Comments on: The shifting sands of SSDs http://dansdata.blogsome.com/2009/01/26/the-shifting-sands-of-ssds/ the blog that is not dansdata.com Sun, 12 Feb 2012 14:37:52 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=1.5.1-alpha by: davolfman http://dansdata.blogsome.com/2009/01/26/the-shifting-sands-of-ssds/#comment-4174 Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:51:50 +0000 http://dansdata.blogsome.com/2009/01/26/the-shifting-sands-of-ssds/#comment-4174 Its feature set seems tailor-made for swap and scratch-disk work. I suppose if you make a habit of manipulating multiple gigantic files at once then this gives you a way to have virtual memory that's pretty fast beyond your maxed-out RAM slots. Its feature set seems tailor-made for swap and scratch-disk work. I suppose if you make a habit of manipulating multiple gigantic files at once then this gives you a way to have virtual memory that's pretty fast beyond your maxed-out RAM slots.

]]> by: FuzzyPlushroom http://dansdata.blogsome.com/2009/01/26/the-shifting-sands-of-ssds/#comment-4172 Tue, 27 Jan 2009 05:53:26 +0000 http://dansdata.blogsome.com/2009/01/26/the-shifting-sands-of-ssds/#comment-4172 What good is a passthrough lead with a 12v connection gonna do? When the PC's shut down, the only thing it can deliver is 5v, and then only an amp or two worth. The only advantage it'd have would be Less Power Cable Mess. What good is a passthrough lead with a 12v connection gonna do? When the PC's shut down, the only thing it can deliver is 5v, and then only an amp or two worth. The only advantage it'd have would be Less Power Cable Mess.

]]> by: spludge http://dansdata.blogsome.com/2009/01/26/the-shifting-sands-of-ssds/#comment-4170 Mon, 26 Jan 2009 17:01:50 +0000 http://dansdata.blogsome.com/2009/01/26/the-shifting-sands-of-ssds/#comment-4170 You can buy several SSDs and a dedicated RAID card to help smooth the caching issues that cheaper SSD get with random writes, for less than a populated iRAM drive, and get similar/faster performance, without the need for CF backups and external power, and roughly twice the storage capacity for the same price. Recently, the guys at the OCZ Support formums have also discovered that correct "alignment" of partitions for SSDs specifally will eliminate these stuttering issues that were found a while ago. I tested two of these things over a month – the single-SATA one is no faster than an SSD for reads, although it's usually 50% faster for writes. I could not get transfer rates in excess of 300mb/sec with the RAID version, which is easily achievable with SSD+RAID card. The unit got quite hot due to its power consumption. They use 12v so can't steal power from the PCI slot or HDD leads when the PC is off – I suggested to them that they should provide an ATX 24-pin power passthrough cable with 12v parasite lead, as the USB VFDs in Zalman/Silverstone cases do, instead of a power adapter. The RAID option would only work if the power adapter was connected. Seemed to be a bit of a beta product tome, as it had 3 firmware revisions in 6 weeks, none of which cured the issues I had with it. You can buy several SSDs and a dedicated RAID card to help smooth the caching issues that cheaper SSD get with random writes, for less than a populated iRAM drive, and get similar/faster performance, without the need for CF backups and external power, and roughly twice the storage capacity for the same price. Recently, the guys at the OCZ Support formums have also discovered that correct "alignment" of partitions for SSDs specifally will eliminate these stuttering issues that were found a while ago.

I tested two of these things over a month – the single-SATA one is no faster than an SSD for reads, although it's usually 50% faster for writes. I could not get transfer rates in excess of 300mb/sec with the RAID version, which is easily achievable with SSD+RAID card.

The unit got quite hot due to its power consumption. They use 12v so can't steal power from the PCI slot or HDD leads when the PC is off – I suggested to them that they should provide an ATX 24-pin power passthrough cable with 12v parasite lead, as the USB VFDs in Zalman/Silverstone cases do, instead of a power adapter.

The RAID option would only work if the power adapter was connected. Seemed to be a bit of a beta product tome, as it had 3 firmware revisions in 6 weeks, none of which cured the issues I had with it.

]]> by: corinoco http://dansdata.blogsome.com/2009/01/26/the-shifting-sands-of-ssds/#comment-4169 Mon, 26 Jan 2009 16:31:55 +0000 http://dansdata.blogsome.com/2009/01/26/the-shifting-sands-of-ssds/#comment-4169 I can't think of a better way to spend Australia Day either. I can't think of a better way to spend Australia Day either.

]]> by: Ziggyinc http://dansdata.blogsome.com/2009/01/26/the-shifting-sands-of-ssds/#comment-4168 Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:33:42 +0000 http://dansdata.blogsome.com/2009/01/26/the-shifting-sands-of-ssds/#comment-4168 I hate finding out what I think I want isn't really what I need. I hate finding out what I think I want isn't really what I need.

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