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AMD and Intel Mobile Rematch: Gateway NV5933u vs. Acer 5542by Jarred Walton on 6/18/2010 1:14 AM EST
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silverblue - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link...PLEASE stop using the 4200 unless you're going to offer an automatically switchable and far superior discrete option. Would it be outlandish to use the Mobility 5470 at the very least instead of throwing out the same 500-700MHz 40SP solutions? Reply
JarredWalton - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkWe should be seeing the Toshiba Satellite A665D-S6059 soon, which combines the HD 4250 with a discrete HD 5650 and provides switching functionality. It also has the Phenom II P920 quad-core (only 1.6GHz though). I'm certainly interested in seeing how it works, and hopefully GPU driver updates won't be a problem... except it looks like Toshiba is opting out of AMD's Mobile Driver program. Ugh. Reply
ferro_i - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkAMD processor, the previous platform. (Tigris platform 2009, DDR2).
İntel Mobile i3-i5 series should be compared with platform AMD Danube (2010). Reply
JarredWalton - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkI think it's fair in that we're comparing laptops that have both been around for four months. But you're right, Danube is the real comparison now and we're working to get some appropriate laptops. I inadvertently lumped all the new AMD laptops under the Nile header, but that's the ultraportable version of Danube; we should have both in the next couple of weeks. Reply
veri745 - Sunday, June 20, 2010 - linkAgreed. We already know the DDR2 AMD platforms have crappy battery life. I'd really like to see the Danube and Nile platforms reviewed. Reply
fabarati - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkGood thing to note: Core i5s and i7s have a higher clocked IGP, 766 vs 677 in the i3s. Performance probably won't go up a lot, but maybe a fps or two.
By the way, are you guys gonna review the Dell Vostro 3500? Reply
JarredWalton - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkWe can ask for the Vostro 3500... no idea if we'll get one. As for the GPU clock, that's a good point. Is there a good utility to show your current clock? I have no idea if the NV5933u every scaled up to 667 or not; GPUZ and CPUZ don't report the IGP frequency on Intel. Reply
KaarlisK - Sunday, June 20, 2010 - linkNot always, it won't
Since the IGP has to Turbo up to get to either 677 or 766, and the i5s and i7s have higher CPU frequencies, there is sometimes less power/heat headroom for the GPU to actually clock up. Reply
mojtabaalemi - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkcould you please add 1005p in your battery life test .
and by the way was 1005pe with 3150 igp capable of 720p x264 video ? Reply
JarredWalton - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkWe never had the 1005p for testing (or any other 3-cell netbook), so I'm not sure what it does for battery life other than it would be lower. :-) Relative battery life should be about the same, though, so at 23Wh it should last roughly half as long as the 1001p.
The 1005pe (and any other Pine Trail netbook as well as the older N270/N280) is capable of 720p x264 if you use the CoreAVC codec; anything else and you drop frames in my experience. Higher bitrate 720p would also cause problems, and you get tearing (no VSYNC) with CoreAVC in my experience. As far as Internet video (Flash... not sure about the HTML5 stuff yet), Atom fails utterly unless you get ION/NG-ION. Reply
mojtabaalemi - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - linkI meaned 1005p with 11hrs (6cells, 48W/h) battery nor 3cell .
could you please say what player you use with coreavc ? WMP ?
I read that wmp12 in win 7 can play 720p x264 on atom 1.66GHz beacuse of its multithread codeks . is it right?
mojtaba alemi from iran Reply
JarredWalton - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - linkI used Media Player Classic Home Cinema in my more recent testing. I think I tried WMP11 in the past and it worked as well (maybe?), but I don't think I've ever tested with WMP12 and x264. I don't have any Atom laptops right now either, so I can't retest. :-| Reply
IntelUser2000 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Vantage delivers a theoretical 86% lead. We find that last a questionable result, and it indicates that Intel may have spent more time working on 3DMark optimizations than on actual gaming compatibility and performance.
No, that's because 3DMark Vantage uses the retarded scheme where it includes the CPU scores as part of the final score. 3DMark06 was barely acceptable as a gaming benchmark because it started that, Vantage makes it worse. Reply
JarredWalton - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkYes, it includes CPU performance as well, but you'll notice that nowhere in our CPU specific tests do we get 86%. In heavily threaded testing, we can achieve a 76% performance increase, but that's purely CPU based. Vantage includes CPU performance, but it's not as big of a factor as the GPU. 3DMark06 also includes CPU but shows only a 5% lead, which is more realistic. Reply
IntelUser2000 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkYou should test this out if you have the chance/time.
The 3 reasons that it has such a vast lead from greatest to smallest
1. 3DMark Vantage scores=GPU score(which is affected by the CPU like in real games) + CPU score
2. Some some CPU offloading(Never seen the game do that on the HD Graphics though)*
3. DX10 behavior on Intel is kinda like Nvidia. There's less loss from DX9 to DX10 code than on AMD.
*You can test this out by using the graphics control panel and going from Application(hardware mode) and Software Processing(software mode) Reply
OldPueblo - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkI just picked up a similar tigris laptop, except it had better specs and was only $380. At that price, I don't care if the Intel one wins because I doubt it'll ever compete at that price point. :) I didn't even bother with a warranty, it's disposable basic gaming on the go.
M320 (2x2.1Ghz)
Radeon 4200
8x DVD burner w/ lightscribe
5-in-1 card reader
etc. Reply
OldPueblo - Monday, June 21, 2010 - linkDamnit! >:(
http://www.frys-electronics-ads.com/ads/2010/06/18... Reply
JarredWalton - Monday, June 21, 2010 - linkWhat size battery is in that? Probably a 48Wh, but I'm curious. Looking directly at Frys, I can't find the laptop listed above. What's the exact Lenovo model? I'm guessing it's the G555, but with some downgrades relative to the Lenovo store model. But yeah, $330 it can break in a year and you still won't care much. Reply
Roland00 - Monday, June 21, 2010 - linkIt is a G555, I can't tell you which exact submodel it is, but the chasis/generation model is G555 Reply
Roland00 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkI know you are at the mercy of what OEM sent you (since you don't want to spend $1000 to $2000 buying hardware for a simple article), but please try to get some of these AMD processors for these are going to be the more competitive AMDs (and more relevant).
Note all these processors have hardware virtualization unlike the atoms and some of the intel culvs/core 2 offerings. Also note that none of the current AMD mobile processors offer l3 cache
Nile platform (2010) 9W, 12W, 15W with DDR3 support. All these processors are Champlain processors
9W, AMD V105, Single Core*1.2 Ghz, 512 kb L2 cache total
12W, AMD K125, Single Core*1.7 Ghz, 1 mb L2 cache total
12W, AMD K325, Dual Core*1.3 Ghz, 1 mb L2 cache per core, 2mb total
15W, AMD K625, Dual Core*1.5 Ghz, 1 mb L2 cache per core, 2mb total
15W, AMD K665, Dual Core*1.7 Ghz, 1 mb L2 cache per core, 2mb total
Danube platform (2010) 25W, 35W, 45W with DDR3 support. All these processors are Champlain processors
25W, AMD P820, Tri Core*1.8 Ghz, 512kb L2 cache per core, 1.5 mb total
25W, AMD P920, Quad Core*1.6 Ghz, 512kb L2 cache per core, 2 mb total
35W, AMD N620, Dual Core*2.8 Ghz, 1mb L2 cache per core, 2 mb total
35W, AMD N830, Tri Core*2.1 Ghz, 512 kb L2 cache per core, 1.5mb total
35W, AMD N930, Quad Core*2.0 Ghz, 512 kb L2 cache per core, 2mb total
45W, AMD X620BE, Dual Core*3.1 Ghz, 1mb L2 cache per core, 2mb total
45W, AMD X920BE, Quad Core*2.3 Ghz, 512 kb L2 cache per core, 2mb total
While the instructions per clock per core is not going to change much with the
Champlain processors (Mid 2010 with DDR3 uses K,P, or N monikers) vs
Caspain processors (Late 2009 with DDR2 uses M moniker, the dual cores come only in 35w tdps).
The Champlain processors achieve lower tdps, have ddr3 support or have more cores for the same tdp with ddr3 support when compared to the Caspain processors. I did not list the other new Champlain processors (the "value" models) for performance wise they should be similar to the one you demoed today (P520, N530, P320, N330). We won't get processors with more instructions per clock per core until the upcoming Llano (fusion, phenom II based with 1mb l2 cache per core, 10watts and above) and Ontario (fusion, bobcat based, 1-10watts aimed for netbooks, tablets, and other low power devices) . AMD finally has a competitive line of notebook processors on paper, for low tdps they may have something as good or almost as good as intel culv, at higher tdps they may not have as many instructions per clock as intel but then they are fighting that with more cores, or against the i7 720qm an extremly lower tdp.
