OCZ Core series -- Affordable, high-performance SSDs

Elvellon · Post by **Elvellon** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 11:20 am

Bar81 wrote:as recommended to increase life expectancy I've moved the XP swap file from the Core to my RAID1

Life expectancy is one thing, but what about performance?

Bar81 · Post by **Bar81** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 2:20 am

I've been playing around with the drive a little more and got some interesting results. Earlier I mentioned that I was having a little hitching issue and that I resolved it by removing write caching. Well, that's not entirely accurate. The issue came back and was driving me crazy as the system would just freeze. So figuring it might be the mobo, I swapped in my Sapphire Pure mobo (ATI SB450 southbridge) but that wouldn't even recognize Core so be careful with your mobo selection. So I switched back to the ASRock and did a full reinstall but still the hitching. I decided to reinstall again but this time with only the bare minimum (CPU, RAM, vidcard) and after installing SP3 and all the updates there was no hitching. I began to suspect that the hitching was related to some type of application or driver issue so I started installing things one by one. At this point I haven't installed my soundcards or eSATA card but most of my core applications are on (NOD32, Registry Mechanic, Spyware Doctor, Office, Speedfan, etc.) and there's only been very rare instances of hitching during a couple of application installs.

I think I've figured out the issue. From my experience, the analysis by the gentleman above showing the atrocious random write performance is on the money. Essentially, when this drive has to engage in a random write, it's so poor performing that the system just freezes. Is this a fatal flaw? I don't think so for the desktop user as long as you understand the drive's limitations.

Disable any constantly running background apps except for your antivirus. For example, in my case, Spyware Doctor was running in the background and set to automatically update; bad idea - every time it would update itself by overwriting files the hitching would kick in (right now I've turned that feature off, it is running in the background for spyware protection though with seemingly no issues at this point).

I'm still not done with my analysis as I still have to reinstall my peripherals and play around for a couple of days to see if I get any corruption issues (I already had windows essentially partially reset itself on my earlier first install).

At the end of the day it's too bad this will be most people's first exposure to SSD as it's a very finicky product and I can completely empathize with those having issues.

krille · Post by **krille** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 4:59 am

I was wondering, with all this SLC vs MLC debate, what's the estimated read endurance of the drives? Essentially unlimited or?

(I'm certain most of our drives read considerably more than write.)

Bar81 · Post by **Bar81** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 1:39 pm

Okay, gave up on the AMD system. Went down to the local computer center and picked up a C2D 8400, 2x 1GB Corsair PC1066 CL5 and an Abit IP35 Pro XE. It was time to upgrade anyway as my system was getting long in the tooth. WOW, a mind boggling improvement in speed and it runs *so* cool; I had no idea what I was missing. In any case, installed the OS and now doing SP3 and the Core is extremely responsive without any hitches. I'll update tomorrow on the progress.

Bar81 · Post by **Bar81** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 7:00 am

Well, so far so good. Everything is on the system and there doesn't seem to be any need to disable any programs or watch for anything. The issue with freezes is still there for installing programs but once installed I haven't had any issues whether hitches or otherwise.

Observations regarding ICH9R versus the JMB360 controller is that the Intel controller is significantly slower during installs than the JMicron controller but for everything else it's just as fast (I get full speed on the Intel controller - no 80MB/S limitation) and it doesn't hitch. All in all, I'd say it was a fair trade.

One final note, these Intel C2D systems are SICK, my system now draws 37W!!! at idle and I love the mobo's fan speed controls and temperature monitoring; happy to be back with Abit after all these years. Now just have to pick up that Areca RAID 1 controller I've been eyeing

sandos · Post by **sandos** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 10:44 pm

krille wrote:I was wondering, with all this SLC vs MLC debate, what's the estimated read endurance of the drives? Essentially unlimited or?

(I'm certain most of our drives read considerably more than write.)

Reads do not degrade flash at all. It seems though that failures (from writing!) differs between MLC and SLC: SLC allows reading after a write-failure whereas a MLC failure makes reading impossible.

Bar81 · Post by **Bar81** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 9:11 pm

Well, I tried an interesting experiment yesterday and switched back to my Raptor. Yes, some things were better such as being able to multitask without any freezes during installs of programs but when it comes down to it, the Core has ruined me. The instant access times and insane reads have made me a SSD convert. When prices come down I'll probably get a 64GB SLC SSD but the Core will hold me over just fine in the meantime.

