Crucial m4 128GB vs OCZ Vertex 3 MaxIOPs 120GB

I'm looking to buy a new SSD for use as my OS drive (Win7) with my Sandy Bridge CPU. I'm having a tough time deciding which of the two to pick.

If it were between the *plain* V3 and the m4 I'd grab the m4 as it's got better random 4k read/writes (but not as great sequential R/W) -- but I haven't been able to find any benchmarks that show how the V3 MaxIOPs version changes the picture.

If the V3 MaxIOPs delivers as good or better random 4k R/W then I suppose it'd be the drive to get (as it would also have better sequential R/W).

Does anyone have any thoughts on this issue?

Thanks. :)

I think the performance of the m4 and the V3 are sufficiently close that I would make my decision based on overall quality and company reputation, and there Crucial beats OCZ by a mile.

Well m4 128 and vertex 3 120 *vanilla* are close enough in overall "realistic" system performance (not benchmarks), sure. But I'm curious how much the maxiops v3 drive will improve the random 4k RW.

Also price...the M4 128 is much cheaper than the normal V3 120. I was holding off getting the M4 until the Agility 3 came out, but pricing for the 60 and 120 of them are more than the M4 64 and 128. I guess I'll be getting the M4...now it's just a matter of 2x64 in R0 or a single 128???

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Originally Posted by bluestang

Also price...the M4 128 is much cheaper than the normal V3 120. I was holding off getting the M4 until the Agility 3 came out, but pricing for the 60 and 120 of them are more than the M4 64 and 128. I guess I'll be getting the M4...now it's just a matter of 2x64 in R0 or a single 128???

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I've read that the 64Gb aren't very good even in RAID0 (see this thread: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...=268711&page=8 )

That and what Anand (from anandtech.com) said about the M4's garbage collection being a bit poor would make me shy away from using M4s in RAID as they really do need the TRIM command it seems.

As such I'm leaning towards an m4 128Gb right now but if I see any V3 MI 120GB reviews this weekend I may change my mind.

Anyone care to chime in on this?

2x Vertex 3 MI 120gb Raid-0 VS 2x Crucial m4 128gb Raid-0

4k Random read 16GB testfile, 1worker, QD=1, runtime 30s

2x Vertex 3 MI 120gb Raid-0 VS 2x Crucial m4 128gb Raid-0

I would not mind seeing some 2 x 128gb C300 with these benches...

Thanks for the benches. Although I am curious about a single drive, non-raid. I'm not sure you could simply "divide the bench results by 2" and arrive at a true comparison -- though the RAID0 is likely a hint.

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Originally Posted by Antioch

That and what Anand (from anandtech.com) said about the M4's garbage collection being a bit poor would make me shy away from using M4s in RAID as they really do need the TRIM command it seems.

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Anand's test of GC recovery is not very realistic. He uses HD Tach to do a 100+ GB sequential write to the SSD and looks at how the write speed degrades during that humongous write. Not many people do that to their SSDs. Also, he does the same thing to Sandforce SSDs, which is absurd, since HD Tach writes zeros, and Sandforce ends up writing almost nothing to the flash when you give it 100+ GB of zeros.

If you give the m4 a more realistic workload (for example, IOMeter with a reasonable mix), the GC works well.

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Originally Posted by johnw

If you give the m4 a more realistic workload (for example, IOMeter with a reasonable mix), the GC works well.

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Do you have an m4 you've been using? If so which one, if not what do you base the GC claims on? Just curious. :)

Anand got a defective drive as his first experience with the C300 and has been pretty much down on crucial ever since. His reviews put a very bad taste in many people's mouth and it took many benchmarks (away from Anand's test bench) for people to catch on that the drives really are excellent. He says the M4's GC is poor like the C300 but I've ran 8 in raid 0 for a year and individually iometer still spits out nearly exact numbers as when they were new. I haven't touched an M4 but if I had to bet money I'd bet they were excellent. Not the clear winner in sequentials (not an issue for me but if your use case requires large file transfers to be fast you may want to consider another drive) but otherwise excellent drives.

Yes, that's the picture I've come up - that the m4 is likely a solid drive. I'm leaning heavily towards it at the moment but I'm still curious to see the V3 MI 120GB performance notes. Honestly, I don't know if it's worth the hassle with SandForce at the moment - still needs more testing and tweaking and I'm a bit sick of that.

