Solid state drive performance
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I bought a Patriot 256GB SSD [^] for my new ASUS G73JH laptop [^] last month. It is c: and only has OS and apps. Boot time and app load has definitely moved into the HolyCrap range. After reading up on using SSD's I also went through most of the suggested tweaks to minimize writes to the drive - including moving my user folder to d:. I think they are still too pricey to get for my desktop.
...cmk The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying. - John Carmack
Unless you're doing server level disk IO, having your user folder on the SSD is a non-issue; and synchronous IO to user files is a big part of system latency. Just keep really big lumps of data (eg movies, pictures, music) on the magnetic drive.
3x12=36 2x12=24 1x12=12 0x12=18
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Okay, so now Dan has me thinking about adding SDD to the mix. For those of you who have added these to the mix, a couple of questions. First, how much faster is I/O on one of these things versus a decent 10k SATA? 1x? 10x? HolyCrap!x? I know there are a variety of specs, but I'm talking overall perceived value here, as in "how long before this progress bar goes away?" Second, if I was only going to buy one, where would I get the best bang for the buck? C (for the benefit of the apps themselves), the data drive where I store, say, video files, or use it as the drive for the swap file, temp files, etc?
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting ServicesTo be conservative with reliability I'd stick with either an Intel drive or one using the Indilinx Barefoot controller. Some of the new ones (eg Sandforce) look to be better in performance but don't have the long record of use to prove reliability yet. Between Intel and the various barefoot drives you're basically choosing between faster random IO (Intel) and faster sequential writes (barefoot). Both effectively max the sata bus in sequential reads. The tradeoffs between the two modes are such that the general recommendation is to decide what your minimum needed capacity/what you can afford is and select between them on that criteria.
3x12=36 2x12=24 1x12=12 0x12=18
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Okay, so now Dan has me thinking about adding SDD to the mix. For those of you who have added these to the mix, a couple of questions. First, how much faster is I/O on one of these things versus a decent 10k SATA? 1x? 10x? HolyCrap!x? I know there are a variety of specs, but I'm talking overall perceived value here, as in "how long before this progress bar goes away?" Second, if I was only going to buy one, where would I get the best bang for the buck? C (for the benefit of the apps themselves), the data drive where I store, say, video files, or use it as the drive for the swap file, temp files, etc?
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting ServicesThey have > 100x the performance in 4K reads and writes and IOPs. And since most reads and writes are small they provide a level of performance that is impossible with any combination of mechanical hard drives.
John
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Okay, so now Dan has me thinking about adding SDD to the mix. For those of you who have added these to the mix, a couple of questions. First, how much faster is I/O on one of these things versus a decent 10k SATA? 1x? 10x? HolyCrap!x? I know there are a variety of specs, but I'm talking overall perceived value here, as in "how long before this progress bar goes away?" Second, if I was only going to buy one, where would I get the best bang for the buck? C (for the benefit of the apps themselves), the data drive where I store, say, video files, or use it as the drive for the swap file, temp files, etc?
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting ServicesMy latest laptop has a solidstate drive, and I can confirm that the read speed on a large contiguous file is on par with a 10k SCSI drive (That's SCSI, !SATA). It's when you read many random files at the same time that it goes HolyCrap!x. Try to copy three large files at the same time, the solid state keeps the same total speed as with one, the classic drives goes down to almost nothing. The unexpected result for me was that the degradation with time hasn't happened yet. It's as fast as it was when it was new. It could be that windows seven is that much better than XP of course, but I doubt it.
"When did ignorance become a point of view" - Dilbert
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Okay, so now Dan has me thinking about adding SDD to the mix. For those of you who have added these to the mix, a couple of questions. First, how much faster is I/O on one of these things versus a decent 10k SATA? 1x? 10x? HolyCrap!x? I know there are a variety of specs, but I'm talking overall perceived value here, as in "how long before this progress bar goes away?" Second, if I was only going to buy one, where would I get the best bang for the buck? C (for the benefit of the apps themselves), the data drive where I store, say, video files, or use it as the drive for the swap file, temp files, etc?
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting ServicesHere is a good review of SSD drives: The State of Solid State Hard Drives[^]
Giorgi Dalakishvili #region signature My Articles Browsing xkcd in a windows 7 way[^] #endregion
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Okay, so now Dan has me thinking about adding SDD to the mix. For those of you who have added these to the mix, a couple of questions. First, how much faster is I/O on one of these things versus a decent 10k SATA? 1x? 10x? HolyCrap!x? I know there are a variety of specs, but I'm talking overall perceived value here, as in "how long before this progress bar goes away?" Second, if I was only going to buy one, where would I get the best bang for the buck? C (for the benefit of the apps themselves), the data drive where I store, say, video files, or use it as the drive for the swap file, temp files, etc?
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting ServicesI highly recommend getting an Intel SSD. Others may have higher serial transfer rates but that is not a good measure of performance. Also from my involvement in several forums Intel SSDs seem to be the most reliable. Stay away from any SSD with a JMICRON controller as these have problems that make them quite slow at times.
John
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
They have search engines now?
Have you ever pondered the words "Search Engines" are they really engines that generate searches? should they be answer engines? of course that would be hard because they don't really return answers, only results... so should they be search result engines? :-D
Christopher Duncan wrote:
Actually, I'd prefer to get the opinions of people I trust rather than random bits of information.
yeah, me too. I always kick myself when I can't find the links that lead me to a solution when I search for it for someone else. :) I like to know what people think. I can search, but search will get you half the story, and even then is it is source you trust? :)
_________________________ John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others." Shhhhh.... I am not really here. I am a figment of your imagination.... I am still in my cave so this must be an illusion....
I think jet engines are more fun. :)
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting Services -
Christopher Duncan wrote:
That's a point to consider as they get pricey in a hurry. Currently, a 60 gig drive would probably make a decent working space but video adds up fast.
Our normal Modus Operandi is usually a VERY high speed but small RAID for storing/capturing one and only one video. Depending on the system that may be 1 to 6 drives in a RAID 0. Then you have storage, big and reasonably fast, but big. We've done this with SATA, SDD, SCSI, etc. for over a decade. Not necessarily the best resume, but we've been capturing video for a while. :)
_________________________ John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others." Shhhhh.... I am not really here. I am a figment of your imagination.... I am still in my cave so this must be an illusion....
Yeah, I'm thinking along those lines myself. Keep an optimized working area, and move stuff back and forth. Prices are too high for any serious quantity of storage.
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting Services -
Christopher Duncan wrote:
First, how much faster is I/O on one of these things versus a decent 10k SATA? 1x? 10x? HolyCrap!x? I know there are a variety of specs, but I'm talking overall perceived value here, as in "how long before this progress bar goes away?"
pretty fast. but remember there are two types of SDD, one is designed for speed, the other price. Not that the cheap one is all that cheap.... still, watch your speed specs. I put two 80gig SDD's on a box for my project leader on an i7. He's tickled pink and loves it. The OS is on one of the SDDs so he has a lightning fast startup. Of course price was not a consideration so my boss bought a dozen of the fastest 80gig SDDs and then found a use for them... :laugh:
_________________________ John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others." Shhhhh.... I am not really here. I am a figment of your imagination.... I am still in my cave so this must be an illusion....
Tell him I need to borrow his checkbook for just a moment. :)
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting Services -
To be conservative with reliability I'd stick with either an Intel drive or one using the Indilinx Barefoot controller. Some of the new ones (eg Sandforce) look to be better in performance but don't have the long record of use to prove reliability yet. Between Intel and the various barefoot drives you're basically choosing between faster random IO (Intel) and faster sequential writes (barefoot). Both effectively max the sata bus in sequential reads. The tradeoffs between the two modes are such that the general recommendation is to decide what your minimum needed capacity/what you can afford is and select between them on that criteria.
3x12=36 2x12=24 1x12=12 0x12=18
Yeah, Intel keeps coming up on everyone's list. Doesn't matter how fast they are if they're unreliable.
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting Services -
I think jet engines are more fun. :)
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting ServicesChristopher Duncan wrote:
I think jet engines are more fun.
only from four sides when you are close up.... The fifth is bad... and the 6th is much, much worse... ;P ;P
_________________________ John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others." Shhhhh.... I am not really here. I am a figment of your imagination.... I am still in my cave so this must be an illusion....
