OCZ Vertex SSDs- Initial Results

[clocker]

Scored a pair of 30GB OCZ Vertex solid state drives today.
Installed Win 7 x64 in RAID 0.
Using the OCZ forum recommended tweaks for SSD performance (very straightforward), here are the initial test results-

As expected, the disk score in the Windows Experience was pretty high...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v78/clocker/SSD1.png

Both the CPU and Memory scores will go higher as well, the performance was declocked in BIOS to facilitate a stable install of the OS and has yet to be sped up again.

Here's HD Tach...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v78/clocker/SSD2.png

And finally, PC Pitstop (just for grins)...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v78/clocker/SSD3.png

All that is well and good but the real question is, can I feel a difference.
The answer is "Hell, yeah!".

Shit happens fast.

I'll spend some more time tweaking things (and installing the rest of my apps) but it's safe to say that these drives are the best bang for your buck performance upgrade you can get (assuming you already have a semi-decent CPU/RAM/vid card).

BTW, the Windows 7 install- from newly installed drives to desktop- took 21 minutes.
It was internet capable out of the box, I installed the sound,video, Intel Matrix Storage drivers manually from a folder I'd created before the process began.
I used a "corporate" version of Ultimate that I'd "acquired" yesterday and it was automatically activated and displays the Genuine Advantage logo on the Performance page.
Updates were painless.

Not bad.

[Snee]

What controller are you running the array off?

The reason I'm asking is that while I hit the same PI in windows 7, I think my mobo-integrated raid controller might be slowing my drives down, somewhat.

I'd re-check with HD Tach, but it doesn't like my win 7 HP.

[clocker]

I'm using the onboard Intel ICH10R controller, with the Intel Storage Manager in Windows.
Run HD Tach in XP compatibility mode.

[Detale]

Hey clock I couldn't find the OCZ tweaks could you please post a link. I get my 60 GB SSD's tomorrow, can't wait!

[Snee]

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=49779 - ? also http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=50376.


I'm using the onboard Intel ICH10R controller, with the Intel Storage Manager in Windows.
Run HD Tach in XP compatibility mode.

Prolly a sign I should go to bed.

My results are still off, though, I definitely need to look into this.

EDit: Yeah, my write speeds are capped by something, the reads are about on target. Just ran it through ATTO as well.
EDit: Hah, enabling write back cache bumped them up a little, but am still mystified, though.

[Detale]

Are your cables SATAII rated? Maybe that's it?

[Snee]

Using the ones that came with the rIIe, so I'd be surprised if they weren't, but I'll try other ones.

Thanks for the tip.

[Detale]

Also i as of yet know fuck all about SSD's but is there any kind of jumper like on a SATA HDD that caps it to 150 gb/s ?

[clocker]

There is a pinout header but mine had nothing on them.
Maybe I'll look at the destructions.

Oh wait, who am I kidding?

Edit: FUCKING COMCAST!

[Snee]

If you'd never gotten those vertexes, I'd have gone on, happy with my 7.6 PI, and my sweet boot times :fist:

Now I'm probably gonna tinker with this for weeks.

Ordered new cables, anyhow.

Something for comparison, anyhow, corsair x32s in raid 0, the quick bench:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v38/snorlax/hdtach.jpg

Before re-enabling the write back cache, it was hitting the heady heights of a 380MB/s burst, and an average write of 154MB/s

Why and when I'd turned that off (can't have been long ago, or else it was only noticeable in hd tach), I dunno. I guess I was experimenting with something.

The moral of the story is: don't do that.

Not solved the write speed issues though.


EDit:


There is a pinout header but mine had nothing on them.
Maybe I'll look at the destructions.

Almost completely certain that header is for when you want to flash the firmware.

[Detale]

There is a pinout header but mine had nothing on them.
Maybe I'll look at the destructions.

Oh wait, who am I kidding?

Edit: FUCKING COMCAST!

:huh:

I was jealous so I posted my crappy results :(

Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136319)

http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/3972/capturegm.jpg

BASTARDS!!!

[clocker]

Well, I've done something to my setup that has borked the results.
Dunno what.
Average read has dropped to the mid 300 range and burst to the mid 2k's...about a 30% decrease.

I've also been unable to detect what firmware version my drives came with since they're shielded by the RAID controller.
I read in the OCZ forums that that Vertexs started shipping with the 1.4 firmware in October but it's possible that Microcenter has been sitting on their stock for longer than that, so it's conceivable mine are an earlier version.

Given my degraded performance and mystery firmware, I think I'm going to reinstall the OS with the drives just set up normally and see what's going on.
This time I'll also apply the recommended "tweaks" one at a time instead of all at once and try to isolate what's screwing things up.

I'm also going to set it up with the OS on one drive (the 30GB drive size is no problem for me) and put my browser caches and page file on the other.
I think that the biggest advantage (for my usage at least) of the SSD is the access time, and RAIDing them really does nothing to improve the already insignificant access time of a single drive.

D's chart shows exactly why I used to RAID...a mechanical drive's performance slows as you get to the inner sections of the spinning disk and by using the Intel RAID you could cherry pick the fast sectors for the partition and maintain a pretty consistent speed.
Since SSDs obviously don't suffer from this defect (phenomenon?), it could be that RAID isn't the performance enhancer it used to be.
We'll see.

[ckrit]

Have a look at the matrix storage settings. Maybe the write back cache I saw disabled was something the drivers do on their own?

Also, I noticed a discrepancy between the long and short test in HD-tach. Not as big a difference as you'd have to have for that to be the reason here, but still, if you ran the short instead of the long, you'd notice a difference in average read, I think. My run of the long test shows an average read about the same as yours, in your first post in this thread.

I tried the tool posted in one of the links I posted, btw, it does most of the tweaks at once. It didn't do much. What I don't have is a block size of 64k or whatever they recommended.

And I've noticed the matrix software is easy to sink, maybe you need a reinstall of that.

/halping

My array is doing better since I started tinkering. I think I speeded up my boot time with like a second, even, but the write speed is still capped at around 150MB/s.

You may well be right about raid 0 not doing much for us, though, but I like striping stuff :( I'd like to think it helps with handling smaller files as well, my controller is supposed to do worse at that.

Oh, and ATTO's good for testing.



EDit: Also, if you ran a hell of a lot of funky benchmark tools, maybe you suffered performance degradation from writing to all blocks or something? Unlikely, that, but still.

[clocker]

Well, I'm not sure.

I did however luck out, both my drives are the 1.4 firmware.

