Intel 34nm SSD released
Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 8:52 am
New 34nm Intel SSD's should be faster and cheaper based on THIS article at Anandtech
Discussions about Silent Computing
https://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/
https://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=54671
I would say the drive is quicker, not faster. The difference is that quick is generally the term you'd use to describe latency, which seems to be what they've addressed in bringing random read latency down to 65 microseconds and increasing 4KB write IOPS from 3300 to 6600-8400 IOPS as a result of the improved latency. The throughput is still the same 250/70 mb/sec, so I would say the drives are equally fast to the old ones, just quicker. To see the expected prices dropping from $345 to $225 for the new 80gb model is very exciting.eit412 wrote:New 34nm Intel SSD's should be faster and cheaper based on THIS article at Anandtech
Good point about the difference between latency and throughput. I was just quoting the original article. The price was the part I was excited about. I will deffinatley be picking up one of these in a couple of months and loading Windows 7 on it for my HTPC.AZBrandon wrote:I would say the drive is quicker, not faster. The difference is that quick is generally the term you'd use to describe latency,
Sorry. I'll be more explicit. This drive will get a firmware upgrade to support TRIM, the previous generation won't. This is just a marketing ploy to get people to buy a new, expensive, SSD to replace the old one.croddie wrote:I disagree. This is great value. And will have TRIM support.
Actually, far from it. 64 or 80 GB is more than enough for a standard office setup, and comfortable for a programming setup. As a programmer, I would absolutely love a 80 GB SSD in place of the slow 160 GB 7200.7 in my computer right now - improvements in both random access and continuous read would be ridiculously huge.Matija wrote:2) People content with 80 GB of storage space are also content with an old HDD
My thoughts exactly. I'm a bit surprised at the many negative comments I've seen about SSDs on SPCR. Not only are SSDs low power, robust, and silent, they give your system a massive performance boost, which is worth the cost alone IMHO. Many people here pay hundreds of dollars more for a better processor, graphics card, etc, but only get an incremental performance increase. An SSD has been the single best performance upgrade I have ever made. I use a 30GB one for OS/apps and I've only used half the space. I know that not everyone has the same usage patterns, but having a separate drive for this purpose is a good idea anyway, so for many people a small SSD is a great choice for a fast, flexible system. Maybe in a year's time it will cost $100 less, but meanwhile I've had $100 use out of it. Anyone who's worried about buying stuff that might later fall in price probably shouldn't buy tech products. You'll always be able to buy cheaper and faster in a year's time.jessekopelman wrote:My problem with current SSD prices is not that they are too high. They are actually pretty reasonable for the performance gain. It is that you know they will continue coming down very rapidly. Basically, with computer stuff like this it is not about price/metric but just price. You pick a price you are willing pay and buy the best thing for that price. If you are willing to pay $300 for an SSD, your time is now. If you are willing to pay $200, your time is soon coming. For those of us who are cheap/patient, our time is probably still a year or two away. It is no different than any other component. I'd never buy a >$200 CPU or >$100 GPU, but for those who would, I don't see why you'd balk at current SSD prices.
I think the problem a lot of people have is the difference in cost between even a bottom rung SSD and a reasonably capable, quiet HDD. There is also a "Let's wait and see" attitude amongst consumers, fostered in part by mainstream publications who act as their PC advisors. SSDs generally get poor reviews in these publications, and to them, SSD doesn't appear to be "sorted" yet. Most people who have light uses do not need to fork out for an SSD at its current prices now. They should not be peer pressured into it either because it's flavour of the decade with some performance users on SPCR. People have other more important things in life they need to spend money on, and the opportunity cost right now of purchasing an SSD is too great, even for its performance and silence gains. Being "behind the times" is nothing to be ashamed of. Whatever hardware you buy, you are behind no matter how far ahead you think you are.alleycat wrote:My thoughts exactly. I'm a bit surprised at the many negative comments I've seen about SSDs on SPCR. Not only are SSDs low power, robust, and silent, they give your system a massive performance boost, which is worth the cost alone IMHO. Many people here pay hundreds of dollars more for a better processor, graphics card, etc, but only get an incremental performance increase. An SSD has been the single best performance upgrade I have ever made. I use a 30GB one for OS/apps and I've only used half the space. I know that not everyone has the same usage patterns, but having a separate drive for this purpose is a good idea anyway, so for many people a small SSD is a great choice for a fast, flexible system. Maybe in a year's time it will cost $100 less, but meanwhile I've had $100 use out of it. Anyone who's worried about buying stuff that might later fall in price probably shouldn't buy tech products. You'll always be able to buy cheaper and faster in a year's time.jessekopelman wrote:My problem with current SSD prices is not that they are too high. They are actually pretty reasonable for the performance gain. It is that you know they will continue coming down very rapidly. Basically, with computer stuff like this it is not about price/metric but just price. You pick a price you are willing pay and buy the best thing for that price. If you are willing to pay $300 for an SSD, your time is now. If you are willing to pay $200, your time is soon coming. For those of us who are cheap/patient, our time is probably still a year or two away. It is no different than any other component. I'd never buy a >$200 CPU or >$100 GPU, but for those who would, I don't see why you'd balk at current SSD prices.
It does.halcyon wrote:YMMV, of course.
Sure, but that is not the attitude I was disagreeing with. It is perfectly fine to say SSD is too expensive for me right now (I say this myself). What I have a problem with is people complaining about is $/GB. I don't hear people saying, "oh, I'd love an i7, but it is too expensive per Megaflop." Either a CPU/GPU is worth the money to you or it isn't. There is not some magic performance metric/$ that has to be met. SSD is no different. Given that SSD prices are already in line with high end CPU/GPU prices, the argument that their costs are out of line doesn't hold true. They are either a good price to you or not (I'm still in the not camp), but it has nothing to do with cost per GB.Shamgar wrote:Most people who have light uses do not need to fork out for an SSD at its current prices now.
Because most people don't have Vista 64 Ultimate, Visual Studio, and SQL Management Studio . . .JazzJackRabbit wrote:Good price on 80GB drive, too bad it's too small. I have no idea how people can live with 80GB, much less 30GB.
That is what the TRIM command (that these new Intel drives will support with a firmware upgrade) is for. In theory, it should prevent performance deterioration as the drive fills up.JazzJackRabbit wrote:80GB drive would have about 10GB left, that's too close for comfort and I suspect SSD drives would deteriorate performance wise when low on space.
I have XP, Office 2007, VS 2005, VS 2008, RIM JDE (Eclipse), another copy of Eclipse, a number of Windows Mobile SDKs, BB Desktop Manager, freaking Lotus Notes and a couple of other things, and I'm using 29 GB of my 100 GB system partition...JazzJackRabbit wrote:Good price on 80GB drive, too bad it's too small. I have no idea how people can live with 80GB, much less 30GB. I have Vista 64 Ultimate installed, Visual Studio 2008, SQL Management Studio 2008, three games, Valve HL2 series, all of them including Orange Box, Prey, RTCW:ET, a bunch of smaller programs to work with MKV and SRT files, I don't even have Microsoft Office installed, and yet I only have 30GB left out of 100GB. I do not keep anything else on the OS drive but programs. 80GB drive would have about 10GB left, that's too close for comfort and I suspect SSD drives would deteriorate performance wise when low on space.
Wasn't implying that in any way at all. I'm always behind the times, and if you knew me better you'd see that around I tend to recommend cheap, simple, and DIY solutions. I usually buy low end processors (except for Celerons!) and mature chipsets. I only recently upgraded from a Pentium 4, which was obsolete even when I originally bought it. My current system including SSD cost me under AUD800. I carefully prioritise my spending.Shamgar wrote:Being "behind the times" is nothing to be ashamed of
The geekish enthusiasm has been tempered by the issue that the SSDs that have come onto the market over the past year or two have been so deeply compromised by the controller issues combined with the high prices.colin2 wrote:I'd also agree that given the silence and low power requirements of these things, a little geekish enthusiasm should be expected on a forum like this.
and I also used the example of my digital camera flash card which I paid an "exhorbitant" price for in 2003.I wrote:So, if you really feel you need an SSD for today's computing, you would pay whatever you need to for it, within reason.
I read through many, many posts on SPCR and get acquainted with some of the members' views on things through them. So I was not implying that you or anyone else here wasn't for budget computing or that some users are only for the high end of town. (Although some do appear to be that way, but I wouldn't know in truth as I don't know anyone here personally.) Sometimes I do make my points strongly on the forums: I have strong views, be it on technology, academic, moral, life, faith issues, and I enjoy using words to articulate those views. I apologise if it comes off the wrong way.alleycat wrote:Wasn't implying that in any way at all. I'm always behind the times, and if you knew me better you'd see that around I tend to recommend cheap, simple, and DIY solutions. I usually buy low end processors (except for Celerons!) and mature chipsets. I only recently upgraded from a Pentium 4, which was obsolete even when I originally bought it. My current system including SSD cost me under AUD800. I carefully prioritise my spending.Shamgar wrote:Being "behind the times" is nothing to be ashamed of
I perfectly understand your feeling on the matter and I was not attempting to counter your argument in the first place. I agree with it on most counts, but I wanted to speak up for those who didn't feel strongly about SSD now. That is all. I'm all for SSD and its benefits for today's computing.jessekopelman wrote:Sure, but that is not the attitude I was disagreeing with. It is perfectly fine to say SSD is too expensive for me right now (I say this myself). What I have a problem with is people complaining about is $/GB. I don't hear people saying, "oh, I'd love an i7, but it is too expensive per Megaflop." Either a CPU/GPU is worth the money to you or it isn't. There is not some magic performance metric/$ that has to be met. SSD is no different. Given that SSD prices are already in line with high end CPU/GPU prices, the argument that their costs are out of line doesn't hold true. They are either a good price to you or not (I'm still in the not camp), but it has nothing to do with cost per GB.Shamgar wrote:Most people who have light uses do not need to fork out for an SSD at its current prices now.
Let's agree for now that SSD is a "specialist" product, no different than buying a specialist expansion card like a high end soundcard, audio-interface, video and RAID card et al. As jessekopelman said, there's no use complaining about the prices for those who are now interested in them when people spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on other performance oriented gear.alleycat wrote:The point I was trying to make is that SSDs can't really be compared to conventional "storage". They're in a league of their own, especially for both silent PC and performance enthusiasts, and that's a not-so-common combination in itself. Also, I'm speaking from experience, not from something I read on a tech blog.
JazzJackRabbit wrote:My Windows directory is 25GB and Program Files X86 is 32GB (although 20 of those GB is steam). If I could use 80GB drive I would.
Except that an SSD affects pretty much all usage of a PC while high end soundcard, audio-interface, video and RAID card etc are only relevent if you need those particular capabilities. I'm only waiting because I use a notebook so I need a 250Gb HDDShamgar wrote:Let's agree for now that SSD is a "specialist" product, no different than buying a specialist expansion card like a high end soundcard, audio-interface, video and RAID card et al. As jessekopelman said, there's no use complaining about the prices for those who are now interested in them when people spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on other performance oriented gear.