Intel X25-V G2 40GB SSD

letsrahk · Post by **letsrahk** » Wed Feb 17, 2010 3:06 am

Anyone start using this drive? I would think 40gb isn't really enough for real world performance boosts? I know it would still let your computer boot faster but if you have programs and other files on slower drives, it still won't help right?

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Wed Feb 17, 2010 6:07 am

I'm using the Kingston SNV125-S2/40GB which is the same 40GB drive with a different label. I formatted the drive to 25GB and it currently shows 9GB used and 16GB free.

As a general rule you want to format your SSD to 80% of the advertised size (the 20% rule stated in reverse) for performance reasons. So long as you don't run out of space using your normal apps it doesn't matter what the capacity of the drive is.

This drive would be just as useful to me if it were 15GB or 500GB. Either way I'd still be using it just like I am now.

letsrahk · Post by **letsrahk** » Wed Feb 17, 2010 11:35 am

dhanson865 wrote:I'm using the Kingston SNV125-S2/40GB which is the same 40GB drive with a different label. I formatted the drive to 25GB and it currently shows 9GB used and 16GB free.

As a general rule you want to format your SSD to 80% of the advertised size (the 20% rule stated in reverse) for performance reasons. So long as you don't run out of space using your normal apps it doesn't matter what the capacity of the drive is.

This drive would be just as useful to me if it were 15GB or 500GB. Either way I'd still be using it just like I am now.

What OS you running? You able to keep your programs on there?

_MarcoM_ · Post by **_MarcoM_** » Wed Feb 17, 2010 11:49 am

Had someone tried to use the SSD as a ReadyBoost drive for the mecanical disk? I know, is a waste of money, but what the... just for experiment

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Wed Feb 17, 2010 1:43 pm

letsrahk wrote:
dhanson865 wrote:I'm using the Kingston SNV125-S2/40GB which is the same 40GB drive with a different label. I formatted the drive to 25GB and it currently shows 9GB used and 16GB free.

As a general rule you want to format your SSD to 80% of the advertised size (the 20% rule stated in reverse) for performance reasons. So long as you don't run out of space using your normal apps it doesn't matter what the capacity of the drive is.

This drive would be just as useful to me if it were 15GB or 500GB. Either way I'd still be using it just like I am now.
What OS you running? You able to keep your programs on there?

This PC has:

XP Professional SP3
7zip
Fax server client
Exchange Server Tools
Active Directory Tools
Firefox
Google Chrome
HD Tune
Crystal Disk Info
Intel SSD toolkit
Nero
Lightscribe disc labeling
Microsoft Office 2003
Netbotz application
Quicktime Player
scanner software
Spybot Search & Destroy
more security software
Antivirus
Firewall utilities
Paint.net
OpenOffice
Adobe Reader

And maybe a few more.

I didn't list every program by name but hopefully you'll get the gist that this is a fully functional PC I use for daily use and is a primary PC not something I leave sitting idle all the time.

Now if I download a new version of Firefox or Adobe Reader or something like that I generally download the installer to a fileserver so that I don't have to download it again when I need to install it on another PC but then again Firefox and Adobe Reader auto update and/or can be updated by group policy and of course there are windows updates so there are undoubtedly installation files sitting on the SSD that need to be deleted manually from time to time.

Now Server 2008 doesn't play nicely on boot partitions smaller than ~40GB so I wouldn't put it on a 40GB SSD even though the production web server has 17GB used and 25GB free on the boot partition. I'd want at least a 60GB SSD to handle that so that the 20% rule would give me 48GB to play with.

You can get Windows 7 on a small SSD. It will take more than XP Professional but less than Server 2008.

Games, Music, and Movies are what eat up the drive space on a home PC. If you keep those on a thumb drive or an external drive enclosure of some type you should be able to keep a system well stocked with end user applications even on a 40GB SSD partitioned down to 32GB or less.

syrian_gamer · Post by **syrian_gamer** » Thu Feb 18, 2010 1:01 pm

Im really considering getting this SSD, however, im wondering if the slow sequential write speeds will make it slow or anything. Those of you who have bought this hard drive, do u have any regrets? Would u buy it again?

corrion · Post by **corrion** » Thu Feb 18, 2010 5:29 pm

It's rare that you'll have sequential writes unless you deal with large files all the time, and even if so, you probably won't be saving them on your 40GB SSD. When sequential writing, it'll probably feel around as fast as your traditional mechanical hard disk.

Sequential reads and random writes are what makes it feel fast for the average consumer, and this drive is more than fast enough for both.

To answer your question, I bought the Kingston version and have no regrets. Now I actually don't mind using my laptop for an extended period of time when I'm not at home, whereas before I couldn't really stand it.

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Sat Feb 20, 2010 7:19 am

syrian_gamer wrote:Im really considering getting this SSD, however, im wondering if the slow sequential write speeds will make it slow or anything. Those of you who have bought this hard drive, do u have any regrets? Would u buy it again?

No regrets

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3747&p=11 wrote:The performance differences under PCMark Vantage are minimal between any halfway decent SSDs. This actually mimics what you'll see in most real world usage with these drives. It's the same reason I don't use individual application launch tests to compare performance - all of these drives perform about the same.

but keep in mind new Marvell controller based SSDs will be launched in about a week (and sandforce drives are becoming available now). The combination of new drives should shake up pricing again soon.

If you like buying closeout specials you should watch carefully for 64GB indilinx controller drives that used to be >$200 that will soon be dipping closer to $150

If you don't want to watch the closeouts you should probably wait a few weeks for the dust to settle. Anand thinks the new drives won't affect prices because they are all >$300. I think the new drives will affect cheaper drive prices because the order of controller preferences will go from:

1 Intel
2 Indilinx
3 don't bother

to

1 Sandforce
2 Marvell
3 Intel
4 Indilinx
5 don't bother

To me it is significant that Indilinx will get less press and recommendations but their drives will still be every bit as usable as they are today. I'm hoping the shift in demand won't be met with a drop in supply (Indilinx has a reason to try and increase their production) and consequently a drop in prices for Indilinx based drives which are above the fold (ie good enough for most any use).

Keep in mind this is all from a guy who is still using rotating disks in 99% of the PCs he manages and has no stake in any of these companies but has a few 40GB Intel drives in use. I'm truly looking forward to the day I can start buying SSDs in batches of 5 or 10 at a time and replace spinning disks in most of my PCs.

letsrahk · Post by **letsrahk** » Sat Feb 20, 2010 9:20 pm

What's supposed to be so special about the sandforce controller?

Eunos · Post by **Eunos** » Sat Feb 20, 2010 10:47 pm

the controller works in a radical way - by reducing the amount of data written to flash it improves performance and longevity, at the cost of controller/firmware complexity.

http://anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3747

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Sun Feb 21, 2010 11:55 am

Eunos wrote:the controller works in a radical way - by reducing the amount of data written to flash it improves performance and longevity, at the cost of controller/firmware complexity.

http://anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3747

Probably better to link to http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdo ... i=3702&p=2

I wrote a much longer response but I think you are right. It's too detailed and off topic to be discussing Sandforce in depth in the Intel 40GB SSD thread.

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Sat Feb 27, 2010 9:47 am

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdo ... i=3751&p=1

new article with pricing on the new 50GB version of the sandforce controller SSD.

Eunos · Post by **Eunos** » Sat Feb 27, 2010 6:03 pm

Don't forget the impending return of JMicron. I'm sure Anand will have a lot to say about that. Nonetheless I recommend Intel despite its average performance in comparison with Sandforce. One, the gigabyte-per-dollar equasion is much better. Two, it is as tried and tested a design as any. Three, the big leap is from HDD to quality SSD, not from quality SSD to even-faster SSD; the relative differences can be blown way out of proportion.

Anyways, I decided on the 80GB X-25M the other day, which is being shipped as we speak. I chose this size as a compromise between future-proof capacity and plunging depreciation. The beauty of these lower-end SSD offerings is they allow mere mortals to jump on the bandwagon today, gaining most of the benefits that will be taken for granted across the board in several years time.

From what I am reading, with Windows 7 there is no need to worry about partition alignment. Windows 7 should also disable defrag and so on. Beyond basic tweaks like eliminating Indexing, it looks to be very much a plug-and-play experience.

Cheers.

bing · Post by **bing** » Sun Feb 28, 2010 1:12 am

I bought a 64GB Indilinx but sold it and bought (2) 32GB Indilinx (OCZ Vertex) which I put in a RAID0 array. I missed the recent deals so I ended up spending $280 for the pair. (ouch.) Oh well, totally worth it.

I chose the OCZ over Intel because 1) I'm on an AMD platform and figured I'd have better luck with a non-Intel drive and 2) I did not appreciate the way Intel screwed over Kingston with regard to TRIM support recently 3) Fantastic OCZ support forum

There's a bit of pain with learning the new tech for sure, but I couldn't be happier and I'll never go back to HDDs for OS,,,,, For anyone on the fence check this:
http://www.youtube.com/user/MyCEVideo#p/a/0/Lyz1xDe3xO8

Vicotnik · Post by **Vicotnik** » Sun Feb 28, 2010 5:50 am

bing wrote:I chose the OCZ over Intel because 1) I'm on an AMD platform and figured I'd have better luck with a non-Intel drive

Do you have a base for that? Doesn't make sense to me.

syrian_gamer · Post by **syrian_gamer** » Sun Feb 28, 2010 7:57 pm

Vicotnik wrote:
bing wrote:I chose the OCZ over Intel because 1) I'm on an AMD platform and figured I'd have better luck with a non-Intel drive
Do you have a base for that? Doesn't make sense to me.

