Intel 34nm SSD released

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 4:43 am

JVM wrote:As for backing up to an internal magnetic hdd, meaning data or full image, is it the same as with two 7200 rpm hard drives? And if it is and you need to restore that image back to an SSD, any issue there?

I haven't tested yet, but Windows 7 is supposed to have pretty good backup utilities.

http://www.dasmirnov.net/blog/backup-ma ... -windows-7

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articl ... Part2.html

http://www.petri.co.il/windows-7-backup-restore.htm

I suppose it should work regardless what kind of media you use for the back up. You can even use network as a back up destination, which can be really convenient.

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 5:30 am

Thanks, Erssa, that is certainly useful information. Seems like I can do away with Acronis and save disk space as well as system resources.

Windows 7 backup and restore does look better than what is in Vista. The only question that remains is if there is any issue as presented by cmthomson a few posts ago.

josephclemente · Post by **josephclemente** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 12:24 am

cmthomson wrote:Acronis does clone systems without regard to whether the source or target is SSD or HDD, but be aware that when cloning to an SSD, it will align the partition to a 31.5KB boundary (offset of 63 sectors, a "track" boundary on an HDD).

In my experience, Acronis True Image 2009 will preserve the alignment as long as the restored partition size is the same. I haven't tried the new 2010 version yet, hopefully it is the same.

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 9:35 am

skiddy wrote:
JVM wrote:As for backing up to an internal magnetic hdd, meaning data or full image, is it the same as with two 7200 rpm hard drives? And if it is and you need to restore that image back to an SSD, any issue there?
I restored a 'clone' of my HD to the SSD, it worked just fine, once I figured out that I HAD to run a FULL format to the SSD to get the boot sector written...

What did you use for cloning?

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 9:47 am

It won't be all that long before 320GB SSD are available, some are already shown online in Europe:

http://www.alkon-pc.de/Intel-G2-POSTVIL ... 47036.html

http://www.mix-computer.de/html/product ... tNo=IMJMW3&

http://www.bit-superstore.de/eshop.php? ... d=geizhals

http://www.alternate.at/html/product/de ... tno=IMJMW3&

skiddy · Post by **skiddy** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 11:12 am

JVM wrote: What did you use for cloning?

I used WD's Data Lifeguard Utilities disk-to-disk copy.

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 11:20 am

skiddy wrote:
JVM wrote: What did you use for cloning?
I used WD's Data Lifeguard Utilities disk-to-disk copy.

You have 32-bit OS? From WD technical support, the Data Lifeguard utility does not support 64-bit OS--which is what I have now and will have with Windows 7.

And isn't that utility just for WD drives?

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 11:02 am

Metaluna wrote:
skiddy wrote:
JVM wrote:Have you noticed any difference running AHCI in terms of performance?
I went from:
SEQ read write 4k read write 4k*64threads read write
249 57 20 45 21 48
to:
262 65 19 43 150 53

The significant change was 4k * 64 threads: 21 MB/s to 150 during reads.
According to this PC Perspective article, the X25 exploits AHCI/NCQ extensively to improve performance, so it pretty much confirms your findings.

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=66 ... pert&pid=3

That is interesting but from the same forum comes a different view, although not for SSD:

"Just a quick reminder for everyone on NCQ. It provides no performance benefit whatsoever in a typical desktop PC. In fact having it enabled usually imposes a small performance penalty, although it too is pretty small. It is only in enterprise environments, in which access patterns are far more random than in windows, and spread out all over the surface of a drive, that any real-word benefit is derived."

http://www.intelforums.net/showpost.php ... stcount=11

merlin · Post by **merlin** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 12:59 pm

I'm really looking forward to building a new high power + silent machine with some westmere variant on a native chipset with usb3 and sata3 combined with an SSD. It's certainly brought a new shift because of the huge random read and write benefits over magnetic storage, not to mention the advantage of noiseless storage. Hopefully SSD's will also cut in price by at least half over the next year. Also just to mention I have AHCI enabled on all my machines. It's not too hard to enable it if you prepare your operating system for a changeover. (otherwise you'll bsod).

cmthomson · Post by **cmthomson** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 12:59 pm

josephclemente wrote:
cmthomson wrote:Acronis does clone systems without regard to whether the source or target is SSD or HDD, but be aware that when cloning to an SSD, it will align the partition to a 31.5KB boundary (offset of 63 sectors, a "track" boundary on an HDD).
In my experience, Acronis True Image 2009 will preserve the alignment as long as the restored partition size is the same. I haven't tried the new 2010 version yet, hopefully it is the same.

I have Acronis 11, which under the new naming scheme would be 2008. It definitely ignores the alignment of the source disk, regardless of mode, and creates a new partition at C/H/S of 0/1/0 (offset 31.5KB) on the target disk.

Trip · Post by **Trip** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 3:35 pm

I don't see this linked: The SSD Relapse: Understanding and Choosing the Best SSD

EDIT: D'oh JazzJackRabbit and Dirge both beat me to it

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 12:06 pm

I don't know about all these SSD drives, but the Intel 160GB G2 does use more than twice CPU usage than my Hitachi drive:

I ran the test twice with same results and under same conditions for Hitachi--the only difference being the Intel drive is not formatted.

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 12:21 pm

Oh, and here is the same test showing CPU Usage for my Hitachi loaded with Vista 64-bit Ultimate to compare with above:

Looks kind of sick compared to the Intel SSD above.