(finally I just want to say that I am not an AMD fanboy, the last 4 processors I have bought have been intel. I7 920, Q6600, SU2300 Notebook, T7700 Notebook) Reply
frozentundra123456 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkI dont really understand the point of posting gaming scores with these laptops. Would anybody really game at 800x600 and minimun settings??? And nearly all the games are unplayable at the quite low native resolution on either platform. Reply
Roland00 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkAs a computer salesperson the answer is yes. Most people who come in wanting this price point you can upsale to a better gaming laptop (or convince them to get a light to high gaming desktop instead), for honestly you get a much better experience for a few hundred more.
That said I often have customers come in where they can't physically pay more (due to finances) or won't pay more. Often the end user (not necessary the buyer) is going to be a college student who is going to play WoW, or is going to be a teenager who wants to play some random computer game on his laptop. Reply
OldPueblo - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkDefinitely, I have a great gaming rig at home and I don't need one in a laptop as well that will just sit and not be used when I'm at home (money wasted). All I care about is having fun in some games, not staring at eye candy. That's what my eyefinity setup is for. I played a game of COH last night on the $380 laptop I posted above, and it was just as fun as on my real system and was perfectly smooth but still looked just fine with all the detail on low. Once again I wasn't focused on whether or not my soldiers had visible uniform detail, I just wanted to have fun. Being able to do that on a laptop that cost the same as JUST my video card on my gaming rig (5870) is pretty amazing to me. Reply
Tewt - Sunday, June 20, 2010 - linkDitto to what OldPueblo said. I already have a good gaming rig(Phenom II 920, 8GB RAM, Radeon 5850). I wanted something cheap to watch movies in bed(Netflix, Amazon On Demand, etc) plus something I could game on when I head over to a friends house or home where I can play CoH with my nephew. I was also able to turn down the graphics enough to get around 30-40fps at the full resolution 1366 x 768 but still 'good enough' details. Or I can play WoW with even higher framerates.
I had been looking at netbooks mainly for their battery life but two things stopped me. One, no netbook should be above $299 imo and two, when reading reviews on retail websites only a few could handle streaming video. The ones that could usually conflicted with my first point. In comes the Acer Aspire 5551-2450. I couldn't beat the value I got for only $399. Granted my last laptop, which is still running, was a Dell Inspiron 700m(~$1200 at the time) so I was pretty blown away with what I received for such a low price. At that price, functionality won over portability, weight and battery life. Granted, if I were a road warrior and had to carry something around every day and didn't need much computing power beyond internet access and MS office functionality I would give a netbook much more serious thought. And let's face it, no matter the laptop, they are more portable than a full PC rig.
I've never bought Acer and I've read some bad comments yet they also have very good comments on Newegg. This is one of the few times I bought something before it had any reviews so I also purchased an extra year of warranty(hopefully the company Newegg picked is good if I need to use it) just in case.
If they had managed to put in bluetooth, e-SATA and/or an integrated microphone(mine looks like it has one but is either disabled purposely or missing the actual hardware as there is a tiny hole right next to the webcam but I see no way to enable it), they would never be able to keep this thing in stock for long at that price.
I was pleasantly surprised by the bootup speed(less than 30 seconds even with 68-74 processes running in the background), my first encounter with Windows Media Center, the LCD had a better viewing angle than I expected, the keyboard is spacious, I like the style of the individual keys, the trackpad is responsive without any unexpected behavior so far and pretty much stutter free playback of my videos, streaming from the net or my mediasmart server.
Couple things I 'felt' might cause future trouble. The build quality seems ok. This from picking it up on one side and feeling little flex in the casing. But what worries me are the hinges not lasting. They feel like they could possibly snap after a while. You need to grip the LCD just right so it does not flex awkwardly when pushing back the lid. In regards to the wireless, I'm currently using G speeds due to my U-verse modem and wonder how much trouble I will run into once I upgrade to an N router since the specs for this laptop mention Draft-N. How this spec is still available for a recently released laptop is a head-scratcher.
Fyi, this laptop model is already sold out on Newegg. Reply
starfalcon - Tuesday, July 13, 2010 - linkI beat MW2 at 780x480 and just about minimum settings and enjoyed it a lot.
Every game is different.
Obviously integrated graphics aren't made for serious enthusiast type games though, but hey better chances with games. Reply
mino - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - linkThis is what happens when you try to do it "on the cheap" and try to cover 3 incompatible topics into a single article:
1) introduction and "comparison" of two SPECIFIC boxes Acer sent you
2) current state of the market Intel vis-a-vis AMD
3) abilities comparison of current Intel and AMD value paltforms
Each of these requires a different approach testing-wise, configuration/system wise as well as point-of-view wise.
End result is an (for a non-expert) incomprehensible article that barely does PR for the Gateway model covering partly 1) topic.
IF you ever get into the same situation, please do no repeat this attempt at hobbyist hybridization.
Split the information into AT LEAST 2 articles:
1) Apples-to-Apples comparison of 2 platforms along with associated market report
- this means identical HDD, DVD, battery, accessories, etc
- this means most gaming tests at native with older games
- this means NO LCD, WiFi, Bluetooth, WebCam tests or connectivity comparisons
2) Comparison of these 2 SPECIFIC systems themselves where performance is mentioned as secondary and most system specific things like LCD's are evaluated (so that Acer is happy and sends you new toys)
Here is an excerpt of bad part of the article: (FYI)
- you use incomparable units price-wise (they are not market-representative)
- you use incomparable units configuration wise (they are not platform-representative)
- you compare the 2 SPECIFIC units and forcibly "draw conclusions" for the whole market
- you screw the graphs with an unnecessarily huge amount of comparison points
- you fail to separate the tested candidates in the graphs
You have done MUCH better in the past. Hopefully, we will not have to suffer a repeat. Reply
JarredWalton - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - linkI hardly think this qualifies as "lazy writing"... in fact, trying to condense more content into a single article would be the exact opposite. It's far easier to do two laptops separately than to do a head-to-head; I've done both, and it generally takes four times as long to do the head-to-head as it would have taken to do a single review--or twice as long as two separate reviews if you prefer.
Beyond that, the laptops reviewed didn't come from the same source, even though Acer technically owns Gateway and makes both. The last time I did this sort of review, Gateway was good enough to send us both the Intel and AMD laptop; usually, that doesn't happen, and in this case the AMD laptop came from Acer via AMD. I'm also not sure how 2 and 3 in your list are even separate subjects.
I have my own critiques against the article, but most of that involves me not being able to get the exact hardware I wanted to test. While swapping HDDs, batteries, etc. would make it as equal as possible, I've looked at that in the past and found very little reason to go to extra measures. HDDs might make a small difference in PCMark, but that's about it.
I would argue that outside of price, these two laptops are viable candidates to represent the market, but the only way to know for sure is to test a LOT more laptops from each platform. Given the difficulty of acquiring AMD laptops, plus the fact that the Gateway is the sole Intel HD Graphics laptop (i.e. no Optimus or discrete GPU) we've had shipped our way, my real conclusion is this: these are commodity item laptops that the majority of manufacturers don't particularly care to have reviewed.
The graphs are always a tough call. If I remove "old" comparison points, people complain that we are only looking at a few options. If I leave them in, other people complain that they're information overload. I tried to include only laptops that are relatively competitive, with only one representative of major platforms on most tests. Which laptops do you think we should remove? I can make an argument for just about every one to stay or go.
The Toshiba A505, NV59, and 5542 all need to be there obviously, along with the NV52/NV58. Atom is the cheapest netbook option with good battery life, so it should stay. Atom + ION is also worthy of inclusion. CULV certainly needs to be in there at least once, and CULV + Optimus is a nice extra. Lenovo T410 is tough to justify, but it represents a higher-end i5 notebook. U30Jc is a good laptop that we recommend, so that should be in the charts. MSI X610 could go, but it's one of the few other AMD laptops we've tested; same for Ferrari One. Studio 14z is a better overall platform than any of the current Intel/AMD offerings in my book--a better GPU, and Core 2 Duo beats the new i3/i5 platforms. At this point, I figure leaving in a few other laptops doesn't hurt, but I could remove the T410, HP 4310m, Lenovo U150, MSI X610, 1201N, and Acer 1410 and not feel too bad.
As for the battery charts, the one thing I've come to know over the years of laptop testing is that even if two laptops are the same in terms of specs, they can have different battery life because of BIOS optimizations and other low level differences. So I leave in as many laptops as I feel reasonable. Lazy? Well, it's easier to trim out the extra stuff honestly, and I hope it helps people realize that just because laptops appear similar on the surface, there are often differences underneath.
Your accusation that I try to "forcibly draw conclusions" is exactly what I'm trying to avoid doing. I specifically DIDN'T come to a strong conclusion because without testing at least five candidates from each platform I just don't feel comfortable doing so. The only conclusions I drew were in regards to these two specific laptops. The NV5933u is a good buy at $550; the 5542, not so much. At $400-$450, it's also worth buying, depending on your needs. And since I'm only really able to analyze a couple specific candidates, there's no point in omitting other tests like the LCD.
