Pretty impressive numbers and price on the 128GB...
However, I see no mention of onboard cache or what kind of controller is running in the SSD.... Anybody know?
http://legionhardware.com/document.php?id=804
Printable View
Pretty impressive numbers and price on the 128GB...
However, I see no mention of onboard cache or what kind of controller is running in the SSD.... Anybody know?
http://legionhardware.com/document.php?id=804
I think they use the same controller found in the ocz vertex drives and patriot warp v3. The review looks very impressive especially the write tests. These guys should take apart the drive and tell us who makes the controller
Well, at $300 for the $120 (their prediction), the Titan is a much better buy than the Vertex... IF it comes with the cache.
Hmm.... looks like I've found the replacements for my two 74gb raptors for my desktop rig. After seeing how insanely fast just a single G.Skill 128gb SSD (which is slower than these new ones) made my XPS m1530 notebook, two of these Titan's in Raid-0 would be incredible.
Given the look of the Titan and the read/write speeds being identical to the OCZ Vertex's claims, I'd say it's highly probably they're exactly the same product. Neither of these companies actually produces their SSD's, I believe OCZ uses Samsung and although I'm not 100% positive I strongly suspect G.Skill does too.
Well, what's up with the MASSIVE price difference? The Titan is priced $200 lower on the 120GB??
First: Is that price confirmed?Quote:
Originally Posted by Brahmzy
Second: I don't know. Greed on OCZ's part maybe? That's not a put down on OCZ, but looking at the numerous similarities... it just seems so likely that Samsung is the maker behind them both and that therefore they should be the same product that short of anyone pulling some real proof to the contrary I'm sure they are.
155/90 R/W?
That's Solid, not Vertex.
Vertex claims 200/160.
^No you confused the regullar Gskill 64GB SSD they used to compare it with.
They got exactly what was claime for these drives.
Quote:
G.Skill claims read speeds of up to 200MB/s with the Titan 128GB SSD, and that is exactly what we got once 128KB blocks or bigger. In fact, we reached 210MB/s, which was most impressive. This made the G.Skill Titan 128GB SSD roughly 30% faster than the standard G.Skill 64GB SSD, while it was around 15% slower than the Intel X25‐M 80GB SSD.
Price would be awesome, but I think the links on that page lead to their older model not this one. I the introduction they also mention that G.Skill is asking around $230 for their current 128GB SSDs...Quote:
G.Skill claimed an insane 160MB/s for the write speed of the Titan and what do you know, once we reached the 64KB blocks that is exactly what we got. There were quite a few instances where the G.Skill Titan 128GB SSD almost reached 170MB/s, making it more than twice as fast as the Intel X25‐M 80GB SSD, which is just simply mind blowing!
We'll see...
Thanks for the correction, this indeed looks like Vertex. :)
Can't wait to see the price of Super Talent 16 GB. :)
no cache on g-skill what I could notice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Serra
that is one big difference.
ocz use new controller on vertex.
I simply wait for reviews heh.
looks very nice. i'd like to see everest benches too.
Pity no 64gb version :(((
Hard to believe the review would not have stated the drive had 64MB cache if it was the same as the Vertex.Quote:
Originally Posted by flopper
NewEgg actually had a few in stock and got bought early this morning... only place that has (or had) them so far... and the price is a go.
I bet $100 there's no cache and these will suffer from write stuttering :( A real shame.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231242
A note:
G-Skill Titan, Super Talent ME, OCZ Vertex, (?) Patriot Warp 3 were supposed to be the same drive.
Only OCZ mentiones cache. So either these are different (I doubt it) or the others just don't talk about features most users don't understand (well, unusual too :D).
I put the question mark on Patriot because it's listed to have 240 MB/s reads.
I disagree. If it's the exact same drive, there would not be a cost delta of $200 between OCZ's 128GB and G.Skill's 128GB... SOMETHING is different - two hundred dollars different. Not even OCZ is that greedy.Quote:
Originally Posted by m^2
4 of them in RAID 10 for a server OS. :yepp:Quote:
Originally Posted by m^2
For everybody
I would like to buy a $200 SSD drive mainly for Windows. What SSD brand would you recommend? (First 3 choices), and what models would you recommend?
How big? There's was sb. in here who needed 250 GB. Some need 20.