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 6:44 pm

oops, I accidentally replace this message while checking prices for the post below.

darkb · Post by **darkb** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 6:24 am

Anandtech investigated the issues with these drives in one of their recent articles.. It's worth reading the whole article, but the related stuff starts here: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/in ... i=3403&p=8

Though the OCZ core drive is our example, but please remember that this isn't an OCZ specific issue: the performance problems we see with this drive are apparent on all current MLC drives in the market that use a Jmicron controller with Samsung flash.

Scoop · Post by **Scoop** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 6:30 am

Reading Anand's article, I know what not to recommend if they are looking for SSDs.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 9:20 am

So glad i found this Anandtech review of MLC SSD's before i purchased one and waisted 300 bucks.

Finding good data on the JMicron JMF602 controller is nearly impossible, but from what I've heard it's got 16KB of on-chip memory for read/write requests. By comparison, Intel's controller has a 256KB SRAM on-die.

It seems this lack of on-chip memory as well as the lack of a DRAM buffer seems to be causing this horrible latency when doing any sort of random writes on MLC SSD's. Thankfully there seems to be hope on the horizon:

JMicron's roadmap shows a new controller next year with an integrated ARM core as well as support for external DRAM, which could alleviate these problems, but until now the controller, and drives based on it, aren't worth it.

The only other thing im worried about though until then is the fact that Samsung said they are releasing new 256gb MLC drives at the end of this year. I hope they dont use this crappy JMicron controller that current MLC SSD's seem to.

As far as the new Intel MLC SSD's go, their price is right around the same as the Samsung SLC SSD's right now, with performance being about the same. SLC wins in a few benchmarks, Intel MLC wins in others. Though the Intel MLC SSD will be 80gb and the Samsung SLC SSD is only 64gb. You can get a rebadged Samsung SLC drive for around $650 from Gskill. Thats about the same price that current Intel MLC 80gb are going for. Though i thought they were supposed to be MSRP of $599?

Terje · Post by **Terje** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 1:44 am

dhanson865 wrote:yeah, we need a consumer reports type experiment. Someone with enough money but no connection to the industry buy 3 of these from a retail source.

I bought a cheap MLC drive (its non-branded) some days back "just for fun" and I actually consider making a test where I fill it up 90% and then do random writes on the rest similar to /var/log traffic and see how long it takes before it breaks.

I hope I get time to do it sometime next month, but no guarantees

pony-tail · Post by **pony-tail** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 2:48 pm

I was looking at getting an OCZ 64gig SSD but after reading through all of the links I have decided to hold off and get a Seagate Momentus 2.5 Sata instead - I was more concerned about noise than speed . But my hardware ,and software choices makes the SSD a very risky proposition . I am using Linux (Ubuntu 8.04.1) and an AMD 780g chipset motherboard and was intending to use the drive as the sole drive in the machine . This being because I could hard mount it in the unused floppy drive bay in my NSK-3480 by just drilling 4 holes and screwing it in , thus solving the ongoing issues I have with this case and resonance with 3.5inch spinning drives .
Link to the drive I was looking at - http://www.umart.com.au/newindex2.phtml?bid=2

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Tue Sep 16, 2008 6:12 am

The cheapest SSD i've been able to find that doesnt suffer from this write performance flaw have been Samsung SLC clones from Gskill. They have a 32gb and a 64gb. Performance is about on par with the new intel MLC drives though they do cost slightly more.

G Skill 32gb SLC SSD $300
G Skill 64gb SLC SSD $650

So if you dont wanna wait for the 80gb MLC intel drives, these are currently your two best/least expensive options.

paapaa · Post by **paapaa** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 11:47 pm

The price of Core SSDs is going dooown:

http://www.dailytech.com/OCZ+Once+Again ... e12993.htm

"Newegg is now listing the 64GB Core Series SSD at $99 after a $70 mail-in rebate."

Things are looking very good if this is a trend.

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 5:57 am

32GB price comparison
Core v1 32GB - OCZSSD2-1C32G is available for $140 with a rebate that takes it down to $79 ($60 Mail-In Manufacturer Rebate Available From 9/17/08 Till 9/30/08 )
Core v2 OCZSSD2-2C30G is about $200 and rebate takes it to about $140.

