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Is now listed in several Norwegian webshops :eek:
Availability is unconfirmed March 13th?
40GB SSDSA2CT040G310
80GB SSDSA2CW080G310
120GB SSDSA2CW120G310
160GB SSDSA2CW160G310
300GB SSDSA2CW300G310
600GB SSDSA2CW600G310
Prices arent that bad actually, a bit cheaper than the G2.
The 600GB is listed at $1000-$1100
Link to Anands 2010 article on the G3
Interesting that Mf # is 40GB SSDSA2CT040G310. Are these really G3/320? I wonder how gimped 40GB version is in terms of # of channels as compared to 80Gb.Quote:
Originally Posted by Anvil
SKU's ending with
10 = Brown box
K5 = Reseller box
B5 = Retail box
The G3 part is more interesting ;)
I expect there will be more info on this shortly, the only thing I know is that it is 3Gb/s.
Can't find them via Google on any site other than forums - what are the prices?
600GB for 1000-1100$ is not bad! Frankly, I think I know where this month's paycheck is going :D
These are all estimates, they might be a bit high, they normally are due to the "new" factor.
40GB -> $90
80GB -> $160
120GB -> $210
160GB -> $300
300GB -> $550
600GB -> $1100
Top 2 seem nice in prices, and if those fall in price somewhat it'll be quite good. I doubt we'll see 600GB version however, the same way we didn't see 320GB G2 :(
Are you sure those prices are in $, not in EURO and not 1000-unit prices? :) I wonder what the prices in this part of the world will be... (East Asia)
Using the same conversion factor the Intel 510 250GB should cost ~ $600
Newegg lists the 510 250GB at ~$615
So, the conversion factor looks ok, we'll just have to wait and see.
edit:
You don't think we'll see the 600GB?
I've already ordered it. :cool:
Sure doesn't look like the ground breaking price drops everything thought they would.
If the prices are correct we are looking at a price drop from ~$400 -> ~$300 for the 160GB, I think that is pretty good.
Now, lets get/find some more info about performance.
Anand listed
Up to 50'/40' iops - read/write
Up to 250/170MB/s sequential throughput
30-60TB 4K random writes.
Here's to hoping we'll see it and at even lower than that price ;) I sure want a few of 'em. That'll finally completely remove the need for HDDs for me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Anvil
Why is random performance measured in TB now? What ever happened to the xxMB/s like Crystal Disk Mark shows?
Could you post links?
It's still measured in iops, the TB part is all about endurance.
The G2 specs are 7.5-15TB of 4K random writes and so this is quite an increase.
Prisjakt is a better link
(some Norwegian translation : Pris = Price, jakt = hunting, so "Price hunting")
According to that, 80GB is 152€....Postville 80GB is still 190€ here...Quote:
Originally Posted by Anvil
(OT : "Jakt" in Norwegian--> "Jacht" in Dutch...yesterday i wondered about the origin of the word "yacht" and i searched for it...interesting thing, how similar these two languages are...)
Ah c***... that's ~1025EUR not 1025$ :( There goes my hope of good prices :(
600gb ssdsa2cw600g310 -> 6392nok -> 1128usd
No, you need to deduct the vat 25%, the prices I estimated are correct.
examples
G3 600GB > 7990 NOK - 25% tax = 6392 NOK / 6 ~ $1065
510 250GB > 4500 NOK - 25% tax = 3600 NOK / 6 ~ $600
The current exchange rate is 5.63, I used 6 as there is some slowness involved.
edit:
I see czesiu answered, partly :)
edit2:
The prices are generally quite high when first announced, my guess is about 5% lower once things settle down.
Ummm, but why? Not rather use a bunch of smaller drives in RAID?Quote:
Originally Posted by Anvil
I need the capacity for my laptop.
I've been waiting for larger drives for a long time.
I see; that makes sense! :up:
Hope you'll give it a go in your desktop first and post some results.
I am personally wanting large capacity SSDs to replace my 1TB storage drive. It is a bit too expensive to hold all my media on SSDs still. I don't think I am willing to pay much over $1000 for 1TB. Hopefully someone starts making budget SSDs for this purpose.