I agree that the price differential is perplexing. In fairness though, the prices in the review don't seem to be actual market price so there is still room for change there.
As to the cache/no cache thing - that may be the case. I'm sure it's no real trouble for (presumably Samsung) to just ship them without it... but why would they bother? And even then, the price drop shouldn't be so substantial. If they are all using the same basic box, there are a couple of options:
1. OCZ figures (correctly) that they have sufficient market share to get away with it.
2. G.Skill really wants to get themselves into this market and is prepared to take a hit on these sales to get their name out there
3. These things cost *that* little to make and we've been suckered all this time.
4. Some sort of purchase agreement between OCZ and Samsung is biting them (or the reverse for G.Skill) due to a contract stating that at time of purchase they would pay X dollars per unit, then Samsung decided they could in fact produce them for Y dollars instead thanks to some new plant or something.
I'm not sure what I'd go with. I would be interested to see an OCZ rep speak up about this. If the OCZ product is different in any way and the price points don't change, they should be letting us know how their product is different ASAP.
I'd recommend waiting for benchmarks to come out on OCZ Vertex and Apex drives. They should be out in a week at most (per OCZ), so we should have some more info by then.Quote:
Originally Posted by slim142
That's why I just posted the $299 NewEgg link above. The Titan reviewer was DEAD ON, price wise. As far as the OCZ goes, They MSRP for nearly twice as much as the Titan and are even MORE expensive on the pre-order sites...Quote:
Originally Posted by Serra
I'm just sick of waiting on all of this to be honest. I'm trying to build a new i7 box here and not having to rebuild the OS / apps 2 weeks later...
Oh well... price of early adoption.
Ok Ill wait for reviews. I think a 64Gbs (As minimum) SSD for windows would be great. Sometimes I download files and I forget to move them to the respective drive so thats why I want at least 64Gbs at least.
As for the OCZ drives, which one is faster, Vertex or Apex? What are the differences and which one has the cache?
Yeah to wait is actually the best advice.Quote:
Originally Posted by slim142
Apex = 2*Solid in RAID 0. According to specs, RAIDing gave little in terms of speed. JMicron, so avoid unless you're sure you can live with stuttering.
Don't remember price or exact specs, it's surely not an option for me, so I didn't bother.
Vertex = all new, with cache. Almost surely way better, but $249 for 60 GB.
The GSkill drive uses the JMicron controller JMF602. I asked the reviewer if it did and he posted some decent pictures of it. So now we know the difference.
So possibly same chips but cheaper controller and no cache (compared with Vertex)?
Hmmm. Whether the price difference is worth it will be up to the consumer if that's the case.
Even if that is the case, at these price points they'd make a good deal for anyone with a hardware RAID card or who plan on using it as a drive where SteadyState is an option (not that it would be the majority of people).
I'm thinking that it does use the same chips from Samsung as you said, but the Vertex would use a different controller and has cache. Like Brahmzy I can't wait for the Vertex to be available and I'm dying to see a review of it too. OCZ's Vertex should be exciting as we may finally get an alternative to Intels now overpriced MLC SSDs. I really do hope the Vertex delivers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Serra
Considering that SteadyState is beta, I can't think of any use for it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Serra
For the drives - yes, probably there are some uses in the industry where you don't mix reads with writes and don't access it randomly and need either speed or ruggedness.
As OS drive? No, thanks.:down:
Now I'm not going to get into the stutter debate, but I will say this - I use an OCZ Core Series (v1) as an OS drive in my laptop and although my usage habits are what I would call "regular" (ie. just general browsing, small document editing) I haven't really run into a stutter more than 1 or 2 times that I noticed. I realize it's very much based on usage habits though so I'm just going to leave it there. Mileage may vary.
Quote:
Originally Posted by m^2
I guess Vertex is the way to go. Thanks for the explanation.
Would you consider another brand before OCZ?
wait for reviews, only way to get some good info and user experiences.Quote:
Originally Posted by slim142
I'll repeat that I agree with flopper, better wait.Quote:
Originally Posted by slim142
Now all cheap brands sell the same drives, the main difference and reason to choose one over another is the sticker color.
Possibly it's changing now, apparently G-Skill is not Vertex, more like Apex...but with 40 MB/s slower reads. Either different implementation of the same idea or the same drive with more realistic specs. ;)
only explanation for titans results is cache
or its super duper jmicron
See the pics, there's no DRAM.Quote:
Originally Posted by NapalmV5
They didn't do mixed R/W, so no word about stuttering.
But indeed, very good for JMicron.
yeh i just went thru the review.. cache not evident
ok I just found this site but I don't speak german. It looks like it does uses the J-micron controller or maybe 2 J-micron controllers http://ht4u.net/reviews/2009/gskill_...ssd/index2.php
yep raid
This really makes me wonder about the upcoming Intel ICH11R - pretty sure it'll be SATA3. How hard would it be to stick a little bit of cache on the mobo?
But yeah, as attractive as the price and percieved performance is of the TITAN 128GB, I'm afraid the Vertex is still the way to go. Maybe reviews will prove me wrong... and maybe I'm going to get so impatient I order 2 of them and find out for myself...
For me it is for one reason: capacity, i need smaller drives to use more of them :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Brahmzy
raid shouldnt give a big increase as the SSD is already electronic, with platter drives the raid allows writing to one while reading form the other at the same time so you get a big increase over the mechanical disadvantage... and with raiding you have the potential of more problems and BSOD's.
also from what I have found, the SSD's aren't that great for a boot drive. I might wait to see more people doing this before booting from one. I want to get one and use as a gaming drive, but want to wait till the technology stabilizes a bit.
What? RAID that reads from one disk and writes to the next? I think what you're thinking of is NON-RAIDed disks. RAID-0 (used as it is the level being discussed) reads from both *simultaneously* and writes to them both *simultaneously*, pulling/pushing 1/2 the total data to/from each disk. Hence RAID doesn't give a small increase in speeds, it's a *theoretical* doubling from 1 to 2 disks (dropping off as you go to more).Quote:
Originally Posted by Locke
Why would SSD's not be that good for a boot drive? Because they're ridiculously faster in sequenial reads? Because they're hundreds of times faster in random seeks? I'll admit that if your usage habits are combined with a drive which is prone to stutter that could be an issue - but the solution to that is to buy a drive (or controller) with cache... or just get an SSD with a better controller in the first place. SSD's aren't bad as boot drives - they're notably superior in every way except capacity.Quote:
Originally Posted by Locke
HUH?!Quote:
Originally Posted by Locke
Dude, SSDs as boot drive are EXACTLY where they shine right now. You're completely contradicting all known experience/facts etc. Typo?
I find the lack of OCZ representatives in this thread disturbing!
:D
Set the thread straight...
Me too - there all kind of ignoring the hole thing. Either the Vertex line has a HUGE problem that has delayed the released (could be with the new technology, like an emergency firmware revision fix before release to resellers) or the Vertex is just so awesome that anybody that has witnessed them in action was so astounded, they can longer unction as a normal human being.Quote:
Originally Posted by XS Janus
As you could see, Titan's design is based on a raid controller Jmicron JMB390 (SATA to 2 Port SATA Raid Port Multiplier RAID 0/1/JBOD) in front of 2 Jmicron JMF602 (Hi-Speed USB & SATA II 3.0G Combo to flash 8-CH), each one in front of 8 memory IC.
http://www.nokytech.net/images/dossi..._128Gb-10s.jpghttp://www.nokytech.net/images/dossi..._128Gb-09s.jpg
http://www.nokytech.net/images/dossi..._128Gb-12s.jpghttp://www.nokytech.net/images/dossi..._128Gb-11s.jpg
Regards
Wouldn't this RAID0-ing two drives internaly be concidered cheating of some sort?
I mean sure it will pump up the sinthetic numbers fast, but would it bring as much of real world performance like a single controller SSD of matching speeds would?
I hope someone gets to the botom of this when we have enough products to make a feasable comparison...
:)
Most modern SSDs today use NAND flash that is capable of 25Mb/sec. The Intel X25-E SLC SSD is using a 10-channel controller and achieves the 250Mb/sec. Mtrons use 4 or 5 channels with the same/simlar NAND flash chips.Quote:
Originally Posted by XS Janus
But those MLCs are doing it in a different way: they put two V2/Solid SSDs in one packaging with a separate controller to handle both of them.