That being said, I'm curious if there is an "SSD Toolbox" for the m4s of any sort? Something akin to Intel's toolbox that offers you the ability to force TRIM on the entire drive? I'm in Win7 so it wouldn't be necessary but I'd like to plan for the worst just in case!

Thanks

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Originally Posted by Antioch

Do you have an m4 you've been using? If so which one, if not what do you base the GC claims on? Just curious. :)

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I'm basing it on the C300. Anand made the same claims about the C300, but GC works fine for me on the C300. Also, there are plenty of people running the C300 in RAID 0, and I have not seen many reports of problems attributable to GC.

curious that the M4 beats the vertex 3 in the "2010 storage bench" , yet anand switches to a new bench the "2011 storage bench" and the V3 wins handily. hard to tell these days. we need more of these drives in the hands of us enthusiasts to come to our own conclusions :)

Well, take any intro to computer architecture course and the *first* thing they teach you (same with any good texts on the subject) is that any benchmark can be twisted to show whatever you want and that you shouldn't really rely on them completely.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics, right?

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Lies, damn lies,

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i wouldn't go that far! just saying we need to conduct our own real world testing.
could be a coincidence, or maybe his new bench is just seriously a better representation of real life usage than the prior one. or he could be wrong and it could be worse than the previous version.


so that would leave it up to us :)

The difficulty in benchmarking SF drives is you need to be in a used state, but then you have to be careful you don't trigger throttling.

Assuming this diagram is correct it seems a bit strange that light/ modest use is plotted above the life curve. That seems to imply that over time even light and modest use will result in throttling.

Why SF drives need to throttle at all is also strange considering they compress data and supposedly have such as great wear levelling capability. :shrug:

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Originally Posted by Antioch

Thanks for the benches. Although I am curious about a single drive, non-raid. I'm not sure you could simply "divide the bench results by 2" and arrive at a true comparison -- though the RAID0 is likely a hint.

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Not at queue depth one with a 4k xfer. I doubt the 4K figures would be much different with a single drive.

@ Nizzen,
What's the possibility of you providing some single drive benches???
Thanks!!!

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Originally Posted by Ao1

Assuming this diagram is correct it seems a bit strange that light/ modest use is plotted above the life curve. That seems to imply that over time even light and modest use will result in throttling.

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The diagram makes sense to me. It will allow you to do anything you like as long as you do not go below the straight line. If you do get near the straight line, then it will start throttling the write speed. At least, that is what the diagram is meant to show. I'm not sure if the actual Sandforce firmware implementation does exactly what the diagram portrays.

Not sure I follow, but I don't understand why the drives need to be throttled in the 1st place considering that SF claim their controllers have the best wear levelling in the industry. My take on that graph is that write activity needs to be ether below or on that life curve line - not above.

I also don't understand how throttling works. For argument/ simplicities sake is it like this?

You are allowed to write 20GB a day. The next day you write 30GB. You have exceeded your daily write allowance by 10GB. Throttling then kicks in over the next few days to make sure writes are slow enough that it is impossible generate 20GB of writes. After a few days you are back on an average of 20GB. Throttling is then turned off.

How much do you need to write for throttling to kick in? How long does the drive remain throttled? Is the extent of throttling directly correlated to amount of writes that have been exceeded?

Does a secure erase clear the throttling?

That diagram could have been presented in another way but...

You aren't allowed to go below the green "Life curve" line, excessive (accumulated) writing would be throttled if it was to "break the line".
Secure Erasing/Cleaning looks to work but there is a finite number of "clean-cycles" as well I'd presume.

I agree to some extent that the "roof" for daily writes should be well above the limits that e.g. Intel sets for the daily average.
Unless the SF drives are capable of writing the same amount of data it would mean that there is something fishy going on, compression/write amplification should easily make the drive last "years" longer than other controllers *if* using NAND of the same quality.

I excluded poorer quality NAND from the equation as everyone using SF controllers claim to use only top grade NAND. That is where I am confused. I remember Anandtech saying that the high cost of the controllers could be offset with lower quality NAND due to its enhanced error correction and reduced write rate to the NAND via compression, yet top grade NAND is used, so why do the drives need to be throttled?

That is a good question :)
Assuming that quality was on par with other drives (and I do believe it is) and the daily limit was somewhere between 20-30GB one shouldn't notice the throttling anyways and so the only reason to having that limiter was if the drive was used in the "wrong" environment, like e.g. servers.