What performance criteria did I neglect? Battery life, general apps, CPU, GPU are all covered. The LCD testing is almost an afterthought--I wrote two paragraphs and said both LCDs suck. Yeah, I'm sure that Acer is happy to see that LCD comparison and will now "send me new toys". Get real. Performance for a $500 really is a secondary consideration for 99% of buyers, and rightfully so! I'd take a well made but slower laptop any day over a faster laptop with a crappy keyboard and LCD. But few if any budget laptops are well made, so the point is moot.
Anyway, we're working to get more laptops, particularly AMD systems, and as we get those we can come to a few more conclusions. So far, though, outside of performance and price being acceptable, I don't think there's much to say about the new platforms relative to the old. Reply
Shadowmaster625 - Monday, June 21, 2010 - linkThat is a $329 notebook. http://tinyurl.com/25ypk7o (And this is an M320!) I have no trouble finding deals like that every time I look. That $329 notebook is being substituted for a full retail version ($500) from Amazon. And then you actually have the audacity(!) to compare that ripoff to an Intel notebook that, by your own admission, would normally retail for $749!! ($600 if you drop the BD and scrounge for deals.)
So you are literally comparing an Intel notebook that is twice as expensive as the AMD, and seriously gaming the numbers to try and cover that up. What is the point in doing that when it is transparently obvious? Reply
JarredWalton - Monday, June 21, 2010 - linkI know you love to be biased against Intel, but a one week sale at Fry's for $329 with 3GB RAM and a 160GB HDD isn't the same notebook. Plus, that's a laptop with a mail-in rebate. What's the price without rebate? How fast will the rebate come? And finally, not everyone has a Fry's local. We write for the entire US, not just CA and a few other states. And yet you accuse me of "absurd bias". More to the point, what do I say at the conclusion?
"This isn't a knock against AMD laptops in general, but if they can't deliver clearly superior battery life and performance, they need to be priced a lot lower. For those looking to buy a last generation AMD Tigris laptop, we turn once more to Gateway and Best Buy. The NV5378u is identical in features and design to the NV5933u, but it's midnight blue in color instead of cherry red. What's more, the price of $429 (plus tax) makes it far easier to recommend. You can often find other M300 laptops priced at close to $400 on sale, and those should offer the same general experience as the 5542."
In other words, I don't recommend the Acer 5542, simply because it's poorly priced as far as I can find. I go on to recommend a $429 laptop at Best Buy (which competes directly against the NV59), and I suggest that any AMD laptop under $400 becomes a far better deal. So, thanks for the Fry's link, but please take the blinders off and stop with the "bias" accusations. Bias would be if I said something untrue in order to make one product look better than another. As stated above, the only firm conclusions I've come to in this article are that the NV5933u is a great deal, and the 5542 is not. The NV53 is a good buy at $430, and if you have a Fry's getting a Lenovo for $330 (after dealing with the MIR) is fine as well. Reply
Roland00 - Monday, June 21, 2010 - linkThe normal price for the laptop is $449.99. The sale price is $329.99 with no rebate. (this price is for only SJ, LA, Renton). The rest of the fry's chain has the price for $349.99 on sale.
Now the black text is saying you can also get a printer free after mail in rebate. If you do the bundle the total is $329.99+$29.99 in store and the mail in rebate reimburses you $30 dollars (aka the cost of the printer.) You do not have to get the printer. Reply
Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - linkAthlon II P320 15" notebook on newegg for $400. No rebates. The deal expired quickly, but there will be more. I think it is a safe bet that AMD 25W dual core notebooks are going to be easily found all summer long for $400, and probably $300 by the time back-to-school starts. And I predict that next you will compare a P320 to a i330 that still costs twice as much. Reply
Roland00 - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - linkWhile the p320 is a better battery life processor. Newegg also has the lenovo g555 (same laptop as the fry's ad) for $379.99 with free shipping (and no tax in most states).
Only 3gb of memory and 160gb harddrive, but still $379.99 Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - linkNext up is a Toshiba with Phenom II P920 quad-core (25W) with switchable HD 5650 graphics. I'm not sure it's the best option out there for AMD, but it's what AMD is sending me. It will at least be interesting to see how performance compares against i5-430M with the same GPU, and I'm told that the HD 4200 mode with the P920 will actually deliver better battery life than the M600/M300 stuff. We shall see.
Personally, I would *love* to get one of the $400 P320 laptops for testing, but that's not happening yet unless I go and buy one. And we might just do that.... Reply
Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - linkWow a 1.6GHz quad core with 512k cache? I can already see that thing getting walloped by a SU7300 in everything except video encoding. (And who would do that on a notebook?)
Has it occured to you that Intel makes backroom deals with companies to get them to send reviewers only these oddball AMD notebook configurations specifically to make AMD look bad? Despite losing a billion dollars by engaging in these tactics, I am sure that Intel regards it as merely a cost of doing business. No doubt they've made $10 billion through these shady tactics. Reply
Roland00 - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link512k cache per core. 2mb total cache. AMD processors have each individual core possessing their own l2 cache. The new Core I series is the same way from intel. The old Intel Core2Duos and Core2Quads shared their l2 cache between 2 of the cores.
Regardless 25w for 4 cores is extremely good energy wise per core. That is 6.5w per a 1.6 ghz single core or pretty much atom territory. Sadly the p520 (2.3 ghz dual core, 1 mb l2 cache per core, 2 mb l2 cache total) is going to be faster in most things, for not enough things are coded for quad cores yet. Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - linkActually, AMD sent this laptop after buying it from the manufacturer, so unless Toshiba somehow convinced AMD to send the A665, I doubt Intel had anything to do with the choice. It's doing okay on battery life (226 minutes idle with a 48Wh battery). Unfortunately, the notebook just died this morning (after less than 24 hours) while I was trying to watch the World Cup online (Flash video).
I don't know if the laptop was just banged around in shipping, or if the GPU had a glitch, or what, but I do know that it is dead. It locked, I force restarted, and now the fans turn on and nothing ever shows up on the LCD. Weird. But a replacement is on the way, so the review should still come in the next 10 days or so. Reply
Hrel - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - linkIf someone could do a review on the laptop that I currently suspect is the best "bang for your buck" out there. It's made by compal, and available on Cyberpower.com who's machines you've reviewed before. If you'd like it configured like I did, which I think is the best bang for buck, do this: Go to the website. mouse over 15.6" Laptops and click on the $999 Xplorer X6-8500. It has a 1080p screen. (I'm not sure why the people who run this site do this, but even though the other configurations use the same chassis when personalized they come out to cost more than this one; annoying since it makes me configure all 3 or 4 machines built on the same base chassis to figure out which one is cheapest/best for me.) Then I configured it with the Core i7-620M CPU. (to get it over 1K so I can take advantage of the 5% off.) 4GB 0DDR3-1333, hopefully 7-7-7-21, probably not, but hopefully. ATI MR HD5650 1GB GDDR3 320GB 7200rpm HDD (I did this cause I'm gonna take that HDD out and use the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB, thanks for that review!!) Everything else on that page I left untouched. The only thing I did on page 2 was switch to Intel wifi with bluetooth; Though I'm curious if the MSI option is equal/better; 17 bucks isn't nothing. It has HDMI out and a fingerprint reader. This page says 3 USB ports, the specs sheet says 4USB ports; not sure which is true. (I do wish they were USB 3.0 ports, but I was hoping you guys would test some stuff and tell me if that even matters for use with an external hard drive, mechanical disk 7200rpm. Transferring large files like movies and games mostly.) On page 3 I select "none, format only" for the OS. And select "LCD perfect assurance" cause even 1 dead pixel is unacceptable to me. This brings the total to $1008.90 after 5% off, or $992.75 if you get the MSI network card. So yeah, I really hope you guys can get a hold of one of these for review; as a loner or given as a review unit or maybe someone will just buy one and review it cause it's really tempting me right now... like a lot! If you're review is good I'm gonna start saving up and hopefully be able to buy it around Christmas. Thanks guys! A loyal reader. - Brian Reply
shady28 - Sunday, June 27, 2010 - link
I went looking for a p920 review (quad core Phenom II for laptops) and all I'm seeing is a comparison of Intel's latest i3/i5 vs 2 year old Turion Ultra CPUs. I have a laptop I bought almost 2 years ago that is a Turion Ultra / 2.2Ghz with ATI 3200 video that is just as good as the AMD system in this comparison.
These quad core Phenoms are showing up for $700 at Wal-Mart with ATI 4250 GPUs. Wouldn't that be a more interesting comparison??? Reply


text:
Intel SSD 530 (240GB) Reviewby Kristian Vättö on 11/15/2013 1:45 PM EST
- Posted in
- Storage
- SSDs
- Intel
- Intel SSD 530
60 Comments
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spacecadet34 - Friday, November 15, 2013 - linkGiven that this very drive is today's Newegg Canada's ShellShocker deal, I'd say this review is quite timely! Reply
ExodusC - Friday, November 15, 2013 - linkI picked up a 180GB Intel 530 recently after doing a lot of searching for a cheap SSD for my OS and some programs. It replaced my old first generation 60GB OCZ Vertex. I was hesitant about using a SandForce controller drive, since many people apparently still have issues with certain drives, but I decided to jump on the 530.
