Intel 34nm SSD released

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 10:03 am

I'm sure I'd be OK if it were 40GB. I have over 100GB on my existing HD but the thing is when I buy the SSD I don't have to throw away my existing drive. It will just become a secondary drive for storage and any applications that don't fit on the SSD.

Forgive the godawful URL but this is the pricing range I look at for boot drives right now.

http://silentpcreview.pricegrabber.com/ ... &x=46&y=12]

SAMSUNG HD502HI 500GB 5400 RPM ~$55
WD Blue WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM ~65
WD Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM ~75

Again I'm not worried about space. If the drive were fast it could be one tenth the size and I'd consider it a valuable piece of equipment.

But given the down side of SSDs (small random writes) I'm hesitant to pay hundreds of dollars for one.

That doesn't mean I won't do it, it just means the tipping point hasn't occurred for me yet. It is unavoidable, I don't know when, but I will buy an SSD for my own use and I fully expect to convert every PC within my domain to boot from SSDs in the future.

jessekopelman · Post by **jessekopelman** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 12:28 pm

kaange wrote:
Shamgar wrote:Let's agree for now that SSD is a "specialist" product, no different than buying a specialist expansion card like a high end soundcard, audio-interface, video and RAID card et al. As jessekopelman said, there's no use complaining about the prices for those who are now interested in them when people spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on other performance oriented gear.
Except that an SSD affects pretty much all usage of a PC while high end soundcard, audio-interface, video and RAID card etc are only relevent if you need those particular capabilities.

Exactly. I think SSD is more analogous to a midrange or greater video card. Not necessary for most people (you can always get by with less by running your games at reduced settings), but desirous to enough that it can't really be considered a niche product. A quad-core CPU may be an even better analog, due to the benefits across a broad range of applications. I don't have a quad-core, a video card, or an SSD, even though I would get benefits from all of them, because the price is not right for me. There is nothing wrong with saying the price of SSD is still too high for you. Just don't argue about the price/GB -- that is silly. Just like 1 core of an i7 does not equal 1 core of a P4, 1 GB of a good SSD does not equal 1 GB of a conventional HDD.

jessekopelman · Post by **jessekopelman** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 12:35 pm

dhanson865 wrote: But given the down side of SSDs (small random writes) I'm hesitant to pay hundreds of dollars for one.

What are you talking about? Current SSD outperform even Velociraptor on 4kB random writes. Look at Anandtech's latest testing. The new Intel is 15X faster than a Velociraptor at small random writes. Even the current bargain champ, OCZ Agility, is 4X faster than a Velociraptor at this metric.

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 2:38 pm

jessekopelman wrote:
dhanson865 wrote: But given the down side of SSDs (small random writes) I'm hesitant to pay hundreds of dollars for one.
What are you talking about? Current SSD outperform even Velociraptor on 4kB random writes. Look at Anandtech's latest testing. The new Intel is 15X faster than a Velociraptor at small random writes. Even the current bargain champ, OCZ Agility, is 4X faster than a Velociraptor at this metric.

I was talking about SSDs in general. While it is true that the Intel SSDs blow away the competition they are not the entire category. It is also true that the specific synthetic test you link to is not the full usage profile of a drive.

The bargain champ OCZ Agility is still 3x the cost of a quality traditional hard drive. I'd gladly use one if I won it in a raffle but I'm not going to buy 50 of them tomorrow to start replacing drives in the PCs I manage.

I'm not saying SSDs should be avoided. I'm just saying I'll wait until they are better than traditional drives in even worst case scenarios and are cheaper than they are now.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...

kaange · Post by **kaange** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 4:11 pm

duplicate post removed

kaange · Post by **kaange** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 4:18 pm

jessekopelman wrote:
kaange wrote:
Shamgar wrote:Let's agree for now that SSD is a "specialist" product, no different than buying a specialist expansion card like a high end soundcard, audio-interface, video and RAID card et al. As jessekopelman said, there's no use complaining about the prices for those who are now interested in them when people spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on other performance oriented gear.
Except that an SSD affects pretty much all usage of a PC while high end soundcard, audio-interface, video and RAID card etc are only relevent if you need those particular capabilities.
Exactly. I think SSD is more analogous to a midrange or greater video card. Not necessary for most people (you can always get by with less by running your games at reduced settings), but desirous to enough that it can't really be considered a niche product. A quad-core CPU may be an even better analog, due to the benefits across a broad range of applications.

