NEW G.Skill TITAN SSD review ...

[btdvox]

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.

[Jazzy jeff]

The Titan sounds very similiar to the OCZ Apex drive not the Vertex.

[flopper]

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!

[XS Janus]

Sounds good to me, so far!

[karbonkid]

This makes me want to get rid of all my SCSI hardware....

[m^2]

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.

[Andrew LB]

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

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

[m^2]

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.
The only difference that make them stutter or not is usage pattern. You would be fine with OCZ as well.

[ewitte]

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.

I think you mean 25MB/s.

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.

[FZ1]

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.

[karateo]

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)

[Lyshen]

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.

[IanB]

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.

LOL, XP in a 6GB partition here (1.5 GB spare)... And that's not a "lite" version.

What are "most people" keeping in their "OS" drives?

[karateo]

LOL, XP in a 6GB partition here (1.5 GB spare)... And that's not a "lite" version.

What are "most people" keeping in their "OS" drives?

most people have better things to do than keeping OS drive small
the just need a big fast drive

[m^2]

Do nothing about it and you won't need a big drive. It takes time to fill it, not to keep empty.

[FZ1]

LOL, XP in a 6GB partition here (1.5 GB spare)... And that's not a "lite" version.

What are "most people" keeping in their "OS" drives?

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.

My Vista install is currently right around 60GB.

[m^2]

All my programs except for games, and I have _REALLY_ a lot of them, take 1.6 GB.

[Brahmzy]

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 ...

[ewitte]

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.

My Vista install is currently right around 60GB.

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.

[One_Hertz]

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 ...

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...

[A2C]

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

[Brahmzy]

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...

Very true... I'm trying to think of MY usage patterns and how they might cause any type of slowdowns....

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?

[One_Hertz]

Very true... I'm trying to think of MY usage patterns and how they might cause any type of slowdowns....

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.

[tbone8ty]

so is this faster than a WD Raptor WD1500ADFD?

[Brahmzy]

so is this faster than a WD Raptor WD1500ADFD?

YES. In almost every way.