When I installed the Vertexes (Vertexi?) I simply unplugged the two drives that made up the previous array and left them in situ.
I removed the Vertex drives and plugged the other two back in and the old array was up and running.
I then plugged one Vertex in at a time, converted it to a non-RAID disk, reentered Windows and initialized it and was able to see the hardware ID details, which confirmed the 1.4 BIOS of the drive(s).
I then used the recommended Sanitary Erase tool and wiped them both.

Supposedly, I'm now good to go for a clean install.

ckrit: I checked all my Intel settings and everything else I could think of and found nothing which explained the performance hit.
That tool you refer to just changes all the settings I'd already done manually, so I'm not sure how useful it is.

So, it's now time to take the plunge and reinstall Win 7...on a single drive this time.
See ya'll in a bit.

[ckrit]

Stupid question, maybe, but do you break the array if shifting which connector each drive is connected to around?

I'm always very careful about connecting them exactly the same way if disconnecting them, but do I still need to be, or do these modern-ish controllers go by serial number or something?

Mine's an intel controller too, probably the next generation down from yours, or the same. ICH10R.

[clocker]

We have the same controller.
Doesn't matter how you reconnect them, the pertinent data is on the drive so as long as they're on the same controller as before, the array will rebuild itself.

I'm back in Windows, folks.
Here's what the drive does right out of the box- absolutely nothing done, did this right after Windows hit the desktop for the first time...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v78/clocker/Vertex1.png

Now, let's do some shit and see what happens...

[Detale]

Is this a single drive? Is this formatted? This seems almost slower than my single 640 gig :huh:

[ckrit]

The burst looks awry, the average speed beats your wd black badly. Could be a bit higher though, but that was with no tweaking or anything.

The low burst is prolly cos the matrix controller driver/software aren't installed yet.

I think OCZ recommends to use the ms drivers for ahci, if you didn't go with raid mode. But you'll have seen that, clocker.

[Detale]

oooo I missed that. I assumed the red br was average. my bad NM

My drives are sitting in my hallway ATM my wife says I have to wait until the 25th DAMNIT!!!

[clocker]

I think OCZ recommends to use the ms drivers for ahci, if you didn't go with raid mode. But you'll have seen that, clocker.
Well, kinda...but too late.
I didn't install in AHCI mode and now it can't be enabled without bluescreening in BIOS.
I can't install the Intel software cause it tells me there's no relevant hardware.

So, I can either wipe the drive and reinstall in AHCI or go back to RAID.

I'm thinking RAID would be the best use of the space.

What would AHCI mode get me, anyway?

[Detale]

I still don't know wtf AHCI does? I mess with it sometimes when I do a fresh install but I can't tell a deiiefence maybe it's me :idunno:

[ckrit]

I think OCZ recommends to use the ms drivers for ahci, if you didn't go with raid mode. But you'll have seen that, clocker.
Well, kinda...but too late.
I didn't install in AHCI mode and now it can't be enabled without bluescreening in BIOS.
I can't install the Intel software cause it tells me there's no relevant hardware.

So, I can either wipe the drive and reinstall in AHCI or go back to RAID.

I'm thinking RAID would be the best use of the space.

What would AHCI mode get me, anyway?

Infoz. (http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=444831) (Balls, the instructions are for XP, not Win 7 :dabs:)

That guy compares it to IDE mode, though.

I've always seen it as raid mode without the raid.

After checking around a bit, though, raid mode enables ahci, but adds a vendor-specific instruction set on top of that (and enables raid-functionality, obviously), or somesuch. That'd be why AHCI alone, which is more of an open standard, works best with MS-drivers, whereas raid mode requires intel drivers I expect.

[clocker]

I still don't know wtf AHCI does? I mess with it sometimes when I do a fresh install but I can't tell a deiiefence maybe it's me :idunno:





That guy compares it to IDE mode, though.

I've always seen it as raid mode without the raid.


Well, some quick Googling says it enables hot swapping and native command queing.
Right then.

I still don't know what to do.
I used to love screwing with my OS but now, after a year (almost) of ignoring it, I just want this over with.

I recently opened up my case and discovered the easily imaginable dust bunny convention, so I've been planning on tearing down and doing some maintenance anyway.
I'd really like to use these cool fittings that D. gifted me and since that would require breaking the waterloop, I figured I'd go all out and change blocks and tubing as well.
I also need to come up with a cool way to install the SSDs and maybe even add another drive (Microcenter has a sale on Seagate 1.5TB drives for $118).

After all this futzing with the hardware I'd like to just reinstall Windows and be done.
Yeah, right.

[Detale]

Yeah I read the google thing, thanks man.

There should really be a name for the feeling of dred when you just want it to be done with. Excited when preparing for it and then discontented immediately after finishing.

I have a few ideas on how to mount the SSD's using 1/8" X 1/2" aluminum, or even a 90, but I'm sure your's will be way fancier so I'm glad that you are going to go first like.

I was particular to these mounts for a while

http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/7671/unxbrackets012741012.jpghttp://img34.imageshack.us/img34/2338/unxbracketvertical01264.jpg

Each bracket can hold up to 3 drives and they're only $15 so I still may go for em I dunno.

[clocker]

I can't picture how that bracket works...

[Snee]

I'm just gonna go with velcro for mounting my ssds in the raven. I thought that was a capital idea. I've been checking if they heat up any for a while now, and haven't noticed a thing.

It's gonna look all ghetto compared to yours :emo:

But then again, I generally don't do much modding if I can get away without it, so I'm not playing in the same league to begin with.

Right now, I'm waiting for new sound proofing, which got lost in transit somewhere. The people I ordered it from are going to send me another set, or maybe it's already been sent, and they'll charge the bunch who lost it in the first place.

[Detale]

I hate lost packages!

@clocker loike this man

http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/1185/unxbracketvertical02871.jpg

Then those other brackets in the first pic would allow you to "stack" them, at least I think so. This is the "vertical". The other is the "horizontal" I think I could manufacture something ver similar out of aluminum though.


EDIT: I got it now ike this

http://www.undesignsbrackets.com/products/gallery/

[Detale]

Hoi Clock I saw this just now. You prob got the same Email but micro center will be having the "after Xmas sale" and the OCZ 30 gig drives will be $99
Saturday, 12/26 8 to 10; Sunday 12/27 10 to 7
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/875/oczx.jpg
If you feel the urge like.

[clocker]

Bastards.

[Detale]

Shit I may even pick up 2 if I have time to drive to New Jersey about an hour or so away.

[clocker]

So then you'd have four?
Damn.

Still can't figure out what's killing my burst speed (which is about 1/2 of Snee's).
I hate this.

[Detale]

Cables? I think I have some left over SATAIII cables left over if you want em. I have to look and see how many I have I think there were 2 for me with 2 left over. I had ordered the straight versions but I needed the 90 degree to work in the 800D case.

[clocker]

Cables?
I doubt it.

There wasn't any spec change for cables- or ports, for that matter- between SATA 1 and 2.

I'm sure my Chinese lead and dog fur SATA cables are just fine.

[Detale]

I had read recently that cables can go bad and these cables are SATA3 I thought it would help. Also I thought your cables were chain mail?

[clocker]

I can't see it being cables because I used the same ones on a three disk array (250GB Seagate mechanicals) and the burst was fine.
I think it's a setting I'm missing/doing wrong.

However, if I can find some new "SATA III Certified" cables in short enough lengths, I may get them just to clean up the wiring mess.

"Wiring mess" another compelling argument against case windows...

[Detale]

I enjoy neatening cables and I think it's linked to the side window thing.

The cables are SATA 3.0 Round Cable - 18" (http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=34_348_653&products_id=26634) If you're interested their yours dude.

[clocker]

Thanks, but no.
Those are much longer than what I have already.
Was just looking at a site that has cables in 5" and 9" lengths, which should do nicely.
They aren't tricky round ones like yours though...that's a nice touch.

[Detale]

They are really nice, I have to say. They should all be round. Especially when they are sleeved, not that they even need it. In my case I had to make them match though ;)

[clocker]

Big pimpin.

[Detale]

After promoting that holder there i think I'm actually goint to go the velcro route. I'll be installling tomorrow. Any install tips? Do I format the drive or no. things like that.

[clocker]

Brand new fresh drive, Win 7 is supposed to handle that, no problem.
I just pointed the OS to the drive(s) and let it decide what needed to be done.
There is a tool available at the Vertex forum that will inspect the drive and verify if the alignment and all that hifalutin shit is correct (after you're in Windows).

I think if you manage to keep the OS dry, you'll be fine.

[Detale]

I think if you manage to keep the OS dry, you'll be fine.

Oops, too late
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/2831/diligencewetbasementcom.jpg (http://img189.imageshack.us/i/diligencewetbasementcom.jpg/)

[clocker]

I knew it.

[tesco]

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227393&cm_re=ocz_vortex-_-20-227-393-_-Product
Only $140CAD. That's cheap. Are these the drives you guys bought?

[Detale]

Clocker has those I have these ;)

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227469

OK so I have to say HOLY 5HIT!!! I just installed Win7 X6 in 13 Min! From windows is loading files to a ready desktop. I'm stunned really. Things are noticeably faster. Clocker and Snee Thanks so much I'm glad you two got me to cave in and get these things. Here are some screens


This is the first try with only HDtach installed.
http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/6162/1sttry.jpg

Then when I enabled the write back cache :woot:
http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/4479/gettinbetter.jpg

Window rating
http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/716/windowsrating.jpg

OK and so after some windows tweaks I found
http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/8585/aftertweaks.jpg

Not impressed really on these tweaks like :(

Then I updated the firmware

http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/7343/afterfirmwareinstall.jpg

Ummm I had to check this twice. So all of that and I'm where I started eh. No biggie :idunno:



Now I'm also looking at this "ram disk (http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=442160&postcount=5)" and I remember clocker having something called an "idisk" or something that he raved about.Using Ram as an actual Hard disk. Do you guys think it'w worth it??

[clocker]

Now I'm also looking at this "ram disk (http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=442160&postcount=5)" and I remember clocker having something called an "idisk" or something that he raved about.Using Ram as an actual Hard disk. Do you guys think it'w worth it??
It's interesting that your burst speed did exactly the same as mine...starts out strong then after the "tweaks" it decreases by about a third.
That shouldn't happen.

My RAM drive was a physical thing- a PCI card that accepted four real RAM sticks and in essence, acted like a crude SSD.
It connected through a SATA port and was sadly limited to SATA I specs.

What you propose is a more software based method to do essentially the same thing but should be faster.
And way cheaper, also.

I still have the iRAM card but have stripped it of memory sticks and will be damned if I'll buy more DDR RAM for it.

I'm going to try that ram drive the article describes.

OH BTW D....what revision firmware did your drives come with and what did you flash to?
Mine are 1.4 already.

[Snee]

I've tweaked FF to cache to ram anyways, without that Ram diosk software, I think :idunno:

But that's a nifty piece of software I might just look at anyways. Windows hardly ever uses more than 4 gigs anyhow, and that means I generally have 8 gigs doing nothing, so.

[clocker]

OK, it's installed.
HD Tach thought it had died and gone to heaven...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v78/clocker/DriveCompare.png

This compares the RAM drive with the Vertex array (which has mysteriously jumped back to a decent burst speed...???). Note the RAM drive's absurd average read speed.

I reinstalled Firefox completely to the RAM drive.
It's almost impossible to make Chrome install anywhere but it's default directory, so I found an Chrome alternative called Iron, which allows the normal install options, so it's on the RAM drive as well.
Getting all the bookmarks, settings, etc. transferred is proving to be weird...I shall persevere.

Edit:
Here's the task manager with the RAM drive operational.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v78/clocker/RAMtask.png
I created a ram drive of 4GB, so half my available physical memory is automatically allocated there and Windows is only using @10% of what's left, so all should be fine.

[Detale]

To be clear bud you installed the ram drive and your Raid array jumped up that much in HD tach?? or is that HD tach of the ram drive? I'm going to do 2 gigs I think.

My SSd's came with version 1.0 and I updated them to 1.41 I was a little comfused which version to go with using the raid 1.4 or 1.41 so I just said fuck it.

I am still unclear as which tool to use to "clean" the drive. Sanitary erase or wiper. So much damn reading it's making me nuts.

I'm going to try that Ram drive now and see.

[clocker]

It is confusing but I think you wanted 1.4, not 1.41.

The last HDTach shows a comparison between the two- Vertex v. RAM drive-look at the top left corner...that little blue squiggle is the ram drive.

[Detale]

Seems a cinch to change it, but why 1.4? I see the comparison now. Cool here's my 2GB Ramdisk

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/2050/ramdrive.jpg

Now I did set it to 4 GB but it defaulted to 2. I have 8 gigs installed so I don't know why it did that.

Would it be possible to install an OS on this? If there were enough ram and a tiny OS?


EDIT: should we disable the indexing for the same principal that it should be disabled on the SD. I mean this drive kicks the shit out of the SSD's

http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/2119/ramdisk2.jpg

I also wanted to ask you if you enabled TRIM or not?

[Snee]

You can't boot from that, it needs software to run to initiate. You don't need to enable trim for the ram disk, you should on the ssd, though. Same goes for indexing (you should turn it off on the ssd only, I mean). I really don't see it hurting your ram.

You could put virtualbox or similar on it, if you wanna try running an os off it.

[Detale]

Good idea. I think I may try it. Also i'm noticing that FF and IE are loading way faster this way

[Snee]

You can't boot from that, it needs software to run to initiate. You don't need to enable trim for the ram disk, you should on the ssd, though. Same goes for indexing (you should turn it off on the ssd only, I mean). I really don't see it hurting your ram.

You could put virtualbox or similar on it, if you wanna try running an os off it.
Edited this [the parenthesis] in, just so I don't trick you into something.

Far as I know, the reason you want to turn indexing (and the defragging) off on the ssd is to reduce the write cycles. No need to do that with RAM, it's pretty much made to write on all the time.

As for virtualbox, it's pretty awesome. I've got a virtual machine with win2kpro I tinker with sometimes. The integrated mode (you get the start bar of the os running in vb on top of the native one, rather than the os running in a window) is neat.

[Detale]

Hmm I will check that out tomorrow and let you know. For now I have some ATTO and PC pitstop bench marks ;)


http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/107/pitstop.jpg

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/5077/atto.jpg


What do you guys use to defrag your SSD's? I keep reading perfectdisk 10 is the way to go, along with ccleaner and something called AS-Cleaner ( I have yet to find out what that is exactly)



Ramdisk bench
http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/6672/ramdisk.jpg

Damn I have to put an OS on that :w00t:

[Snee]

See, that ATTO benchmark is what I was talking about. My writes stay at 150 or below. Goddamnit.

As for defragging ssds, I did that once right after the inital install, since then I've not touched it, on this machine. I've no idea if running perfectdisk on it is good. They say it is, but I've not seen any evidence.

On one of my netbooks (4gig ssd) I do it maybe once every three or four months, but that's to free up some space, since it's kinda' cramped.

[clocker]

Hmm...
Our Pitstop scores are comparable but your ATTO benchmark kills me.
I might just wipe this SOB and start over.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v78/clocker/Vertex10-1.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v78/clocker/Vertex11.png

[Detale]

As I'm doing more research. I know for a raid setup you should use the 1.41 firmware. I'm also playing around more with the ramdisk and having more files run from there. This may very well be the first time ANY of my benchmarks have been even slightly better than clockers. For Joy :D



*Damn kids I walk away for a second in the middle of a post and I come back to them slapping the keyboard!

[Snee]

As I'm doing more research. I know for a raid setup you should use the 1.41 firmware. I'm also playing around more with the ramdisk and having more files run from there. This may very well be the first time ANY
Totally, ANY.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v38/snorlax/ATTO.jpg

btw. The corsairs again. I think the writes may well be unfixable, saw something semi-official from corsair noting it may be an issue with my raid controller combined with those drives. (It could also be something to do with me having used them continuously since july.)

I managed to get it a little higher than 150, at least.

I wonder what that weird dip at 16 and 32 I see in your screenshot is.


Anyhow, those read speeds are still awesome, and like I've said before, I'm pretty happy with these drives as it is :happy:

EDit:

And hai, my ssds' burst is damned close to the burst of your ram disk.

[Detale]

What about your ramdisk? Where's the benches?

[Snee]

Haven't tried that :idunno:

Dunno what to use it for, yet. FF doesn't need to be THAT fast.

[Detale]

Sure it does. I mean you can see a noticeable difference especially when pics load on a page. It's really nice actually. Meh try it I thihk you'll like it.

[Snee]

I might do it tomorrow, if I can summon up the required enthusiasm. Not been in a mood to tinker much lately.

I've looked into perfectdisk since you mentioned it, and diskeeper as well. I might get perfectdisk, now, sounds like it won't do any damage, and may do some good. It's a christmas sale on as well, so I may pay for it.

[Detale]

by "Christmas sale" do you mean Pay for??? We do have an NZB section (http://filesharingtalk.com/vb3/f-software-miscellaneous-nzbs-107/t-raxco-perfectdisk-v10-0-0-124-professional-winall-incl-keygen-crd-371924) here ya know. If that doesn't work for you Shoot me an Email man ;)

http://filesharingtalk.com/vb3/f-software-miscellaneous-nzbs-107/t-raxco-perfectdisk-v10-0-0-124-professional-winall-incl-keygen-crd-371924

[Snee]

Indeed. As long as I have money, I like supporting worthwhile stuff.

Right now, on my current main rig, I actually think I've got nothing installed that's not either freeware or paid for (usually after I tried it, or an earlier version "for free", obviously).

I like how that kind of lets me have the moral high ground when arguing in favour of filesharing.

(I've got fuckloads of downloaded TV-shows and movies on the storage drive, obviously. They'll be aired sooner or later anyhow :P)

[Detale]

Right, right. But you will try it first, no?

Damn ethical pirate

[Snee]

:01:

There's a trial available iirc, and I have tried an earlier version as well.

[Snee]

http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/1816/wpi.jpg

It just dropped to 7.5 on disk performance after the latest patch of tinkering. On the other hand ATTO shows it being smoother than ever, whilst HD Tach now tells me my burst is at 4147.8MB/S :sly:

Fix Y/N?

[clocker]

No.

What tinkering did you do?
Yesterday I did two full installs and my drive scores are worse than ever.
I'm unhappy.

[Snee]

Enabled hard disk data cache for the whole array in the matrix drivers, tried new drivers, etc.

After I posted that I tried a 'tony-trim' (PD + AS-Clean with FF ticked) which initially looked like it screwed me, but things seem to have recovered now, pretty much.

I'll experiment some more with it, but right now it seems like it didn't do much, possibly because I had less performance degradation than I suspected.

[Detale]

I also did that "Tony Trin method" but noticed no difference yet. On the OCZ forums that guy Tony said to not trust Atto results and to use AS-SSD Bench (http://alex-is.de/PHP/fusion/downloads.php?cat_id=4) instead saying you will get more consistent results with this app.

Damn clocker that sucks dude. What cleaning methods have you done?

[Snee]

I also did that "Tony Trin method" but noticed no difference yet.
I'd be highly surprised if you noticed a gain. You've not had the drives running a week yet to begin with :unsure:

Also: over on the corsair forums, ATTO was one of the recommended benchmarks. More because they're sure it's not going to hurt performance, I think, though.

[Detale]

Yeah I knew i wouldn't see a difference. See now on the OCZ forums they said the same thing about the AS-ssd. Well that and not to benchmark everyday.