64GB price comparison
Core v1 OCZ OCZSSD2-1C64G about $170 with a rebate that takes it to about $100 ($70 Mail-In Manufacturer Rebate Available From 9/17/08 Till 9/30/08 )
Core v2 OCZSSD2-2C60G is about $279 and rebate takes it to $219. ($60 rebate on v2 Available From 9/17/08 Till 9/30/08 )

128GB price comparison
Core v1 OCZ OCZSSD2-1C128G about $440 with a rebate that takes it to about $340 ($90 Mail-In Manufacturer Rebate Available From 9/17/08 Till 9/30/08 )
Core v2 OCZSSD2-2C120G is about $499 and rebate takes it to $439 ($60 rebate on v2)

250GB price comparison
Core v1 no such device
Core v2 OCZ OCZSSD2-2C250G 250gb about $760 with rebate taking it to $710 ($50 Mail-In Manufacturer Rebate Available From 9/17/08 Till 9/30/08 ) .

Scoop · Post by **Scoop** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 11:55 am

paapaa wrote:The price of Core SSDs is going dooown:

http://www.dailytech.com/OCZ+Once+Again ... e12993.htm

"Newegg is now listing the 64GB Core Series SSD at $99 after a $70 mail-in rebate."

Things are looking very good if this is a trend.

Of course it's the trend but it's not happening as fast for the drives that would actually be worth buying.

ryboto · Post by **ryboto** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 12:04 pm

So, do the Core V2 use the same Jmicron controller? That's what we've determined the problem was, correct?

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 3:19 pm

ryboto wrote:So, do the Core V2 use the same Jmicron controller? That's what we've determined the problem was, correct?

Yes the V2 suffers from the same problem as the original core series.

Its not coincidence that all these OCZ SSD price drops happened immediately following the anandtech review proving they are basically worthless.

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 5:25 pm

Aris wrote:
ryboto wrote:So, do the Core V2 use the same Jmicron controller? That's what we've determined the problem was, correct?
Yes the V2 suffers from the same problem as the original core series.

Its not coincidence that all these OCZ SSD price drops happened immediately following the anandtech review proving they are basically worthless.

I've read that the problems with these drives are worse on Vista and worse with some Intel chipsets. I don't have either of those risk factors in my systems.

Anandtech is not an unbiased source. They take considerations (free product, advertising banner fees, inside info, etc) from Intel thus are often willing to repeat whatever the insiders at Intel tell them to say.

Considering Intel now makes SSDs it is in their best interest to discredit the SSDs made by other manufacturers.

There is a large market of users that have AMD based systems using XP or Linux that would still find these drives quite useful.

I wouldn't recommend them for users with limited funds or users that aren't willing to take a chance on their drive controller not playing nice with them. I especially wouldn't recommend them for users that aren't extremely proficient in modifying their OS.

but worthless? I'd take several for $30 each and jump up and down about it. Maybe worth less than they were charging but not "worthless" as in no worth at all.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 9:00 pm

dhanson865 wrote: Anandtech is not an unbiased source. They take considerations (free product, advertising banner fees, inside info, etc) from Intel thus are often willing to repeat whatever the insiders at Intel tell them to say.

People have been complaining on OCZ's official forum for months before the anandtech review. Anandtech just proved imperically what owners had been suffering with all this time.

A storage device is supposed to just "Work", reguardless of what chipset is on the motherboard or how you have your operating system setup. You cannot reasonably expect end users to know ahead of time all this stuff, especially considering this information isnt publicly available from the manufacturers of these SSD drives.

Perhaps if the SSD manufacturers were up front with the limitations of their devices. But until this review broke on Anandtech, they wouldnt admit there even was a problem to begin with.

Bar81 · Post by **Bar81** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 4:20 am

Aris wrote:
dhanson865 wrote: Anandtech is not an unbiased source. They take considerations (free product, advertising banner fees, inside info, etc) from Intel thus are often willing to repeat whatever the insiders at Intel tell them to say.
People have been complaining on OCZ's official forum for months before the anandtech review. Anandtech just proved imperically what owners had been suffering with all this time.

A storage device is supposed to just "Work", reguardless of what chipset is on the motherboard or how you have your operating system setup. You cannot reasonably expect end users to know ahead of time all this stuff, especially considering this information isnt publicly available from the manufacturers of these SSD drives.

Perhaps if the SSD manufacturers were up front with the limitations of their devices. But until this review broke on Anandtech, they wouldnt admit there even was a problem to begin with.