I'd say that write throttling is OK as long as I don't get hit :), I don't think I have, yet.
I've been hit by "steady-state" though on the 1XXX SF controller and depending on the number of drives the only option is cleaning.
(not really an issue with 3-4 drives but for 1-2 small drives like the 60GB the impact is huge, imho)

I'd like to have the option to select my own "life-curve" on the SF drives, I'd rather use the drives for 2-3 years with "unlimited" writes than being hindered by "life- preserving" limits that go beyond the useful life of the drive.
I'd say 2-3 years is sufficient for me, by that time there would be better alternatives with better performance, larger capacity,..., well most things improve over a 2-3 year period.
It does look like the SF-2XXX controller is way better than the 1XXX series and so those options may be obsolete, I'd still like that option for my ageing SF drives.

If they last 2x the Intels I'd just don't know what to use them for, if I can't use them while they are in their prime of their lives, whats the use?

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Originally Posted by Anvil

I'd like to have the option to select my own "life-curve" on the SF drives, I'd rather use the drives for 2-3 years with "unlimited" writes than being hindered by "life- preserving" limits that go beyond the useful life of the drive.
I'd say 2-3 years is sufficient for me, by that time there would be better alternatives with better performance, larger capacity,..., well most things improve over a 2-3 year period.

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Exactly. Who is going to care after three years anyway? Better to have an off switch. (Although that does not address why one is needed in the 1st place).

EDIT; maybe it is something to do with the amount of OP?

Hmm, interesting discussion. I do agree with the comments about drive life and usefulness in it's prime.

I feel that I'm leaning heavily towards a single m4 128Gb right now, though.

The 128GB m4 is just superb, I like it a lot.

Here's an AS SSD comparison of my m4's.

forgot: 256GB to the left and 128GB to the right.

Attachment 114330
Attachment 114331

Cant speak for the 120GB SF drives but the V3 240GB is just marvellous :)

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Originally Posted by Computurd

curious that the M4 beats the vertex 3 in the "2010 storage bench" , yet anand switches to a new bench the "2011 storage bench" and the V3 wins handily. hard to tell these days. we need more of these drives in the hands of us enthusiasts to come to our own conclusions :)

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The 2010 bench doesn't use SATA III, 2011 bench does. It was shown earlier in the review that the V3 is hit much more by dropping down to SATA II than the m4, probably because more of its performance comes from sequentials.

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Originally Posted by Antioch

I feel that I'm leaning heavily towards a single m4 128Gb right now, though.

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Originally Posted by Anvil

The 128GB m4 is just superb, I like it a lot.

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Yeah me too...but I can get 2x64GB M4's cheaper than a single 128GB M4. I'm torn :shrug: Wonder how the 64's in R0 compare to the single 128?

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Originally Posted by bluestang

Yeah me too...but I can get 2x64GB M4's cheaper than a single 128GB M4. I'm torn :shrug: Wonder how the 64's in R0 compare to the single 128?

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I don't know but I can only keep pointing you back here:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...=268711&page=8
Where TheHardCase says that 2x m4 64GB in RAID0 is bad.

Maybe you should pester him about that - he may have had that setup for a while.

In real-life, not much of a difference I'd expect, with the single drive you'd get TRIM and TRIM can do wonders, so, unless there are special needs for raid the single drive would be the better option overall imho.

I suspect that the m4 in raid *might* need more cleaning than the C300, just a hunch from a small number of tests, could be wrong though :)
*if* that was to be the case it could be corrected in the next firmware update.

Would I notice a difference between a single C300 128gb vs M4 128gb?

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Originally Posted by cherrypik

Would I notice a difference between a single C300 128gb vs M4 128gb?

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I don't think so. The C300s have higher random IO speeds but the m4s have higher sequential throughput.

If you don't have a Sandy Bridge system to put the m4 in (meaning a native Sata3 controller) then the C300 is going to be faster in general usage. With a Sata3 controller the higher sequential reads from the m4 begin to come into play -- but again it's a balancing act between random vs sequential.

i was under the understanding, and i know over at OCZ forums this is common knowledge, that the previous generation V2s were hit by write throttling after each and every sector on the drive had been written once. that once you had hit each piece of nand in its entirety, that the drive would throttle itself, permanently. Then the only recourse is secure erase to reset the drive.