[clocker]

This is the weirdness that I keep running into...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v78/clocker/vertex12.png

Note that the burst speed has gone up about 30% but the read- especially in the unused sectors- has been cut in half.
Soon as I can figure out how to use Sanitary wipe I'm going to reload 7...for the third time in two days.
Grrr.

Edit: Finally procured the final parts needed to redo my loop and use D.'s tricky fittings.
I was going to wait for new SATA cables but maybe it's best the loop gets redone first to confirm that drive placement is OK.

[Snee]

Feh. I'll just wait for new firmware before I try any more 'fixing' (after a bit more messing around, it seems that running as-clean hurt performance after all).

At this point, I've decided I don't need it to be perfect, just smooth.

[clocker]

New OS install.
Drives were wiped on another PC, Win7 x 64 installed, new Intel Rapid Storage Tech drivers installed, disabled indexing, hibernation, system restore, enabled volume write-back caching.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v78/clocker/7-RAID.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v78/clocker/7-RAID1.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v78/clocker/7-RAID2.png

Note that I've regained the average read speed although burst still seems low.

Now to run Perfect Disk and see what happens.

Edit: After an "aggressive" run of PD...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v78/clocker/7-RAID4.png

Better.
And finally, ATTO...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v78/clocker/atto2.png

[Detale]

Just couldn't let me win could ya :P I am going to try a clean install tomorrow as my speeds are lsowing as well now.
http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/7680/benchd.jpg





Well I have some questions for ya bro. how did you use the wiper exactly? Also WTF with those Vidoe scores!?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v78/clocker/7-RAID1.png

God damn man is that still the 8800?? My GTX 260 isn't even close to your MB/s? What did you do to it?

http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/2600/captureff.jpg

[clocker]

Cleaning the drives was a giant PITA.
The app I was trying to use is called Sanitary_Erase but I couldn't make it work.

Supposedly, you can run it from a thumb drive while booted to a Win7 install disk but my grasp of DOS is feeble and shaky and I got nowhere.
Took the drives- including the flash drive- to a friend's house and he magic-fingered his way to the app and wiped the drives.
I have no idea what he did...

As for the video scores...a look at our screenshots should tell you exactly what's going on.
Hint: turn off visual effects, dummy.

[Detale]

Where do you see visual effects? and how do I turn then off? Do you mean like aero and stuff??

[clocker]

Control Panel> System> Advanced System properties> Advanced> Performance...Settings> Visual Effects> "adjust for best performance".

[Detale]

AhH , Thanks dude I got it. I did the Sanitary erase and reinstall without a hitch.

Put san erase on flash drive
Break raid array-revert disks to non raid restart
Change to IDE in bios
Use X86 repair disk (in my case I used vista Repair disk torrent (http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-vista-recovery-disc-download/))
Ran the Command prompt and typed "Sanitary_erase"
Done and done

So now I did all that and I have better HD tach results
http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/1359/captureba.png (http://img22.imageshack.us/i/captureba.png/)

So that worked a little bit BUT...

I installed the 195.81 beta forceware that I was using before and the Rapid storage tech, shut the visual effects but somehow my PC pitstop scores were lower somehow :huh:
http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/7127/11765351.jpg

Not sure what I did wrong like.

EDIT: Here's atto bench

http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/5077/atto.jpg (http://img121.imageshack.us/i/atto.jpg/)

Looks a little funky to me

[clocker]

You didn't have Flash installed on your browser so PCPitstop didn't run the internet speed test...that's why your score is low.

[Detale]

Damn you're good!

I still don't understand why your video MP/s is 635 and mine is 504? Whaddya got for that one?

[clocker]

I got nuttin'.

[Detale]

You still rock man :)

[clocker]

Indeed, I do.

[Detale]

DAMNIT Now Im getting BSOD's saying quota underflow. Think it could be the SSD'S?

[clocker]

Probably not.
Most likely cause on the internet seems to be video card drivers.

[Detale]

Yeah I just read that. I'm going to get the regular release instead of the Beta drivers I been using and see if it stops. It's really weird like, it just happens at random times. there's no action to justify it.

[clocker]

Oh, you kids and your beta drivers.
Can't be using the same drivers as the old folks, no, that wouldn't be cool.
Have to be using some raggedy ass, unsigned, built by God knows who, "Beta" drivers.

Well, young man, there's a price to be paid being hip and you just got the check.

Now, get off my lawn.

[Detale]

LOL, funny thing is, when we had the same 8800 card YOU were the one who got me into beta drivers in the first place. Don't make me find that post grandpa! Also don't give me that "do as I say, not as I do" bit either, I gave that one to my kid tonight before bed.

[clocker]

Busted.

[Snee]

Cleaning the drives was a giant PITA.
The app I was trying to use is called Sanitary_Erase but I couldn't make it work.

Supposedly, you can run it from a thumb drive while booted to a Win7 install disk but my grasp of DOS is feeble and shaky and I got nowhere.
Took the drives- including the flash drive- to a friend's house and he magic-fingered his way to the app and wiped the drives.
I have no idea what he did...

A tip for next time, maybe, in case you ever need another secure erase:

Get gparted (http://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted/files/gparted-live-stable/).

Burn iso to a cd.

(If there's a raid array on the disks, you may want to make sure that's deleted.)

Boot from the cd, and keep pressing enter until you're on the desktop.

Doubleclick the terminal icon.

Then follow these instructions (http://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_Secure_Erase).

Found it through here (http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=81492). I did not need to put my ssds in a usb enclosure, though, and after the terminal is up, you want to follow what the second link in this post says, not the one in this paragraph.

Easy as pie.

Now, since calling up a command prompt (shift+F10) from the windows installer (:dabs: I think I've fully explored that route, after four subsequent install attempts kept defaulting C: to 4k, even though I did have the system reserved 100MB partition set up properly first on the disk and all), and formatting through diskpart won't stick, I'll just need to find a tool that lets me actually set the cluster size to 64 or 32k on my windows partition, and I'll be all set.

[Detale]

Well I'm finally back after a long winters nap ;)
http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/4213/hdtach3211st.jpg
(http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/4213/hdtach3211st.jpg)

[clocker]

Average read looks right but the burst is low.
Why?

[Detale]

Not sure. I imagine it has something to do with me not wiping my drive before installing windows. I forgot and not I'm too lazy. I'll prob do it this weekend.

[clocker]

Nope.
Did you turn off write cache buffer flushing in Device Manager?

