Anyone using SSDs?

[Stephen Tashiro]

Are any forum members using solid state hard drives? How long do they last?

[Mike Henderson]

And how well do they work? Do they speed up the operation of the computer a significant amount?

Mike

[Jim Becker]

And how well do they work? Do they speed up the operation of the computer a significant amount?

Mike

Yea, they do. Considerably. The downside is that they are very expensive per megabyte as well as "space limited" compared to regular hard drives.

[Bryan Morgan]

1. They are super fast. And I mean FAST.

2. They are super unreliable. I don't know anyone who has had one that has lasted. My little brother cracks me up... he just HAD to have one and picked up an OCZ. It was great... for a month or so. It died. He RMA'd it and when he got the replacement he sold it on craigslist and bought a different brand... Well, he's done this many times now, I think he's had one of each brand by now. And its not his computer, he has a couple desktops and a notebook. He knows his stuff, I taught him well.

I want to upgrade my machines with these but I'm not dropping that kind of cash on that much limited and unreliable storage.

[Keith Outten]

The short answer is that all of you are using SSD drives.....whenever you visit SawMmill Creek.
The new server we are using has two SSD drives and they are definitely faster than any other drives (drive array's) we have ever used. I particularly enjoy the fact that they don't make any noise, several years ago we had a SCSI drive array that made a heck of a racket 24 hours per day. I was glad when we replaced that server :)

We have been running these two SSD drives for almost a year I think without a problem and they handle a lot of traffic. Yesterday I checked our server stats and we are now hosting over 60,000 visitors per day and averaging about 16 million page views per month. We do have a SATA back up drive in our server that the SSD drives back up data to automatically.
.

[Greg Portland]

I work for a company that manufactures and sells SSDs so all US employees (30k+) have one in their laptop. It's been ~1.5 years of daily use & I have not heard about increased failure rates with these 'M' drives (not 'E'). Note that all drives are not made the same... definitely do your research. I would only recommend a small handful of 'M' drives for constant use... I'm sure Sawmill Creek is using 'E' class drives.

[Mike Henderson]

I work for a company that manufactures and sells SSDs so all US employees (30k+) have one in their laptop. It's been ~1.5 years of daily use & I have not heard about increased failure rates with these 'M' drives (not 'E'). Note that all drives are not made the same... definitely do your research. I would only recommend a small handful of 'M' drives for constant use... I'm sure Sawmill Creek is using 'E' class drives.
Tell us a bit more. What does M class drives mean? And what is an E class drive?

Which M class ones would you recommend for constant use?

Mike

[Greg Portland]

Tell us a bit more. What does M class drives mean? And what is an E class drive?

Which M class ones would you recommend for constant use?

MikeThe official terms would be MLC or SLC. MLC= multi layer chip, SLC = single layer chip. The MLCs have a much greater storage density but are prone to more errors (in the chip itself). Now, all memories are prone to errors so designers put detection and correction logic around the memories to resolve problems on the fly. Most large memories come with a region of "spare" space that can be used if a certain used region becomes permanently disabled. Unfortunately, all this extra logic slows things down.

In summary: SLC is faster but the drives are much more expensive / GB (due to storage capacity). MLC is a consumer drive and can hold a lot more data but it's going to be slightly slower (but still WAY faster than a conventional HDD).

In terms of recommendations, I'd look only @ MLC drives:

OCZ Technology Vertex 3 (really fast, MAY not fit in some notebooks)
Intel 510 series (fast)
Intel X-25M G2 (cheap / older design, lower performance, reliable)

If you are using a motherboard older than 1 year then just get the X-25M G2... the other two options require a better motherboard to realize their potential. If you are buying a new system, get the Vertex3 + a MB with SATA 6.0 capability. If you are building a notebook, get the Intel 510. Note: their is a Vertex 3 MAXIOPS version... stick with the regular Vertex 3.

[Eric DeSilva]

I'm using a Kingston SSD in my main computer at home and my Macbook Air has an SSD in it. Neither has given me any trouble, and the speed increase for both machines was amazing. In fact, when I bought the disk for the home machine, it was a 64GB drive, which was large enough for the WIN7 OS, the entire Adobe Master Collection, Firefox, and some other odds and ends--I'm now thinking of swapping that one out for a larger SSD.

As far as "expensive"... they have come down in price a lot. I saw a deal yesterday for the Kingston I've got--the 64GB--for about $60.

[Myk Rian]

I know that thumb drives suffer from only so many read/writes, and they start breaking down. Do SSDs have a R/W limit?

[Greg Portland]

I know that thumb drives suffer from only so many read/writes, and they start breaking down. Do SSDs have a R/W limit?
ALL memories, including hard drives, have a R/W limit (well, really a probability of failure after 'X' R/W operations). SSDs are engineered to have a higher tolerance toward failure.

[Mike Henderson]

Okay, one more question. What's the interface to the SSDs? Is it the same as the disk drives? Could I ghost over my whole mechanical drive to an SSD and replace my existing mechanical drive?

Mike

[Chuck Wintle]

SSD's are new and i expect some teething pains are in order. I have a 60gb corsair and, so far, its working fine. The end is near for "typical hard drives" as ssd's mature and the price drops. Yes they are way faster and bootup times really show this fact.

[Eric DeSilva]

Okay, one more question. What's the interface to the SSDs? Is it the same as the disk drives? Could I ghost over my whole mechanical drive to an SSD and replace my existing mechanical drive?

Mike

Yup. In fact, a lot of the Kingston drives come with software that allows you to mirror the drive. So, you mirror your original drive to SSD, then disconnect your original, plug in the SSD, and you're up and running again.

[Bryan Morgan]

I know that thumb drives suffer from only so many read/writes, and they start breaking down. Do SSDs have a R/W limit?

Yes, but in theory they should last you over 10 years with use than any average user would be doing. I read a great article by an engineer who explained it well. Their mean time between failure is more than mechanical drives if I recall correctly. I don't know why everyone I know have all had unreliable drives.

We have a LOT of computers at work and have gone through many hundreds or thousands throughout the years. We replace mechanical hard drives quite regularly. If we could at least get the same lifespan (typically 2-3 years depending on the brand) I wouldn't mind.

[Dan Hintz]

The official terms would be MLC or SLC. MLC= multi layer chip, SLC = single layer chip. The MLCs have a much greater storage density but are prone to more errors (in the chip itself). Now, all memories are prone to errors so designers put detection and correction logic around the memories to resolve problems on the fly. Most large memories come with a region of "spare" space that can be used if a certain used region becomes permanently disabled. Unfortunately, all this extra logic slows things down.

In summary: SLC is faster but the drives are much more expensive / GB (due to storage capacity). MLC is a consumer drive and can hold a lot more data but it's going to be slightly slower (but still WAY faster than a conventional HDD).

In terms of recommendations, I'd look only @ MLC drives:
Actually, the proper definition is:
MLC = Multi-Level Cell
SLC = Single-Level Cell
It refers to the number of bits stored per physical cell. A single-level cell will be either 0 volts or Vcc volts (supply voltage... usually 2.8V or 3.3V, these days, though some are getting lower), allowing for representation of one bit. A multi-level cell can be either of those voltages, as well as two more intermediate values, allowing for representation of two bits.

MLCs can pack twice as much bit storage in the same amount of die space, and hence are more economical... the downside being the cells are not as reliable and require extra error checking (and requisite bits to hold the section's CRC). The error checking and correction is done in hardware (on the fly) and doesn't really impose a speed hit. For reliability, I would use SLC, but economics dictate MLC more often than not. I won't include the remaining list of pros/cons for the two types here...

BTW, I design medical instruments, and the FDA does not look kindly on wonky instruments... my code needs to run correctly, every time, and I spend (spent?) way more time than I like to admit making sure the correct Flash chips are on my boards.

[Bryan Morgan]

Okay, one more question. What's the interface to the SSDs? Is it the same as the disk drives? Could I ghost over my whole mechanical drive to an SSD and replace my existing mechanical drive?

Mike

SATA, just like any ol' mechanical hard drive. Though theres a new one called mSATA

[Curt Harms]

Another advantage of SSDs is mechanical durability. Head crashes don't happen because there are no platters or heads. There's another related advantage to SSDs. Apple iPads are in use by some aviation companies as Electronic Flight Bags. One of the criteria to their being approved is that they must withstand very rapid air pressure changes as well as being dropped. SSDs will, spinning hard drives won't.

[Matt Meiser]

Despite our recommendation against doing so, one of our customers is using an SSD in a Windows XP box that hosts a SQL Server database. We wanted a small server. One of the functions is to hold a a series of records for every unit that comes down their assembly line, then delete those records a few days after the unit has been shipped. Its been running for 2 years, 300 units a day, 5 days a week. There's another large dataset used for lookups that is rewritten every morning as well. AFAIK, and I would probably find out, there's been no failures. I'm not sure what the drive is, but guess it would probably be a top of the line model based on who the manufacturer of the industrial PC is.

I've been thinking about putting one in my netbook. Then again I've been thinking about replacing that with an iPad or Android tablet.