Kinda like the native & glued-together dual core debate with the Pentium-D and the Athlon X2 CPUs, or the Phenom Vs Kentsfield quads. Only in the case of these drives it's more like 2 Celerons glued together :ROTF:
It's far cheaper than designing a new controller and it works.
IMO it's OK.
Why would anyone from OCZ be posting is a thread about a G.Skill product? That it is being compared to an OCZ product doesn't really mean anything. I'm sure everyone at OCZ has more to do then chase after speculation throughout the web.Quote:
Originally Posted by XS Janus
Quote:
Originally Posted by Praz
Well, things prove you wrong :)
This is why people expect such behavior from OCZ.
The marketing works well for the fools :up:
Easy now, the idea is brilliant!Quote:
Originally Posted by XS Janus
It's a step in the right direction towards cost/value which hopefully leads to use by the masses..................
Am i the only that noticed this but, there is still 2 Jmicron controllers and anything below 32 is crap...at 4 its showing 20......while the intel has 84
It's still going to stutter still as an OS disk.
The Titan sounds very similiar to the OCZ Apex drive not the Vertex.
http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=804&p=7
Edit: More than a few of you have been concerned with the lack of cache featured on the G.Skill Titan SSD’s. In the past MLC drives that have not been supported by a memory buffer have suffered from a ‘shuddering’ problem which causes the system to constantly hang once the small buffer within the controller is full.
The JMicron 602B controller has been the main culprit, the very controller that is used by the Titan SSD’s. This controller only features a tiny 16KB cache where as the Intel MLC controller scores a much bigger 256KB cache. This shuddering problem is most evident when reading and writing data at the same time.
Extracting a large amount of compressed files while trying to surf the net would be a real-world example of this scenario. However the G.Skill Titan features two JMicron 602B controllers which work in a RAID0 like configuration, and this seems to have solved the shuddering problem, at least as far as we can tell.
For roughly a week now I have been running Windows Vista 64-bit on the G.Skill Titan 128GB SSD, and if I am honest, it is incredible. Previously I was using the Intel X25-M, which was also very good. However there is a noticeable improvement when using the G.Skill Titan 128GB SSD. There is certainly no delay at all, and I have never seen a Core i7 965 Extreme Edition system move with such incredible pace - almost everything is instant!
Sounds good to me, so far!
:)
This makes me want to get rid of all my SCSI hardware....
Sounds good indeed.
I'd still like to see IOMeter though, the fact that one person runs it w/out issues isn't really convincing.
I guess we'll know the most correct answer in 2 months.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brahmzy
Umm.... I own THREE of G.Skill's 128gb FM-25S2S-128GB SSD's. One in my notebook and now two more in my desktop running RAID-0 and I have not experienced ANY stuttering at all.
I believe you're confusing G.Skill's MLC drives with the ones made by OCZ, which I know from experience have stuttering problems even when you get rid of indexing and all the other things OCZ recommends on their website.
I'm sure glad I went with G.Skill
Up to my knowledge they are identical.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew LB
The only difference that make them stutter or not is usage pattern. You would be fine with OCZ as well.
I think you mean 25MB/s.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chosen.
Anyway I just ordered the 64GB regular G.SKILL drive. I saw some pretty decent numbers out of it. Someone on newegg said windows loaded in 4-6 seconds. Probably has a bunch to do with tweaking Vista isn't that good with SSD. There is a great tweaking guid on the OCZ forums. I may be testing Windows7 just because of the much stronger native support.
On another note these drives are so expensive still I have no clue why they don't at least build on as much cache as the platter based hard drives have. It wouldn't be very expensive at all (compared to the flash) to throw 32MB on there.
The Titan appears to me to be GSkill's version of the Apex which is shipping today Jan 17th and the Vertex will not ship until at least Jan 30 according to Tony @ OCZ. I haven't seen the pricing on the Apex yet but it should be comparable to GSkills. Although the Vertex should be a better drive, for the price, the Apex/Titan are going to be a better value. I don't think you are going to see a major difference in performance between these and the Vertex so unless you have to have the absolute fastest (that would include many on this forum LOL) then IMO it's not worth the extra cost as prices go now. The 60GB Vertex is already priced $250+ (I'm sure they'll end up closer to $300) and that is really not big enough for most people for an OS drive.
you can check the prices here
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/produc...d=14&subid=910
not a big difference between vertex and apex as I expected (according to OCZ's statements of course)
I'd assume its dependent on usage pattern since no one really has the same usage patterns.
