Buying benefits SSD Vertex//X25-M G2

kur1j

Gawd
Joined
Sep 13, 2003
Messages
682
I am in a debate on buying 2 of the above to put in a RAID 0 array.I am not really concerned with data integrity on my machine as I have a backup server. I am more concerned with speed.

The research I have done all of the above support TRIM (on Win7 with a firmware update if needed).

I am trying to figure out if it would be worth it to get the Intel drive over the OCZ drive.

I mostly do software dev, video/picture editing, some gaming. In that order. Would it benefit me to spend the extra money on the intel drives? Will I actually see a performance increase (real world) with what I am doing?

If the damn Intel drives didn't fall flat on their face with sequential writes I would get the intel drive as the reads on them seem a lot better. But I am worried with these videos and stuff I make which are DVD size, I would actually see more performance increase with one of the OCZ drives.
 
I had the same dilemma yesterday, coming from a 4x 15k SAS array. I went OCZ for the simple reason you stated...the concurrent writes on the Intels. Also, the Intel firmware updates hosing people's drives turned me off to them.
 
In real usage, you're not going to notice a real difference between the two. They're both fast as hell. I would go with the OCZ simply for the amazing support they offer. They work very closely with Indilinx and get early access to all new firmware updates.
 
Are you still running a raid of some sort? If so what kinda RAID are you running? What is your setup?

I am worried about not being able to run some type of TRIM or something equiv. to make sure the performance doesn't degrade to much.

I am planning on running RAID 0 and most people explained that TRIM required support of the raid controller. Some people just said I should run some type of "Intel Storage Matrix" which is a driver for my motherboard RAID. Would you happen to have any more information on this?
 
FYI: if you are doing RAID 0 TRIM will not work.

Yes but some people said that the new Storage Matrix would basically fix that issue with my motherboard RAID.

What is the deal with the support for this option anyways?

Most people say that the OS needs to support it but others say its full yin hardware. What is the real deal?
 
Both hardware and OS need to support TRIM. The OS passes the signal to the controller, which then passes it on to the drive. Unfortunately, most RAID controllers haven't implemented the TRIM function yet, but that should clear up as SSDs become more prevalent.
 
Well the newest firmware supports TRIM and doesn't eat any drives so far. Knock on wood.:p
 
I'm stuck with this buying decision also.

Looking at the Intel 160GB G2 for $549 CDN or OCZ 120GB for $479

The price premium you pay for the intel drive also gets you 40GB extra space, however sequential writes are capped at 100mb/sec on the G2. The intel drive also seems to have an advantage with random writes/reads.

Anyone have any real world usage scenario's where it might be a problem?
 
Last edited:
Random writes are a lot more important to general OS responsiveness than sequential writes. The only time the limited sequential speeds might come into play is if you do something like rip large amounts of data from one drive to another, or if you open a lot or mult-gigabyte zips/rars. But, you really can't go wrong with either. Myself, I would go with the OCZ simply for the amazing support they've shown for the Vertex line of drives. They get early access to Indilinx's new firmware updates and even get things tweaked to benefit them over the other Barefoot based drives.
 
Ah thanks you so the intel 100mb cap probably won't be too much of a big deal. Also since I will be using a 2nd drive for storage and downloading the chances of me swapping huge amounts of data between the drives will be minimal.

However OCZ has an advantage with how quickly they provide updated firmware, and a great support forum.

Damn still a tough choice:eek:
 
Flip a coin, buy the winner, and enjoy your amazing new speed. Any SSD is a HUGE upgrade of platter based drives.
 
Don't underestimate Intel support. Sure it takes a while, but they know what they doing, and at the end, they make it right.
 
Last edited:
I don't think a normal human can tell the difference between these drives in a blind test, except during a large sequential write. I vote for OCZ for this reason. It would be very annoying and noticeable to be stuck with Intel's sequential write speed.
 
Don't underestimate Intel support. Sure it takes a while, but they know what they doing, and at the end, they make it right.

What you're saying is contrary to all of the evidence. Yes, Intel is a big well known company. No, that has not been reflected in their general competency in the SSD space.

Also, with OCZ you can run either the TRIM or GC firmware, and GC will work in RAID.
 
is the GC function all that good? i have a G1 x25-m and the newest firmware has GC in it.
 
What you're saying is contrary to all of the evidence. Yes, Intel is a big well known company. No, that has not been reflected in their general competency in the SSD space.

Also, with OCZ you can run either the TRIM or GC firmware, and GC will work in RAID.

Yes Intel has shown competency, they were the very 1st company to make an SSD that performed properly and dragged the rest of the industry along with them. They optimized the drives in a way that gave the maximum benefit versus platters first instead of just maxing sequential and dragged the rest of the industry along again and they issued rather quick fixes to the first couple of problems they had in the 1st generation drives.

They've had some firmware snafus, but that is not completely unexpected out of 1st and 2nd gen devices. Intel has the premier fabrication facilities and software engineers in the world. They'll get the kinks ironed out and they'll likely be the ones forcing others to compete for a very long time. They just need a competitor to keep them honest.
 
Random writes are a lot more important to general OS responsiveness than sequential writes. The only time the limited sequential speeds might come into play is if you do something like rip large amounts of data from one drive to another, or if you open a lot or mult-gigabyte zips/rars. But, you really can't go wrong with either. Myself, I would go with the OCZ simply for the amazing support they've shown for the Vertex line of drives. They get early access to Indilinx's new firmware updates and even get things tweaked to benefit them over the other Barefoot based drives.

You'd have to transferring massive amounts of files from one SSD to another to make the 100Mb/s "cap" even come in to play, as most (really good) spindle drives only hit about 130Mb/s max.

There's not many times where you'd actually be able to use more than 100Mb/s write, if ever!!

Intel's random performance is much more important in realworld usage.

If you can afford the 160Gb Intel, thats the way to go. Its the best.
 
Where you might see a significant benefit with Intel is any server use case. If you host a website locally, use SQL, compile often, or set up LAN servers, the Intel will give you the performance you need slightly better than the Vertex. On the other hand, if you regularly write multi gigabyte files to disk, go with the Vertex.
 
Back
Top