[Detale]

You rock bud ;)
http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/4695/captureyw.jpg

[Skiz]

Just bought and installed this. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227469) (It was $189 + $20 rebate = $169 when I bought it.)

Installed Windows 7 Ultimate x64 from a USB drive. I had to repartition two other drives during the install and the entire thing still took just eleven minutes. Boot times are faster but nothing worth writing home about. All the pre-Windows 'stuff' takes around 25 seconds to load, then from the "Windows Starting" screen to finished desktop is about another 40 seconds. All in all about 70 seconds to usable desktop on first reboot.

Just went through and did the following:

Disabled indexing.
Disabled defragmentation.
Disabled write caching. Just realized there is a 64MB onboard cache.
Disabled system restore.
Disabled hibernate.
Using memory cache for Firefox instead of disk cache. I believe Snee was doing this as well. I set it at 128MB. I think the default is 50MB but it shouldn't really make a difference should it, seeing as I have 8GB of RAM?

EDIT: After tweaks, I am at a fully loaded system and usable desktop at 50 seconds. That's pretty quick. :smilie4:

[Detale]

Better download this (http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTach) and up a screenie bud. I want to see what scores you get ;)

[Skiz]

This might explain why all my games are laggy. :cry:








http://i40.tinypic.com/25a6io8.jpg

[Detale]

:huh: is this the new SSd bud? I'd say something's afoot!

What firmware do you have?

Do you have the latest Rapid Storage driver installed?

Write back Cache on/off (I forget which)

I mean here is my SATAII 750 Seagate drive
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/6835/ddrive.jpg


On the topic though it's been almost a month and I haven't done anything except run perfect disk and I haven't lost too much speed at all ;)
http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/999/418mp.jpg

[Skiz]

Yep. That's the SSD. :(

I'm going to go find out what the firmware is right now.

What are "Rapid Storage drivers"?

For read/write cache, see post #99. I think that will answer your question. :unsure:

[Rart]

Hey,

Just curious - you guys probably know a hell of a lot more about this than I do, apologies if I sound like a tard.

Are the benefits of booting from SSD/putting some oft used apps on there significantly noticeable? Would you guys recommend it for a budget of around ~1000 or would it be a little too much for that kind of budget?

And what's the meaning of having to use different connections/ports (IDE? SATA?) depending on the mobo/CPU you have?

[Detale]

Skizo: Intel Rapid Storage (http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=15251&lang=eng) Download the "STOR_allOS" and install it. What kind of cable do you have there is it SATAI or II? I missed good 'ol #99 sorry. Try playing with Enable/disable the write back cache see if that helps.

Just realized you're back working for the man again eh?

Rart: The most noticeable thing is how fast windows stats up. You will also notice things in general just happening faster. You may be able to squeeze this into an upcoming build, i'll check your other thread and see what specs can be arranged ;) Also IDE and SATA are two different conections. IDE is the older, slower version. SATA has a I and a II and now even a III each is double the speed of it's predecessor. I=1.5 Gb/s II is 3 Gb/s and the snappy new III=6Gb/s but it doesn'treally make sense to use a III as of yet IMO.

[Twig]

Here is a real good benchmark test for ssd since there is no rpms ( nothing mechanical ) and its as accurate as you can get.
http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskMark/index-e.html

Here is a good guide to tweaking win 7 for ssd
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?63273-*-Windows-7-Ultimate-Tweaks-amp-Utilities-*

I have been told by many when You install the os on an ssd use achi. You can always change back to ide to test if results are better but not vice versa. If you using raid that's whole new ballgame and best place for your answers for that would be the manufacturers website forums. Also make sure you have trim support on ( and working ) and your drives have the latest firmware. Hope this helps. :D

[Detale]

Sure I'll bite, where are your results?

Here's mine
http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/2135/cdisku.jpg (http://img263.imageshack.us/i/cdisku.jpg/)

[clocker]

What kind of cable do you have there is it SATAI or II?
The only difference between the cables is SATA II has those annoying retaining clips and SATA I does not.
Physically identical otherwise.

[Frankthetank1]

http://img519.imageshack.us/i/newbitmapimagebn.png/http://img519.imageshack.us/i/newbitmapimagebn.png/

i bought one too

http://img519.imageshack.us/i/newbitmapimagebn.png/

http://img519.imageshack.us/i/newbitmapimagebn.png/ (http://img519.imageshack.us/i/newbitmapimagebn.png/)

[Skiz]

Skizo: Intel Rapid Storage (http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=15251&lang=eng) Download the "STOR_allOS" and install it. What kind of cable do you have there is it SATAI or II? I missed good 'ol #99 sorry. Try playing with Enable/disable the write back cache see if that helps.

Just realized you're back working for the man again eh?



I read the description on Intels site about "Intel Rapid Storage/STOR_allOS". It seems to be for RAID setups which I do not have. :unsure:

I never got back to you on the firmware thing. I think the firmware is 1.5. When I first boot my PC and the BIOS is loading my hard drives, it lists my SSD as "OCZ VERTEX EX-TURBO 1.5". That means the firmaware is 1.5... right? :unsure:

[clocker]

Yes.

[Detale]

Oh crap I forgot I had a raid setup. HMMM Have you posted on the OCZ forums at all? Clocker I thought the data transfer rates were faster on the Sata II CABLE

[Skiz]

Making progress.



http://i42.tinypic.com/3166mfm.jpg

[Frankthetank1]

i downloaded that optimizer program and went from a 7.3 transfer rate to a 7.2

[Detale]

@ Skizo, what did you do bud?

@Frank What "optimizer" did you DL?

[Skiz]

Skizo, what did you do bud?



I don't know. :blushing:

The latest response in my OCZ thread seems to come from one of the regulars and states:


that is about all you can get w/ your chipset. idle logged off overnight then a few hours a week.

That doesn't sound right to me, but I'll try logging off today when I leave for work and then run it again tonight. :idunno:

[Detale]

I believe the idea of logging off or even letting the computer sit in the bios screen is to let "TRIM" do it's job. I don't know why that would help your R/W speed :idunno:

[Frankthetank1]

i rebooted and it went back to 7.3

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...ad.php?t=49779 (http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=49779)

[Detale]

please explain more about what you mean 7.3

[Rart]

Windows "Experience" score?

[Detale]

Ahhh, yeah but that's a crap test anyway :P

[Frankthetank1]

oh didnt know that

[clocker]

I thought the data transfer rates were faster on the Sata II CABLE
Yes, I know you did.
Go back to sleep now, things will better in the morning.

[Detale]

You promise?

[clocker]

No, but I'm hopeful.

[Detale]

nope didn't work.

