxx]

There will be a direct comparison soon at RWLabs.com

Looks like we got a good brawl in store....insert :evilgrin: here.

[jax7480]

Is someone still planning on doing a head-to-head compare supersspeed vs Samsung 840 pro? :)

Soon...

http://www.hwbox.gr/images/imagehosting/73050af242d818e7.jpg

[Brahmzy]

Yum yum!

[Highendtoys]

Ignore me.

[jax7480]

Just waiting for a couple of Vectors in order for the comparison to be complete...

[Zaxx]

Just waiting for a couple of Vectors in order for the comparison to be complete...

Damn...you'll be locked and loaded for an SSD throw down. Must say I'm a little jealous...well make that really jealous.


btw...look like a forum glitch re: avatars but I'd gladly trade 'Ol Faithful' for the monster showing as my av!

[jax7480]

FYI

http://www.hwbox.gr/reviews/19360-supersspeed-s301-slc-128gb-cr-edition-review-fastest-sandforce-ever-made.html

[Highendtoys]

I wonder why they ran QD64. Someone let them know that QD64 with most SATA drives actually lowers performance over QD32.

[Highendtoys]

Also, the new SuperSSpeed produced after my drives. http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/5106/supersspeed_hyper_gold_s301_128gb_w_5_03_fw_ssd_re view/index.html

SuperSSpeed has them for sale on their website (www.supersspeedus.com) for 250.

[Denonic]

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-iIXILwahGo4/UO2NjV_rwoI/AAAAAAAAAQQ/X6mEw6ZFciQ/s480/blogger-image--562829440.jpghttps://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-hx75CYKdSKY/UO2NkqbRupI/AAAAAAAAAQY/7OtqcHf2IY0/s480/blogger-image--105506155.jpg

Picked these up in Hong Kong.

Having issues with 8 way RAID on my Extreme11 though.

Here is 1 drive running on the Intel X79 port:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-NpidZDB-ukw/UPyAog8SutI/AAAAAAAAARA/-fO-id7LBtU/s503/as-ssd-bench-SuperSSpeed-S301-msahci.jpg

Then here it is on the LSI port:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-4zS9WOh9NOQ/UPyAnBS-VoI/AAAAAAAAAQs/SfAf0oWBtDo/s503/as-ssd-bench-ATA-SuperSSpeed-lsi.jpg

The 4k-64Thrd writes are so much lower
This translates to the 8 way RAID:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-SCB-T6DopiI/UPyAoOe3ERI/AAAAAAAAAQ0/VODtyOp3rRU/s503/as-ssd-bench-ATA-SuperSSpeed--STRIPED.jpghttps://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-HPdKI-DnVA4/UPyAnuwFQOI/AAAAAAAAAQw/O7g8iUjYp0k/s615/ATTO-Disk-Bench.jpg


Anyone have any idea whats going on?

[B Gates]

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-iIXILwahGo4/UO2NjV_rwoI/AAAAAAAAAQQ/X6mEw6ZFciQ/s480/blogger-image--562829440.jpghttps://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-hx75CYKdSKY/UO2NkqbRupI/AAAAAAAAAQY/7OtqcHf2IY0/s480/blogger-image--105506155.jpg

Picked these up in Hong Kong.

Having issues with 8 way RAID on my Extreme11 though.

Here is 1 drive running on the Intel X79 port:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-NpidZDB-ukw/UPyAog8SutI/AAAAAAAAARA/-fO-id7LBtU/s503/as-ssd-bench-SuperSSpeed-S301-msahci.jpg

Then here it is on the LSI port:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-4zS9WOh9NOQ/UPyAnBS-VoI/AAAAAAAAAQs/SfAf0oWBtDo/s503/as-ssd-bench-ATA-SuperSSpeed-lsi.jpg

The 4k-64Thrd writes are so much lower
This translates to the 8 way RAID:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-SCB-T6DopiI/UPyAoOe3ERI/AAAAAAAAAQ0/VODtyOp3rRU/s503/as-ssd-bench-ATA-SuperSSpeed--STRIPED.jpghttps://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-HPdKI-DnVA4/UPyAnuwFQOI/AAAAAAAAAQw/O7g8iUjYp0k/s615/ATTO-Disk-Bench.jpg


Anyone have any idea whats going on? looks like you are benching the cache on your RAID card

[Denonic]

What do you mean?
As far as I know, the Extreme11's LSI controller has no cache.

[B Gates]

What do you mean?
As far as I know, the Extreme11's LSI controller has no cache. I was looking at the capacity listed and it shows 1 drive. I take it that is really 8 drives?

[Denonic]

I was looking at the capacity listed and it shows 1 drive. I take it that is really 8 drives?

Yes. Was reading up someone elses experience with this particular motherboards LSI HBA and the best way to get raid working well was through windows striping rather than hardware. This has the side effect of listing each individual drive in the benchmark dropdowns. Selecting any of them runs the test on the whole volume though.

The most alarming thing is the 230ish MB/s drop in 4K-64Thrd writes running a single drive on the intel vs lsi port.

[B Gates]

Oh I see what you mean. Intel ports are hard to beat. I would be more concerned with 4k writes though for example look at what a pair of Samsung 128GB gets for 4k write performance
http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab323/obamaliar/asssd-2.png

[Denonic]

Oh I see what you mean. Intel ports are hard to beat. I would be more concerned with 4k writes though for example look at what a pair of Samsung 128GB gets for 4k write performance
http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab323/obamaliar/asssd-2.png

Ah right. Yes I was a bit alarmed at first but then I started reading up Vega's results on another thread and they showed similarity in the difference between the 4k writes of the Intel and LSI ports that I'm getting. The 4k-64Thrd writes are much higher on his though. -->Link (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?282326-LSI-RAID-Controller-help-2308-chip-on-board-ASRock-Extreme-11-motherboard-is-slow!)

[magnifico]

Please why dont shipment in italy ?

[B Gates]

Chris Ramseyer Edition S301's in raid 0:
http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab323/obamaliar/14-1_zps38e3b4b0.png

[nik58]

Chris Ramseyer Edition S301's in raid 0:
http://i876.photobucket.com/albums/ab323/obamaliar/14-1_zps38e3b4b0.png

hello bill, that stripe did you use?

[B Gates]

64KB :yepp:

[magnifico]

So, this drive is very great ssd ...mhmmm

[B Gates]

So, this drive is very great ssd ...mhmmm Its my favorite:yepp: