Intel's 34nm NAND SSDs launch in two weeks

[Ourasi]

Thank you very much Ourasi
I guess that the TRIM registry tweak will be reversed if/when Intel update the firmware for the Gen1 drives to support this feature?
My motherboard's BIOS has Option ROM 8.7.0.1007, is there a newer one out for the ICH9R?
If so please could you link to release notes?
I have Matrix Manager 8.9.0.1023 is that bad?
Anyway thanks for the tweaks it's amazing what you can squeeze out of an OS!
BTW Intel's forums are down... is this because of people wanting to TRIM?
John

TRIM registry tweak, wut? My only registry tweak in this list is Transient Multimon Manager (TMM) called UseIViewHelper in the registry...
The Option ROM v8.8.0.1009 is out and works like a charm on ICH9R, if you want it, I can post it, I have no change log, but it writes a tad faster on random small files... Newer IATA drivers boots much slower then v8.7, with no difference in overall performance, untill there is an actual reason to go with newer drivers I will recomend v8.7...

Depending on what your doing turning off page file isn't a good idea.
I have 8gb's of ram and when I using Photoshop it ran out of ram and the system crashed and was unrecoverable so I lost a load of work. Usually the system comes up with a warning asking you to close non-essential applications but that's hardly ideal if you are working on a load of files. If you just gaming or not using apps that eats any resources you system has it should be ok though.

I compromised by having the minimum page file size at 16mb when your PC starts so windows won't write to a page unless your system is completely out of ram, and in that situation you will be glad you didn't disable it.

This is why you always do the apropriate steps, do them right and Win7 will never behave like you describe, all though som apps are e...

[JohnZS]

Yeah thanks for the tip Rhys
Windows isn't good without the page file due to the odd few applications (usually old ones might I add) that tend to freak out without the presence of a page file (even with 8GB of RAM)!
Hahah Ourasi I've obviously got TRIM on the brain as I read that as TRIM in your post hehe needless to say it TMM is something completely different! (Graphics Display output related?)
Thanks for the tips
John

[fritzman]

I see you have "Volume WriteBack cache" on, i suggest you turn it off, as it severely cripples IOPS. Some completely worthless benches might complain a bit, but the ones you should care about will tell a different story.

Would you recommend turning this off for platter drives as well? (or does it just apply to SSD's?)

[pokerezzet]

Since TRIM won´t work on my 2*Intel X25-M G2 raid0, is there any similiar option/trick to keep raid0 SSD:s in shape?

[Rhys]

Since TRIM won´t work on my 2*Intel X25-M G2 raid0, is there any similiar option/trick to keep raid0 SSD:s in shape?

People might advise you to remove unnecessary writes from your SSD, but my opinion is I spent large £/$ to avoid the feeling of constriction and to improve my overall experience so that's why I think it defeats the object to move things off the SSD.

Also although 'Apparently' the new SSD's suffer a little more fragmentation due to increased write combining over G1, it shouldn't give you any real cause for concern as performance won't be 'badly' affected and you will DEFINITELY get TRIM before too long.

So in short, don't worry about it.

[Ourasi]

Would you recommend turning this off for platter drives as well? (or does it just apply to SSD's?)

Didn't test as much on HDD, but it did score less on the few good IOPS benches I had at the time, and in general it did feel slower with it on with 3xRaptorX.. The few benches that showed low sequential speed, is pretty worthless, as the "good" benches showed increased sequential speed with WBC off.. Do an IOMeter test with it on and off and compare, I am pretty sure off is a safe bet on HDD's aswell...... According to Intel it's supposed to only be used with Raid 5....

[Ourasi]

Hahah Ourasi I've obviously got TRIM on the brain as I read that as TRIM in your post hehe needless to say it TMM is something completely different! (Graphics Display output related?)
Thanks for the tips
John

No worries, that was my guess aswell

There is infact some slow deletes of small files, minor but I do notice it, in Windows 7. Turning off TRIM in windows 7 seems to have fixed this, but a little to soon to tell yet.. Still, sending this command every time a file or multiple files gets deleted is a waste on G1, it only gets discarded and can slow deletes down. It's very easy to turn off: Open CMD as admin, and paste this command: "fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 1" without the quotes. To turn it back on: "fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0" .....

[lowfat]

Yeah thanks for the tip Rhys
Windows isn't good without the page file due to the odd few applications (usually old ones might I add) that tend to freak out without the presence of a page file (even with 8GB of RAM)!
John

The only application I've ever had issues with, when having no page file, was Crysis. And this is only with 6GB of ram.

[Ao1]

Also although 'Apparently' the new SSD's suffer a little more fragmentation due to increased write combining over G1

I picked that up in the Anandtech review as well. Seems the G2 drives are primarily about consistent performance without degradation, but until TRIM support is implemented heavy use may cause a drop in performance, in which case the G2 drives will not perform optimally until TRIM is enabled and therefore not being TRIM compatible from day one is a bit disappointing, but then again maybe the TRIM capability in public releases of Win 7 is not yet 100%. If it is I wonder why Intel didn’t make these drives TRIM compatible from day one?