OF course it makes perfect sense. Why do you think people buy HP screens when their old screen dies? because they have an HP computer and want everything to match

bing · Post by **bing** » Sun Feb 28, 2010 10:21 pm

Vicotnik wrote:
bing wrote:I chose the OCZ over Intel because 1) I'm on an AMD platform and figured I'd have better luck with a non-Intel drive
Do you have a base for that? Doesn't make sense to me.

Do you honestly think Intel does as much development/testing for their SSDs on AMD chipsets as they do their own? As indicated in my post, it's a hunch,,, I'd guess that Indilinx/SandForce/Samsung are more likely to treat the platforms without bias,,, and per your reply, points 2 and 3 are not debatable.

Vicotnik · Post by **Vicotnik** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 6:10 am

bing wrote:Do you honestly think Intel does as much development/testing for their SSDs on AMD chipsets as they do their own? As indicated in my post, it's a hunch,,,

I expect Intel products to comply with existing standards, and thus work well on any supported platform. Intel is not Microsoft, even if they in many respects enjoy a monopoly position.

Would you also avoid nVidia and AMD/ATi graphics cards, if you had an Intel system?

bing wrote:points 2 and 3 are not debatable.

True.

Eunos · Post by **Eunos** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 6:50 am

Intel is a much bigger company than OCZ and will be able to do more thorough testing in general, though they have still managed to have major firmware screw-ups. The excellent OCZ forum negates this factor quite a bit, anyway. The Vertex/X25-x are close enough that GB/$ can be used as the main deciding factor, or personal bias if anyone dislikes Intel/OCZ for any particular reason.

The biggest beef I have with Intel was the lack of TRIM support for G1 buyers, but on the flip side I am also thankful that their products have shaken up the SSD market. Thus, I could never make an OCZ purchase purely out of protest. Instead, I would expect the smaller company to provide a decent value-for-money advantage over Intel's slightly more highly-regarded product before I would buy one personally. At this moment I don't see one.

I still consider Intel/Indilinx (or equivalent Kingston etc) the main players. At this stage, I feel Sandforce is the answer to a question nobody asked; performance is not the weakpoint of Intel/Indilinx relative to platter drives, GB/$ is.

Eunos · Post by **Eunos** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 11:46 pm

Just an update, my X-25M arrived today. Before installing anything I updated the firmware by visiting the appropriate Intel site (link). You download an ISO file which is used to burn a blank bootable CD. Very straightforward, though in rare cases updating firmware can turn the drive into a very expensive (not to mention lightweight) paperweight.

The only change I've made so far in Windows 7 is eliminating Indexing. It appears that Windows has not disabled defragmenter for this drive, the reason is unclear at this stage.

Cold-start boot time for a bloatware-free system was timed at approximately 50 seconds with my 80 GB WD Scorpio, compared to around 35 seconds now - a healthy improvement considering much of this is BIOS-startup loading time. The usual blue screen prior to the desktop appearing is now completely skipped.

Cheers.

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Tue Mar 02, 2010 7:10 am

To all who haven't read Andands OWC review and 890GX review heed this warning:

Backup your data from the SSD to a traditional hard drive or tape drive on a regular basis.

Anand managed to brick his Crucial C300 ssd just doing normal motherboard testing. No overclocking, no known physical damage or static discharge, no firmware updating. Just simple benchmarks and the drive died.

At that point he had no access to the data on the drive. Don't let people telling you that flash memory chips end of life failure mode is to become read only lull you into thinking the drive as a whole can't die.

Remember every day is International Backup Awareness Day.

victorhortalives · Post by **victorhortalives** » Tue Mar 16, 2010 4:01 am

dhanson865 wrote:To all who haven't read Andands OWC review and 890GX review heed this warning:

Backup your data from the SSD to a traditional hard drive or tape drive on a regular basis.

Anand managed to brick his Crucial C300 ssd just doing normal motherboard testing. No overclocking, no known physical damage or static discharge, no firmware updating. Just simple benchmarks and the drive died.

At that point he had no access to the data on the drive. Don't let people telling you that flash memory chips end of life failure mode is to become read only lull you into thinking the drive as a whole can't die.

Remember every day is International Backup Awareness Day.

I've had 2 of the 16GB SLC Mtron SSDs fail on me in 2 years. Started to show the drive capacity as 16MB (must be the controller) and no ability to erase or reset.

Now I have 64GB MLC Samsung SSDs in use - only as the boot/app drive. All other stuff (data etc) is on a mapped drive on a RAID NAS with a GB LAN connection.

Eunos · Post by **Eunos** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 6:38 pm

For anyone interested, Anand has done a comparative reviewbetween the X25-V and Kingston's 30GB SSDNow competitor.

I am installing an X25-V in my parents' computer tonight, too.

syrian_gamer · Post by **syrian_gamer** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 4:03 pm

Eunos wrote:For anyone interested, Anand has done a comparative reviewbetween the X25-V and Kingston's 30GB SSDNow competitor.

I am installing an X25-V in my parents' computer tonight, too.

after reading this article, im tempted to buy this drive. Although im not sure if i should wait for something better to come soon. maybe the OCZ onyx?

Eunos · Post by **Eunos** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 4:26 pm

The Onyx appears to be a significantly slower drive. For example, sequential read is listed at 125 MB/s compared to 170 for the Intel. There is also a significant loss of capacity so it's not vastly better value.

However, by sheer 'coincidence' OCZ is currently doing a killer deal on the OCZ Agility 60GB with 64mb cache for, you guessed it, $125 after rebate on Newegg. Might be worth jumping on if you're in the market.

Intel's next shake-up is expected in the 4th quarter with move to a smaller manufacturing process (25nm?) that will improve the price/capacity equasion, and probably offer SATA 6 Gb/s support too. But I didn't see any point in waiting.

syrian_gamer · Post by **syrian_gamer** » Fri Mar 26, 2010 7:49 am

Eunos wrote:The Onyx appears to be a significantly slower drive. For example, sequential read is listed at 125 MB/s compared to 170 for the Intel. There is also a significant loss of capacity so it's not vastly better value.

However, by sheer 'coincidence' OCZ is currently doing a killer deal on the OCZ Agility 60GB with 64mb cache for, you guessed it, $125 after rebate on Newegg. Might be worth jumping on if you're in the market.

Intel's next shake-up is expected in the 4th quarter with move to a smaller manufacturing process (25nm?) that will improve the price/capacity equasion, and probably offer SATA 6 Gb/s support too. But I didn't see any point nin waiting.

the intel x25-v is on sale this week on ncix. im very tempted to buy it. Since all the new drives are coming out in Q4, i would rather buy one now for a low price. Although its still 140$ with tax and shipping, so its kinda tempting. Im still running xp, and would really want the drive. Should i even wait for Q4? I figure 140 is probably the lowest ill see the drive (119 + tax n shipping). What are your thoughts SPCR readers?

Eunos · Post by **Eunos** » Fri Mar 26, 2010 5:16 pm

syrian_gamer wrote:i would rather buy one now for a low price... and would really want the drive. Should i even wait for Q4?

Sounds like you've answered your own question.

If you are also considering Windows 7, I would recommend purchasing the 2 at the same time. This is what I did when I installed an X25-V/Win7 in my parents' PC.

With XP, one needs to consider partition alignments and the lack of TRIM support. I'm sure there are workarounds, but I found an OEM copy of 7 Home Premium represents good value so decided to do the lot at once and call it a day.

If you decide to wait, the final quarter of this year will see the next generation of Intel drives as well Windows 7 SP1 - no doubt both will represent a further evolution on what is available today.

Calgarian · Post by **Calgarian** » Sat Mar 27, 2010 6:31 am

syrian_gamer wrote:the intel x25-v is on sale this week on ncix. im very tempted to buy it.

I recently went from XP to Win 7 and the Intel 160GB SSD. Love it!

The 160 formats to 148. With Win7 and my programs I have 109 of 148GB free. I would say a 60-80GB SSD is the minimum way to go.

Go for Win7 and the largest SSD you can reasonably afford.

Currently, Memory Express in Calgary has the 80GB version on sale for $235. This sale price is in addition to a $30 drop in price a few weeks ago.

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/P ... ME%29.aspx

Eunos · Post by **Eunos** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 1:45 am

Intel X25-V in RAID-0: Faster than X25-M G2 for $250?

syrian_gamer · Post by **syrian_gamer** » Thu Apr 01, 2010 1:18 pm

The INTEL SSD is currently on sale at 100$ on newegg!!!!!

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as ... 6820167025

For all you canadians out there, price match ncix, add the 10$ gift card and get free shipping