I disagree. An SSD is more analogous to a high speed (whether multicore or high clockspeed) CPU as system and program files are continually accessed in most operations where the PC is the bottleneck rather than the user. These days, unless you are into video processing (or maybe folding/seti etc), there are few operations that mainstream users would perform that are CPU bound.

The optimal setup IMO would be to use an SSD for os/programs, a large RAM disk for temporary files (need 64 bit OS for something decent like 4Gb) and a HDD for common data storage. Bring on Windows 7 64 bit.

dhanson865 wrote:
jessekopelman wrote:
dhanson865 wrote: But given the down side of SSDs (small random writes) I'm hesitant to pay hundreds of dollars for one.
What are you talking about? Current SSD outperform even Velociraptor on 4kB random writes. Look at Anandtech's latest testing. The new Intel is 15X faster than a Velociraptor at small random writes. Even the current bargain champ, OCZ Agility, is 4X faster than a Velociraptor at this metric.
I was talking about SSDs in general. While it is true that the Intel SSDs blow away the competition they are not the entire category.

I wouldn't consider SSDs with the current JMicron controllers to be acceptable for anything but netbooks. As for replacing drives in current PCs, I would look at using SSDs as an upgrade option rather than machine replacement (I know that tax accounting practices sometimes prohibits this) since the speed benefit would be far greater than a CPU upgrade for anything bought in the last 3 years (aside from Celeron/Sempron/Atom CPU machines). Especially for a desktop, a 60Gb drive would be ample as the current HDD could be retained for data storage.

Cov · Post by **Cov** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 6:20 pm

I very much like the idea to use a small 80GB SSD for the system (OS and office, etc.)
And for my vids, mp3s and stuff I just continue using my Terrabyte HDD.
Dedicated for data storage only.

This way I'd feel relaxed enough to sit back and wait 1 year or more until SSDs prices (& more performance) have become really attractive - even for you guys here.

It would be ideal if I could hotplug the HDD when I need it and disconnect when I don't.
But that's not a real problem for me.

I'm surprised the market entry of Intel's new generation SSDs is going so swift and smooth.
Checked yesterday whether my usual retailer has the new SSDs already and there were only the 1st gen ones.
Checked just now and suddenly I found something ...

I'm planning to get one soon.
At least I don't burn as much money as I would have done a few weeks ago.

Yay !!!

AZBrandon · Post by **AZBrandon** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 10:12 pm

I just noticed Anandtech has a review now, in addition to the original news story. They also have a follow-up about OCZ having to drop their prices now due to Intel's new pricing.

highlandsun · Post by **highlandsun** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 10:54 pm

eh... I put a 128GB IDE SSD into my old Centrino laptop, and I have a 256GB SSD in my current laptop. The capacities are on par with notebook HDDs already, so it's really all about price now, how much are you willing to spend to get XX performance? You don't have to sacrifice on capacity any more...

kaange · Post by **kaange** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 3:04 am

Cost is what is currently holding me (and most other posters in this thread). That may well change when the prices of the Indiilinx based drives get hammered down once the 34nm Intel X25M's hit the market.

Cov · Post by **Cov** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 9:01 am

Hi, I just checked with CrystalDiskMark the performance of my 40GB Seagate Barracude 7.200 ...

And here is the result of Intel's 2nd gen SSD drive.
Someone who just bought it, tested it straight away ...

What do you think ?

jessekopelman · Post by **jessekopelman** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 1:05 pm

dhanson865 wrote: I'm not saying SSDs should be avoided. I'm just saying I'll wait until they are better than traditional drives in even worst case scenarios and are cheaper than they are now.

What is the worst case scenario where a traditional drive can outperform an OCZ Agility? I think your line of argument has already been made redundant by the current generation of SSD. I have no problem with the argument that the performance increase is not worth the money (I fit this profile myself), but you can't claim it isn't there.

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 5:45 am

jessekopelman wrote:
dhanson865 wrote: I'm not saying SSDs should be avoided. I'm just saying I'll wait until they are better than traditional drives in even worst case scenarios and are cheaper than they are now.
What is the worst case scenario where a traditional drive can outperform an OCZ Agility? I think your line of argument has already been made redundant by the current generation of SSD. I have no problem with the argument that the performance increase is not worth the money (I fit this profile myself), but you can't claim it isn't there.

Short of having a few in hand I don't know what the worst case is. I'll take your word for it that the newest SSDs equal or beat a traditional 15k RPM hard drive in the worst case scenario but I'll still have those what if thoughts running through my head for a while.

Oh and for anyone that has the 34nm Intel SSD don't use a BIOS password or more importantly if you have a BIOS password don't change it or remove it.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=15827

Cov · Post by **Cov** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 8:57 am

Not only the difference in size is huge, but also the weight ... 730 g vs 80 g !!

croddie · Post by **croddie** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 9:28 am

Nice pics!

aztec · Post by **aztec** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 10:40 am

I wish they had some equivalent of the "Cash for Clunkers" incetive for Hard Drives.

"Trade in your Clunking, Mega-Watt Consuming Magnetic Drive for a NEW, tree-hugging, Eco-Friendly, Star Wars-Efficient SSD Drive!"

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 11:09 am

Cov wrote:Not only the difference in size is huge, but also the weight ... 730 g vs 80 g !!

Is that a WD Greenpower 3.5" drive it is sitting on?

WD5000AACS Weight 0.60 kg (Green)
WD6400AACS Weight 0.60 kg (Green)
WD6400AAKS Weight 0.63 kg (Blue)
WD6401AALS Weight 0.69 kg (Black)
WD5000AADS Weight 0.73 kg (Green)

Looks like it is one of the heavier greenpowers. But even 600g vs 80g is a huge difference.

Cov · Post by **Cov** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 11:26 am

Hi, you are right. It's the WD10EADS and the weight is 630 g.
If you hold both drives in your hand, the HDD feels suddenly soooo heavy.

nutball · Post by **nutball** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 11:41 am

Wait... how much did your 1TB SSD cost?!

Cov · Post by **Cov** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 11:52 am

WD10EADS = 68.49 Euro ~ $ 96.34 ~ Â£ 58.44
Intel X25-M 80GB = 199.90 Euro ~ $ 281.22 ~ Â£ 170.55

nutball · Post by **nutball** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 12:01 pm

They're an excellent combo.

Cov · Post by **Cov** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 12:06 pm

Hi Nutball .. (or nutball ?), I am going to open a new SFF thread in a few minutes.
There will be pictures ..

Matija · Post by **Matija** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 1:30 pm

dhanson865 wrote:Oh and for anyone that has the 34nm Intel SSD don't use a BIOS password or more importantly if you have a BIOS password don't change it or remove it.
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=15827

I still can't understand why that happens. It makes absolutely no sense.

greenfrank · Post by **greenfrank** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 2:33 pm

qviri wrote:
JazzJackRabbit wrote:I have no idea how people can live with 80GB, much less 30GB. I have Vista 64 Ultimate installed, Visual Studio 2008, SQL Management Studio 2008, three games, Valve HL2 series, all of them including Orange Box, Prey, RTCW:ET, a bunch of smaller programs to work with MKV and SRT files,

I have XP sp3, office 2003 and half-dozen another programs, that fit all in 5.8GB.
For me a 30GB SSD would be enough, also for my files (office documents, some photos and mp3s). But the price of SSDs is too high for now.

whispercat · Post by **whispercat** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 8:23 am

Looks like the new Intel shipment got stopped and delayed until they ship out the fixed ones. They say approx. two weeks.

jessekopelman · Post by **jessekopelman** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 10:45 am

Matija wrote:
dhanson865 wrote:Oh and for anyone that has the 34nm Intel SSD don't use a BIOS password or more importantly if you have a BIOS password don't change it or remove it.
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=15827
I still can't understand why that happens. It makes absolutely no sense.

I'm sure that's what the guy who wrote the original BIOS said to his boss when informed of the bug.

Matija · Post by **Matija** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 12:16 pm

No, seriously, why should a standard BIOS password have anything to do with bricking a SSD?

qviri · Post by **qviri** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 1:12 pm

This is a drive password that you set in the BIOS - not the main BIOS password.

Matija · Post by **Matija** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 1:33 pm

Never heard of that. What does it do?

Cov · Post by **Cov** » Fri Jul 31, 2009 1:36 pm

Sorry, but what question is that ? What does a password do ?

Take a guess ...

Doh ? Doh !

Lucky are those who are able to use Google