RDaneel · Post by **RDaneel** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 7:15 am

Those Intel SSD results are amazing... can't wait to get one!

swivelguy2 · Post by **swivelguy2** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 8:48 am

JVM wrote:I don't know about all these SSD drives, but the Intel 160GB G2 does use more than twice CPU usage than my Hitachi drive

The Intel SSD uses 2.7 times as much CPU time as the Hitachi HDD - while retrieving 2.6 times as much data (on the fast side of the HDD). So, the CPU cycles per data retrieved are not in fact increased significantly.

If you ran this test on a hard disk that retrieved one bit per second, you'd probably get 0.0% CPU usage (okay, maybe 0.1%) - but that wouldn't be a good thing!

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 8:59 am

swivelguy2 wrote:
JVM wrote:I don't know about all these SSD drives, but the Intel 160GB G2 does use more than twice CPU usage than my Hitachi drive
The Intel SSD uses 2.7 times as much CPU time as the Hitachi HDD - while retrieving 2.6 times as much data (on the fast side of the HDD). So, the CPU cycles per data retrieved are not in fact increased significantly.

If you ran this test on a hard disk that retrieved one bit per second, you'd probably get 0.0% CPU usage (okay, maybe 0.1%) - but that wouldn't be a good thing!

OK, now I feel better, so thanks!

lm · Post by lm » Thu Oct 08, 2009 9:15 am

If we look at the average data transfer rate instead, we notice that the average of the SSD is actually 3.26 times the average of the hdd, while the SSD needs 2.79 times the CPU time.

So in fact the SSD seems to use less cpu time per amount of data transferred than the hdd.

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 9:36 am

I just found this power consumption test in a review by Anand:

http://anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631&p=26

widowmaker · Post by **widowmaker** » Fri Oct 09, 2009 11:39 am

I just picked up 2 80 gig G2's and I'll be putting them in raid 0. I'll share my results with you all later. The trouble now is, I can find floppy drives for sale, but nobody seems to be selling floppy disks. I can't install XP on the array without floppy disks! I might try slip streaming though.

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Fri Oct 09, 2009 11:52 am

widowmaker wrote:I just picked up 2 80 gig G2's and I'll be putting them in raid 0. I'll share my results with you all later. The trouble now is, I can find floppy drives for sale, but nobody seems to be selling floppy disks. I can't install XP on the array without floppy disks! I might try slip streaming though.

http://www.nextag.com/3__5-floppy-disks ... 8D2CFB8877

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Fri Oct 09, 2009 11:56 am

Staples also has them: http://www.staples.com/office/supplies/ ... omUrl=home

Just noticed you are in Canada, so if no Staples there, do a search or maybe my other link will work for you.

lm · Post by lm » Fri Oct 09, 2009 12:51 pm

widowmaker wrote:I just picked up 2 80 gig G2's and I'll be putting them in raid 0. I'll share my results with you all later. The trouble now is, I can find floppy drives for sale, but nobody seems to be selling floppy disks. I can't install XP on the array without floppy disks! I might try slip streaming though.

Sorry for this...

Am I the only one who finds the given situation extremely funny - need a floppy to use Intel SSD =D

widowmaker · Post by **widowmaker** » Fri Oct 09, 2009 1:17 pm

Haha thanks for all your responses. There's an electronics disposal depot nearby. I might go by and ask if I can go treasure hunting in their garbage. Im, I find it more sad than funny

. Fortunately if Windows 7 really ends up being the XP replacement, this issue won't be a problem anymore. By then I'll have another floppy drive and disks to throw out.

falcon26 · Post by **falcon26** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 8:37 am

Just got my Intel X25M G2

http://img39.imageshack.us/i/hdtunebenc ... elssd.png/

Its dead silent I don't even know its in my case. And the sucker scream speed. Windows 7 boots in about 9 seconds. Shuts down in about 3 seconds. Loading apps is instant. But of course the cost sucks. I paided $250 for the 80GB version...

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 9:04 am

I don't understand the CPU Usage being -1.0%

Anyway, nice to know that about Windows 7, which I pre-ordered.

falcon26 · Post by **falcon26** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 9:52 am

Yeah I don't get that score either. It has to be a bug or something. But it would be nice if it were true

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 10:30 am

falcon26 wrote:Yeah I don't get that score either. It has to be a bug or something. But it would be nice if it were true

Have you tried repeating the test to see if that CPU Usage reports a more realistic score? I ran a few tests with my Intel SSD and CPU Usage is around 8-9 percent.

I am using Vista x64 at this time, Windows 7 was pre-ordered. There is another tool specifically for SSD drives, although no CPU Usage reporting:

http://www.alex-is.de/PHP/fusion/downloads.php

widowmaker · Post by **widowmaker** » Tue Oct 13, 2009 9:05 am

Alrighty. Time to seek the wisdom of the Internet peoples.

Here are 3 drives I benchmarked for reference in this order:
DDR2 800 ramdisk
80 GB Intel X25-M G2 Raid 0
7200rpm Seagate 3.5

Is it just me or do the readings from Crystal Disk Mark differ from the HD Tune? (most notably in the 4k random reads)

And here's a bonus boot video I made. System is fully loaded with the apps I use on a daily basis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTsL_MGv4wg