I'm pleased with the performance and price, and I was blown away by Intel's software, allowing you to flash the drive to the latest firmware while it's running with your OS on it. That's a huge leap above the pains of trying to get my old OCZ drive to flash to the latest firmware (which is sometimes a destructive flash). Reply
Samus - Friday, November 15, 2013 - linkAmazingly I haven't ever had an issue with an Intel Sandforce drive. I had some quirkiness (not detecting upon reboot/resume from hibernation) with a 330 at launch but they fixed it almost immediately with a firmware.
I can't say the same for OCZ. I've owned 3 of their drives and 2 failed, including the RMA's, in under 6 months. One failed in 3 days. Just wouldn't detect in BIOS, even on different machines or with a USB SATA cable. Ironically, the Vertex 2 240GB I have has been solid for over 2 years in my media center running 24/7 so there is no rhyme or reason to it.
If only Intel's networking division was as on-the-ball with software updates as their storage division. My Intel 7260 AC wifi card occasionally doesn't detect any networks and it is a very common problem. At least they sorted the Bluetooth issues. Reply
ExodusC - Friday, November 15, 2013 - linkThe 60GB OCZ Vertex I replaced actually was not my first. I RMA'd my original drive after I think I screwed up a firmware flash (it seemed to be my fault and not the drive's). Another reason I'm happy with my Intel drive, the firmware updating is so incredibly painless and low risk.
If you're familiar with Anand's SSD anthology and the history behind the Vertex, you might remember that the first generation OCZ Vertex with production firmware was the first consumer SSD that didn't suffer from awful stuttering issues (due in large part to Anand's communication with OCZ on the issue). Other companies followed suit and prioritized consistent performance over maximum throughput. At the time, the Vertex was a no-brainer (this was in the pre-Intel X25-M days).
You're right that OCZ seems to have some QC issues nowadays. On the plus side, I can definitely say that OCZ's customer support is top notch. They were extremely fast in qualifying me to RMA my drive after the failed firmware flash. Reply
'nar - Monday, November 18, 2013 - linkYou are complaining with no details to back it up. You said your Vertex 2 works fine, but you failed to mention the model OCZ drives that failed.
I have used Vertex (Limited, 2, 3) and now Vector drives and have not had a bad experience yet. But I looked into the hardware and never considered the Solid or Agility series in the first place. I have replaced another guy's SSD three times. I finally told him to give up on RMA's and buy a quality drive. Solid and Agility are not quality, they are cheap. That's why OCZ finally dropped them.
I've installed dozen of SSD's, mostly Intel/Sandforce models, and have never had an unexplained failure. I did have one, but that system killed a hard drive a month even before I installed the SSD, so it is just a quirk of that system.
I have OCZ in all of my own systems(9) because they eek out a bit more performance, but the Intel Toolbox is a winner for me to use for others where I cannot be there for support. Reply
jonjonjonj - Thursday, November 21, 2013 - linklooks like you made a ocz fanboy mad. ocz deserves the terrible reputation they have and after all the bad drives they sold i wouldn't touch one. Reply
Bullwinkle J Moose - Saturday, November 23, 2013 - linkYou did not screw up the firmware flash!!!
The number one failure mechanism for OCZ is a firmware update as could easily have been verified by the complaints at OCZ's forum and Newegg customer reviews
I have torture tested OCZ SSD's (Vertex 1 and 2) by killing power, not aligning partitions, defragging and several other methods not recommended by OCZ
Nothing would damage the drives until the firmware was updated as per OCZ instructions as can be seen by the thousands of customer complaints
Anyone commenting otherwise is a LIAR and did not research this topic thoroughly or honestly! Reply
Cellar Door - Friday, November 15, 2013 - linkMy Intel failed after just a year and a half - so don't think they are immune to it. Reply
Sivar - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - linkThis is true. Nothing is immune to manufacturing defects.
I had an opportunity for a few years to see actual return rates for many hard drive and SSD manufacturers. Intel SSDs consistently had the lowest failure rates in the industry, at least through the 520. I haven't the most current data, but I would be surprised if the numbers suddenly changed since then. Reply
Sivar - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - linkNote that the OCZ Vertex 3 and later have been pretty solid. The previous generations were so alarmingly bad that I am a little surprised they are still in business. Reply
dynamited - Friday, November 15, 2013 - linkI count seven asus motherboards with mPCIE, not one, at newegg. Regarding 6bps sata saturated, just run with RAID 0, is that hard to figure out how to do? Reply
ExodusC - Friday, November 15, 2013 - linkI don't think TRIM commands can be passed through to SSDs running in RAID 0. At one point the Intel storage drivers supported this, but I heard that this had been pulled. I can't find any documentation on this.
Additionally, even though SSDs are fairly reliable, adding another drive simply adds another point for failure. Reply
Wetworkz - Friday, November 15, 2013 - linkYou CAN pass TRIM commands through to SSDs running in Raid 0 on Intel hardware. It has NOT been pulled. You need to have the latest Intel Toolbox in combination with the latest RST drivers installed. I just TRIMMED both my arrays a couple days ago. Reply
ExodusC - Friday, November 15, 2013 - linkOut of curiosity, is that an automated process, or does it require manual TRIM through the Intel SSD Toolbox? What RAID levels are supported?
I also wonder about the compressibility of striped data and if there is any effect there. Reply
Samus - Friday, November 15, 2013 - linkI pass TRIM to my RAID 0 Samsung 840 RAID through the Windows 8 defrag on my H87 chipset. Performance tests prove it works. Unfortunately if I have the IRST software installed the drives are downgraded to SATA 3Gbps. I tried different cables and everything. Uninstalling the IRST software after making the RAID 0 restores them to 6Gbps... Reply
DMCalloway - Friday, November 15, 2013 - linkIt was my understanding that TRIM worked in RAID 0 with the newer RST drivers, but only on Intel 7 series chipsets and newer. I do like Intel products but this is one thing they shafted us on. Reply
Wetworkz - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - linkI just TRIMMED both my arrays a few days ago and one array was on an Intel 6 series chipset. I know that series 6 was not previously supported but I was able to initiate TRIM on the array with the newest Intel Toolbox and the newest RST drivers for the first time the other day. I cannot confirm this is officially supported behavior but I was able to do it with the newest drivers. I would give it a try if you have a series 6 board. Reply
'nar - Monday, November 18, 2013 - linkI don't really care about TRIM. Garbage Collection works better anyway, especially on SandForce drives. Reply
extide - Friday, November 15, 2013 - linkmPCIE is not the same as M.2 Reply
dynamited - Friday, November 15, 2013 - linkI believe they are calling it "mPCIe Combo Card" which actually has two connects to one on the motherboard. Reply
Magichands8 - Friday, November 15, 2013 - link"It will be interesting to see what Intel's approach will be with SATA Express..."
Apparently Intel's approach is to ignore it as SATA Express won't be a part of Intel's 9-series chipset to be released next year. So God knows when we'll have any reasonable access to it. It seems that the only place left for SSD makers to go in order to differentiate their products is to reduce price/increase capacity. And when SSDs finally start hitting 2+ TB per device at reasonable prices our only option will be to resort to RAID 0 to get around the SATA albatross hanging around our necks. Reply
Hrel - Friday, November 15, 2013 - linkThe Seagate 600 and Crucial M500 outperform the Intel drive and are a whopping $50 less. I see no value gained for paying more than $150 for a 256GB SSD. Am I missing something or is every 256GB drive over $150 as bad a deal as I think? Reply
Laststop311 - Sunday, November 17, 2013 - linkSamsung 840 pro is worth every penny. Not only does it consistently fall in the top 3 for sequential reads and random reads it also falls in the top 3 for lowest power used. It is the only ssd on the market to perform that high while using that low of wattage. It's something special and has reigned supreme the entire 14ish months it's been out.
You really need to look for deals on it though. Like newegg is selling the 512GB for 480 but I went on ebay and found a brand new sealed in box for 389.00 free shipping and no tax. 480 is a lot of omney for a 512GB but for 389 at that deal how can you buy any other 500GB capacity drive. Also these samsung drives perform noticeably at their very best if you leave 20% of it untouched so out of the 512GB you really should leave 102GB free and just use 410GB. Thats why you should buy 1 capacity size over what you need so you can properly over provision and have maximum iops at all times.
I transfered a 200GB file from a 750GB samsung evo ssd to the 512GB 840 pro in a few seconds under 7 minutes. Thats pretty insane speed 200GB in less then 7 mins. Thats basically sata III being saturated. And it's saturates it while using the lowest power of ssd's in similiar situations.
So yes 240 dollars is a lot for 256GB but I have seen them go on sale for 190 and you can search ebay too. Don't settle for a cheap ssd with poor power efficiency and slower speeds. Reply
purerice - Sunday, November 17, 2013 - linkI'm in the same boat you are. Seagate seemed to be near the top in most categories and used less power (perhaps over more time?) than Samsung 840 Pro and Intel... yet for a lot less money.
