TITAN SSD Performance Review

[Brahmzy]

Figured I start a new thread here. I just got my 2 G.Skill TITAN 128GB SSDs in and am testing them off of my ICH10R.
Vista x64 Boot/OS disk is seperate from the SSDs, as not to skew results.

So I have been messing with OCZ's recommendations for RAID0 stripe sizes and partition alignment. I am finding some pretty drastic differences in the results. They recommend a 128K Stripe on all RAID0 SSD arrays. OK, did that. They also recommend a 128K partition offset. Well, I tried that, tested and then I tried letting Vista setup a partition automatically. I have NO idea why OCZ is recommending the settings they are...
Here's the results...

ICH10R Volume Write-Cache Enabled, Device Manager Advanced Performance Policy Enabled:

128K RAID0 stripe, 128K partition offset (OCZ recommended)

128K RAID0 stripe, 1024K partition offset (Vista default)


128K RAID0 stripe, 128K partition offset (OCZ recommended)

128K RAID0 stripe, 1024K partition offset (Vista default)


128K RAID0 stripe, 128K partition offset (OCZ recommended)

128K RAID0 stripe, 1024K partition offset (Vista default)


________

Here's a RAID0 stripe size comparison. Pretty sure I'm going to settle on 128K.

32K RAID0 stripe

128K RAID0 stripe


32K RAID0 stripe

128K RAID0 stripe


32K RAID0 stripe

128K RAID0 stripe


Much more to come...benching right now.

[WhiteFireDragon]

thanks for the results! do you have a comparison with no alignment and different stripe sizes?

[ewitte]

To compare on the non titan G.Skill 64GB (single drive)
159.4 78.00
149.0 39.65
19.64 1.782

[RyderOCZ]

Man.. I need to start hiding the tweaks

[ewitte]

I'm running windows 7 so I'm having to come up with some of my own tweaks as well BTW my single drive numbers are quite a bit different one pass 100MB. My guess is its lack of cache.

BTW get that vertex2 out for a good price and I'll switch

[swiftex]

ok, when you read tweaks read the fine print...............
xp do disk alignment, probably not needed with hw raid card............
Vista leave at defaults for alignment is not necessary

[m^2]

To compare on the non titan G.Skill 64GB (single drive)
159.4 78.00
149.0 39.65
19.64 1.782

CrystalMark?

[ewitte]

CrystalMark?

Crystalmark says about 160/90. The numbers I posted were from CrystalDisk with the exact settings he had.

Looking at the results the Titan looks like it does a lot better job at small files and is more constant. My HDTune graph bounces up and down all the way accross.

[Brahmzy]

So, I'm still messing around and tweaking things. I've gotta remember where I'm coming from. 3x Velociraptors in RAID0 have a MASSIVE amount of write ability - ridiculous amounts. I can already tell a pretty significant difference that I've lost a lot of write speed going to these SSDs. Just installing all of the Windows updates after a fresh Vx64SP1 OS install took about 50% longer on these SSDs. Installing Office 2007 Pro took a bit longer as well. I am also finding when I'm multitasking and multiple programs (a lot of simultaneous I.E. surfing, file copying etc.)are hitting the SSDs, I get a momentary stutter (or what I believe is a stutter.) My 3 VR's never did this - they read slower, but they were able to handle the writes without even trying. I also know I'm not a normal user and have always had extremely fast storage, so I notice ANY minute changes....

So, I think/hope there's more tweaking to be done... and I'll continue to post the results...

[Particle]

CrystalDisk might be showing you why. You'll notice that only the sequential numbers were better with the non-recommended settings. Unless you spend most of your time reading and writing solid files on a completely defragged disk, the other two numbers will be a lot more important. They will better represent general usage stuff like loading games and applications, web browsing, etc.

[btdvox]

Here's a question for you guys, After reading the Bittech review, Im really impressed, it seems the Dual Jmicron solution really works well.

But with RAID0- in real-world performance with 2 128 drives or one 256 drive what will the difference be?

I know in benchmarks like ATTO RAID0 obv wins, but in real world when I had a RAID 0 setup with raptors, I didnt notice any difference from one one raptor to two in RAID 0....

Any honest answers would be appreciated!

[Brahmzy]

Here's a question for you guys, After reading the Bittech review, Im really impressed, it seems the Dual Jmicron solution really works well.

But with RAID0- in real-world performance with 2 128 drives or one 256 drive what will the difference be?

I know in benchmarks like ATTO RAID0 obv wins, but in real world when I had a RAID 0 setup with raptors, I didnt notice any difference from one one raptor to two in RAID 0....

Any honest answers would be appreciated!

People's biggest complaints with RAID0 were supposedly doubling the risk of a mechanical disk failure and a very slightly reduced access time. With SSD, these are both non-issues for the most part. I would absolutely go RAID0 with SSD. The price is completely the same and you're basically doubling your read and write times.

[ewitte]

You can still have a SSD drive fail. Granted most of the time its some kind of controller or other IC not the actual flash memory.

[Particle]

RAID-0 will actually increase access time, not decrease it. It also doesn't generally help for small or random I/O. For general-purpose stuff, you'll often find yourself a little bit slower when using a stripe. If you're doing uncompressed video captures or something, then it makes sense. It does also increase the chance of total data loss, since one drive in the stripe kills the whole thing. If you want to improve reliability, you need RAID3/5/6 which are all stripes with parity. RAID 3 and 5 let you have one disk die without disruption. RAID 6 lets you have two. All three give you the benefits of a stripe (sequential I/O improvement and increased capacity) without some of the worries (increased chance of data loss) but still have some (higher access times). They also require a decent controller to get good performance.