As like Andrew, I'm also using G Skill 128GB SSD w/ OS on it, although I have mine hooked up to my Areca raid card that has 2GB of cache. It works flawlessly and I've only noticed it stutter once in the time I've used it. Funny enough, I don't have mine raided, its more of a jbod but it wouldn't allow that setting so its set as a single drive Raid0.
Currently I'm eyeing the Vertex drive, but waiting to see how the reviews go. Would love to get one to put into my laptop.
LOL, XP in a 6GB partition here (1.5 GB spare)... :rofl: And that's not a "lite" version.Quote:
Originally Posted by FZ1
What are "most people" keeping in their "OS" drives? :confused:
most people have better things to do than keeping OS drive smallQuote:
Originally Posted by IanB
the just need a big fast drive :)
Do nothing about it and you won't need a big drive. It takes time to fill it, not to keep empty.
OK, but that means you have to keep all apps etc on a separate drive which defeats the purpose of having an SSD (ok, you'll have a fast boot - whoopee). I'd like one big enough for the OS, a few games, and some critical apps like Photoshop, video editing software, etc. Music, photos, misc files would go on a traditional HDD.Quote:
Originally Posted by IanB
My Vista install is currently right around 60GB.
All my programs except for games, and I have _REALLY_ a lot of them, take 1.6 GB.
I am really tempted to say screw the Vertex's with their ever-changing release dates and grab two of these 120GB Titan's, RAID0 'em n be done.
ESPECIALLY with the reports of no stuttering ...
Its not just the boot, most of us using SSD are doing so to get rid of system lag. Some people don't care or notice but 1/4 or sometimes even 1/10 a second delay annoys me.Quote:
Originally Posted by FZ1
Keep in mind that there are plenty of reports of "no stuttering" with the OCZ drives too. All depends on patterns of usage. To be perfectly honest even with a good raid card there are still some slowdowns here and there with my OCZ V2 drives...Quote:
Originally Posted by Brahmzy
this SSD drives looks good but the price are still high
for benching if are been there some 80GB SSD for 30€ after i would like one :up:
Very true... I'm trying to think of MY usage patterns and how they might cause any type of slowdowns....Quote:
Originally Posted by One_Hertz
Can you list some real world examples or applications as to when these slowdowns may occur?
I've heard Outlook (which I don't use at home) may cause slowdowns... anything else?
Random small writes, right?
Mostly when multitasking. Yesterday I was copying 30GB of files (mix of small and large) onto the OCZ array. During that I was browsing the internet. It was all fine until I clicked on a youtube link. That caused the whole system to lock up and all operations stopped for ~4 seconds. Writing an IM to somebody while those 30GB were being copied took ~1s each message. If not doing the copying then any normal task will not cause any issues.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brahmzy
so is this faster than a WD Raptor WD1500ADFD?
YES. In almost every way.Quote:
Originally Posted by tbone8ty
yes I agree,
had (still have them) 3x 1500ADFD's,
2x ssd's 64gb's (v2 jmicron) perform at consistently higher levels......................
if you get the shuttering i wouldn't call it faster :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Brahmzy
but if u have a raid hardware controller with cache then yes.
even the ocz solid series £60 for 30gb will be faster
IDK I think its a Vista problem. There are several types of fixes on the OCZ forums that are good for all SSD not just OCZ. Also windows7 is supposed to be a lot more tweaked for SSD as well.
windows 7 currently just disable defragging.
and i think index, I had to tweak windows 7 a lot.
I thought it detected SSD and alligned the drive as well? Do you still have to allign it manually?
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...ad.php?t=48309
alignment is auto with vista and w7.
Are you sure? I thought I read somewhere on the OCZ forums, that even in Vista, on a RAID0, multiple SSD array, you still had to align this and that to 64 something something.Quote:
Originally Posted by flopper
If I don't have to do that, that's great, but I read that there would still be tangible gains, even in Vista-created partitions.