Screw that, can't exactly avoid VAT without going to the states :(
6400 NOK = 1135$ at current exchange rate. For EU prices (with VAT), that would be nice. For US prices (no tax), that's high :(
For smaller drives it might get reduced fairly fast, but I highly doubt we'll see as fast price changes for the 600GB one - provided it comes out really :(
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anvil
oh sure, in this sense 1025$ does ~equal 1025€ :-)Quote:
Originally Posted by alfaunits
Anyway it seems that the new drives should make a jump to lower prices comparing to current 34nm SSDs
jesus still very expensive!
Anvil have these shown up in stock anywhere in your country? Does anyone know the "official" launch date on these?
No, and the listings have been removed from the websites.
(available documents list March 2011 as First Availablity)
There should be some more info within March I guess, lets see what materializes first :), Crucial M4, Intel 320 or the Vertex 3.
I don't think there is an official launch date from Intel yet. I saw a rumor a couple weeks ago that it would be April. Before that, the rumor was March, and before that February, and before that, 2010 Q4.
Apparently, things are going so well over at Intel that they are going to launch their 25nm MLC based 320 Series (Postville Refresh), ahead of schedule, on the 28th of March. Intel 320 series SSD is set to replace the current X25-V and X25-M series at the same price point targeting mainstream consumers, SMBs, data centres and embedded markets.
(...)
Available in 5 capacities; 40GB, 80GB, 120GB, 160GB, 300GB and 600GB, they are estimated to be priced at $109, $189, $239, $329, $569 and $1119 respectively.
http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-fi...led/11655.html
Thanks,
So, another week to wait.
Not overly impressed by these figures but lets see how they perform, they are supposed to use an onboard cache.
-Up to 39,500 IOPS random 4 KB reads; up to 23,000 IOPS random 4 KB writes
-Full Disk Encryption via AES 128 bit Encryption Technology
-Enhanced power loss management
-1.2M hours MTBF
-Intel® 25nm compute NAND
5? Heh.Quote:
Originally Posted by vrzone
haha:) maybe they have more typos there ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by johnw
Those prices are markedly unimpressive.
I want one
Indeed. It seems 4k performance has dropped with 25nm and sequential speeds have gone up. If that was offset with a 50% price reduction then hey, but over $1,000 for 600GB drive is just lunacy. :down:Quote:
Originally Posted by saint-francis
4K writes are much higher compared to G2 http://download.intel.com/design/fla...eam/322296.pdfQuote:
Originally Posted by Ao1
Yeah, since Intel intentionally limited the write speeds on G1/G2 ;)
G3 is a minor evolutionary step - we need a revolutionary step!
The new drives have much larger DRAM and a power cap. 8k pages and 25nm seem to equal slower 4K read performance. Write performance is improved, but that is the result of cache. 4K write and faster sequential speeds don’t really do it for me if they come at the expense of higher 4K read latency. l might just but another G2 before they disappear.
I'm not going to order more of the G2s, I'm confident that the G3s are better drives all things considered and 4K low QD performance wasn't G1/G2s strongest points.
With this new info on 4K 25nm performance it looks like the SF controller is very strong but I'll definately be ordering some more of the G3s.
We might also see a need for more of the 8KB benchmarks, the iometer workstation and database patterns are already 100% 8KB benchmarks.
Some more info on the G320
Attachment 113086
No info on the 600GB yet.
Cluster size needs to move to 8kb on these new SSDs... 4kb does not make sense if pages are 8kb. If the cluster is 8kb then we need to test 8kb performance.
A lot of things might need adjustments :)
Here's an old HDTune I found last year (2010/10), notice the 4KB QD1 result, that's what's interesting, I know HDTune isn't a great tool for SSDs but it shows QD1 alright.
This is an older revision 2BW and the new one is 2CW and so things might have changed.
(I can't vouch for the validity of this, but it looks promising)
Attachment 113088
I found a test of the 80GB 320 Series and it's not what I hoped for. (tested on an AMD MB, Asus M4A88TD-M, 880G/SB850)
4KB low QD results looks like any other 25nm I've seen, not impressed iow.
Hopefully, the >= 160GB will scale better on randoms.