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The 2010 bench doesn't use SATA III, 2011 bench does. It was shown earlier in the review that the V3 is hit much more by dropping down to SATA II than the m4, probably because more of its performance comes from sequentials.

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yes, but the bench itself has changed radically. There are so many factors involved, compressible v incompressible, random v sequential, that you could effectively alter it to go either way tbh. curious of if he ran the new bench on sata 2, i would bet money the V3 comes out on top with the new bench regardless of what you run it on. im not saying that is intentional, just that is my impression. The M4 goes from a very solid showing in the old bench, to suddenly getting trounced by 2x in many areas....nah. doesnt add up. methodology may be flawed here a bit imo.

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Originally Posted by Antioch

I don't think so. The C300s have higher random IO speeds but the m4s have higher sequential throughput.

If you don't have a Sandy Bridge system to put the m4 in (meaning a native Sata3 controller) then the C300 is going to be faster in general usage. With a Sata3 controller the higher sequential reads from the m4 begin to come into play -- but again it's a balancing act between random vs sequential.

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Actually this would be for a sandy bridge desktop.

I just picked up 2 x M4 128GB & set them up in Raid 0 128K
Now I can say these are 100% better then M4's 64GB in Raid 0 128k.
What a big difference almost double the speed.
:up:

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Originally Posted by TheHardCase

I just picked up 2 x M4 128GB & set them up in Raid 0 128K
Now I can say these are 100% better then M4's 64GB in Raid 0 128k.
What a big difference almost double the speed.
:up:

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And do you have the benchmarks for the 64GB RAID0 setup? I'd curious to see the actual numbers.

Meh still no solid info about the MAX IOPS :(

I found a bit of info on throttling in a SF patent. A range of measures in detecting overuse and then implementing throttling are described. Commands that impact lifetime are delayed to guarantee a required minimum life. Not sure if GC is one of those commands but if GC is deactivated it would explain why some drives appear to be unrecoverable.

Looks like the 2000 series controllers "have more options in the firmware for partners to set that allow throttling...."

There are also non-standard SATA commands that can set the drive to go into lower power modes.

SMART attribute 230 indicates if “lifetime throttling was active for last write” .

Seems that not all SF partners set the drive to throttle. (Don't know which ones don't)

any test with newest vertex3 firmware?

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Originally Posted by Mech0z

Meh still no solid info about the MAX IOPS :(

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So WHAT info do you want?

I found a better diagram for the life curve. "Credits" = short term unsustainable write speeds that if sustained result in throttling.

www.storagesearch.com/sandforce-sf2000-1.pdf

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Originally Posted by Nizzen

So WHAT info do you want?

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I want to see the 128GB M4 and the 120 IO in a same test scenarios not just random peoples ATTO and crystalmark as those are normally not accuarate to compare as some have more data on drives and setup might be different as well. (Unless its done on the same machine, I just dont want to compare 2 different peoples benchmarks where one person has 5% free space while the other has 80% as its not a fair comparision)

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Originally Posted by Nizzen

So WHAT info do you want?

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AS SSD MB/s and IOPs and PCMark HDD Suite...Thanks!

post made on the 19th Feb 2011

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...l=1#post604816

you guys need to read more

Life curve throttle is set with the mptool, I told the world this 12 months ago (although you did have to read between the lines)

SF drives do NOT throttle for settled state, that is the normal running state and is unthrottled. The fact that an unmapped drive is faster is irrelevant to me as that lasts just a few days....marketing unfortunately has to focus on this though as it would only take 1 competitor to go against the grain and people start to think X is faster than Y etc etc.

All drives will now have active throttle, all controllers can and will do it as there are just not enough PE/c in nand to allow it to be not be set.

If you want to write more than an average desktop users daily amount to a drive you either have to set more OP, raid and add more OP to spread the load or buy enterprise drives or at the least SLC drives.

its that simple.

What life curve throttle is set to all depends on warranty period.. PE/c and how the drive is used...

sit their benching your drives and you will wear them out

Use them like normal, save downloads and games to a spinner and your ssd OS drive will last for years.

Throttle is here to stay, find ways to bypass it and you will only kill the drive MUCH FASTER. Drive logs catch full drive erases, data written etc etc, all controllers will do this. You would be amazed what the logs can tell about users habits with the drives.

The short of it is buy the drives that fit your needs, do not abuse the drives...just use them.

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raid and add more OP to spread the load

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good point.

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.marketing unfortunately has to focus on this though as it would only take 1 competitor to go against the grain and people start to think X is faster than Y etc etc.

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unfortunate but true. they need a industry standard for testing, but doubt we will ever see it. i dont think there is an industry standard for testing of anything, from monitors to hdd to ssd to lawnmowers :)

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buy the drives that fit your needs, do not abuse the drives...just use them

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that should be written on the front of all SSD packages :)

Is it so difficult for OCZ to make a clear statement?

1) We do support disabling throttling on these Sandforce models: ....

2) We do NOT support disabling throttling on our Sandforce SSDs. However, it can be done with this tool (link) although you will lose warranty support (or whatever).

3) We do NOT support disabling throttling and will not provide a link to a tool to do it.

Or 4)
We will sell you an un-throttled SSD, but the warranty is based on "X" amount of writes and not a period of time.

is it so difficult for ocz to state what?

The drives have to throttle, simple fact, without it you would have nand burn in weeks if a few months...then you try and RMA??? LOL

Except the product is as it is, Duraclass and life write throttle is needed. If you want faster lobby the nand manufacturers to get 100K PE/c on cheaper MLC and we will build drives just how you want them.

The nand dictates how the drives work remember ;)

Guys...you want faster here is how to do it.

Raid 0

lose 50% of the array to OP

live with the day to day speed...the drive will last for years

dead simple solution

On an unrelated note...
Tony, what's the official stance on page file on SSDs? Would it noticeably accelerate the NAND wearing? Would it throttle the drive much? Do you recommend a small or a large page file to reduce the amount of written data (512MB, 1GB, 2GB, more)?

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Originally Posted by Tony

is it so difficult for ocz to state what?

The drives have to throttle, simple fact, without it you would have nand burn in weeks if a few months...then you try and RMA??? LOL

Except the product is as it is, Duraclass and life write throttle is needed. If you want faster lobby the nand manufacturers to get 100K PE/c on cheaper MLC and we will build drives just how you want them.

The nand dictates how the drives work remember ;)

Guys...you want faster here is how to do it.

Raid 0

lose 50% of the array to OP

live with the day to day speed...the drive will last for years

dead simple solution

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I can understand the advantage of DuraClass now. Without it you have to set an arbitrary cap on write speeds to provide longevity over a given time frame, whereas DuraClass allows short bursts of "uncapped" write speeds. The down side being that with heavier use write speeds have to be slowed down to even out wear. So you have a potential advantage or disadvantage depending on your workload over an arbitrary cap.

Most desktop users don't write enough, so they only see the benefit of "uncapped" speeds.

I guess it's a bit like a cigarette lighter, you can turn the flame up but the gas runs out quicker. Turn it down you have a small flame, but the fuel lasts longer. Here DuraClass regulates the size of the flame to make sure you don't run out of fuel over a fixed time frame. Depending on your use you could have a flamethrower or you could have a candle.

I guess the "disappointment" is that by combining compression and "A" grade 34nm that throttling is needed with SF drives.

As NAND gets smaller and controllers get faster the solution is increase performance throttling? Sounds counterproductive.

Anyway, why not give customers the choice? Sell an un-throttled SSD, but the warranty is based on "X" amount of writes and not a period of time?

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Originally Posted by zalbard

On an unrelated note...
Tony, what's the official stance on page file on SSDs? Would it noticeably accelerate the NAND wearing? Would it throttle the drive much? Do you recommend a small or a large page file to reduce the amount of written data (512MB, 1GB, 2GB, more)?

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I'm curious about this, too.

According to MS:

...."most pagefile operations are small random reads or larger sequential writes, both of which are types of operations that SSDs handle well.

In looking at telemetry data from thousands of traces and focusing on pagefile reads and writes, we find that

• Pagefile.sys reads outnumber pagefile.sys writes by about 40 to 1,
• Pagefile.sys read sizes are typically quite small, with 67% less than or equal to 4 KB, and 88% less than 16 KB.
• Pagefile.sys writes are relatively large, with 62% greater than or equal to 128 KB and 45% being exactly 1 MB in size.

In fact, given typical pagefile reference patterns and the favorable performance characteristics SSDs have on those patterns, there are few files better than the pagefile to place on an SSD."

Personally I don't use a page file at all. It generates unnecessary writes and adds latency to my set up with 8GB of RAM and a SSD.