Precisely. The Anandtech review was simply conclusive evidence of the problems users have been having since the drives hit. The stonewalling and lack of transparency by manufacturers was extremely frustrating; Anandtech did a great service to end users by confirming the issues end users already knew existed.

dhanson865,

Your implication that somehow the Intel MLC drive was only reviewed positively because of the advertising/position of Intel is a straw man that is irrelevant here and more importantly, completely unsubstantiated. Your continued attempts to put lipstick on a pig are getting more ludicrous with each passing post.

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 9:02 am

Bar81 wrote:
Aris wrote:
dhanson865 wrote: Anandtech is not an unbiased source. They take considerations (free product, advertising banner fees, inside info, etc) from Intel thus are often willing to repeat whatever the insiders at Intel tell them to say.
People have been complaining on OCZ's official forum for months before the anandtech review. Anandtech just proved empirically what owners had been suffering with all this time.

A storage device is supposed to just "Work", regardless of what chipset is on the motherboard or how you have your operating system setup. You cannot reasonably expect end users to know ahead of time all this stuff, especially considering this information isn't publicly available from the manufacturers of these SSD drives.

Perhaps if the SSD manufacturers were up front with the limitations of their devices. But until this review broke on Anandtech, they wouldn't admit there even was a problem to begin with.
Precisely. The Anandtech review was simply conclusive evidence of the problems users have been having since the drives hit. The stonewalling and lack of transparency by manufacturers was extremely frustrating; Anandtech did a great service to end users by confirming the issues end users already knew existed.

dhanson865,

Your implication that somehow the Intel MLC drive was only reviewed positively because of the advertising/position of Intel is a straw man that is irrelevant here and more importantly, completely unsubstantiated. Your continued attempts to put lipstick on a pig are getting more ludicrous with each passing post.

Why is it that you know how to look up chips that control your drives but you don't know how to post a URL? Instead of saying the OCZ forums say stuff why not link me there? http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum ... 149&page=2 is an interesting read.

Why is it that on the ocz forum you are willing to post level headed facts but here you just rant? Give us SPCR readers the respect you gave OCZ a month ago and we might learn from you.

I never implied that the Intel drive was reviewed positively. I was speaking to the negative spin on the OCZ drive.

I never said there wasn't an issue with MLC drives. What I am saying is that Anandtech's tests were limited to a single motherboard chipset and the PC industry is full of variation.

I agree that OCZ and any other SSD vendor should warn users about the pitfalls. I don't intend in any way to apologize for or defend OCZ or any other drive manufacturer.

I'm just trying to bring critical thinking, neutral tone, logical thought processes to the party. If anandtech or any other source would do tests in a scientific thourough accurate manner I wouldn't have to ask questions like:

A. How do these drives behave on a motherboard with a AMD/ATI 690g chipset?

B. How do these drives behave on a motherboard with a Nvidia Nforce4 chipset?

Just because some people think Intel walks on water doesn't mean that I have nothing but Intel kit laying around. I have real systems at home and work and they vary widely.

Give me something other than I hate OCZ or MLC drives are worthless and I'll take it in stride.

Can you provide me with a single review of an MLC SSD that is on an Nforce4 or 690G chipset?

You posted

JMicron JMB360
Silicon Image 3132
ULi 1695

Can you tell me what the main chipset on those systems were? Am I likely to see these controllers on my systems? I suppose I'll have to make a list of the common controller chips I have to see if any of them show in that thread.

All I'm asking for is more information not more spin. Give me facts and I'll thank you. Give me opinions and rants and I'll ask questions. I'll likely ask questions either way if the issue is interesting...

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 12:51 pm

dhanson: your the one that has come across as bias. And yes it did sound like you were defending these MLC JMicron drive manufacturers by dismissing an important review just because the site that posted it has financial ties to one of the companies involved.

I didnt think you needed me to hold your hand to the OCZ forums. Since you seem to need that, here you go: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum ... y.php?f=88 There have literally been hundreds of reported incidents.

And no OCZ is not the only manufacturer with this issue which anandtech specifically stated in the reivew: "Though the OCZ core drive is our example, but please remember that this isn't an OCZ specific issue: the performance problems we see with this drive are apparent on all current MLC drives in the market that use a Jmicron controller with Samsung flash." But OCZ is in the title for this thread, and they have been the most popular of MLC based SSD drives lately because of their agressive pricing.