No sign of the 256MB cache, just a small 32MB cache according to screenshots.
here's the review if anyone else is interestedQuote:
Originally Posted by Anvil
http://www.expreview.com/14414-1.html
controller is the same chip as G2!?!? :down:
Hmmmm. Yeah. I get the feeling our current benchmark utilities are not showing us the real story. Need more options that will better reflect real-world.
why do you say that?Quote:
Originally Posted by Brahmzy
same controller + same size cache + 25nm NAND
no reason it should be faster
Some examples of the 320 160GB
Link to forum (google translate)
The raid-0 tests are w/o WBC and so the results could have been much higher.
Grabbed from that same forum
Attachment 113250 Attachment 113251
The score is about 80 points down from a clean G2 of the same size.
Sure, I posted performance on the old/new G2 firmware some time ago here at XS :)
Link to thread
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...2&d=1296322147 http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...0&d=1301316111
This comparison makes me wonder if the score is weighted too much on the 64K Thread part of the test.
It just doesn't look right.
I believe 4k 64 is highly weighted in the final score, but even taking that into account the G3 is a huge disappointment, especially on the pricing. Mainstream mediocre performance at an enthusiast price = (epic) fail.
Here is to hoping that G2 prices drop quite a bit so I can justify snapping a few up. Doubt it though. A lot of UK retailers still have G1’s that are priced higher than G2’s.
Reviewed at tomshardware along with the m4
And another one of the 300GB at StorageReview
and TechReport
and TheSSDReview
and Legitreviews
All in all its fairly good for an 3Gb/s drive. (based on the reviews I've read, so far)
I disagree. Certainly the 320 is not a top performer, but it is not meant to be. The performance is "good enough" for most users (granted, xtremesystems is not "most users"). The prices are pretty good. It looks like the 160GB 320 will be the sweet spot for the 320 series, and it will probably sell for about $300, which is nice compared to nearly $400 for the X25-M 160GB.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ao1
For me, the selling points for the 320 are these:
* Intel reliability -- well under 1% annual failure rate
* data protection -- XOR / RAID-4-like redundancy
* power-loss protection with on-board capacitors
* low power usage
* SSD toolbox program
For any desktop system that does not have a Sandybridge motherboard (i.e., a good 6Gbps SATA controller), I think the Intel 320 series will be more than satisfactory for most users, and most importantly, it will be likely to be trouble-free and easy to use.
But, of course, it is not for xtreme users. They will probably want a Sandforce 2XXX.
So when I will be able to buy them at retailer. I want to get one but there are no sign when they are available to order
A non-XS user won't know what the above things mean or that it has them :DQuote:
Originally Posted by johnw
IMO, for XS-ers only reliability might be of interest here. Speeds are not on par, the drive is in its own bracket - neither slow as the old G2, neither fast as even old SSDs, much less as new ones.
Unless the price is extremely lower than the rest, I don't see it as a viable buying option.
It's not that we need >G3 speeds, but if we can have them, with the same capacity and same price, realiability won't make me bite.
Just my 2cents - or 20cents, the inflation since the invention of the term prolly made it higher :D
I don’t disagree with the selling points, just the price. Another gripe is that (according to Anandtech) “apparently the G2 controller had a number of features on-die, but not implemented in firmware.” So just like TRIM not being provided on G1 drives we now find out that encryption and NAND redundancy features were not switched on in the G2 drives. (And will remain switched off).Quote:
Originally Posted by johnw
Of course, as it should be. Most users will just know that the Intel 320 just works. Reliably. Trouble-free. Fast. And does not lose their data.Quote:
Originally Posted by alfaunits
How can you disagree with a price? No matter what something costs, everyone wants it to cost less. But that is not a disagreement with price, that is just human nature.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ao1
As for not adding features to the G1 or G2, that seems reasonable. Sure, it would be nice if Intel did that, but Intel is not in the business of nice, they are in business for profits. And there is little profit in spending their engineering resources changing and testing old products, when they can instead use the resources on developing new products.
The promise of 25nm was lower costs. A mainstream product is not a mainstream product if it is sold at an enthusiast price level. $1.1K for a 600GB drive puts it in perspective. It’s more expensive than a decent laptop/ pc.