[Detale]

I was just checking on some HW item prices today and I felt the need to bench my disks as I haven't done it since I posted in this thread last (4-18). Needless to say i was surprised as hell at my results

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/5360/68before.jpg

http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/1627/38784178.jpg

My scores have actually gotten better!! I have set Perfect disk 11 to run in the early AM when no one is on the computer and that's it. Admittedly I was a touch concerned about SSD's as many people said how their speed will decrease substantially in a short period of time. I've had my babies for 6 months now and I am way impressed that I've had very little loss of speed and I don't think I have the latest firmware either as I was too lazy to upgrade.

How is everyone else doing in this regard??

[tehjew]

I picked up a couple of them for a raid 0 on my HTPC. I like the drives so far, tho I have heard others had problems with them.

[Detale]

specs,screens?? gimme something bi-poster.

[Skiz]

I think enough of us have posted specs to know what they're capable of. :unsure:

[Detale]

Surely, but with the SSD's they're supposed to lose speed over time and I just wanted to see how everyone else is doing with theirs.

[tesco]

I was just checking on some HW item prices today and I felt the need to bench my disks as I haven't done it since I posted in this thread last (4-18). Needless to say i was surprised as hell at my results

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/5360/68before.jpg

http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/1627/38784178.jpg

My scores have actually gotten better!! I have set Perfect disk 11 to run in the early AM when no one is on the computer and that's it. Admittedly I was a touch concerned about SSD's as many people said how their speed will decrease substantially in a short period of time. I've had my babies for 6 months now and I am way impressed that I've had very little loss of speed and I don't think I have the latest firmware either as I was too lazy to upgrade.

How is everyone else doing in this regard??
From what I've read, those problems don't really exist anymore if you have TRIM (windows7 and an ssd that supports the TRIM command).

Are you running PerfectDisk on your ssd?

[Skiz]

From what I've read, those problems don't really exist anymore if you have TRIM (windows7 and an ssd that supports the TRIM command).

Are you running PerfectDisk on your ssd?

I don't run PerfectDisk on mine; I've read that a simple "Log off' once for a few hours once a week is all you need to do. Whenever I remember to do so, I log off at night when I go to bed and let the disk do it's thing while I sleep. :unsure:

[tesco]

From what I've read, those problems don't really exist anymore if you have TRIM (windows7 and an ssd that supports the TRIM command).

Are you running PerfectDisk on your ssd?

I don't run PerfectDisk on mine; I've read that a simple "Log off' once for a few hours once a week is all you need to do. Whenever I remember to do so, I log off at night when I go to bed and let the disk do it's thing while I sleep. :unsure:
Perfectdisk is a defragmenting software.
Defragmenting an SSD will destroy it, that's why I was wondering if that was what detale was using it for...

[peat moss]

I don't run PerfectDisk on mine; I've read that a simple "Log off' once for a few hours once a week is all you need to do. Whenever I remember to do so, I log off at night when I go to bed and let the disk do it's thing while I sleep. :unsure:
Perfectdisk is a defragmenting software.
Defragmenting an SSD will destroy it, that's why I was wondering if that was what detale was using it for...

Thanks for that info Ross , didn't know that . Was told Win7 disables Defrag for SSD units ?

[Detale]

Perfect disk 10 and now 11 has support for SSD's so instead of just defraging it. I believe that it fills up all the cells and then erases them, then it consolidates the free space. Supposedly it helps the disk life along better and Yes I'm running PD 11 now about once every two weeks or when i remember. This and other methods of filling up the cells completely and then erasing them are on the OCZ forums.

[tesco]

Perfect disk 10 and now 11 has support for SSD's so instead of just defraging it. I believe that it fills up all the cells and then erases them, then it consolidates the free space. Supposedly it helps the disk life along better and Yes I'm running PD 11 now about once every two weeks or when i remember. This and other methods of filling up the cells completely and then erasing them are on the OCZ forums.
I see. Haven't heard of that before.
Just keep in mind that SSD's cells only have a limited life. Something like 10,000 writes before they can't keep the charge anymore.
So if you're constantly rearranging data then you're dramatically decreasing the life of the SSD.
Which is why you don't want to run defragmenting software on an SSD (not to mention it would have NO benefit anyway).

I'm no expert just repeating things that I've read.

[Detale]

I've read that as well bud. But this is what "the cool kids" are doing on the OCZ board. Honestly, who the hell knows? I think maybe I'll not run it for a month and see what test results I get then and see if there's a noticeable difference.

[tesco]

So what's the latest news on SSDs?
I stopped paying attention to them since June, and I'm ready to buy now...
Is the intel x25-m still a good deal or has something better come along? (don't want to go over $250CAD).
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167031&cm_re=x25-m-_-20-167-031-_-Product

edit: After reading this (http://www.storagereview.com/corsair_force_f120_ssd_review) and this (http://www.storagereview.com/ocz_vertex_2_review_120gb) it's looking like other great choices are SSDs with the Sandforce sf-1200 controller in them:
OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD3-2VTX120G 3.5" 120GB SATA II MLC (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=20-227-590&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Page=2#scrollFullInfo)
OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD3-2VTX90G 3.5" 90GB SATA II MLC (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227601&cm_re=ocz_vertex_2-_-20-227-601-_-Product)
Corsair Force CSSD-F120GB2-BRKT 2.5" 120GB SATA II (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233125&Tpk=corsair%20F120)

[Detale]

Personally I think the intels are over priced bud. From what I've read OCZ and Crucial are the best buys ATM.

EDIT: a quick look shows me the OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD3-2VTX90G 3.5" 90GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227601) it has faster reads/writes and is a few bucks cheaper you get 10 more gigs as well. Also man you should wait for the holiday sales it will save you tons!

[tesco]

Are you talking about christmas or your "Black Friday" sales which don't apply to me? :unsure:

[Detale]

Damn Foreigners!! I guess I meant Xmas then. Ross I thought you were an apple pie guy man. Are you Brazilian?

On topic though your ressurection of this thread and the need for me to do a fresh install on Win7 has led me to update the firmware, use sanitary erase and reinstall windows. I have to say I am impressed by the lack of degradation I have. I have had these drives for almost a year now and I do put them through the wringer and the have held up better than I expected.

Original post in this thread.
58205


After doing my maintenance today

58206

I'm not sure what that downward spike is but I'll surely investigate like.

[tesco]

I'm not sure what that downward spike is but I'll surely investigate like.Your windows might have been doing something in the background.

It's good to see that the performance stayed so consistent after all these months, that's good news.

edit: wait, what "maintenance" did you do? Do you mean you just erased it and reinstalled windows? In that case, wish you would have put up a benchmark showing the performance after months of daily use.

