Intel to launch 34nm SSD with 450/300 MB/s R/W in February

[Sam_oslo]

The first G3 delay rumour was due to the fact that Intel wanted to build up enough stock so the G3 would not have supply problems on release, as occurred with the G2.

That was plausible I guess.

The next rumour was that erase cycles were not yet good enough. Again plausible.

But now The C400 is due out soon and OCZ are already shipping drives with IMF nand.

Maybe Intel needed time to give the G3 controller a makeover to catch up with the competition.

OCZ have not dropped prices now they are using 2Xnm. The free capacity has gone down and by all accounts write speeds with non compressible data are slower. If this is what can be expected with 2Xnm I'm going to stick with 3Xnm.

Yeah, you have some good points there. Maybe this new 25nm NAND had some surprise for controllers?.

OCZ-problems, as you describe it, seams to be related to the combination of the controller + 25nm NAND. And, Intel seams to be using the delay-time to fix the controller to work optimized with this new 25nm NAND, too.

I don't think there is problem with the quality, supply or yield of 25nm NAND by itself, because Intel is confident enough to sell them to OEM already. To me, the problem seams to be related to OCZ and Intel's controllers in combination with 25nm NAND.

[gumballguy]

worst mistake of my life putting in a drive that sucks with data that can't be compressed in a computer that just deals with highly compressed videos/music.

You've had a good life then?

I'll never buy an SSD that uses compression.

Sure you will. When intel starts doing it too. There is a reasonable chance that sooner or later you won't have a choice.




I think my sandforce died last night though. So I'm not a fan of them either.

[deathman20]

Sure you will. When intel starts doing it too. There is a reasonable chance that sooner or later you won't have a choice.

I think my sandforce died last night though. So I'm not a fan of them either.

Well if Intel starts doing it, would have to assume that they have a good quality product on there hands then. Not saying Sandforce is bad but its not like I see many Intel drives failing around here.

[Computurd]

i have always been uneasy with the compression. just personally it sounds like a gimmick to me. and from what ive seen, it is. marketing people. compression=marketing.

bummer on the whole 25nm crap. but rest assured, this is just more of the less desirable manufacturers practices. reading that linked thread is fricking amazing. whoever is calling the shots on that whole fiasco is ballsy. thats a helluva way to do bidness. shady is a big understatement.

controllers that are designed to work with 25nm from the get-go will be fine. hold your breath fellas. soon this little bubble will burst and ssd goodness will pop forth.

[zalbard]

Compression doesn't have to be marketed. That's just OCZ's approach. They could list random data performance and be done with it. The thing is, these numbers are just not competitive...
But really, it's not a bad thing and any SSD could benefit from it.

[HKPolice]

Compression IS a bad thing. It hurts incompressible data write speeds because it allows the manufacturers to make SSDs without any Ram cache. This is the only reason why the Sandforce controller has been able to elbow its way into a market dominated by Intel & Indilinx. On paper and in synthetic tests, the SF is cheaper & faster but in the real world, that lack of cache really does hurt.

I've measured the averaged sustained sequential write speed for an incompressible x264 file to a Vertex2 @ ~95MB/s. This is MUCH slower than the indilinx which can easily pull off ~190MB/s sequential writes no matter what type of data.

I personally don't think Intel would ever create an SSD with compression in it because people could easily sue them for misleading advertising. Quite frankly I'm surprised no one has sued OCZ/Corsair any other manufacturer for false speed claims on the sandforce SSDs with incompressible data.

[zalbard]

Compression IS a bad thing. It hurts incompressible data write speeds because it allows the manufacturers to make SSDs without any Ram cache.

Different implementations are possible. It doesn't have to copy SF's design.
Easy test for you. Compress an mp3 album with WinRAR. Then record the time of copying the album to your SSD and the time of copying the archived file, also. You'll see there won't be any performance loss.
The idea is good, it just has to be implemented well.

The lack of cache is SF's mistake. It can be avoided.

[Computurd]

Compression doesn't have to be marketed. That's just OCZ's approach.

not speaking of OCZ specifically. there are tons of mfgs that are using the SF processors. they are all guilty of this.

[zalbard]

not speaking of OCZ specifically. there are tons of mfgs that are using the SF processors. they are all guilty of this.

Yeah, same. Poor choice of words, perhaps. You get the point. Make that "SF-based drive manufacturers".