[flopper]

So, I'm still messing around and tweaking things. I've gotta remember where I'm coming from. 3x Velociraptors in RAID0 have a MASSIVE amount of write ability - ridiculous amounts. I can already tell a pretty significant difference that I've lost a lot of write speed going to these SSDs. Just installing all of the Windows updates after a fresh Vx64SP1 OS install took about 50% longer on these SSDs. Installing Office 2007 Pro took a bit longer as well. I am also finding when I'm multitasking and multiple programs (a lot of simultaneous I.E. surfing, file copying etc.)are hitting the SSDs, I get a momentary stutter (or what I believe is a stutter.) My 3 VR's never did this - they read slower, but they were able to handle the writes without even trying. I also know I'm not a normal user and have always had extremely fast storage, so I notice ANY minute changes....

So, I think/hope there's more tweaking to be done... and I'll continue to post the results...

cache is needed still.
it just makes sense having cache.

[m^2]

RAID-0 will actually increase access time, not decrease it. It also doesn't generally help for small or random I/O. For general-purpose stuff, you'll often find yourself a little bit slower when using a stripe. If you're doing uncompressed video captures or something, then it makes sense. It does also increase the chance of total data loss, since one drive in the stripe kills the whole thing. If you want to improve reliability, you need RAID3/5/6 which are all stripes with parity. RAID 3 and 5 let you have one disk die without disruption. RAID 6 lets you have two. All three give you the benefits of a stripe (sequential I/O improvement and increased capacity) without some of the worries (increased chance of data loss) but still have some (higher access times). They also require a decent controller to get good performance.

RAID 0 does help small random IO as long as IO size is smaller than stripe width (by at least stripe size).

Don't forget about RAID 10. It's sometimes better than 3/5/6.

[Brahmzy]

Meant to type slight INCREASE of access times, not DECREASE. But with SSD's, that pretty much moot, as it was for my Velociraptors.

Let's not turn this into a RAID0 debate - we are all well aware of the pros and cons of each type of RAID and the neccesity of backups regardless if RAID is even implemented. A single drive has JUST as much chance for data loss as a RAID0 array with 2 disks...think about it. Both involve complete data loss.

I will say, I've been messing with the SSDs some more and very happy with the performance. I did some more write tests and I may have jumped ahead of myself. Once I install all of my games and other software on them, that will be the true test. Hopefully tonight...

[IcY18]

To the OP,

is this drive worth $300 for a first time SSD buyer?

I would either go with this or the non Titan, G.skill 64GB, which is priced at $135.

[LuckyNV]

Anyone know of any UK stockists for the 128GB Titan?

[ewitte]

To the OP,

is this drive worth $300 for a first time SSD buyer?

I would either go with this or the non Titan, G.skill 64GB, which is priced at $135.

You know for two of the titans you could get 3 of those AND an Areca-1210

[btdvox]

Hmm Im wanting an SSD for my boot drive and to put some games on it- Most of my multimedia and other stuff will be on my velociraptor, By stating double read and write times seems to be only in benchies, When I had 2 X raptors X's and one velociraptor, I found the latter to be faster.

Im going to wait for the vertexes to come in and see how they fare in RAID 0 and then make my decision, wish these drives would come faster, im now between vertexes, titans and the apexes!

[flopper]

Im going to wait for the vertexes to come in and see how they fare in RAID 0 and then make my decision, wish these drives would come faster, im now between vertexes, titans and the apexes!

choices and decisions. its great to be able to decide.
Not sure of it beats a pina colada on the beach but new tech make me fuzzy

[ewitte]

choices and decisions. its great to be able to decide.
Not sure of it beats a pina colada on the beach but new tech make me fuzzy

Speaking of choices things have gotten crazy in less than a year. I was reading a review for the drive I have and in the conclusion they were talking about how back in February 2008 a "good" price was like $17/GB and you can now get better drives for about $2/GB. Sure there are minor problems but just imagine 1 or 2 more years.

[Brahmzy]

To the OP,

is this drive worth $300 for a first time SSD buyer?

I would either go with this or the non Titan, G.skill 64GB, which is priced at $135.

If you're not in a hurry, I'd wait on it. If it's a money issue though, the Vertex's are even more expensive $/GB than these... so you may be waiting 3 months to really see prices come down at this performance level. I couldn't wait any longer and just had a serious SSD itch. If I find out in 3 weeks that the Vertex's completely blow these out of the water, I'll sell these and get 3 64GB Vertex's in RAID0, or I'll put the TITANs in my other box... I'm REALLY liking these things. Got to mess a little more with 'em last night for a few minutes. Things really are snappy as hell.

I also got a copy of Diskeeper 2009 with that SSD Hyperfast technology and I swear it has really helped the overall feel of things even more.
I thought it was all marketing hype. I talked to the engineer (I have a pretty serious relationship with the Diskeeper guys through my job) behind the Hyperfast stuff at Diskeeper yesterday and he convinced me to give it a shot... I think the trial comes with it free for 30 days... y'all may wanna see what it does for you.

This weekend if I get any time, I'll be loading all of my games on the SSDs and giving them a real run...

In the meantime, I've got 3 and potentially 5 Velociraptors to offload way cheap...

[genec57]

I have a single 128 Titan running Windows 7 and I am quite impressed. Windows loads in about half the time and the data transfer rate is ~ 185mb/sec.
Brahm;zy, have you done any testing of RAID vs single? I know the benchies are impressive but I would like to know if there is a significant difference in the real world.