As for features being disabled imagine if a car manufacturer had seat belts in a car but hide them from view, only to reveal them on a refresh of the model. The potential to lose data that could have been protected is a fair analogy to that scenario.
Intel won’t be making any profits from me on the G3.
EDIT and the point is that Intel engineers had already spent the time in developing features (most likely there from G1) that they intentionally held back for future "upgrades".
What promise? I saw no particular price given by Intel until today, and I certainly saw no promise from Intel. The 25nm flash has been hyped (by others) as being less expensive, and indeed, the 320 series SSDs are being introduced at a price signficantly lower than the price that the X25-M G2s were introduced at.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ao1
As for your claim that Intel intentionally held back features, I think you are mistaken. More likely is that Intel was planning ahead and included hooks for future features, but did not take the time to fully develop and test the features until a later generation. It is highly unlikely that it is as simple as changing a line of code to enable the feature. And I think you greatly underestimate the amount of testing and QA procedures that are required by Intel policy even when making small changes to products. Those sorts of policies are partly responsible for Intel's reliability.
I'm probably going to be getting several 160GB Intel 320 SSDs for myself. $300 for a 160GB SSD is a good price, and I like to have reliable products that just work.
The push for 25nm by IMFT was based on lower costs and higher capacity. Both Intel and Micron have stated this publically and it was the sole objective of the investment in 25nm technology.
NAND is a multi billion industry. Granted most of that NAND does not end up in SSD's, but if there are not economies in scale now when will there be?
If you are developing features on-die it is unlikely that you would embed them without fully engineering them first, especially if your road map planned to use the features in future releases. I'm not knowledgeable about such things, but it would seem unlikely that you would embedded a technology unless you knew it would work.
The 320 SSDs are cheaper than the 34nm X25-M SSDs. Maybe not as much as you would like, but they are cheaper. As for your question about economies of scale, I'm not sure what you are thinking. Typically, that term refers to savings from large-scale production, i.e., manufacturing a huge amount of something. So you might expect the price of flash memory to decrease as the production volume increases. And I think it has. But the 25nm flash is new, and currently only IMFT can make 2X nm flash (X <= 5) suitable for SSDs. So the laws of supply and demand are also in effect. And the laws of engineering (including those that yields are lower in a newer process).
So, the prices are a little lower. And they should continue to decrease, although probably not steadily, but in fits and starts. I expect prices will take a leap down when the 2nd and 3rd companies start producing 2X nm flash.
As for having the features available to just turn on. I am nearly certain that is NOT the case. Do you understand what I mean by hooks? It generally means you left room for expansion. In programming, you might put in a line that tests a variable and calls a function, but the function does not exist yet so the variable is set so that the function is not called. But once the function is implemented, the variable is changed so that the function is called.
In the case of Intel's SSD controller, it is not actually the same chip in the 320 as in the X25-M. It is similar, but the revision is different. There were some changes in the silicon. And I am nearly certain that there were significant changes in the firmware. And certainly the features were not put through Intel's testing and qualifications for the older models. So if you think Intel is refusing to flip a switch to give the older parts new features, you are almost certainly wrong. Product development (including feature development) takes a lot of resources. That is built into the price of products. It is unreasonable to expect to get a feature for free.
Considering that we are talking about a new product I'm thinking the prices are fair. Within a month or two I expect we'll see some minor changes.
Here are the current prices in Norway, the 160GB is very competitive on price.
Attachment 113269
Comparing the 300GB and 600GB to the competitors is almost a joke.
Attachment 113270
Exchange rate is close to 5.6
So, imho, the prices are fair to very good depending on size.
Those are higher prices than almost any EU place. I know Norway is expensive, but it doesn't mean much.
One can be more expensive in one place, and cheaper in another.
I agree with Ao1 :( From a mediocre performer with cheaper NAND, I expected prices that are cheaper than the competition, minimum.
The Vertex 2 prices at that retailer are so ridicolous, they aren't even for a discussion ;) (Vertex of 300GB would be/is around 400eur = ~3200 NOK in rest of Europe).
