Why are you not using a SSD yet? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why are you not using a SSD yet?

#71

Post by masklinn » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 9:57 AM UTC

dexen wrote: post #67

slashclee wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the first-gen SATA SSDs (based on the JMicron 601 and 602 chipsets) had nasty stuttering problems with lots of concurrent writes, but pretty much every SSD made in the past 12 months is going to blow away any spinning-platter disk when it comes to random writes. SSDs based on Sandforce's 1200-series controller can do 30,000 IOPS, sustaining more than 150MB/s with 4kB random writes. You should probably investi…

Look, as an average individual, I'm not limited by drive interface (PATA, SATA and SCSI u320 are all OK for me), nor disk size (be it 2.5'' or 3.5'' or any other, really), nor capacity (I have a 1.5T drive for bulk storage, and only need about 20G for home & system & some breathing space), nor power usage. The only two real constraints for me are: 1) budget and 2) information on actual (``real-world'') performance of…

> Get yourself a decent 15k harddrive, you'll be pleasantly surprised. Perhaps even short-stroke it if you are a racer.

15k HDDs are nowhere near modern SSDs in access time, IOPS or random access bandwidth (let alone factoring in noise and consumption). Nowhere.

And they're in similar prices ballparks.

15k drives in desktops are the most worthless technology available these days.

Re: Why are you not using a SSD yet?

#72

Post by wil2k » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 10:07 AM UTC

How about Trim support under OSX?

AFAIK it still isn't there.. is this (still?!?) a serious negative factor when considering a SSD in a MBP?!?

Certainly considering inserting a SSD. Once I played with an MBA in a shop, I could sooo feel the difference in speed compared to my MBP which has a much faster CPU.

Re: Why are you not using a SSD yet?

#73

Post by dexen » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 10:09 AM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #71

dexen wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, as an average individual, I'm not limited by drive interface (PATA, SATA and SCSI u320 are all OK for me), nor disk size (be it 2.5'' or 3.5'' or any other, really), nor capacity (I have a 1.5T drive for bulk storage, and only need about 20G for home & system & some breathing space), nor power usage. The only two real constraints for me are: 1) budget and 2) information on actual (``real-world'') performance of…

> Get yourself a decent 15k harddrive, you'll be pleasantly surprised. Perhaps even short-stroke it if you are a racer. 15k HDDs are nowhere near modern SSDs in access time, IOPS or random access bandwidth (let alone factoring in noise and consumption). Nowhere. And they're in similar prices ballparks. 15k drives in desktops are the most worthless technology available these days.

A quick search on popular polish auction site (allegro) gives:

OCZ Vertex 3: 120GB: 1100PLN, 240GB: 2100PLN

Cheetah 15k 147GB: 400PLN (second hand).

Re: Why are you not using a SSD yet?

#74

Post by reitzensteinm » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 10:27 AM UTC

dexen wrote: post #67

slashclee wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the first-gen SATA SSDs (based on the JMicron 601 and 602 chipsets) had nasty stuttering problems with lots of concurrent writes, but pretty much every SSD made in the past 12 months is going to blow away any spinning-platter disk when it comes to random writes. SSDs based on Sandforce's 1200-series controller can do 30,000 IOPS, sustaining more than 150MB/s with 4kB random writes. You should probably investi…

Look, as an average individual, I'm not limited by drive interface (PATA, SATA and SCSI u320 are all OK for me), nor disk size (be it 2.5'' or 3.5'' or any other, really), nor capacity (I have a 1.5T drive for bulk storage, and only need about 20G for home & system & some breathing space), nor power usage. The only two real constraints for me are: 1) budget and 2) information on actual (``real-world'') performance of…

While SSDs aren't that much faster at sequential access than top of the line hard drives, they asbolutely blow 15k drives out of the water when it comes to random reads and writes. And random reads and writes are basically the most common access pattern on most PCs - load a program, and tons of DLLs and config files are loaded as well. Compare the just released Vertex 3 with a Seagate Cheetah - at the same $/gb. The SSD has 5% the latency of the 15k rpm drive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148...

This isn't just spec sheet or benchmarking bullshit, either - real world performance for random reads and writes really is that much better.

Of course, SSDs are only worth the price if you're limited by drive IO - and as stated elsewhere in this thread, that's not necessarily a given. But if you are limited by IO, and you're looking for a performance drive in todays market, unlike just two years ago, 15k rpm drives are dead in the water unless you need 600+ gb.

Re: Why are you not using a SSD yet?

#75

Post by reitzensteinm » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 10:32 AM UTC

dexen wrote: post #73

masklinn wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Get yourself a decent 15k harddrive, you'll be pleasantly surprised. Perhaps even short-stroke it if you are a racer. 15k HDDs are nowhere near modern SSDs in access time, IOPS or random access bandwidth (let alone factoring in noise and consumption). Nowhere. And they're in similar prices ballparks. 15k drives in desktops are the most worthless technology available these days.

A quick search on popular polish auction site (allegro) gives: OCZ Vertex 3: 120GB: 1100PLN, 240GB: 2100PLN Cheetah 15k 147GB: 400PLN (second hand).

Newegg prices, both new:

Vertex 3 120gb: $299.99

Cheetah 15k 147gb: $219.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227...

Re: Why are you not using a SSD yet?

#76

Post by dexen » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 10:37 AM UTC

reitzensteinm wrote: post #74

dexen wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, as an average individual, I'm not limited by drive interface (PATA, SATA and SCSI u320 are all OK for me), nor disk size (be it 2.5'' or 3.5'' or any other, really), nor capacity (I have a 1.5T drive for bulk storage, and only need about 20G for home & system & some breathing space), nor power usage. The only two real constraints for me are: 1) budget and 2) information on actual (``real-world'') performance of…

While SSDs aren't that much faster at sequential access than top of the line hard drives, they asbolutely blow 15k drives out of the water when it comes to random reads and writes. And random reads and writes are basically the most common access pattern on most PCs - load a program, and tons of DLLs and config files are loaded as well. Compare the just released Vertex 3 with a Seagate Cheetah - at the same $/gb . The…

Thanks to the second-hand market, I can get an (older) Cheetah at an affordable price (as per my other reply below). If I had about 2000PLN to spend on storage, I'd probably toy with DIY SRAM based SSD, rather than ready-made Flash-based one.

Re: Why are you not using a SSD yet?

#77

Post by shin_lao » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 11:19 AM UTC

rodh257 wrote: post #8

shin_lao wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more than $ 200. It's more around $ 300 per computer and in a laptop it's an incredible amount of money ($800+ if I'm correct) if you have a Sony or an Apple one. Additionally the performance increase is important, but doesn't matter for everything network related. In other words I'd say it's almost worth what you pay for it.

A vertex 2 is around $200 from what I can see: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227... If you buy a sony or apple laptop, replace the drive yourself. I just bought a 13" MBP and bought a $25 caddy to put my Vertex 2 in the DVD bay. That way I have Windows 7 booting from that SSD, OSX on the normal HDD with extra storage available there. Of course you could just replace the HDD with an SSD and…

Wouldn't that void the warranty?

Re: Why are you not using a SSD yet?

#78

Post by andrewmcveigh » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 11:58 AM UTC

wil2k wrote: post #72

How about Trim support under OSX? AFAIK it still isn't there.. is this (still?!?) a serious negative factor when considering a SSD in a MBP?!? Certainly considering inserting a SSD. Once I played with an MBA in a shop, I could sooo feel the difference in speed compared to my MBP which has a much faster CPU.

I think Trim support will be in Lion. I'll get an SSD wedged into my iMac then.

Re: Why are you not using a SSD yet?

#79

Post by masklinn » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 1:15 PM UTC

reitzensteinm wrote: post #75

dexen wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick search on popular polish auction site (allegro) gives: OCZ Vertex 3: 120GB: 1100PLN, 240GB: 2100PLN Cheetah 15k 147GB: 400PLN (second hand).

Newegg prices, both new: Vertex 3 120gb: $299.99 Cheetah 15k 147gb: $219.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227...

His prices are probably correct for an auction site though: since 15ks are pointless, I'd expect their resell price to be much lower than on SSDs.

Re: Why are you not using a SSD yet?

#80

Post by masklinn » Wed, Apr 20, 2011, 1:17 PM UTC

chrisjsmith wrote: post #63

keyle wrote: post #31

I'm all SSD now. I've been telling my friends "This is as big as the floppy disk, get one". Corsair SSD are like $250. And don't tell me you need 1.5TB in your desktop! You'd be a lot smarter to have 180gig hdd and all externals. When I jump on someone's machine who has spinning disks and do a build in visual studio, I feel like time stopped. I keep moving the mouse "is it frozen? What's wrong?"

That's a problem with Visual studio. It doesn't do incremental builds. You basically have to create an entire assembly from scratch every time you build.

Kinda missed the point, replace "do a build" with "do a full build" and you get the same thing, I used to have the exact same issue when installing lxml via easy_install/pip in a virtualenv (which entails a full compile from a source tarball) on an MBP with a factory drive (5400rpm), I could just go and grab myself a coffee because it would pretty much slow the machine to a grinding halt.

Nowadays, I don't even notice I'm doing it (replaced factory drive with an x25M g2.