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Originally Posted by Tony

is it so difficult for ocz to state what?

The drives have to throttle, simple fact, without it you would have nand burn in weeks if a few months...then you try and RMA??? LOL

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To make a clear statement on throttling settings, firmware related to throttling, and tools that can change the throttling setting.

The drives do not "have to" throttle -- the alternative is, as you say, to let the flash memory wear out as it will. It may be OCZ's policy that disabling throttling is not supported, and that OCZ will not acknowledge the existance of a method to disable throttling. If so, it is odd that OCZ does not make a clear statement about that. The [nod-nod-wink-wink] that a program exists to change the throttling settings without a clear statement on the subject is not the best way to handle it.

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Originally Posted by johnw

Anand's test of GC recovery is not very realistic. He uses HD Tach to do a 100+ GB sequential write to the SSD and looks at how the write speed degrades during that humongous write. Not many people do that to their SSDs. Also, he does the same thing to Sandforce SSDs, which is absurd, since HD Tach writes zeros, and Sandforce ends up writing almost nothing to the flash when you give it 100+ GB of zeros.

If you give the m4 a more realistic workload (for example, IOMeter with a reasonable mix), the GC works well.

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Sorry but i doubt that HD Tach is writing 100 GB when doing is bench.

Even in long bench it's quick and i think it's less than 10 GB. It's not a full write ... HD Tach is ok for HDD but for SSD it's a non-sense.

And it's 10 GB of heavy compressible data for SandForce. Perhaps what is shown as a "full write" in fact wrote 1 GB on the NAND on a SandForce SSD ...

Useless. :D

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Originally Posted by Tony

The drives have to throttle, simple fact, without it you would have nand burn in weeks if a few months...then you try and RMA??? LOL

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Sorry but there is something i don't understand.

When i use my SSD, if i have to write for example 50 GB it ... i have too. If it take 6 ("new state") or 9 minutes (throttling) for example at the end we still have 50 GB written on it. I will not stop to write on it if i find it's slower ... if i write file it's that i HAVE to. And i don't see why it will change the SSD life at the end since it will in both case use the same PE cycles.

The amount of PE cycles used differs with different writing patterns.
It also differs with time (as it essentially changes the patterns)

IMO, it's pure marketing BS to say this is done to save NAND life (not your choice, it's MY darn drive :D), but I can see why throttle would be used.

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Originally Posted by Marc HFR

Sorry but i doubt that HD Tach is writing 100 GB when doing is bench.

Even in long bench it's quick and i think it's less than 10 GB. It's not a full write ... HD Tach is ok for HDD but for SSD it's a non-sense.

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Good point. I do not know any details about how HD Tach works, I was just making a probably bad assumption based on the labeling of the graph it produces. It may very well write a long sequence, then skip forward 10 times that amount, then write again, etc. Even so, it is not a very realistic write pattern for an SSD, so I still do not think Anand's test is a good indication of how well GC works in realistic usage.

LOL, the OCZ warranty does not even include wear and tear! What is the point of write throttling/ DuraClass?

Limitation of Warranty:

• Connection to a faulty power source
• Alteration, Modification, Disassembly or unauthorized repair
• Improper use of product
• Normal wear and tear
• User inflicted intentional or accidental damage
• Any other cause not resulting from defects in materials or workmanship.

No manufacturer warrants that. I.e. the NAND has a limited life-cycle, none will support an RMA if the NAND is dead as a result of enough PE cycles.

Exactly - so why throttle performance when NAND burn out is not covered by the warranty anyway?

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Originally Posted by Marc HFR

if i write file it's that i HAVE to. And i don't see why it will change the SSD life at the end since it will in both case use the same PE cycles.

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Agreed. I think the only case where throttling might serve a purpose is if you computer has a virus or other malfunction that causes it to write to the SSD continuously. Then throttling would kick in and keep the SSD at a permanently slow state.

But I think that is a poor way to handle it, since it has the side effect of slowing down valid writes after heavy use. A better way to handle it would just be to have a software toolbox with an alarm that monitors the wearout indicator and gives a warning if the flash is being worn out too quickly.

Looks like the Max IOP has just been maxed out by Corsair at 85K IOPS.

http://www.corsair.com/solid-state-d...ard-drive.html

I noticed :)
I've already ordered one, ETD May 27th.