:confused:
:rofl: :ROTF: :rofl: :ROTF: :rofl: :up:Quote:
Originally Posted by Brahmzy
another review of the titan ssd:
http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1465&pageID=6164
Wow that is possibly one of the worst reviews I have ever read lol. Anyhow, from CrystalMark we can see that it is based on the same controller as the OCZ Core drives (only 3MB/s random writes) so it will behave in the same manner with the stutters and all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mtrx
o The alignment of NTFS partition to SSD geometry is important for SSD performance in case of Windows XP and Windows XP upgrade to Windows Vista and Windows 7Quote:
Originally Posted by Brahmzy
+ The first Windows XP partition starts at sector #63; the middle of a SSD page
+ Misaligned partition can degrade device’s performance down to 50% caused by read-modify-write
+ The example with 4k page size
+ Implementing correct alignment according to the latest ATA and SCSI spec.
Its for windows xp as xp has a different set up.
vista and w7 is done as you set up ur OS.
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...6&postcount=85
I use a hw raid card (pci-e x8), this is the only way I would consider using ssd's at this time,Quote:
Originally Posted by karateo
and that is what I use with 2x (64gb v.2 jmicron)in a raid0 config,
my preference for o/s is raid5 but cost for ssd's is too high.......
Thanks I'll have to try the much longer fix.
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...ad.php?t=47212
BTW I'll probably get the raid card when I get a vertex 2 ;)
Seriously the cost is not going to be an issue for much longer. A year ago it was more for a 32GB drive that wasn't nearly as fast than the $129 I paid for a 64GB. Thats just to tide me over 1-2 years anyway ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by swiftex
The Egg has them in stock as of a minute ago. I just pulled the trigger on a 128gig.
Yeah, I got the NewEgg Notify email... 15 seconds later I put 2 128GB's in the cart and clicked submit with next day shipping.Quote:
Originally Posted by genec57
I'll be posting some pretty serious RAID0 benchmarks up here Wednesday or Thursday night for y'all. Gonna take me a bit to load the OS n what not. Maybe I'll duck out of work early. :D
Whoa, this review just gave me some real warm fuzzies about my purchase....
The reviewers are not seeing ANY write issues with these drives due to the dual controllers. Gettin' excited!!!
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/sto...b-ssd-review/1
So wouldn't this fact:hamper the real life situations in performance?Quote:
Unlike a RAID0 array though, data is not uniformly striped across the drive - entire files can be written to specific cells.
I'm just scarred that these awesome reads/writes won't just stay as marketing based on HDtach-like results.
Hope "One Herz" or some other brave soul comes by and prove real life performance of these internaly raided SSDs when they become available to the public!
:)
that bit-tech article shows some promise..............
The article itself maybe, but not so much the product, check page 4 and you can see that there are still situations where the titan doesn't stand a chance against some mechanical drives.Quote:
Originally Posted by swiftex
Buying a performance gain in one situation with a performance loss in another situation would be one thing, but paying a lot of money on top of the performance trade off just trashes any value of SSD's, the introduction of cache and new controllers will change that soon though (hopefully).
It barely loses out there, and you need to ask yourself if that situation really applies to you, if so, what's the harm in doing that work on your normal drive?
Sure it costs a large amount and you expect it to win in everything, but the technology is still in its infancy yet where it does win, it is doing it by quite a distance.
UPS says my 2 will be on the porch this afternoon... woot!
Can't wait for some RAID0 Titan action tonight! I'll post some benches against my 3x RAID0 Velociraptors tonight hopefully.
From my experience with a 128gb G.Skill SSD in my Dell XPS m1530 notebook, 2x G.Skill 128gb TITAN drives in Raid-0 in my workstation.... I've yet to have a single stuttering issue running the following OS's.Quote:
Originally Posted by ewitte
Vista x32
Vista x64
Windows7 x64
OSx86 Leopard x64
And a few distro versions of Linux.
Once again!!! NO STUTTERING while using G.Skill MLC SSD's.
I have the 64MB G.Skill and also haven't seen the issue in Windows 7 but I also did quite a few tweaks to prevent it. Its nice going through random menus I never went to before and stuff popping up instantly :D
@Brahmzy: Please do more than just HDtach and HDtune. Along with those, post some MP3 and .iso R/W tests like they did in this bit-tech review compared to your velociraptor array!
:)