Some G3 25nm specs:
— Write Endurance (80GB): 10 Tera-bytes
— Write Endurance (120GB): 15 Tera-bytes
About 33% increase over X25-M G2 34nm 80GB and 120GB.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i5...20_Spec-01.png
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i5...20_Spec-04.png
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i5...20_Spec-03.png
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i5...20_Spec-02.png
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i5...l_X25-M-01.png
Looks like the 160GB is the sweet spot. Very tempting to grab two of them. Sick of waiting on these vaporware Vertex 3's.
Interesting that Intel publish stats for random write 100% span. Basically the same for all SATA SSD's in that scenario - Write IOPS drop to HDD performance levels very quickly.
I'm not knocking the 320. If I was buying from new it would be my 1st choice, especially as I am still on SATA II, but it's way too expensive to justify an "upgrade".
Hopefully Intel' 's real successor to the G series comes out sooner rather than later. :up:
With a little luck I'll have a pair of the 160GB's by Friday :)
(got the tracking# this afternoon)
A pair of these does not cost much more than my first 160GB G2 cost me.
Should be interesting as all reviews are done with the 300GB.
Great!!!:up:Quote:
Originally Posted by Anvil
Awaiting for results...:D
Dang... NICE.Quote:
Originally Posted by Anvil
Wondering if I should do the same....
Yeah, I really like the 160GB drives, perfect for a lot of scenarios and the price is right imo.
@Brahmzy
They've just released the V3 specs, the V3 120GB is really down on read iops vs the 240GB, actually it's down vs a lot of drives.
Link to OCZ
Looks like the 240GB is the minimum capacity for eXtreme users :)
I've got one of the 120GBs on order and I'm sticking to the order, price is equal to the 320 Series 160GB atm.
Attachment 113273
"¹ To achieve maximum performance specifications a native 6Gbps controller is suggested"
"2 Maximum Sequential Speeds are determined using ATTO"
"³ Small file I/O performance is measured using Iometer 2008, Queue Depth 32, 4KB Aligned"
Think I'm going to start a new thread on the V3 unless there are other V3 threads that are suitable?
Yeah, I've seen the AS SSD numbers for the 120's on SATA2 & SATA3 vs the 240's. They're actually only down on seq. writes for the most part. These are on 6G intel ctlr ports using intel drivers. I'll be RAID0'ing 2 120's so scaling on seq writes is good - R0 120's will outperform 1 240GB hands down, with plenty of R0 headroom.Quote:
Originally Posted by Anvil
VERTEX 3 SATA3 120GB vs 240GB
Seq.. Read 482.9 - 507.4
Seq.. Write 156.7 - 275.9
4k.. Read 19.6 - 20.3
4k.. Write 68.5 - 67.4
4k-64 Thrd.. Read 117.3 - 190.8
4k-64 Thrd.. Write 151.0 - 201.7
Access Time Read (ms) 0.14 - 0.05
Access Time Write (ms) 0.31 - 0.23
Read Score 185 - 262
Write Score 235 - 297
Overall Score 506 - 688
I noticed that comparison, question is, is that using the shipping firmware.
Also, the most noticeable "speed" penalty is the random read on the 120GB, half the iops of the 240GB, for most users it won't change a thing though.
2R0 V3 at any capacity should be great fun.
Yeah, the random read IOPS do take a major hit on the 120's - wish I knew EXACTLY how that translates to real-world for me though...Quote:
Originally Posted by Anvil
I suppose buying 2 of the 240's would be the way to go, but goodness that's a lot of snaps for one of the fastest depreciating items in a PC that'll be obsoleted in 2-3 months, if it hasn't been already on release day.
I'm sitting here looking at 2 160GB G3s :)
One is the brown box (10) and the other one is a reseller (K5).
The brown box is just like the G2s, it includes a sticker with "SPEED DEMON" printed on it,
the reseller includes 3.5" adapter bracket and screws + SATA and power cables.
I won't be able to do any tests for another 4-5 hours but I'll post a photo in a little while.
Attachment 113345
I just had to perform 1 AS SSD test, result is as expected, lower than the G2 on 4KB stuff.
