Simple question re SSD maintenance

I

IrishRangerWingMedic

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I'll be getting my first SSD in my new Dell Studio XPS 16 in the next day or two.

Do I get a similar performance gains by partitioning SSDs as conventional platter drives?

Are there any other housekeeping recommendations for SSDs? I hear defrag degrades them, Window 7 (RC) has some new SSDs features - think I'll install it on the new machine.

Thanks all.
 
SSD's get the same speed all the way across the drive so partitioning only the first chunk of it won't be any faster but it may help with the wear leveling algorithm. What SSD are you getting? Is it one that came with the Dell? If so that is probably a Samsung drive, and I don't know if it would support trim or not. Other than that no maintenance is needed. Make sure to disable defrag, and also disabling indexing is suggested. I personally leave superfetch on.
 
SSDs access any portion of the drive at the same speed. Also the wear leveling will automagically scatter your data all over the drive whether you partition it or not.

Short stroking not only not necessary, but is actually impossible.

Don
 
Thanks guys.

Dell SSD - sales won't tell me which make or drive performance, although other guy on YouTube says his is:
Interface SATA 3.0Gb/s
Host Transfer Rate 300MB/sec
Maximum Sequential Read Rate 220MB/s
Maximum Sequential Write Rate 200MB/s

...which looks fairly decent
 
why not just get the laptop with the standard drive and buy a ocz vertex to replace it;;; cheaper and better
 
Cheaper? Not really. Dell SSD upgrades at the configuration stage are dirt cheap, as in $300-400 for a 256GB. Better, that's debatable. If we're talking about the 256GB, which is the latest Samsung controller, at worst it's only a little under Indilinx-based offerings.
 
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mjz_5 said:
why not just get the laptop with the standard drive and buy a ocz vertex to replace it;;; cheaper and better
Click to expand...

From Dell 500GB 5400 rpm drive to:
-> Dell 128GB SSD costs €220 (includes VAT) extra
-> Dell 256GB SSD costs €350 (includes VAT) extra

To throw away the cheapest 500GB 5400rpm and buy a Vertex 128GB would cost ~ €400 (with VAT and delivery)

so thats €220 vs €400 for Dell 128GB SSD vs OCZ Vertex 128GB.

I can replace this drive in 4-5 years when drives are wayyyyy cheaper.
 
Well, it's not exactly €220 vs €400 (a €180 difference) because Dell is already charging you X amount for the 5400 rpm HD (included in the total cost of the laptop), and the SSD is an upgrade over that; but since you can't very well order the laptop without a HD, and since the different is probably still at 'least €100+, it's a good deal. Might not be as fast but I'm sure they're not selling laptops with super-cheap SSDs that have controllers which induce stuttering and whatnot.
 
for the configs I'm looking at for the m1330, its a $125 upgrade to the 128gb SSD. I'm strongly considering just buying a 60gb vertex for $200 because I'm really worried about system stuttering. Do you guys think that'll be a problem? If not, I'll probably just go with the drive dell gives because I dont need uber performance, just good boot times etc.
 
From the comments here someone suggested that Dell was using Samsung drives, which don't use those JMicron controllers that cause stuttering etc... But it's hard to tell for sure.
 
It's possible but the likeliness is almost nil. Samsung has three custom controllers, their SLC controller, PB22-J in the Corsair P256 & OCZ Summit line, and the older Corsair 128GB has an older Samsung controller.

They manufacture most of the commercial NAND you see out there, I figure they would at least have a working controller.
 
I have a Dell Studio XPS 16 with the 128GB Samsung SSD. There is no stuttering. It is very fast and silent.
 
jcll2002 said:
Thanks for the confirmation. Can you point me to the exact drive it is?
Click to expand...

I was sent a pdf from Dell with the specs. I can email it to you if you'd lke.

The 128GB drive is a Samsung PB22-J MC SSD SATA 3Gb/s,
Host Transfer Rate 300MB/sec,
Maximum Sequential Read Rate 220MB/s,
Maximum Sequential Write Rate 200MB/s.
SMART Support, 1,000,000 hours MTBF.
 
IrishRangerWingMedic said:
Thanks guys.

Dell SSD - sales won't tell me which make or drive performance, although other guy on YouTube says his is:
Interface SATA 3.0Gb/s
Host Transfer Rate 300MB/sec
Maximum Sequential Read Rate 220MB/s
Maximum Sequential Write Rate 200MB/s

...which looks fairly decent
Click to expand...

Dell uses SAMSUNG SSD drives, which are excellent and you should be happy with it. These drives retail for (128gb) for about $380 each, so the dell upgrade of $200 is worth every dollar.

I can't wait for my pair to arrive, I got two tossed in an M1730 laptop on R0.

mjz_5 said:
why not just get the laptop with the standard drive and buy a ocz vertex to replace it;;; cheaper and better
Click to expand...

Not cheaper and not better. You can't even get a 128gb ssd for under $200. Let alone something like the Samsun SSD with 220 read and 200 write.
 
Ockie said:
Dell uses SAMSUNG SSD drives, which are excellent and you should be happy with it. These drives retail for (128gb) for about $380 each, so the dell upgrade of $200 is worth every dollar.

I can't wait for my pair to arrive, I got two tossed in an M1730 laptop on R0.



Not cheaper and not better. You can't even get a 128gb ssd for under $200. Let alone something like the Samsun SSD with 220 read and 200 write.
Click to expand...

220 and 200 writes are useless for everyday tasks: unless you have a 10 gigabit network at home and just copying large files from one computer to another::: random read and writes are the most important
 
The Samsung controllers are at LEAST as good as the Indilinx ones for 4k random writes and other similar actions, at least the latest gen Samsung ones.
 
mjz_5 said:
220 and 200 writes are useless for everyday tasks: unless you have a 10 gigabit network at home and just copying large files from one computer to another::: random read and writes are the most important
Click to expand...

Some people underestimate the capabilities of the storage king ;) :D
 
extide said:
The Samsung controllers are at LEAST as good as the Indilinx ones for 4k random writes and other similar actions, at least the latest gen Samsung ones.
Click to expand...

I agree. OCZ considered canning the Summit drives for a while because the Vertex drives were benchmarking better, except I think they figured out it was primarily *synthetically* benching well, and the Samsung controller was winning most of the real-world tests.
 
mjz_5 said:
what connection do you have between your server and client???
Click to expand...

Knowing Okie, a 10GB/s network isn't impossible to imagine but I am just guessing lol. This is the guy with something like ~40TB of storage space at home (much less the stuff he plays with at work)
 
IrishRangerWingMedic said:
I was sent a pdf from Dell with the specs. I can email it to you if you'd lke.

The 128GB drive is a Samsung PB22-J MC SSD SATA 3Gb/s,
Host Transfer Rate 300MB/sec,
Maximum Sequential Read Rate 220MB/s,
Maximum Sequential Write Rate 200MB/s.
SMART Support, 1,000,000 hours MTBF.
Click to expand...

Can you PM me it? Thanks a lot.

So there's no studdering with these drives? How is samsung with firmware updates?
 
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I just got my new machine and clean installed Windows 7 RC - its so damn fast! Power to login time about 7 seconds. On password entering about 2 seconds to load the rest. The is incredible!!!
 
IrishRangerWingMedic said:
I just got my new machine and clean installed Windows 7 RC - its so damn fast! Power to login time about 7 seconds. On password entering about 2 seconds to load the rest. The is incredible!!!
Click to expand...

Cool! Good Luck!

PS. Get rid of that password stuff...look how it slows ya down. :) :D
 
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