[Computurd]

lol plus one. just never was that high on SF drives, and the failure rates *seem* to be abysmal. i do know that the real world perf is not near advertised specs and that just doesnt set well with me i guess. GC/trim functionality having issues, and then the incompressible data...high latency...degradation without writing (merely from reading) then sprinkle in this whole 22nm fiasco(ocz wont be only mfg doing this at the end of the day i guarantee it), and man it just isnt something id spend this kind of money on. i just personally have to many reservations about this tech, hardware level compression has never set with me right, and unfortunately it appears my suspicions were founded.

I will be MUCH more willing to look at this as a viable tech once we get into the second, and possibly third, generations of this tech. OR if intel waves their magic wand on it and makes it golden

[glen]

I don't know, I bought a OCZ SF 60gb for $80 last thankgiving. I don't really care about the misleading specs, the thing has been reliable and probably the biggest upgrade to any of my computers I have ever seen. I think the GC and "slow downs" are over stated and for the average user its no big deal. I'm hoping this conservative controller means a longer drive life, sure I'll have to erase it a few times, but if it can last a few years until SSDs are reasonably priced I'll be happy.

I always suspect the real advantage of the 32nm SF drives were long term hardware reliability for cheap. Yea their marketing departments pushed the speed aspect but thats just to marketing. All in all for $80 its a great OS drive. Sure the compression could lead to data reliability issues, nothing an erase and reimage won't fix. But long term nuts and bolts, ram life, the SF should have a very good track record.

One day 100+ GB SSD's will be under $40 and just be part of a typical system build like a DVD-R, until then my $80 SF fills a niche.

[SteveRo]

I have had 30+ flash based SSDs over the past two years and only one died and that was in the 1st 24 hours, I would think that is not too bad.
All boot drives in the house are SSDs helps makes for a happy family

[Skratch]

Guys what about this drive,its a sata 3 and does 410mb a sec

corsair performance 128gb

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-154-_-Product

[RVWinkle]

To me, the problem seams to be related to OCZ and Intel's controllers in combination with 25nm NAND.

I agree with this. Any official explanations have had an odd BS tone to them. I've never seen a process shrink cause such reliability problems unless something else was wrong.

[RaV666]

Wow, looks like my next ssd, Im not to happy about my vertex 2, it doesnt seem to load games any faster than my 7200k samsung drive.At first i was getting 250MB/s read in HDtune, now its more like 130MB/s average,and in reality due to compression lost its probably more like 100MB/s.

[geo]

Guys what about this drive,its a sata 3 and does 410mb a sec

corsair performance 128gb

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-154-_-Product

According to newegg that uses a marvell controller, which isn't considered great.

[Skratch]

According to newegg that uses a marvell controller, which isn't considered great.

Who cares someone in the review is getting almost 1GB/sec in raid.If someone wants a fast drive why wait?

I wish I saw this last month since I bought the one just under it for 225.

[Computurd]

Wow, looks like my next ssd, Im not to happy about my vertex 2, it doesnt seem to load games any faster than my 7200k samsung drive.At first i was getting 250MB/s read in HDtune, now its more like 130MB/s average,and in reality due to compression lost its probably more like 100MB/s.

if i could count how many times ive read this elsewhere

Who cares someone in the review is getting almost 1GB/sec in raid.If someone wants a fast drive why wait?

well there is more to the controller than the maz sequential. seq is important, but there are other considerations of course. i would love to see more info on this line of drives.

According to newegg that uses a marvell controller, which isn't considered great

^^wrong. using same as the c400 from what ive read. this looks like a promising drive here. no compression. real speed. all i need to know is latency and the 4k and this looks like a winner

. Based on the same Marvell controller as Micron’s C300/C400 but with what Corsair tells us is a different firmware, the P3 is supposed to be very quick.

looks to be a cheaper c400. nothing wrong with that.

[Skratch]

If someone wants my corsair 120 force ssd ill sell it for 200(paid like 230)less than 2 weeks ago.im going to run that new 410 drive.I wonder if newegg will let me exchange.

[eXa]

According to newegg that uses a marvell controller, which isn't considered great.

By whom?

[Okda]

Wow, looks like my next ssd, Im not to happy about my vertex 2, it doesnt seem to load games any faster than my 7200k samsung drive.At first i was getting 250MB/s read in HDtune, now its more like 130MB/s average,and in reality due to compression lost its probably more like 100MB/s.

i moved from X25 v 40GB to vertex 2 120GB and i can confirm your statement 100%

i bought an intel 80GB several days ago for OS in my work PC to replace the vertex 2

i didn't want to wait for new SSD versions cause i think for an OS drive the current models is good enough from intel

[irev210]

You've had a good life then?

My electronic purchasing life...

My other lives, not so much, heh