Attachment 113346
The fact that new gen 25nm drives neglected 4K performance improvement is pretty sad. Years later and we are still stuck at 20MB/s on MLC SATA drives. Acard and io-Xteme still rule.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anvil
My 80GB G2 in comparison..
http://i472.photobucket.com/albums/r...psaz/Intel.png
A few more standard tests before I do some iometer and finally raid-0
Attachment 113356 Attachment 113357
Random read 4K through 128KB on single G3 160GB on P67 3Gb/s port.
Attachment 113360
Nice graph Anvil :up: Any chance of doing a comparison with the G2?
Working on it :)
I have collected the data, just need to compile a new chart.
A mixed bag so far, it looks better in mixed tests (read+write) at low QD than the G2 and then when the throughput is exhausted it's more or less a flat line.
The G2 scaled better at high QDs but after all we are looking for improvements at QDs < 32 for the most :)
About to test some raid-0 before I dive into more charts...
Any chance of adding 512 byes and 1MB xfers as well? :p: It would be good to also see how other SSD's perform with that test.
Edit: Interesting to see how xfers sizes peak at different QD's
from 1-4QD i think it scales better than a G2
interesting. cant wait to see your comparison graphs anvil!
Hi Anvil,
If I look at your graph it seems to provide a way to determine tangible “real life” benefits.
For discussion, but as a 1st stab:
- Xfer weighting is based on stats I’ve obtained from hIOmon, which broadly line up with what JDEC define as SSD Enterprise Endurance Workload.
- QD weighting is based on stats I’ve obtained from hIOmon. As QD 1 dominates for desktop users I’ve rated it at 85%. QD 2 = 10%. QD 3 = 5%.
In the example below, based on approximates for your IOmeter results it gives a score of 33. At this stage I can only guess how much that score would have to vary before a tangible real life improvement could be seen. As a guess however the score would have to be +/- 5 before an observable difference could be seen.
I’ve attached excel sheet, which has formulas that allow MB’s speeds to be entered and automatically calculate a score based on the inputs.
What do you think?
(Anvil I've made some cosmetic changes to the excel sheet. (The formula's remain the same, I've just made it easier to see how the score is calculated).
Looks interesting :)
I've downloaded the Excel file and will play with it, got lots of data but 512B and 1MB I'd have to regenerate.
QD is a tricky one as it depends on usage but I'd like think that QD is more like 1.x rather than 1.0, 1.0 basically means that there is no queue or multitasking going on.
Lets play with that spreadsheet and see what different setups scores, I have collected QD1..16 Linear in a separate iometer test so I've got all details except for 512B and 1MB.
I ran a few 512B tests on the 320 and it didn't look bad at all, will post both the raid-0 charts and benchmarks today.
I'll load the results into that spreadsheet asap :)
OK, this is 2R0 320 strip size 128KB
I've changed the QD3 to QD4 :) and the figures for 1MiB is just a guesstimate.
Attachment 113395
for comparison, a single Vertex 2 60GB (used)
Attachment 113396
Interesting. I’d guess that +/- 5 on a score of 33 would be hard to notice. I’d also guess that it would take and Acard or io-Xtemeto go above 5.
Did you estimate 512B as well?
The ones on the 320 is correct (except for all 1MB figures)
On the Vertex I just kept the figures for 512B from the Intels, so they are not correct.
(I'll rerun the 512B on the Vertex 2 later, at 4% it doesnt tip the scale)
2R0 Intel 320 Random 4KB read QD1 is 13.6 MB/s (on Io-Meter if i understand correctly) ? Or did i get something wrong ? :shrug:Quote:
Originally Posted by Anvil
That is the result, using that strip size and the P67 3Gb/s ports.
4K QD1 ~14-19MB/s depending on strip size and other settings like wbc, wbc flushing.
Not alarmingly low imho, 25nm took a dive at 4K, 8K looks great though :)
Received the 320 Series 600GB today :)
Nothing remarkable about it except for the capacity and write speed of course.
Attachment 113770 Attachment 113769
Should be perfect for computers where capacity is an issue, laptops in particular.
A nice storage drive. Too bad it is over $1k...
How are those graphs coming along? :p:
The graphs are coming, real soon now :)
I don't know what to compare it to, most likely I'll have to cook up something on the 1880.