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They have > 100x the performance in 4K reads and writes and IOPs. And since most reads and writes are small they provide a level of performance that is impossible with any combination of mechanical hard drives.
John
I'm wondering then if the best optimization for video would be to put it on the drive that gets used for all the temporary read / write stuff. Faster program load time is nice, but once it's loaded that thrill is gone. In a similar fashion, I don't really care how fast the machine boots. My boxes stay on all the time, so that's not really a factor either. I wonder what the benefit is of putting the pagefile on it since video's pretty memory intensive & presumably there could be a fair amount of swapping going on.
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting Services -
My latest laptop has a solidstate drive, and I can confirm that the read speed on a large contiguous file is on par with a 10k SCSI drive (That's SCSI, !SATA). It's when you read many random files at the same time that it goes HolyCrap!x. Try to copy three large files at the same time, the solid state keeps the same total speed as with one, the classic drives goes down to almost nothing. The unexpected result for me was that the degradation with time hasn't happened yet. It's as fast as it was when it was new. It could be that windows seven is that much better than XP of course, but I doubt it.
"When did ignorance become a point of view" - Dilbert
When you speak of lack of degradation, do you mean like you don't see the palm trees in Florida after the first six months (i.e. the new wears off)? Or is there some sort of performance degradation inherent in SSDs?
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting Services -
I highly recommend getting an Intel SSD. Others may have higher serial transfer rates but that is not a good measure of performance. Also from my involvement in several forums Intel SSDs seem to be the most reliable. Stay away from any SSD with a JMICRON controller as these have problems that make them quite slow at times.
John
Yeah, Intel seems to be top of everyone's list.
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting Services -
Christopher Duncan wrote:
I think jet engines are more fun.
only from four sides when you are close up.... The fifth is bad... and the 6th is much, much worse... ;P ;P
_________________________ John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others." Shhhhh.... I am not really here. I am a figment of your imagination.... I am still in my cave so this must be an illusion....
I was screwing around the other day in After Effects with just that, a guy getting sucked into a jet engine. Had seen a scene like that on Firefly and thought it would be fun to play with. For me. Not the guy. Just me. :)
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting Services -
When you speak of lack of degradation, do you mean like you don't see the palm trees in Florida after the first six months (i.e. the new wears off)? Or is there some sort of performance degradation inherent in SSDs?
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting ServicesNo, I meant that usually one needs to reinstall the computer after a year or two, because it gets slow. I haven't noticed that at all this time, and it's eight months old now.
"When did ignorance become a point of view" - Dilbert
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No, I meant that usually one needs to reinstall the computer after a year or two, because it gets slow. I haven't noticed that at all this time, and it's eight months old now.
"When did ignorance become a point of view" - Dilbert
And you guys don't have palm trees, right? :)
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting Services -
And you guys don't have palm trees, right? :)
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting ServicesI wish!
"When did ignorance become a point of view" - Dilbert
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Okay, so now Dan has me thinking about adding SDD to the mix. For those of you who have added these to the mix, a couple of questions. First, how much faster is I/O on one of these things versus a decent 10k SATA? 1x? 10x? HolyCrap!x? I know there are a variety of specs, but I'm talking overall perceived value here, as in "how long before this progress bar goes away?" Second, if I was only going to buy one, where would I get the best bang for the buck? C (for the benefit of the apps themselves), the data drive where I store, say, video files, or use it as the drive for the swap file, temp files, etc?
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting Services -
Okay, so now Dan has me thinking about adding SDD to the mix. For those of you who have added these to the mix, a couple of questions. First, how much faster is I/O on one of these things versus a decent 10k SATA? 1x? 10x? HolyCrap!x? I know there are a variety of specs, but I'm talking overall perceived value here, as in "how long before this progress bar goes away?" Second, if I was only going to buy one, where would I get the best bang for the buck? C (for the benefit of the apps themselves), the data drive where I store, say, video files, or use it as the drive for the swap file, temp files, etc?
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting ServicesI keep all of my code and contributed libraries on the SSD drive. (I don't have a need for super-fast boot times at the moment) Visual Studio loads faster (Resharper has to crawl all of your source files when you load a solution), Intellisense is more responsive, and builds are much faster. Great stuff.
Before .NET 4.0, object Universe = NULL;