Still, the V3 Standard Edition will most likely be identical in 99.9% of the tasks, unless theyve gone a special/expensive route when selecting NAND.
My main reason for ordering the Corsair is that it hopefully will fit in my laptop, the V3 doesn't fit in the Lenovo W5XX series, it's to wide at the connectors end.

Hahaha, wow!

And Anvil you have too much cash to burn, what is c300s, m4s, v3s, and not force 3's. Im jealous though!

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Originally Posted by Ao1

Looks like the Max IOP has just been maxed out by Corsair at 85K IOPS.

http://www.corsair.com/solid-state-d...ard-drive.html

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Just on problem, it's noticed as a sequential performance

On Vertex 3 120, QD32, i can get with sequential access with compressible data :

79797,85 IOPS for read 4K
82222,12 IOPS for write 4K

The Corsair Force Series 3 specs state Random Write 4K 85,000 IOPS (Aligned)

The OCZ MAX IO states Random Write 4KB (Aligned): 75,000 IOPS

Either way its useless marketing figure that doesn't mean anything in real life :up:

Not that I'm going to buy one but thought I'd share with you guys...$219 sale... http://www.ssdestore.com/VTX3MI-25SA...5SAT3-120G.htm

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ao1

The Corsair Force Series 3 specs state Random Write 4K 85,000 IOPS (Aligned)

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Where did you read that it's random and that it's write ?

We only go that on Corsair website :

Sequential Read/Write (using ATTO Disk Benchmark)
550 MB/s sequential read
520 MB/s sequential write
85K IOPs (4K aligned)

And in the press release

"The Force Series 3 features the highest performance version of the latest-generation SandForce SF-2281 SSD Processor with out-of-box read and write speeds of up to 550 MB/s and 520 MB/s respectively, and an impressive 85000K IOPS for measurably faster system response, boot times and application load times than SATA 2 solid-state drives"

Edit : Finaly got it from Corsair by mail
"The 85K IOPs number is 4K, 100% random, 100% write, 4K sector-alignment, using IOmeter 2008. This was done using an Intel P67 system, using the latest Intel RST drivers."

hi i am thinking of getting a m4 or v3
would there be much gain over a x25 80g which i am using on sata III port

cheers

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bluestang

Not that I'm going to buy one but thought I'd share with you guys...$219 sale... http://www.ssdestore.com/VTX3MI-25SA...5SAT3-120G.htm

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Anyone know the seller rating at ssdestore?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cherrypik

Anyone know the seller rating at ssdestore?

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I know there are listed Runcore's website. Not on ResellerRatings.com though, so not sure.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Marc HFR

Where did you read that it's random and that it's write ?

We only go that on Corsair website :

Sequential Read/Write (using ATTO Disk Benchmark)
550 MB/s sequential read
520 MB/s sequential write
85K IOPs (4K aligned)

And in the press release

"The Force Series 3 features the highest performance version of the latest-generation SandForce SF-2281 SSD Processor with out-of-box read and write speeds of up to 550 MB/s and 520 MB/s respectively, and an impressive 85000K IOPS for measurably faster system response, boot times and application load times than SATA 2 solid-state drives"

Edit : Finaly got it from Corsair by mail
"The 85K IOPs number is 4K, 100% random, 100% write, 4K sector-alignment, using IOmeter 2008. This was done using an Intel P67 system, using the latest Intel RST drivers."

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What QD and how many workers?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by beast200

hi i am thinking of getting a m4 or v3
would there be much gain over a x25 80g which i am using on sata III port

cheers

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I think there should be. That older Intel drive has both lower random and sequential performance than the new SSDs (even in spite of being 22nm).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Marc HFR

Where did you read that it's random and that it's write ?

We only go that on Corsair website :

Sequential Read/Write (using ATTO Disk Benchmark)
550 MB/s sequential read
520 MB/s sequential write
85K IOPs (4K aligned)

And in the press release

"The Force Series 3 features the highest performance version of the latest-generation SandForce SF-2281 SSD Processor with out-of-box read and write speeds of up to 550 MB/s and 520 MB/s respectively, and an impressive 85000K IOPS for measurably faster system response, boot times and application load times than SATA 2 solid-state drives"

Edit : Finaly got it from Corsair by mail
"The 85K IOPs number is 4K, 100% random, 100% write, 4K sector-alignment, using IOmeter 2008. This was done using an Intel P67 system, using the latest Intel RST drivers."

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the 240gb?