As for anandtech not reviewing these drives on other boards with other chipsets, its really not needed. The fact that they dont work as advertised even on one major company's chips is enough. Sure it may or may not work right on other chipsets, but there are literally hundreds. Its not anandtechs job to figure out what compatability issues a piece of hardware has. Thats the job of the manufacturer of the drive, and it should have been done BEFORE they started selling the drives.

If you want to know how these drives behave on your A and B scenarios, you should be asking the drive manufacturers, not the review site that broke the news. Again, a mass storage device is supposed to just "work", reguardless of the chipset on the motherboard. This is all stuff OCZ and all the other MLC based SSD manufacturers should have figured out WAY before these products ever hit the retail market.

As for me, no i dont have anything against MLC SSD technology. In fact i LOVE the technology and what it could mean for lower priced SSD's. What i have a problem with is that this whole debocle is going to give a sour feeling to early adopters of SSD and will hurt SSD development and sales as a whole. Which means its going to take even longer to get low priced, good performing SSD products to the market. Intel is comming out with an MLC SSD, and while i dont like their pricing scheme, i have nothing against the technology. It works if its IMPLIMENTED correctly, which intel has proven.

As for controllers, looking at the link you provided from OCZ, it seems people are having these issue's with all major chipset providors. One thing i have heard that will make these drives work correctly is if the SATA controller your using has cache available to it to sequence data before its sent to the MLC drive. Effectivly keeping all data written to the drive as sequencial which the anandtech review shows they do very well with. Unfortunately the cheapest SATA controller cards ive been able to find with onboard cache are hundreds of dollars. Which basically raises the price of these MLC drives into the same range as SLC drives that dont have this problem (because they have controllers with onboard cache).

Which also brings up the point that this IS NOT an MLC problem. This is a controller problem. If you put this same controller on an SLC drive you'd have the exact same problems. But currently all the SLC drives seem to use a controller with cache available to it to sequence data before it is written to the drive.

There are your facts.

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 7:25 pm

As for anandtech not reviewing these drives on other boards with other chipsets, its really not needed. The fact that they don't work as advertised even on one major company's chips is enough. Sure it may or may not work right on other chipsets, but there are literally hundreds. Its not anandtechs job to figure out what compatibility issues a piece of hardware has. Thats the job of the manufacturer of the drive, and it should have been done BEFORE they started selling the drives.

OK, so your position is that if 5% of the market has an issue with a product that product immediately loses all value to the other 95% of the market? Worthless is a very committal statement that I feel is an overreaching one at that. Forgive me for trying to figure out if a product that is rapidly dropping in price will work on one of the dozens of systems I have access to.

If you want to know how these drives behave on your A and B scenarios, you should be asking the drive manufacturers, not the review site that broke the news. Again, a mass storage device is supposed to just "work", regardless of the chipset on the motherboard. This is all stuff OCZ and all the other MLC based SSD manufacturers should have figured out WAY before these products ever hit the retail market.

Why is mass storage any different from any other PC tech? Shouldn't the same be true for Video cards, Power Supplies, etc?

When a motherboard / PSU combination is found not to work together do you blame the motherboard, the PSU, or both? Incompatibilities happen in this industry. I hate them but I have to watch out for them. Why can't we have a civil discussion about incompatibilities where we all learn what combinations to avoid instead of just trashing large sections of the field?

As for me, no i don't have anything against MLC SSD technology. In fact i LOVE the technology and what it could mean for lower priced SSD's. What i have a problem with is that this whole debacle is going to give a sour feeling to early adopters of SSD and will hurt SSD development and sales as a whole.

What you say here is exactly why I've been questioning Bar81 so much. I'd like to get an SSD someday but I don't want to walk into a bad situation with my eyes closed. Unfortunately people that have been bitten by the SSD bug aren't willing to discuss it as politely as someone who just bought a new video card or PSU.

As for controllers, looking at the link you provided from OCZ, it seems people are having these issue's with all major chipset providers.

I didn't see any ATI/AMD chipset or Nvidia chipsets mentioned in those threads. Are they immune to these issues or do all of the ATI and Nvidia chipsets use one of the 3rd party controllers mentioned?