[JohnZS]

That is true, there is no great rush to implement the TRIMING firmware yet as Windows 7 is not out yet and is only coming out to Technet subscribers in 2 weeks. AFAIK the official general release date is the 22nd of October, that gives Intel plenty of time to perfect Firmwares and Matrix Manager Drivers and ICH Roms
John

[Ao1]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that TRIM will never be available in raid mode? Maybe wrong, I can't remember where I read it, but in any case I think the G2 will run better in most applications as a single drive. I'm going to give a single G2 a shot to see how it compares to 2 x25E's in raid 0. My guess is it will be quicker for the vast majority of tasks, but I'll soon see.

[Rhys]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that TRIM will never be available in raid mode? Maybe wrong, I can't remember where I read it, but in any case I think the G2 will run better in most applications as a single drive. I'm going to give a single G2 a shot to see how it compares to 2 x25E's in raid 0. My guess is it will be quicker for the vast majority of tasks, but I'll soon see.

Intel just need to amend their ICHX drivers to allow the TRIM command to pass through to the drives.
Hardware raid controller companies are currently working on their drivers to allow them to be TRIM compatable.
So it's just a matter of time really.

Edit:
Non-raid setups 'may' be faster at loading apps, but I doubt you could easily time the difference with a stopwatch, I presume the performance would be similar to a non-raid G1. I'm looking to possibley raid because I'm opening, working with, and saving large files from 500mb-2gb so I think raid should give a fairly good boost when working with such files.

[JohnZS]

Changing the subject but sort of in the same vein of thought (re: Trim), am I the only person disappointed with the lack of Windows 7 Ultimate E pre-order options in the UK.
Seems places only have preorder for Home and Professional
John

[zalbard]

Changing the subject but sort of in the same vein of thought (re: Trim), am I the only person disappointed with the lack of Windows 7 Ultimate E pre-order options in the UK.

What would you need Ultimate for?

[Rhys]

What would you need Ultimate for?

Is it only the Ultimate version that has xp emulation?

[JohnZS]

What would you need Ultimate for?

The same reason I purchased Vista Ultimate for back in 2007. The ability to have the remote access functions, (RDP) and also the media centre stuff.

Home Edition has the Media Centre, but NO RDP. Professional has RDP but no Media Centre.

XP Emulation would also be a welcome bonus too (I must admit that I had a play with that on the Windows 7 RC)

John

[Oberon]

Is it only the Ultimate version that has xp emulation?

The professional edition has XP emulation, too.

[GunterFalstaff]

ok, now i admit i am very noob as far as solid state drives go... but i am interested in these new gen ssd's.. but i just dont understand a few things... if the intel ssd's are the best you can get, why is the write speed so much lower than what other companies claim? for example the super talent drives have around 200mb/s write speed while the intel drives only have about 70mb/s?

[JohnZS]

Intel drives have a much higher "Random Write" Speed and also much lower latencies than the competing drives. Intel drives also have a much more consistent write speed, for example 70MB/s over time might degrade to around 60 or so MB/s but competitor drives with 200MB/s write may fragment to as low as 50mb/s (or even less) which will give you a phenomenon known as stuttering
John

[Rhys]

ok, now i admit i am very noob as far as solid state drives go... but i am interested in these new gen ssd's.. but i just dont understand a few things... if the intel ssd's are the best you can get, why is the write speed so much lower than what other companies claim? for example the super talent drives have around 200mb/s write speed while the intel drives only have about 70mb/s?

They are not the best drive in every situation. But if your looking for a drive that boots your system and loads your apps 0 - 2 sec's faster but that also maintains great performance while multi-tasking then the M won't be beat except from Much more expensive solutions.

If you work with large files all the time then this may not be the best drive for you due to the write speed, but you can minimise this burden by putting a couple in raid 0.

The main advantage the x25-m now has over it's competition in the real world is value.

[Rhys]

Intel drives have a much higher "Random Write" Speed and also much lower latencies than the competing drives. Intel drives also have a much more consistent write speed, for example 70MB/s over time might degrade to around 60 or so MB/s but competitor drives with 200MB/s write may fragment to as low as 50mb/s (or even less) which will give you a phenomenon known as stuttering
John

Are you talking about Samsung controllers?

[GunterFalstaff]

Well, i am seeing benchmarks and such that point to ocz and corsair as the "fastest" drives for bootup and load time (games) speeds.

Is there any reason i should wait for these new intel drives over this Corsair or Vertex?

[JohnZS]

And JMicron yes

[Ao1]

The main advantage the x25-m now has over it's competition in the real world is value.

OCZ have already announced price drops in response to the G2 and others will no doubt follow. They have no choice as they won't be able to sell lower (on average) performing drives for more money than the G2.

Seems that despite nand getting more expensive the price of ssd's are now only going one way. Down.

[JohnZS]

But the thing is audienceofone as low as the Intel Gen2 prices are at the moment, they will come down due to the stock and demand theory (at the moment there is a large amount of demand but hardly any stock, as soon as the stock fills up then prices will come down even more)
This is fantastic times for the emerging technology that is SSD.