[Detale]

I know I thought of it after the fact. By maintenance I meant I just updated and reinstalled. I do however do a regular work up on my disks. I use Perfect disk 11 about once a week and make sure the trim command is enabled. Also I'll leave the bios screen up for an hour or so from time to time so the trim can work better.

[tesco]

So did the performance ever drop noticeably or was it pretty much constant?

[Detale]

I do remember it dropping last time I reinstalled and I was concerned thinking that it would be a steady degradation from then on. To my surprise after using the OCZ sanitary erase things are pretty much the same as the day I got it a year ago

[tesco]

So what's the latest news on SSDs?
I stopped paying attention to them since June, and I'm ready to buy now...
Is the intel x25-m still a good deal or has something better come along? (don't want to go over $250CAD).
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167031&cm_re=x25-m-_-20-167-031-_-Product

edit: After reading this (http://www.storagereview.com/corsair_force_f120_ssd_review) and this (http://www.storagereview.com/ocz_vertex_2_review_120gb) it's looking like other great choices are SSDs with the Sandforce sf-1200 controller in them:
OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD3-2VTX120G 3.5" 120GB SATA II MLC (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=20-227-590&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Page=2#scrollFullInfo)
OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD3-2VTX90G 3.5" 90GB SATA II MLC (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227601&cm_re=ocz_vertex_2-_-20-227-601-_-Product)
Corsair Force CSSD-F120GB2-BRKT 2.5" 120GB SATA II (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233125&Tpk=corsair%20F120)So today my only hard drive crashed, which lead to me ordering the 90gb OCZ Vertex 2 and also a 1tb WD drive. It picked a great time to crash, I was going to order the ssd this week anyway, why couldn't it have crashed a few days from now. :rolleyes:
I'll post some benchmarks when it's here.

[clocker]

So did the performance ever drop noticeably or was it pretty much constant?
Performance of my RAIDed OCZ Vertex's is almost identical today to initial install almost a year ago.
I also have been using Perfect Disk 11 as a defrag.

Compare to the screenie from page 1...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v78/clocker/vertex2010.png

@Detale...
I have been under the impression that TRIM doesn't work on RAID arrays...has something changed or was I wrong all along?

[Detale]

Honestly I'm not sure. As usual I'm betting you're right. I'll do some research and check it out maybe I'm wasting time with it then. Wouldn't be the first time ;)


EDIT: Read this (http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2010/03/23/intel-releases-trim-for-raid/1) just now and just so happens I have the latest rapid storage installed, but it looks like it's only for Intel boards

[tesco]

How do these results look?

59285

Nowhere near as high as you two, but then mine isn't raided and I'm on a sata2 controller; or is something wrong?
And what's up with the imaginary barrier at around 225mb/s? Is that the limit of the ssd or my controller?

And yes I bought the agility2 when I meant to buy the vertex2. Oh well, who needs 5 times the IOps. :rolleyes:

But overall I'm really happy with this, everything loads almost instantly no matter what I'm doing at the time...

[Detale]

It looks good bud. Do you have the data cache enabled/disabled? Try both I forget which one is right. Latest FW? Also I always wanted to try this program SSD Life (http://ssd-life.com/) but it doesn't work on raid :( Also you can try the tweaks (http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?63273-*-Windows-7-Ultimate-Tweaks-Utilities-*&p=442158&viewfull=1#post442158) on this page. Personally they did me no good but others say they helped out considerably.

I was looking at these Micro Center SSD (http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0351760)'s I mean 64GB for $99?? They're sandforce as well. I can't find any reviews on them one way or another. Anyone know about them at all? I think I'm going to buy 2 and try it out

[clocker]

Your read looks about right but your burst speed is strangely low.
Mine has always been lower than D's (then again, I haven't watercooled my electrons like he has) but still 10 times higher than yours- a discrepancy not accounted for merely with RAID.

Are you running Intel's storage software and what chipset on the motherboard?

[Detale]

Not true Clock. Most of the time your speeds beat mine up in the schoolyard.

[tesco]

Your read looks about right but your burst speed is strangely low.
Mine has always been lower than D's (then again, I haven't watercooled my electrons like he has) but still 10 times higher than yours- a discrepancy not accounted for merely with RAID.

Are you running Intel's storage software and what chipset on the motherboard?
I didn't install any special drivers at all, and not running in ahci mode because I hadn't even heard of it until a few hours ago.

The motherboard is a EVGA 680i sli so the chipset is an NVidia 680i.


It looks good bud. Do you have the data cache enabled/disabled? Try both I forget which one is right.
Write cache is enabled (by default), write-cache buffering is on (I don't want data loss if I lose power).
I tried with write-cache buffering off just to see and there was no difference anyway.

[tesco]

I've got my own Win7 tweak that I came up with that isn't in the tweaking guides. It might not apply to vista or XP.
I noticed that when Windows7 was starting up and the animation came up (after bios screen), the computer would sit there for about 10 seconds until the animation completed.
So I disabled it here:
Start -> Run -> type 'msconfig' -> Click OK -> Click 'Boot' tab -> Check 'No GUI Boot' -> Click OK -> Restart to see the difference.

Shaved off about 7 seconds.
My computer now goes 10 seconds in the BIOS -> black screen for about 3 seconds -> Blue Welcome to Windows screen for about 3 seconds -> Useable desktop
Total startup time has to be less than 20 seconds.

[Detale]

Damn Ross thats a good one! Think I'll try it myself. I didn't even know that was an option. Also I forgot to ask what version of Win 7 are you using?

[tesco]

64bit, it's one of those ones that has all the windows updated integrated into it, from February.

[Detale]

Ah, lovely.

[Skiz]

Mine just died it would appear. :(

Was browsing the internets and my screen just turned off, as if it were unplugged. A reboot yielded the error: "Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause. Info: The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible".

The drive no longer appears in BIOS and is, as far as I can tell, completely dead. I'll call OCZ tomorrow.

[tesco]

Mine just died it would appear. :(

Was browsing the internets and my screen just turned off, as if it were unplugged. A reboot yielded the error: "Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause. Info: The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible".

The drive no longer appears in BIOS and is, as far as I can tell, completely dead. I'll call OCZ tomorrow.
Sounds like when my hard drive died, screen suddenly went blank and when I tried to restart there was no hard drive detected anymore. :(

[Skiz]

All of my media, documents, etc. are all on another drive so that's all intact at least. The biggest loss is definitely my large number of bookmarks, carefully categorized into folders. Irreplaceable.... :cry: