OCZ Technology Makes Solid State Storage Affordable with Onyx SSDs

[Breathless]

Speaking of TRIM and RAID, any news on making them work together in the near future?

They will work in RAID when the sata controller manufacturers get off their duffs and update their controllers

 

[TIGR]

I see all of this hoopla about SSD's and how wonderful they are while glossing over the fact that they STILL cost a small fortune for not really a lot of benefit. Sure, you get faster boot times but big whoop-de-do if you can only store a thimble full of apps to take advantage of it.

Consider, here are some average install sizes:

Windows 7 64-bit - 20GB minimum required; 10 GB w/o hibernation and major tweaks
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - 6.08 GB
Borderlands - 7.03 GB
World of Warcraft - 12 GB average

I look at those numbers and you can get the OS, maybe one or two games, and that's it before you start impacting performance due to swap file. Is that worth $100 when for the same I can get a 1TB drive on sale that while may not be as fast sure will store a LOT more?

When 128GB SSD's stop getting made from Leprechaun gold and can be afforded by mortals THEN I'll start to get excited. Otherwise I refuse to give money to some executive somewhere, or promote the enslavement of Leprechaun's, so he can buy a Ferrari or Porsche just to get faster boot times.

I don't think the price of SSDs reflect executive gluttony—the technology and materials really are that expensive at this point.

However, they're not worth the price to me either at this point. I don't need something that can cut seconds off my load times—that's an overpriced novelty to me. Having something that can cut hours off file transfer times is much more important to me, and I can do that with beautiful, inexpensive HDD RAID.

 

[Roph]

500GB platters will net you up to 130MB/s anyway, what's so great about SSDs?

I know I know access times, but I'm at my desktop pretty fast (granted, it's windows XP) on my samsung F3.

Give me ten times the capacity at that price point and I might bat an eyelid.

 

[TIGR]

500GB platters will net you up to 130MB/s anyway, what's so great about SSDs?

I know I know access times, but I'm at my desktop pretty fast (granted, it's windows XP) on my samsung F3.

Give me ten times the capacity at that price point and I might bat an eyelid.

I agree they're not worth the price, but a good SSD is something you have to experience to appreciate. It truly does "feel" satisfyingly snappy.

 

[Esse]

I know I'm a quite literal type guy, but how does "the Onyx delivers reliable performance without the high price normally associated with SSD drives" apply for a 32 GB drive for about $100 when you can get a 1TB harddrive for sub $100???

Ahh yes the 'HDD's are cheaper and larger' argument. Guess what I'm going to go with, the 'HDDs are extremely slow and noisy' argument.

Let me remind you that as little as a decade ago HDD's were less than 20GB in size and cost a fortune. At least you're not being forced to use them, if you don't like the price then stay with HDD's for the mean time and don't bag on SSD's because they cost more than HDD's.

 

[TIGR]

Let me remind you that as little as a decade ago HDD's were less than 20GB in size and cost a fortune. At least you're not being forced to use them, if you don't like the price then stay with HDD's for the mean time and don't bag on SSD's because they cost more than HDD's.

Unfortunately for SSDs, they don't have to compete with the HDDs of a decade ago. They have to compete with HDDs of today, which go right down to 7 cents per GB and lower (in fact, I've paid just over half that for 1.5TB drives right here at TPU). That makes typical equally high-quality SSDs that are stutter-free and which have equivalent or higher sustained read/write speed around fifty (50!) times more expensive per GB just so you can load Windows, applications, and game levels several seconds faster.

A recent thread here at TPU also showed that HDDs in RAID can beat SSDs for loading game levels. If requested, I'll look for the link.

So I think "bagging on SSDs" is perfectly valid, and I also believe everyone here is entitled to contribute their opinions, especially when backed up with facts.

 

[buggalugs]

The smallest SSD i'd be interested in is 100 Gb. I'm going to wait a couple more months.

 

[alucasa]

500GB platters will net you up to 130MB/s anyway, what's so great about SSDs?

I know I know access times, but I'm at my desktop pretty fast (granted, it's windows XP) on my samsung F3.

Give me ten times the capacity at that price point and I might bat an eyelid.

Sadly, you have to experience it first-hand to know what it is like. I know you won't like being told that, but until two weeks ago, I had the same doubts as you.

I went for the cheapest Kingston SSD that costs 150CAD for 64gb. Even the cheapest version flew. I cannot imagine how an expensive one would feel like. After getting one for my main rig, I just had to get another for my laptop which can house two 2.5 inch HDDs, it's perfect for SSD setup. One boot drive and one storage drive.

It's the seek speed that matters.

 

[Steevo]

$129.99 2TB
102MBps average read, 170MBps burst, 122MBpsPeak sustained for 50% or better of the drive capacity.

 

[1c3d0g]

This is an SSD thread, not your favorite "let's bash SSD's thread" by HDD maniacs. If you want to debate SSD vs HDD, I suggest you make a new thread. Meanwhile we will enjoy our super fast, reliable, silent, no heat-producing SSD's.

 

[TIGR]

This is an SSD thread, not your favorite "let's bash SSD's thread" by HDD maniacs. If you want to debate SSD vs HDD, I suggest you make a new thread. Meanwhile we will enjoy our super fast, reliable, silent, no heat-producing SSD's.

As far as I'm concerned, discussing SSDs and their competition in an SSD thread is valid. If you really believe in the logic you're using to try and silence those who don't necessarily share your views, you've got a few more threads to post in on pretty much every other topic around here.

