SSD Drive (Worth the expense?)

[svedan]

i'm considering to buying a SSD drive, Anyone who has got any recommendations for which model or brand i should buy?

I have heard that the OCZ ssd drives are unstable.

[MackTheKnight]

Druid,

 

Even in raid0, GC still works fine. So long as you let your system idle for a couple hours a week maintenance is pretty easy.

 

Svedan, I suggest the Corsair Force GT SSDs. http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=744446&Sku=C13-8122

[Slayer]

Druid,

 

Even in raid0, GC still works fine. So long as you let your system idle for a couple hours a week maintenance is pretty easy.

 

Svedan, I suggest the Corsair Force GT SSDs. http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=744446&Sku=C13-8122

 

Druid is right about the Intel RST drivers not passing the TRIM command though to Raid arrays. Supposedly there will be an update soon to address this (saw it on a tech site somewhere). I used to reformat yearly but Windows 7 hasn't failed on me yet... I'll wait for the driver update...

[Pyroflash]

i'm considering to buying a SSD drive, Anyone who has got any recommendations for which model or brand i should buy?

I have heard that the OCZ ssd drives are unstable.

 

Some OCZ drives used to be unstable, the Vertex 2 drives F.e. had an issue where they would degrade in performance due to a bad chipset. The early Vertex 3 drives would constantly crash due to a firmware issue, but that has been largely fixed.

 

Intel drives from what I hear are fairly stable drives, and are a kind of middleground in performance, with Corsair being another fairly popular brand. They all have their little quirks though, and really it is best to do you homework on each prospective drive before diving in.

[Nate--IRL--]

A note of Caution, my brothers OCZ Vertex Died today, with just a little over year of light use. My own one is a corsair, but from now on it will be backed up regularly.

 

Nate

[Pilotasso]

Vertex1/2/3?

[Nate--IRL--]

Vertex1/2/3?

 

Sorry I don't know, but Vertex 2 does ring a bell, I can't be sure.

 

Nate

[MackTheKnight]

Druid is right about the Intel RST drivers not passing the TRIM command though to Raid arrays. Supposedly there will be an update soon to address this (saw it on a tech site somewhere). I used to reformat yearly but Windows 7 hasn't failed on me yet... I'll wait for the driver update...

 

Yes, sorry. I wasn't arguing his point. TRIM doesn't work in RAID, it's a sad fact that will hopefully be addressed by the next RST drivers.

 

But GC does work, if you leave the machine idle at the login screen for a while. At least that's the case with the Corsair and OCZ SSD's I use.

[TomDK]

Same to me, my first OCZ 2 Agility 2 died after 6 weeks. Weekly backup required :thumbup:

 

Amazon send asap a new one, now for 3 weeks running .. will see.

[Druid_]

Yes, sorry. I wasn't arguing his point. TRIM doesn't work in RAID, it's a sad fact that will hopefully be addressed by the next RST drivers.

 

But GC does work, if you leave the machine idle at the login screen for a while. At least that's the case with the Corsair and OCZ SSD's I use.

You're putting too much faith in GC. It depends on what controller you are using. Taken from hardwarecanucks.com ..

 

So what about all those consumers who don’t have TRIM capabilities? Before TRIM was implemented, controller designers created routines to minimize and alleviate performance degradation. These self-maintenance routines go by many names but are usually called “Idle Time” or “Background” Garbage collection.

 

This “old school” solution is of course the somewhat perfect answer for non-TRIM environments. Sadly, not all algorithms and routines are created equal and efficiency varies greatly from one controller maker to another. Since SandForce expects people to have TRIM capable systems, their self maintenance routines are very mild a best and thus very slow. So slow in fact that without TRIM, even the mighty SF2281 based drives can see their performance degraded very quickly. In extreme cases pauses and stuttering can even occur.

 

While SandForce and others went the route of assuming their customers had TRIM, Marvell did not. In fact, Marvell seems to have actively focused upon and have designed their controller for consumers who want a large performance boost but don’t want to upgrade their entire system to get it. This is why Marvell controllers – especially this second gen “9174” - have more aggressive self-maintenance routines which start working sooner and faster than their competitors.

 

Read the whole review here . Interesting and informative article especially if you're thinking of RAIDing SSDs which I was. However my mind is changed and I'll be going with a single SSD until intel support RAID Trim in an upcoming RST.

Edited February 2, 2012 by Druid_

[svedan]

I have Intel sata II and Marvel sata III on my motherboard, from what I read on other forums, the majority of people claim that the Marvel controller are crap compared to the Intel controllers. So now I'm a bit puzzled on whether i should buy a SSD or not. Anyone using Marvel controller, does it work well?

 

Edit: I have the Marvel 9123

[MackTheKnight]

You're putting too much faith in GC. It depends on what controller you are using. Taken from hardwarecanucks.com ..

 

Thanks for the info. That explains why I haven't had any noticable issues with my setup. I'm running two Corsair Performance 3 128 GB drives in RAID0. They use the Marvell SATA 6 Gb/s controller and according to ATTO, they're running just as fast as the day I installed them.

 

Makes me happy that I went the Marvell route this time. I had a couple of early gen OCZ Agility drives (Sandforce) and one of them failed, so I changed over to Corsair to give them a shot. OCZ replaced the drive with a Vertex 2 that I now have as a cache for my mechanical but I don't have much faith in OCZ's reliablity as a result.

 

In any case, it's always a good idea to keep a regular backup routine in place. No telling when a drive may fail (Mechanical or SSD).

Edited February 2, 2012 by MackTheKnight

[emenance]

I am loving the difference with my ssd cache drive. I ran a HD tach bench on my raid 0 that is accel with a 64gb ssd and got Random access 2.3ms . Previous result was around 10ms on the raid 0 old asus maximus set up. I have no studder.

[MackTheKnight]

I am loving the difference with my ssd cache drive. I ran a HD tach bench on my raid 0 that is accel with a 64gb ssd and got Random access 2.3ms . Previous result was around 10ms on the raid 0 old asus maximus set up. I have no studder.

 

Are you saying you're using an SSD drive for Cache to 2 mechanicals in RAID0? I didn't even know that was possible. Very cool though! :thumbup:

[Pilotasso]

Going simple with a standard SATA 6G drive might be more reliable and faster.

[Nate--IRL--]

That's why I plan on shoving the entire game in a ramdisk :)

 

I plan on doing the same whenever I get around to building a new computer.

 

Nate

[Depth]

I got the Revodrive X2 for a nice wad of cash. It's equivalent to putting 16 15GB SSD's in raid 0, insane performance.

[emenance]

Are you saying you're using an SSD drive for Cache to 2 mechanicals in RAID0? I didn't even know that was possible. Very cool though! :thumbup:

 

Yes and there are a couple places that detail the diff and run some benchs. I was amazed how well a raid 0 runs accelerated by a cache drive. I went for it. At first I thought I was going to be done with raid 0 but NO WAY, no time soon.

[Fleshpiston]

I have been looking at SSDs but I still think the price is just a tad too high for me. At the moment I have 4x500gb running RAID10 - fast but still quite "safe" I don't get stutters but load times are still not as quick as I would like hence the SSD thoughts.

[emenance]

I have been looking at SSDs but I still think the price is just a tad too high for me. At the moment I have 4x500gb running RAID10 - fast but still quite "safe" I don't get stutters but load times are still not as quick as I would like hence the SSD thoughts.

 

One of our PC techs did a big read a couple weeks on the current affairs of the ssd tech. It was enough to scare him away for now.

 

On an accelerated z68 system though, those problems for the os or managment are not a problem. I can honestly say that the performance I see with load times of BS missions and what now are faster than raid alone first load. When I reload the mission there is almost NO WAIT. Like 10 seconds. thats it. I dont see an avantage of two ssd drives in a raid setup at all and I sure would stay in the " safe " area instead.

 

Some peeps want to talk bad about intels Cache tech but I am seeing very bragable performace with business apps, accounting applications. BF3 and all the DCS games.

[KaspeR32]

I'll just put in my 2 cents here,

 

I think upgrading to an SSD was the SINGLE best and most noticeable upgrade I've ever made.

 

Not only is everyday computer use faster (boot times, windows 7 in general, firefox) but loading in games, between levels, new scenery, (no more sutters!)

 

So yes, I think it's quite worth it. Although like many said, enough for your OS and a few games that you currently play is plenty considering cost per GB.

[nowakpl]

My solution is more ram - 16GB or more. Having a lot of "free" ram to be used by disk cache will offer a lot of the ssd benefits.

[KaspeR32]

My solution is more ram - 16GB or more. Having a lot of "free" ram to be used by disk cache will offer a lot of the ssd benefits.

 

Well, I'm not sure that would give you nearly the amount of performance increase you would see just from an SSD.

 

If DCS loaded EVERYTHING into disk cache before you flew the mission, this might be a solution, but as long as the game requires access to the hard drive during play, it's gotta get the info INTO disk cache first. With an SSD, everything from loading to random access while you're playing is significantly faster, and by significantly faster I mean night and day.

 

Just get an SSD you wont be sorry.

[Nate--IRL--]

I would disagree, but you are half correct. Leaving windows to cache DCS will yield little result. By using a RAMDisk, performance will be significantly faster than a SSD - however the difference between a SSD and RAMDisk would be barely noticeable in DCS IMO.

 

Nate

[KaspeR32]

I would disagree, but you are half correct. Leaving windows to cache DCS will yield little result. By using a RAMDisk, performance will be significantly faster than a SSD - however the difference between a SSD and RAMDisk would be barely noticeable in DCS IMO.

 

Nate

 

What do you mean by using "a RAMDisk" ? If you have 16+ GB of RAM could you set that up as almost a temporary HD? If so, would DCS load all of it's info for a mission on to that temporary disk?

 

And even if it did, wouldn't it still have to get bits and pieces of information from the regular HD during a mission?, which in some cases can cause the short stutter, ie Explosion sprites, vehicles that haven't been loaded, terrain that hasn't been loaded.