Sandisk 32GB solid state drive

jamesavery22 · Post by **jamesavery22** » Thu May 03, 2007 9:51 am

MoJo wrote:Trip; I do have the update check turned on but I think it runs in the background so probably does not affect performance much.

If you go for 2GB RAM, remember to turn the page file off. My Computer, Properties, Advanced, Performance Settings, Advanced, Virtual Memory Change, and make sure all drives are set to "no paging file". Remember to click Set each time.

I think 35mb/sec is probably an excellent read speed. Although, in theory, most SATA drives can maintain 60mb/sec+ reads, for applications seeking always prevents you getting anywhere near that in the real world. 20mb/sec would be good including seeks. So, 35mb/sec irrespective of seeks is probably fantastic, but only time will tell.

I'm a little late but turning the page file completely off is a no-no. Even having no pagefile on the main OS drive and having one else where is a no-no. Some MS apps will break. Namely MCE. There is some microsoft blog on it somewhere. Just have a very small page file on your OS drive. I have a <50MB page file on my C: and 2GB on a different physical drive.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Thu May 03, 2007 10:03 am

turning the page file completely off is a no-no.

I've had a 0MB pagefile for about 6mths,no probs.1GB RAM.I don't do photo-editing or stuff that requires large amounts of virtual memory.

peteamer · Post by **peteamer** » Thu May 03, 2007 10:16 am

jamesavery22 wrote:Some MS apps will break.

That's not too much of a problem... on Linux.....

Trip · Post by **Trip** » Thu May 03, 2007 10:57 pm

The Samsung HDD was available at newegg 1 minute ago but sold out before I could post here... ETA:05/11/2007 The price has gone up $40.

I think I'm going to give up for now and wait another month till demand has cooled some. It'd be neat to have one, but I shouldn't waste my time searching for one.

404FileNotFound wrote:32GB/second transfer, not bad

Moogles · Post by **Moogles** » Fri May 04, 2007 1:15 am

Overclockers.co.uk actually sells a 16GB version of Samsung's SSD now. Priced at about 170UKP I wonder if it's worth a purchase.

Out of stock for now though. Here's a link: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productli ... &subid=910

Does anyone here actually own a Samsung SSD? If so, share your experiences please!

drees · Post by **drees** » Fri May 04, 2007 10:15 am

Trip wrote:The Samsung HDD was available at newegg 1 minute ago but sold out before I could post here... ETA:05/11/2007 The price has gone up $40.

Looks like they have the 32GB model in stock now: $529

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... id&x=0&y=0

Unfortunately, I am unable to actually view the product or add it to my cart, so perhaps it is out of stock!

Schlotkins · Post by **Schlotkins** » Fri May 04, 2007 4:11 pm

I'd love to see some benchmarks on this thing...

Trip · Post by **Trip** » Tue May 08, 2007 4:00 am

Anandtech review: Super Talent SSD: 16GB of Solid State Goodness

The SSD16GB25/25M features a read seek time of less than 1ms, a maximum read/write speed of up to 28 MB/sec, a sustained transfer rate of 25 MB/sec

The Samsung and Sandisk SSD are much faster.

highlandsun · Post by **highlandsun** » Wed May 09, 2007 10:55 am

Yeah, that SuperTalent seems to be targeted at industrial apps without very stringent performance requirements.

Of course, all any of these guys needs to do is add the same 8-16MB of RAM cache that they already use on HDDs to get their burst rates up to maximum interface speed, and then these drives will be pretty much max speed for most applications. They're just not trying hard enough, IMO.

NYCubby · Post by **NYCubby** » Thu May 10, 2007 10:06 am

Hey Guys!

Just wanted to let you know that I purchased a Sandisk SSD UATA 5000 32gb Solid State Drive from Dell the other day and installed it in my Sony Vaio UX180P (Micro PC)! It was a little thicker than the stock 30gb hard drive but it fit in just perfectly!

Installed Windows Vista Business and I now have a fully working system. AMAZING! The speed increase was substatial and I am a really happy camper. Just though I'de share my experience....

The Sandisk SSD was $549 from Dell.

Regards!
Aaron

PS - The "SATA" cable they state comes with the SSD isn't really a SATA adapter. It's a ribbon cable that connects via ZIF to the SSD and has another proprietary connector for the Dell Latitude motherboard to connect it to it's SATA channel.

My Sony UX180P used a 30gb 1.8" with ZIF connector, so the SSD connected up just fine.....

Schlotkins · Post by **Schlotkins** » Thu May 10, 2007 7:16 pm

Can you run any benchmarks like HDtach?

Moogles · Post by **Moogles** » Fri May 11, 2007 1:20 am

Firstly: congratulations on your purchase! Secondly, I agree with the request for some benchmarks.

Trip · Post by **Trip** » Sat May 12, 2007 8:23 pm

NYCubby,

Welcome to SPCR!

In case you want to run the benchmark, you can download HDTach here.

And if not, thanks anyway for posting about your positive experience and the unique cable.

MoJo · Post by **MoJo** » Sun May 13, 2007 2:24 am

jamesavery22 wrote:I'm a little late but turning the page file completely off is a no-no. Even having no pagefile on the main OS drive and having one else where is a no-no. Some MS apps will break. Namely MCE. There is some microsoft blog on it somewhere. Just have a very small page file on your OS drive. I have a <50MB page file on my C: and 2GB on a different physical drive.

Interesting. I don't use MCE so can't comment on it, but I turn the page file off on all my systems with more than 768MB RAM. So far, I have not found a single app that breaks, even games and the like. Photoshop, 3DS Max, MS Office 2002/7... they all work fine.

What you have to remember is that it's total paged memory that counts. On a 512MB RAM system, the page file is set by default to a maximum of 1.5GB in Windows XP. So, the total amount of paged RAM the system can ever access is 512MB+1.5GB = 2GB. Thus, if you try to use more than 2GB of memory your app will still get an out of memory error, unless you adjust the maximum page file size.

With that in mind, there is no difference between a 512MB RAM system with 1.5GB page file and a 2GB RAM no page file system, at least in terms of available virtual memory.

Trip · Post by **Trip** » Tue May 15, 2007 4:20 am

dvnation not only is selling the newegg samsung drive (100% markup price with the likely source being newegg) but is also selling Sandisk 1.8" SSD with ZIF with "Super fast read speed of 68MB/S." If his source is dell for this one, then it too is marked up nearly 100%.

The forum appears to be down so I can't ask them directly =p

Anyway, my purpose here isn't just a quick laugh at dvnation's expense but also to highlight super fast read speed of 68MB/S.

Sigh, I'll give Dell a call later today and see if I can grind out a number or two. This time I'll have a Dell laptop number at hand albeit with a ready denial that I'm not planning on using the drive with it in case the two aren't compatible

It's amusing that if Dell only tried to sell this drive (assuming this is the SanDisk 1.8" with 68mb/s read speeds), it would do as well as newegg has with its inventory.

Dell:
buy here
Manufacturer Part# : HR466
Dell Part# : 341-4872
1-800-456-3355
$549.00
Usually Ships: 1-2 Weeks

Bicster · Post by **Bicster** » Thu May 17, 2007 11:52 am

Newegg seems to have dropped the Samsung SSDs.

Anyone have another source? Particularly for a smaller one? I don't need 32GB. 4-8GB would be fine, but it needs to have good performance.

highlandsun · Post by **highlandsun** » Thu May 17, 2007 9:09 pm

Google Product Search (formerly Froogle) turns up several hits for this query
samsung solid state -q1p

but it looks like they're all out of stock.

If all you want is 4-8GB then you're better off just getting a CF card and a CF-IDE adapter that supports DMA. You might try this A-Data 8GB card, spec'd for 40MB/sec reads:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820211164

The actual SSDs are all still overpriced...
E.g., on this page
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... 4&name=8GB

a Transcend 8GB 40MB/sec CF card is only $99.99 but the Transcend 8GB IDE SSD (unspecified performance) is $179.99. Get the CF card, an adapter for $15 or so, and go on your way...

Bicster · Post by **Bicster** » Fri May 18, 2007 5:11 am

The Transcend / A-Data cards don't support UDMA, and the A-DATA only supports PIO. The speed ratings of most off brand cards are bogus. The Sandisk Extreme IV and the new Lexar UDMA cards seem to be the only choice when it comes to CF. I think I will get a Sandisk Extreme IV. I was just wondering what happened to the Samsungs, since they likely have much more robust wear leveling.

highlandsun · Post by **highlandsun** » Fri May 18, 2007 11:19 am

Look again...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820208298

The Transcend definitely supports UDMA4. I suspect the ADATA must support some form of DMA as well, since PIO mode 6 maxes out at 25MB/sec.

Bicster · Post by **Bicster** » Fri May 18, 2007 11:56 am

highlandsun wrote:Look again...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820208298

The Transcend definitely supports UDMA4. I suspect the ADATA must support some form of DMA as well, since PIO mode 6 maxes out at 25MB/sec.

I stand corrected. There was another Transcend CF that claimed to support DMA (not UDMA) but reviewers said it didn't work. It may be interesting to see reviews of this one.