Besides, you just engaged in the debate yourself with that "we will enjoy our super fast, reliable, silent, no heat-producing SSD" comment.

 

[Breit]

why is everyone talking about RAIDing ssds? ssds are meant mainly for the os-drive or drives where low access times matter. booting an os or launching applications from an ssd does not benefit directly from the speed the drive can do while sequentially transferring data in large chunks. its the access time that matters! you can not reduce access times with a raid setup, no matter what level of raid you choose! i see no point in RAIDing ssds?!
i'm not saying that transfer rates completely don't matter, but they also won't tell you how fast a certain drive really is in a real world application. maybe comparing transfer rates for random access 4kb blocks will tell you more about the performance of the drive in question (usually thats what counts on the os-startup or on application launch). try comparing an actual ssd against any mechanical harddrive and see for yourself.

if one needs a fast disk(-array) mainly for storing and moving large files, this disk(-array) has to be large and thus ssds are out of the race because of its price tag.

 

[Disparia]

Because they're small?

SSD RAID = low access times and high throughput. Cake and eat it too!

 

[devguy]

Because they're small?

SSD RAID = low access times and high throughput. Cake and eat it too!

Exactly. You see the tiny 30GB SSDs on Slickdeals for cheap prices. Then, when you try it out, you get hooked, but realize the 30GB is waaaay too small. However, now you feel like you could never go back to hard disk drives, and the answer is to buy another 30GB SSD during the next slickdeal, and RAID 0 them together for 60GB (which is relatively useful).

I personally am going to refrain from switching to SSD drives until I can get a decent 120/128GB one for $100 or less. With my current RAID 0 7200.12 drives, it takes about as much time to load the BIOS and RAID Boot ROM, as it does to boot into Ubuntu 9.10 (about 20 seconds total; maybe less). Better, Ubuntu 10.04 promises even faster boot times. Oh, and large sequential file transfers are ridiculously fast! Freakin' EXT4, man (MS needs to stop using the uber-old NTFS).

 

[Mussels]

you cant really say "SSD's arent worth it, my HDD is fast enough" until you've USED one.


look at some of the youtube videos - XP can boot in 5 seconds flat with a usable desktop. no more 30 second boots and waiting a minute for all your 'starts with windows' apps to load.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EEy9GPys-0

 

[AsRock]

Sub-$100 - $99.99?

Noo way of $99.98

 

[AsRock]

Noo way of $99.98

you cant really say "SSD's arent worth it, my HDD is fast enough" until you've USED one.


look at some of the youtube videos - XP can boot in 5 seconds flat with a usable desktop. no more 30 second boots and waiting a minute for all your 'starts with windows' apps to load.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EEy9GPys-0

You sure that is not hibernation ?. Just saying is all.

 

[pjladyfox]

you cant really say "SSD's arent worth it, my HDD is fast enough" until you've USED one.


look at some of the youtube videos - XP can boot in 5 seconds flat with a usable desktop. no more 30 second boots and waiting a minute for all your 'starts with windows' apps to load.

Problem is that I have and while I will be the first to admit that it's nice it's not $400 nice. To give an example, I'd much rather have a 2011 Ford Mustang that is plenty fast and I can afford while still have money for other hobbies rather than leaving in a studio apartment and driving a Ferrari.

 

[orionbg]

No trim support...

They have since firmware #1819

"Change: Improved ATA8 ACS2 TRIM support"

This is from Patriot's web site!

 

[Thrackan]

Still ~$3/GB. No thanks. The last time I bought disk space at such a cost was 8 years ago.
Sure, it's new tech, but this can be made cheaper. Lots cheaper.

 

[Mussels]

You sure that is not hibernation ?. Just saying is all.

no, thats just SSD boot. that was a random google search, you can find tons of them - SSD's are just that fast.

 

[WhiteLotus]

plus, this can start the reduction in price of all SSDs, providing these sell enough to start a price war.

 

[TIGR]

Some SSD boot times:

Source

 

[Mussels]

Some SSD boot times:
http://www.tigrcs.com/1/img/tpu/ssdboot.jpg

Source

^ pretty graph earns thanks. those who didnt beleive me/still think mechanical drives are awesome, think again. SSD's are MUCH faster than mechanical drives.

as to why they're all around the same time of booting, that would be BIOS POST screens and such slowing it down.

 

[Esse]

Unfortunately for SSDs, they don't have to compete with the HDDs of a decade ago. They have to compete with HDDs of today, which go right down to 7 cents per GB and lower (in fact, I've paid just over half that for 1.5TB drives right here at TPU). That makes typical equally high-quality SSDs that are stutter-free and which have equivalent or higher sustained read/write speed around fifty (50!) times more expensive per GB just so you can load Windows, applications, and game levels several seconds faster.

Yes but like large HDD's used to be, they're rather 'fresh' and not actually mainstream yet. Large HDD's are cheap because users made them cheap by buying them year after year, materials are in much larger quantities. I wouldn't even say SSD's and HDD's should be competing at all because they're opposites, one is for speed the other is for storage.

They're not even that expensive to be honest, from a storage point of view they're horrendous but when you have the option to increase the slowest device (and only moving part) in your computer for less than a new GPU or CPU its just another cost that you go with (this is going on my local prices). I'm surprised you guys don't complain about RAM modules, now those are expensive!