For me especially, I'm still running on a 7200rpm drive for 90% of my work. The other 10% is 5400rpm. Even the slowest of these drives so so insanely faster than what I have that the marginal difference of anything above the Seagate gets lost in the wash. Reply
MikeMurphy - Friday, January 10, 2014 - linkThis isn't a top drive, but it offers good performance, all-important low idle power consumption, access to the extremely helpful Intel SSD Toolbox, Intel reliability and a 5-year warranty.
I'm happy to spend a couple extra bucks for this feature set. Reply
supax - Friday, November 15, 2013 - linkI actually just picked up a Seagate 600 240GB for $130 after $20 MIR. Seemed like a better deal to me anyway. Reply
jwcalla - Friday, November 15, 2013 - linkSo is it confirmed that SF-22xx series drives work on Haswell chipsets? Is it only the SF-12xx series that doesn't work or is it still a mixed bag of guesswork? Reply
iwod - Friday, November 15, 2013 - linkI was just discussing this earlier. Since Intel decided to ditch the SATA Express, may be we are moving straight to PCI-E Native instead? The thing is we already have PCI-E Native SSD from Apple in many of its consumer Mac already already using it. And the trend will likely continue in next year. Since we are not going to get SATA Express until late next year with the original Intel 9 series chipset. Intel thought it may have been too late anyway and ditch it instead? Reply
Kristian Vättö - Sunday, November 17, 2013 - linkSATA Express is PCIe. SATA Express is simply the name of the connector which combines SATA and PCIe into one (i.e. the same connector works with SATA and PCIe devices).
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6294/breaking-the-sa... Reply
Morawka - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - linkThe biggest fail of the year is when Asus put the M.2 Connector on a PCI 1.0 Bus. GG ASUS are you retarded? Reply
Duncan Macdonald - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - linkWould it be possible for you to do an additional SSD test - how much does the write performance recover after a 30 minute idle period. Most consumer PCs (and even many servers) tend to have idle periods every day and if the garbage collection and free space erasure algorithms on the drive can get it back to a near new condition then this would be significent. Reply
'nar - Monday, November 18, 2013 - linkI agree, GC and idle time makes TRIM unnecessary, and even works better anyway. These benchmarks are a gross exaggeration of anything done in real-world usage. On the one hand everyone recognizes that fact, but on the other they keep hammering consistency and incompressible data like everyone does video editing all day every day. Reply
thefoodaddy - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - linkThe prices in that table for the Seagate and Crucial 240GB are, sadly, not $150 ($220 and $180, respectively)--way to get my hopes up, Dyntamitedata.com! Reply
purerice - Sunday, November 17, 2013 - linkOn google shopping I just typed in "Seagate SSD 600" and selected 240GB. 50+stores had them and 1 store has them for $149.99 with $0 tax and $0 shipping Reply
Kristian Vättö - Sunday, November 17, 2013 - linkThe prices were taken on November 12th and both drives were $150 back then (probably a temporary sale). Reply
slickr - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - linkMan these SSD's seem like a lot of hard work to me. I mean with all the firmware updates that need to be flushed, with all the failures that seem to be happening, with the inconsistent performances, with the fairly still high prices even after 4 years of SSD drives.
I mean 4 years ago I though we would have at least 250GB for $150 by around this time, by around year 2014, but we we are still way off, I though 500GB SSD's would have started becoming more mainstream in 4 years, but now that we are here, now that I'm in the future it hasn't been done.
In fact some of the drives are still plagued by the same problems some of the first SSD's had. I mean I agree that the average SSD is more reliable and generally faster, but this is not by much and the prices have been slow to come down.
So I hope to see $150 250GB SSD's and more in the next several months, maybe 2014 will be the year, but I think if you just want reliability and security its best to go with normal hard drives that have huge capacity at cheap prices, I can get 1TB for $70 that is super cheap. Reply
'nar - Monday, November 18, 2013 - linkI think you have been mislead by the benchmarks. They do not compare SSD's to hard drives, so you have no perspective. I recommend SSD's for everyone. They are faster and more reliable. Get a hard drive if you want your 1 TB of storage, which will be pictures, music, and video anyway, all things that would not benefit from SSD speeds.
The only concern is that many people that complain about reliability fail to mention the model SSD that failed on them. I use Intel/Sandforce drive for systems I build for others, and OCZ/SandForce/Bigfoot on all of my own and never had a problem. I suspect that those looking for cheap, get cheap. If you want reliability don't look for the cheapest drive. As in all things, you get what you pay for. Find yourself a good drive, THEN look for a good price on it. Don't assume that any SSD made by a particular manufacturer is good. Reply
name99 - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - link"The problem now is that every significant segment from a performance angle has been covered."
Unfortunately no. If *I* were an SSD manufacturer, I'd try to differentiate myself by putting together a hybrid drive that isn't crap. It is insane that, with 2013 almost over, there is, as far as I can tell, precisely one HD available that is a hybrid drive --- and that HD is available in one form factor+size, only as a bare drive, and with a minuscule pool of flash.
Complain about Apple all you like, but at least they have done (within the scope of what they control) something about this --- unlike freaking WD, Seagate, SanDisk and everyone else.
WTF have SanDisk (or Sandforce, or Samsung, or Toshiba, or ...) down something about this? Put together a decent package of some RAM, some flash, a controller, firmware that does the caching properly, and sell it to WD or Seagate to glue onto 1TB+ size drives? Apple's solution is expensive, probably too expensive, because it's using pretty good quality flash and a lot of it. Cut down to 48 or 32GB of flash that's slightly slower and I think you could still give a heck of a kick to a drive at an additional cost of $30 to $50. I'd certainly be willing to pay this.
I do not understand WD and Seagate. You go to Best Buy or Frys today, and they're each trying to reach out at you with a huge collection of basically identical drives --- they'll sell you a 2TB 2.5" in a green version, a black version, a red version, a blue version. (And those are not case colors, they are supposedly different models.)
The one thing they won't sell is the thing that would actually make a difference, that I'd be willing to pay for, a freaking HYBRID version that consists of more than adding 8GB of crappy bargain bin flash and lame caching software that won't even capture writes. Reply
Bob Todd - Sunday, November 17, 2013 - linkIndeed. While it would be great if every laptop with a 2.5" drive had a mSATA or M.2 slot available, they are still the minority. I have SSDs as the boot drives of every machine sans one laptop that still has one of the 7200rpm 750GB Seagate SSHDs. I want at least 500GB of capacity for that machine, but I don't really want to drop the money for an SSD that big. A 7mm 500+ GB drive with 32+ GB of NAND needs to happen. Reply
emvonline - Sunday, November 17, 2013 - link100% agree. A 32G SSD+1TB HDD would cover all storage needs and be very fast for 90% of all work. On the once a month timing that you load a rarely accessed 1GB video it would take 3 seconds more than a SSD. All this assumes the Cache software works correctly :-) Reply
HisDivineOrder - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - linkRemember when Sandforce used to be desired? That was a long, long time ago. Now they stink of bad firmwares and ugly compromise. Reply
jwcalla - Saturday, November 16, 2013 - linkI'm surprised we haven't seen a new gen from them yet. I wonder if they're even working on anything. Reply
purerice - Sunday, November 17, 2013 - linkTrue. It is a better problem to have than great firmware with bad hardware though. I mean, if they have the desire, they can fix existing drives. If they don't, they'll just lose customers, end of story. Reply
GuizmoPhil - Sunday, November 17, 2013 - linkThe mITX ASUS Maximus VI Impact also got an M2 slot. Reply
g00ey - Sunday, November 17, 2013 - linkSorry but just I don't believe in PCIe as a viable interface for SSD storage. If SATA 6 Gbps turns out to be a bottleneck then make drives that use two SATA channels or more. Or even switch to SAS 12Gbbs which was introduced back in 2011. Not many changes will be needed when switching to SAS since SAS is pin-compatible with SATA and a SAS controller can run SATA drives. The only noticeable difference is that SAS is more stable and cable lengths up to 10 meters (33 feet) are possible whereas only 1 meter (3.3 feet) works for SATA. I also like the SFF-8087/8088 connectors which house 4 SAS/SATA channels in one connector, there is both an internal version (SFF-8087) and an external version (SFF-8088) of this connector, just like SATA vs eSATA.
The major advantages of SAS/SATA over PCIe is spelled RAID and hot-swap so it only makes sense to implement PCIe based storage in ultra-portable applications and applications with extremely high demands on low-latency. Reply
tygrus - Sunday, November 17, 2013 - linkHow do the SSD's perform with a simultaneous mix of Read/Write ? eg. 70/30 mix of random R/W with Q=32 or simulate tasks that stream read-modify-write. Reply
emvonline - Sunday, November 17, 2013 - linkCouple items: The real difference with the 530 is low power options from Sandforce controller and potentially lower cost 20nm NAND. If it isnt cheaper than 520, don't buy it.
Intel chose 2281 controller for its consumers SSDs over its internal controller. Why would you recommend that Intel do a consumer SSD with its internal controller? Intels 3500 internal controller is purchased from and fab'd by another company anyway. Do you think the performance it much better than Sandforce 2281 B2? Reply
'nar - Monday, November 18, 2013 - linkI must be dense, because I still don't get why you criticize Sandforce so much about incompressible data. I don't see a need to put incompressible data on an SSD in the first place, so the argument is meaningless.
For cost per GB of storage, most people still do not want SSD's holding 500GB of data. Why do they have over 500GB? Pictures, music, movies, ie incompressible data. Therefore, that is stored on a much more cost-effective hard drive and hence, irrelevant here.
I don't see a performance advantage either. What do you do with music and movies? Play them. How much speed does that require? 12MBps? Hard drives are fine for media servers. Maybe you want to copy to a flash drive, but it will be limited itself to about 150MBps for good USB 3 drives anyway. And if you are editing video often then you are likely going over that 20GB per day of writes, so you should put that on an enterprise scratch disk anyway.
So, you ask if Sandforce will "fix" this problem? What problem? It is the fundamental design feature they have. It is what makes them unique, and in "normal" system it is quite useful, reviewers looking for bigger sledge hammers not withstanding. That's like saying the president is not so bad, but maybe if he weren't so black.
You can break anything. These are not build to be indestructible, nobody would be able to afford them if they were. These are built for common use, and I do not see hammering incompressible data in these benchmarks a common use. Reply
Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, November 19, 2013 - linkIf you're using software based encryption, it's quite a big deal because all your data will be incompressible. For other SSDs it's the one and same whether the data is compressible or not, but for SandForce based SSDs it's not, so it's a thing worth mentioning. What would be the point of reviews in the first place if we couldn't point out differences and potential design flaws? Reply
'nar - Thursday, November 21, 2013 - linknoted. That's it. Not half of all benchmarks. I don't use software encryption for most of my data. Reply
AnnonymousCoward - Monday, November 18, 2013 - linkI enjoyed the review, but why can't you have a single real world benchmark??? You compare CPUs based on the time it takes to encode/decode, and fps in games. That tells readers the quantified difference. Your SSD data tells the reader nothing about Windows startup time, file copy time, and program load time. This has been an overlook on Anandtech from Day 1. I've brought this up multiple times in these comments, but you guys somehow don't get it. Reply
dhisumdhisum - Tuesday, November 19, 2013 - linkDebroah, will you marry me? I don't work, I am a bum. Reply
dac7nco - Tuesday, November 19, 2013 - linkGreatest reply ever. Reply
Bullwinkle J Moose - Saturday, November 23, 2013 - linkTechnically, that was a proposal...
The reply has not yet been given Reply
Tjalve - Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - linkI have actually don that kind of testing. But i use 20min idle time.
The text is in swedish so use google translate to translate to english. But scroll down and qlik on the links.
But check the diffrence between test 6 and 7 in the graphs. Reply
Tjalve - Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - linkI have actually don that kind of testing. But i use 20min idle time.
The text is in swedish so use google translate to translate to english. But scroll down and qlik on the links.
But check the diffrence between test 6 and 7 in the graphs. Reply
nicolaim - Wednesday, November 27, 2013 - linkMyDigitalSSD sells M.2 SSDs at retail, so saying M.2 SSDs are OEM-only is incorrect. Reply
mi1stormilst - Friday, December 06, 2013 - linkThe Intel 530 is $169.99 on newegg today ... tack on the 10% discount code floating around (NAFSAVETENDEC6W) for newegg and you have a bargain at $155.98 shipped!!! Reply
PKR - Sunday, December 08, 2013 - linkWith my Macbook pro Mid 2010, and Intel 530 240gb with DC12 firmware, I think this ssd is slow - I am only getting about 200 mbps write and 260 mbps read speed. Very disappointed, as I the reviews online pointed to speeds in the range of 500 mbps.
I tried the installation two ways - one by cloning the system partition using carbon copy cloner, and another using a fresh install from super-drive and updating .. In both cases, speed didn't change.
If it matters, I have 4 partitions on the drive. The system partition is of size 100gb, with about 40gb free space after migrating my content. Reply
Wolfpup - Monday, December 16, 2013 - linkI switched from Intel to Micron/Crucial after Intel switched to Sandforce controllers...I'd still pick this over OTHER sandforce drives, but I'm still picking an M500 over this... Reply

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Train slams into Fed-Ex truck off U.S. 301
Published: Wednesday, July 3, 2013 at 5:08 p.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, July 3, 2013 at 5:08 p.m.
A Fed Ex driver was hospitalized with critical injuries when a train hit his van as he was crossing the tracks at a private drive off U.S. 301 south of Hawthorne.
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An engineer on the CSX train, who would not give his name, said the train was southbound when he saw the van driven by Martin Beckles, 51, of Ocala creeping up to the track.
"He was easing up there. We thought he was going to stop but he just didn't stop," he said. "We were blowing the horn. I don't know what was going on with him."
Beckles was crossing the track in a westerly direction onto a private grass drive that curved south just over the crossing, FHP said. The crossing does not have a cross arm.
The train, which was en route to the Tampa/Bradenton area, slammed into the passenger side of the van. With two locomotives and more than 30 rail cars, it took the train about a half-mile to come to a stop. The passenger side door to the van was attached to the front of the lead locomotive.
Parts of the van, which ended up facing the tracks on the west side of the railroad, were strewn along CSX right of way and the private drive.
Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Matthew Simmons said the crash happened about 4 p.m. He said Beckles was taken to UF Health Shands Hospital with critical injuries. Neither Simmons nor CSX officials at the scene knew the speed of the train when the collision occurred.
An area resident said he heard the train braking before the train came to a stop near his home.
"We were on the porch, and we looked up and he had a door on the front of his train," Walt Schneider said.
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.


text:
Driskel assures fans he will remain at UF
Published: Thursday, July 4, 2013 at 5:19 p.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, July 4, 2013 at 5:19 p.m.
Junior quarterback Jeff Driskel wants to assure Florida fans his focus will be on leading the Gators on the football field. He just wants to keep his options open once it's time to leave Gainesville.
Driskel announced Thursday he has in fact signed with the Boston Red Sox, who selected him in the 29th round of the Major League Baseball draft last month. The signing occurred late Wednesday, and the club now has his MLB rights secured for six years.
''After my college football career is over I want to pursue a professional career in the NFL," Driskel said in a statement. "If I ever decide I want to play baseball, I want to play with the Boston Red Sox who drafted me in the recent draft.''
It was first reported Wednesday night that Driskel, a two-sport athlete in high school at Oviedo Hagerty, had signed with the Red Sox.
"Yes I signed with the Red Sox," Driskel wrote on his Twitter account Thursday morning. "Nothing changes. I am still a full time student athlete at UF, fully committed to playing football."
Driskel has thrown for 1,794 yards and 12 touchdowns in two seasons, one as a full-time starter, when he set a single-game school record for rushing yards by a quarterback (177).
"I plan on focusing on football and finishing my college career with the Gators," Driskel said.
Driskel is not the first Florida football player to sign with an MLB team while still in school.
Former receiver Riley Cooper (2006-2009) signed with the Texas Rangers during the summer of 2009 but returned for his senior season that fall, while former quarterback Doug Johnson (1996-1999) was drafted by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays as a freshman and played two summers of minor league baseball for the organization before completing his college football career.
Driskel can remain NCAA eligible and on scholarship at UF as long as the money and/or benefits he receives from the Red Sox are baseball-specific and he doesn't sign any commercial endorsement deals.
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.


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Plextor Updates The Firmware on M5 Pro: Promises Increased Performance, We Test Itby Kristian Vättö on 12/10/2012 2:30 PM EST
46 Comments
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JonnyDough - Monday, December 10, 2012 - linkI'm a bit sad the Intel 520 isn't represented here. Reply
Kristian Vättö - Monday, December 10, 2012 - linkI only included Intel SSD 335 240GB because it's newer and actually a bit faster. You can always use our Bench tool to compare any SSD, here's M5 Pro versus 520:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/731?vs=529 Reply
JonnyDough - Monday, December 10, 2012 - linkI got a 240GB drive from a forum guy for $160 shipped. Seemed like a great deal on a solid drive. Besides, I thought that a lot of people have the 520. Reply
mckirkus - Monday, December 10, 2012 - linkThis drive scores well in the Anandtech Storage Benchmarks. So my question is whether it means your test doesn't measure impact of IO consistency or if it simply doesn't matter in the real world? Reply
Kristian Vättö - Monday, December 10, 2012 - linkOur Storage Suites are run on an empty drive, whereas in the IO consistency test the drive is first filled with sequential data before being hammered by 4KB random writes. The Storage Suites also consist of various IOs with different transfer sizes, queue depths and data patterns and as we have shown before, sequential writes recover performance with most SSDs. The SSD is also not being subjected to IO load all of the time, there are lots of idle periods where the SSD can do GC to recover performance.