Either I'm not aware that my motherboard uses one of those 3rd party chips to control my hard drives or you are being overly general in using the phrase "all major chipset providers".

pony-tail · Post by **pony-tail** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 9:38 pm

The fact that it had issues with as many controllers as shown , was enough for me to leave it alone . I was intending to use it on an AMD780g chipset Mobo . I will wait a few months and watch and read the forums etc. and when they work properly start buying .
So long as they can match the performance of a good 3.5" drive but be totally silent that is good enough for me - but they must be reliable and work on any machine I want to use them on without my having to be concerned with compatibility issues before I will pony up that kind of money . For me the high speed performance is the secondary issue !

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Sun Sep 21, 2008 8:17 pm

5%? did you just pull that number out of your ass? Even if it was only limited to the intel chipsets your already looking at a VERY large percentage of motherboards. And like the link YOU pointed out to, its effecting other manufacterers as well. If you want to take the risk that it will work for you, then why dont you pay for one and test it for yourself. It still doesnt change the fact that its a very risky buy for the average consumer and shouldnt be recommended.

When incompatabilites arise, yes someones is to blame. They should all work together, thats the whole point of conforming to standards. When they dont and theirs incompatabilites its because someone fucked up. Case and point: when the popular Antec Neo HE PSU had huge reliability issue's with certain motherboards it was deamed to be at fault and no one would touch it or recommend it. Same thing is going on here. Incompatabilites should not be put up with. Now sure its bound to happen, and maybe its an honest mistake. If it is the company should own up to it, pull the product, fix it and re-ship. Which these companies are not doing. These products are faulty and are not working as advertised.

You didnt see any ATI/AMD or Nvidia chipsets mentioned on those threads? Then your blind my friend. Let me copy paist the exact same link you posted: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum ... 149&page=2 Did you even read it? Try clicking the "view poll results" button. Intel ICH6-10, Nvidia 680/780/790, AMD SB600/SB7xx, JMicon/other. They are all on that post. All of them have multiple votes. How is that being "overly general"? Are there other major chipset manufactuers that i dont know of other than Intel, Nvidia, ATI/AMD, and JMicron???

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 3:18 am

Can someone please do a little summary for me and everyone else who is not looking at buying an SSD any time soon, but is interested in what is going on here.

This is as far as I understand these issues.

MLC is not an issue in itself, the problems are all to do with the controller not having any on-board cache.

The controllers have issues with at least 50% of the chipsets on the market due to the fact that they have no cache.

The Intel controller does not have issues, even though it does not have cache.??? Please fill in the blanks or correct me on this one.

Andy

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 5:55 am

andyb wrote:Can someone please do a little summary for me and everyone else who is not looking at buying an SSD any time soon, but is interested in what is going on here.

This is as far as I understand these issues.

MLC is not an issue in itself, the problems are all to do with the controller not having any on-board cache.

The controllers have issues with at least 50% of the chipsets on the market due to the fact that they have no cache.

The Intel controller does not have issues, even though it does not have cache.??? Please fill in the blanks or correct me on this one.

Andy

Which controllers they work well on is still up in the air. No one seems to have done a comprehensive evaluation of SATA controllers with this device, not even the manufacturers. So its a crap shoot. People have reported studdering with most if not all major controllers. Also it appears they work better on XP and Linux than Vista. So the OS your using and how its configured to interact with the HD also plays a big role.

The only thing that seems certain as far as controllers goes is that if you buy an add-on card SATA RAID controller with onboard cache they work fine. But the cheapest ones i could find were between $150-$300, putting the price of the MLC drives right up with SLC drives. But i guess if you already have one of those controllers already, then it will work in your favor.

Everything else is right though. Its not MLC, intel has proven that with their MLC SSD drive. The only difference was onboard cache. And while i dont know this for a fact, i can make a fairly good estimated guess and say that what the cache does is buffer incomming random data and sequence it. Basically it makes it so the drives never do anything except sequence writes, which they do very well with. This would also explain why the intel MLC drive write performance varies very little depending on how much random writes is going on.

All current SLC SSD drives on the market have a different onboard controller that HAS cache available to them.

Turas · Post by **Turas** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 6:07 am

I just don't get something. If the controller on the SLC one does not have this problem then why don't thye just move that controller to the MLC drives. I have been with the understanding the the price difference between the SLC and MLC drives was due to the coast of the flash and not the controller itself. If that was the case though I would think this would have been done from all of these so far. At least would of though someone like OCZ would of brought out the v2 with the new controller if they knew in fact that the problem was solely due to the controller. That makes me weonder if it truly is that one part of if there is more to the story.