Hard drive performance

[Char Jackson]

My main concern - based on shaky foundation! - is that they will still
fail suddenly and completely (especially if wear-levelling is built in),
whereas platter drives usually (I know not always) give some indication
they're going. Yes, I know if you're backing up regularly this shouldn't
make any difference ...

I have no personal experience with failed SSD's yet, but from what
I've read they tend to fail gradually. I'm not sure how that manifests
itself, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

[Andy Burns]

I have no personal experience with failed SSD's yet, but from what
I've read they tend to fail gradually.

A colleague of mine made the mistake of putting his laptop in the bag
while it was shutting down, of course it then failed to shutdown and
overheated itself, his SSD died completely the next day ... coincidence?

 

[Char Jackson]

A colleague of mine made the mistake of putting his laptop in the bag
while it was shutting down, of course it then failed to shutdown and
overheated itself, his SSD died completely the next day ... coincidence?

Not enough info to say, but I'd guess it's coincidence.

 

[Mark F]

(All my comments for original poster.)
^ What version of HD Tune? I think HD Tune Pro 4.60 is the
latest^ I this means there was interference on
your system or a bad spot on the disk,
not a flakiness as seen with most
flash memory stuff^ I don't know that the above number means much, since
I often see devices with higher sequential read or write
rate than the reported Burst Rate.I think you are going about as fast as the thing can go.
For higher performance try
10K RPM drive > 15K RPM drive (which may require SAS)

perhaps SSD

Depending on what you have lying around and what disks go for these
days, you might try a large capacity disk and only use part of the
disk. (However, even though the benchmarks I ran showed that a
using only the first 150GB of a 2GB 7200RPM drive was faster
than using only the first 150GB of a 300GB Western Digital
WDC3000GLFS-01F8U VelociRaptor, I went with the VelociRaptor.)
RPM Seagate drive

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

You (or rather the O/S) don't need to worry about that with current
SSDs, they have internal wear-levelling (and a stash of spare sectors to
use in place of ailing ones).

No, no, no.

I'm not worried about how I might manage that behavior, I'm worried
about the fact that it's necessary because the flash memory can wear
out. That's what I meant when I said "I ... remain concerned about the
need ...".

Thanks for reminding me of the name "wear-levelling", which I didn't
remember when I wrote the post.

 

[Andy Burns]

when you consider the total size of the drive, divided by the
number of write cycles

Or even multiplied!

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Yes but when you consider the total size of the drive, divided by the
number of write cycles that's an awful lot of writes before you wear it
out (ok it's a bit more complicted than that due to the internal
write/erase block sizes being larger than sectors).

I posted my remark before the various replies that provided some
statistics for the newer SSD drives, but as I read some of the caveats
in this thread, I'm still not ready for an SSD .

IOW, I'm still worried.

 

[Char Jackson]

Or even multiplied!

I didn't know there was going to be math. :-/

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I didn't know there was going to be math. :-/

And a pop quiz...

 

[Bob I]

I posted my remark before the various replies that provided some
statistics for the newer SSD drives, but as I read some of the caveats
in this thread, I'm still not ready for an SSD .

IOW, I'm still worried.

It could fail, or not. What is the "gain" you can justify to yourself by
purchasing one? In the decades past I've paid ~$500 for a 32MB drive, a
500MB drive and a 5GB drive(in their time). So in that perspective, $400
for a 256GB SSD that most likely will outlast my laptop, and made the
CPU the lowest common denominator and cut the heat and increased battery
life, is worth it to me. Cut a boot time from just over a minute to 17
seconds. YMMV

 

[Roy Smith]

I posted my remark before the various replies that provided some
statistics for the newer SSD drives, but as I read some of the caveats
in this thread, I'm still not ready for an SSD .

IOW, I'm still worried.

Have you looked at some of the hybrids that are available now? There is
still a hard drive involved, but they also have 4 GB that the controller
will use to prefetch various files during the read and write cycles.
It's an interesting idea worth looking into IMHO.



--

Roy Smith
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit
Thunderbird 8.0
Tuesday, November 15, 2011 6:37:24 PM

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

I have no personal experience with failed SSD's yet, but from what
I've read they tend to fail gradually. I'm not sure how that manifests
itself, so take it with a grain of salt.

Ah. My experience is completely with (an MP3 player and) pen (USB)
drives, which _have_ failed suddenly and completely. I'm sure SSDs
differ considerably in how they are constructed.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

If you like making stuff there's always somebody ready to say that its
ridiculous. But, actually, I don't think it is. In fact, enthusiasms are good.
Hobbies are healthy. They don't harm anybody. - James May in RT, 6-12
November 2010.

 

[Bob I]

Have you looked at some of the hybrids that are available now? There is
still a hard drive involved, but they also have 4 GB that the controller
will use to prefetch various files during the read and write cycles.
It's an interesting idea worth looking into IMHO.

The Momentus XT is quite inexpensive too.

 

[Andy Burns]

for a 256GB SSD that most likely will [...] cut the heat and increased battery
life, is worth it to me.

Double check the specs on power, I *am* a fan of SSDs (having replaced
the HDD on my main laptop with an SSD, I was so impressed with the
performace boost I immediately replaced the HDD in my netbook too).

But the power consumption of a WD Scorpio Blue 250GB is very similar to
the Kingston SSDnow 64GB, other models may vary of course.

 

[Bob I]

for a 256GB SSD that most likely will [...] cut the heat and increased
battery
life, is worth it to me.

Double check the specs on power, I *am* a fan of SSDs (having replaced
the HDD on my main laptop with an SSD, I was so impressed with the
performace boost I immediately replaced the HDD in my netbook too).

But the power consumption of a WD Scorpio Blue 250GB is very similar to
the Kingston SSDnow 64GB, other models may vary of course.

Power draw was one reason the SAMSUNG 470 Series SSD is in this unit
now. You can see the specs here
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147126