Transcend has some SSD's, too, but I find it odd that they don't publish any performance specs and nobody has ever reviewed one (that I can find.)

Unfortunately I've seen too many CF cards that claim much higher speeds than they're capable of. I can't make the leap of faith that a card claiming 25 MB/sec would actually support UDMA! I agree that it should support it.

Sandisk has something else in their favor - they have published their CF wear leveling algorithm in a whitepaper. Its weaknesses are known. While not as robust as one would expect for a true SSD (wear is not spread across the whole device), at least I can attempt to tailor my application to it.

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Tue May 22, 2007 11:37 pm

I am surprised the Super Talent did so well despite it's poor read/write rates. I will definitely have to pick up one of those higher performance Samsung or Sandisk drives once the prices come down. Once the 32GB are down to $100-200 I think I could justify the cost. Unfortunately I'll probably be waiting another year or two.

Bicster · Post by **Bicster** » Wed May 23, 2007 6:46 am

I ordered two of the Samsung 4GB SSD's from Newegg yesterday. They would be worthless on a desktop, but should be gold for my limited-purpose Linux servers. One of them is replacing a 512 MB CF card that I've been using as primary storage since 2004.

Capsaicin · Post by **Capsaicin** » Wed May 23, 2007 10:17 am

Bicster wrote:I ordered two of the Samsung 4GB SSD's from Newegg yesterday.

It looks like Newegg just got in a few 1.8" Samsung SSDs (4GB, 8GB, and 16GB). Did you get the 1.8" or the 2.5"? You'll have to let us know how they perform.

Bicster · Post by **Bicster** » Wed May 23, 2007 10:34 am

Capsaicin wrote:
Bicster wrote:I ordered two of the Samsung 4GB SSD's from Newegg yesterday.
It looks like Newegg just got in a few 1.8" Samsung SSDs (4GB, 8GB, and 16GB). Did you get the 1.8" or the 2.5"? You'll have to let us know how they perform.

I got the 2.5" ... easier to mount, no interface to figure out. I noticed the 1.8" ones seem to require 3.3V power.

Here's a review of the 32GB version. The performance is supposed to be the same for the other capacities. The 64GB model coming out in a few months will be faster.

Trip · Post by **Trip** » Thu May 24, 2007 3:11 am

The 32 GB 2.5" is in now but at a whopping $649.00 + $4.99 SH

Wasn't it far cheaper?

Mr Evil · Post by **Mr Evil** » Thu May 24, 2007 5:04 am

Trip wrote:The 32 GB 2.5" is in now but at a whopping $649.00 + $4.99 SH

Scan has them in stock for Â£306.68, which is a bit cheaper. Since I assume that the $ prices are without tax, it should be compared to the ex. vat price of Â£261 ~= $519, which is a lot cheaper (unusual that something is cheaper in the UK than the US - a strong Â£ is looking good for us!).

Capsaicin · Post by **Capsaicin** » Thu May 24, 2007 7:52 am

Trip wrote:The 32 GB 2.5" is in now but at a whopping $649.00 + $4.99 SH

Wasn't it far cheaper?

It was $499. Then it got bumped up to $519. Then taken off the site. Now I see why Newegg censors prices in customer reviews.

Dell's 32GB SSD (SanDisk I think) is "only" $549.

highlandsun · Post by **highlandsun** » Thu May 24, 2007 8:03 am

I wonder how long it will take for Dell to sell out of stock. Despite all the bitching about how overpriced these things are, they seem to keep selling out anyway. With demand like this we won't see price drops for quite a while, nor much incentive to rush out an improved version.

Mr Evil · Post by **Mr Evil** » Thu May 24, 2007 8:15 am

highlandsun wrote:...With demand like this we won't see price drops for quite a while, nor much incentive to rush out an improved version.

I don't know about that. There are only a few manufacturers offering these at the moment, so all the other companies who are capable of making these are missing out on this new market. I expect to see some very aggressive competition soon, as everyone else jumps on the bandwagon.

For myself, Â£10/GB is far too much, despite the benefits. I would consider buying one once they reach about Â£1/GB (still 7x more than mechanical drives, but worth it). But even if they were that price, I wouldn't buy one because they're IDE. Get with the times, SATA is the way!

Trip · Post by **Trip** » Fri May 25, 2007 12:18 am

Apparently Sandisk makes a SATA version.

The Samsung HDDs appear to be sold out.

I'll wait till they drop in price like everyone else. If Newegg continues its strategy, the next batch should be $700

Whoa... I wonder what price a 64GB version will command.

Sandisk 32GB solid state drive

Sandisk 32gb SSD installed in a Sony Vaio UX180P Micro PC!!!