So, our Storage Suites don't fully ignore IO consistency but it's hard to say how much of an impact the M5 Pro's IO consistency has on its scores. Reply
TemjinGold - Monday, December 10, 2012 - linkCurious as to why this metric HASN'T been reviewed yet? I'm sure a lot of us would be curious as to how all the major SSDs do in this. Reply
skytrench - Monday, December 10, 2012 - linkThe test is hitting the drive so hard, that cleanup operations don't have time to improve matters. More testing is needed. Few usage patterns would resemble indefinite 4KB random writes. Reply
jwilliams4200 - Monday, December 10, 2012 - linkYou need to examine the latency for this SSD to see what it is doing. Like you, I was surprised when I first saw the M5P dropping down to such low IOPS under sustained heavy load. Basically, the M5P is rapidly switching between two modes -- a slow throughput mode (presumably doing GC) and a high throughput mode. It certainly does not look pretty when you plot it out.
But there are two (possibly) mitigating factors:
1) The average throughput isn't terrible, especially with at least 20% OP. The more OP, the greater percentage of time the SSD spends in the high throughput mode, thus raising the average throughput. The average throughput still is not as good as the Vector, Neutron, or 840 Pro, but it is not as bad as it looks on the graph.
M5P with 0% OP (avg 7MB/s):
M5P with 20% OP (avg 75MB/s):
2) Importantly, Plextor appears to put an ABSOLUTE cap on worst-case latency. I have never seen the latency go over 500ms, no matter what you throw at it. For comparison, with the Samsung 840 Pro, with no OP and a very heavy load, the latency will, very occasionally, go over even 1000ms. You can easily see the bimodal distribution of latencies for the Plextor if you look at the normal probability scale CDF plot. It seems that Plextor has tuned the firmware so that whenever it is in the slow mode doing GC, it has an absolute limit of 500ms before any IO returns. I guess the price to be paid for that absolute latency cap is that the average and worst-case throughput is lower than the competition -- but not so much lower that nobody could consider it an acceptable trade-off in order to gain the absolute cap on worst-case latency.
M5P with 0% OP, worst-case latency 500ms:
Samsung 840 Pro with 0% OP, worst-case latency >1000ms:
Personally, I would still choose the 840 Pro over the Plextor for sustained heavy workloads (I would overprovision either SSD by at least 20%) because the 840 Pro has much better average latency. But I can imagine that some applications might benefit from the absolute 500ms cap on worst-case latency that the Plextor provides.
Note that none of this really matters for the consumer workloads most people would put an SSD under. Under most consumer workloads, neither the Plextor nor any of the others would have performance drops anywhere near as bad as shown in these sustained heavy workload conditions. Reply
Kevin G - Monday, December 10, 2012 - linkThis makes me wonder Plextor has optimized their firmware for more consumer oriented loads. They typically have a lower queue depth Reply
ckevin1 - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - linkGreat analysis, thank you!
The max latency constraint is very clear from the graphs you generated. It's not that the firmware is "bad" necessarily, it is just optimizing for a different performance measurement, one that Anandtech doesn't cover.
I think an analysis of whether max latency is ever important than max throughput would be interesting, along with some data on how the Plextor compares to other drives in this alternate metric. Reply
Beenthere - Monday, December 10, 2012 - linkUnless the 1.02 firmware corrects some Bug or other issue, it's hardly worth the effort to update. As far as the listed SSDs, few if anyone would actually be able to tell the difference in performance between the various drives in actual use. The synthetic benches produce theoretical differences which can't be seen by typical desktop or lapto users. Reply
Jocelyn - Monday, December 10, 2012 - linkAny chance we'll see Steady State testing with the M5 Pro for comparison? Reply
Jocelyn - Monday, December 10, 2012 - linkHad no idea this was a multi part review, sorry and Thank You :) Reply
jwilliams4200 - Monday, December 10, 2012 - link"The peaks are actually high compared to other SSDs but having one IO transfer at 3-5x the speed every now and then won't help if over 90% of the transfers are significantly slower."
Just a note that the statement quoted above is misleading. From your graphs, you can see that the Plextor is cycling between 100 IOPS and 32,000+ IOPS (there are a scattering of points in between, but the distribution is predominantly bimodal). So it is hardly "3-5x the speed". The peaks are actually more than 300x the low speed. So the average throughput depends almost entirely on what percentage of the time the SSD spends at the 32,000+ IOPS speed. It is easy to see that adding 20% or 25% OP allows the Plextor to spend a larger percentage of its time at the high speed.
In my testing, the throughput peaks always last about 0.4sec, but at 0% OP they only occur with a period of about 7 seconds, while at 20% OP the peaks occur with a period of about 1.4 seconds, so the average throughput increases by about a factor of 5 (= 7 / 1.4) when comparing 20% OP to 0% OP. Incidentally, the SSD is spending about 30% of its time in the high-speed mode with 20% OP, but only about 6% of its time in the high-speed mode with 0% OP. Reply
chrnochime - Monday, December 10, 2012 - linkjwilliams. Got a few models of SSD that you'd recommend for reliability? I have a plextor M3 pro 120 GB and I'm thinking of buying a second one, probably 128, maybe 256. Samsung 830 is hard to find cheap now, so I'm looking at the Samsung 840 pro/Plextor M5 pro/Corsair/Kingston new ones released in the past 3 months.
Thanks. Reply
jwilliams4200 - Monday, December 10, 2012 - linkAt the moment, I think the Plextor M5P is probably the highest quality consumer SSD that you can buy. It has been out for more than 4 months and I have not seen any real bugs or defects reported. I like that Plextor publicizes the details of the tests they do for qualification as well as their production tests, and they are tough tests, so you know that the shipping SSDs that have passed those tests are high quality.
Now, I am assuming that you are not going to be subjecting the SSD to sustained heavy workloads like an hour of 4KQD32 writes. The M5P can do that of course, but if that were your main type of workload, there are higher performance choices like the Samsung 840 Pro or the Corsair Neutron GTX. But the 840 Pro has not been out long enough for me to call it high quality, and the Neutron and Neutron GTX do have a few reports of failures that may (or may not) be indicative of lower quality than the Plextor. Reply
JellyRoll - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - linkIn steady state the 840 is ridiculously good compared to other SSDs. Reply
chrnochime - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - linkThank you for the detailed explanation! Much appreciated.
I guess I can go ahead and search for good deals on M5P. I put reliability and durability(as in how long the drive can last) above all else. A slower speed that makes the drive that much longer is much more preferable to me. Reply
Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - linkOh, what I meant was that Plextor's peak throughput is around 3-5x the peak throughput of other SSDs. Reply
JellyRoll - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - linkThe consistency testing is totally irrelevant for consumer workloads. Testing 4k full span random writes is ridiculous on an consumer SSD. This will NEVER be seen by any user outside of an enterprise scenario. This type of testing has been done for ages with enterprise SSDs by several sites. Never for consumer SSDs as its irrelevance is obvious.
Then mix in the fact that this is done without a filesystem (which no user could ever do because they need this little thing called an 'operating system) and to top it off with absolutely no TRIM in play. without a filesystem there is no TRIM. What exactly are you recreating here that is of relevance? Reply
jwilliams4200 - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - linkI think it is a worthwhile test. At the very least, it is always interesting to see how products react when you hit them very hard. Sometimes you can expose hidden defects that way. Sometimes you can get a better idea of how the product operates under stress (which may sometimes be extrapolated to understand how it operates under lighter workloads). Since SSD reviewers generally only have the product for a few days before publishing a review, putting the equivalent of weeks (or months) of wear on the SSDs in a few days requires hitting them as hard as possible. And there will always be a few users who will subject their SSDs to extremely heavy workloads, so it will be relevant to a few users.
As long as the review mentions that the specific extreme workload being tested is unlikely to match that of the majority of consumers, I think the sustained heavy workload is a valuable component of all SSD reviews. Reply
JellyRoll - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - linkWithout a filesystem or TRIM that the testing is merely pointing out anomalies in SSD performance. Full span writes in particular reduce the performance in many aspects such as GC.
These SSDs are tailored to be used in consumer environments with consumer workloads. This is the farthest thing from a consumer workload that you can possibly get.
The firmware is designed to operate in a certain manner, with filesystems and TRIM functions. They are also optimized for low QD usage and scheduled GC/maintenance that typically occurs during idle/semi-idle times.
Pounding this with sustained and unreal workloads is like saying "Hey, if we test it for something it wasn't designed for it doesn't work well !!!!.
Surprise. Of course it doesn't.
Testing against the grain merely shows odd results that will never be observed in real life usage.
This is a consumer product. This SSD is among the best in testing that is actually semi-relevant (though the trace testing isnt conducted with TRIM or a filesystem either, as disclosed by the staff) but the 'consistency testing' places it among the worst.
They aren't allowing the SSD to function as it was designed to, then complain that it has bad performance.
Kristan even specifically states that users will notice hiccups in performance. unreal. Reply
jwilliams4200 - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - linkWrong again.
There is no one way that an SSD should work, unless you want to say that it is to store and retrieve data written to LBAs. Since there are many ways SSDs can be used, and many different types of filesystems, it is absurd to say that doing a general test to the raw device is irrelevant.
On the contrary, it is clearly relevant and often useful, for the reasons I already explained. In many cases, it is even more relevant than picking one specific filesystem and testing with that, since any quirks of that filesystem could be irrelevant to usage with other filesystems. Besides, anandtech already does tests with a common filesystem (NTFS), so the tests you are so upset about are merely additional information that can be used or ignored. Reply
JellyRoll - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - linkAnand does not do testing with a filesystem . The trace program operates without a filesystem or the benefit of TRIM. It also substitutes its own data in place of the actual data used by the programs during recording. This leads to incorrect portrayals of system performance when dealing with SSDs that rely upon compression, and also any type of SSD in general since it isn't utilizing a filesystem or TRIM. Utilizing raw I/O to attempt to emulate recordings of user activity on an actual filesystem is an apples to oranges comparison.
There is no 'wrong again' to it. SSDs do store and retrieve data from LBAs, but they are reliant upon the filesystem to issue the TRIM command. Without a filesystem there is no TRIM command. Therefore it is unrealistic testing not relevant to the device tested. The SSDs are tuned for consumer/light workloads, and their internal housekeeping and management routines are adjusted accordingly. Reply
jwilliams4200 - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - linkWrong that it is totally irrelevant. Wrong again that the SSDs are only designed for certain workloads. Wrong that there is no TRIM without a filesystem.
Also wrong that anandtech does not do (any) testing with a filesystem. Some of the tests they do can only be run with a filesystem. Reply
JellyRoll - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - linkYou are right that they do some very limited testing with filesystems, such as the ATTO testing. They do use Iometer, though it is possible to test without a filesystem in Iometer, so we aren't sure if they are or not.
Their trace testing does not use a filesystem, and this has been publicly acknowledged. Recording filesystem usage and replaying it without a filesystem, and with different data, does not make sense.
The firmware on SSDs can be tailored to handle tasks, such as GC, during certain times. This is determined upon the intended usage model for the SSD. The firmware is also tuned for certain types of access, which explains the huge differences in performance between some firmwares (reference M4 firmwares). This is SSD 101.
TRIM requires that the SSD be informed of which data is now deleted, which is a function of the filesystem.
Repeating the word 'wrong' isn't doing much to further your argument or actually prove anything. Reply
jwilliams4200 - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - linkI don't know what else to call it other than wrong. Would you prefer correctionally challenged? :-)
TRIM can be done without a filesystem. I'm not sure why you seem to think filesystems are magical. A filesystem is just a set of routines that handle the interface between the programs using filesystem calls and the raw block device. But there is nothing stopping a program from sending TRIM commands directly to the device. I use TRIM in my tests without a filesystem (hdparm is useful for that).
By the way, it seems to me that we have lost track of the important point here, which is that tests like we are discussing, without a filesystem and with sustained heavy write loads, are NOT meant to be given much weight by people with typical consumer workloads who are comparing SSDs. However, that does not mean that the test is irrelevant or a waste of time. When the test results are used correctly (as I explained earlier), in combination with results from other real-world tests, they provide a useful addition to our knowledge about each SSD.
Please don't assume that I am arguing that these tests are the only tests that should be done, or even that these are the most important tests. They are not. But they are also NOT irrelevant. Reply
JellyRoll - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkYes, you can manually send a TRIM command via a number of techniques. However, this is no substitute for real time TRIM.
For instance, when replaying a trace (such as those used in the bench here) the filesystem will be tagging data as deleted, and issuing TRIM commands in real time. Then it is up to the SSD to process these commands.
This makes a tremendous impact upon the performance of the SSD, as it is intended to. Replaying traces without this crucial element leads to disastrously wrong results. Different SSDs handle TRIM commands better, or worse, than others. As a matter of fact some SSDs have had to get 'exceptions' from Windows because they do not handle the TRIM commands within a specified time range as dictated by spec (SandForce). So there is much more to TRIM than meets the eye, and it has a tremendous impact upon performance. Otherwise it simply would not exist.
Running traces that are recorded with the benefit of TRIM without the benefit of TRIM is what you end up with.
It has already been publicly acknowledged that anands trace testing does not have the benfit of TRIM, of course it doesnt, the SSDs do not have a filesystem for deletion issuance and command.
SO yes, irrelevant incorrect trace testing.
Yes, irrelevant and incorrect 'consistency testing' of consumer SSDs which are designed to operate with TRIM, and state such in their specifications. Pointing out errata on consumer SSDs revealed outside of intended usage is irresponsible. Reply
jwilliams4200 - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkIn its default configuration, Windows does not issue TRIM commands for deleted files until you empty the trash (or the size of the trash exceeds some amount). So any trace that is "issuing TRIM commands in realtime" is not especially realistic. Besides, some write-intensive workloads do not delete files at all, so there would not be any TRIM commands to be issued (eg., some types of database files, some types of VM files)
Your problem is that you are making assumptions about how SSDs will used, and then saying any usage that does not follow your assumptions is irrelevant. As long as you continue to do that, you will continue to be wrong. Reply
JellyRoll - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkThese are not assumptions: it is the intended market. These SSDs are designed and sold in the consumer market. period.
There is a separate class of SSDs designed for these workloads, and they are designed and sold in the enterprise market. Thus the distinction, and name : "Enterprise SSDs".
That is not hard to figure out. There are two classes simply due to the fact that the devices are tailored for their intended market, and usage model. I do not know how to explain this in more simple terms so that you may 'get it'.
Once you begin speaking of the lack of TRIM commands in VM and database files surely something 'clicks' that you are beginning to speak of enterprise workloads.
Consumer SSDs=designed to work in consumer environment (thus the name) with TRIM and other functionality. Reply
jwilliams4200 - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - linkIf SSDs were not to be used for heavy workloads, then the warranty would state the prohibited workloads. But they do not, other than (most of them) giving a maximum total amount TB written.
The fact is that SSDs are used for many different applications and many different workloads.
Just because you favor certain workloads does not mean that everyone does.
Fortunately, not everyone thinks like you do on this subject. Reply
JellyRoll - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - linkI would ask you to explain why there is a difference between Enterprise class SSDs and consumer SSDs.
If there is no difference in the design, firmware and expectations between these two devices then I am sure that the multi-billion dollar companies such as Google are awaiting your final word on this with baited breath. Why, they have been paying much more for these SSDs that are designed for enterprise workloads for no reason!
You would think that these massive companies, such as Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo, and Google with all of their PHDs and humongous datacenters would have figured out that there is NO difference between these SSDs!
Why for their datacenters (which average 12 football fields in size) they can just deploy Plextor M5s! By the tens of thousands!
*hehe* Reply
JellyRoll - Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - linkAlso, operating systems and applications that delete data, such as temp and swap files, that do not end up in the recycle bin are subject to immediate TRIM command issuance. These files, thousands of them, are deleted every user session and are never seen in the recycle bin. Care to guess how many temp and cache files Firefox deletes in an hour? Reply
jwilliams4200 - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - linkSo now every SSD user must run a web browser and keep the temporary files on the SSD?
Who named you SSD overlord? Reply
skytrench - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - linkThough I side with JR, in that the published IO consistency check doesn't show anything useful, modified it might have been an interesting test...(different blocksizes, taking breaks from only writing, maybe a reduction of load to see at which level the drives still perform well etc.etc).
I find the test disrespectful to Plextor, who after all have delivered an improved firmware, and Anand to come out of this one lacking in credibility. Reply
JellyRoll - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - linkThe point is that since the files are subject to immediate issuance of a TRIM command and this cannot be done when testing without a filesystem, is that you cannot attempt to emulate application performance with trace-based testing and the utility they are using. This doesn't just apply to browsers either, this applies to ALL applications. From games, to office docs, to Win7 (or 8), or a simple media player.
All applications, and operating systems, have these types of files that are subject to immediate TRIM commands. Reply
gostan - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - linkHi Vatto,
possible to get the samsung 830 through the performance consistency test? I know it's been discontinued but it's still available for sale in many places.
Cheers! Reply
Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - linkI don't have any Samsung 830s at my place but I'll ask Anand to run it on the 830. He's currently travelling so it will probably take a while but I'll try to include it in an upcoming SSD review. Reply
lunadesign - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - linkWOW! My jaw hit the floor when I first saw the 1st graph.
I totally understand that the consistency test isn't realistic for consumer usage. But what about people using the M5 Pro in low-to-moderate use servers? For example, I'm about to set up a new VMware dev server with four 256GB M5 Pros in RAID 10 (using LSI 9260-8i) supporting 8-10 VMs. In this config, I won't have TRIM support at all.
If I understand this consistency test, the drive is being filled and then its being sent non-stop requests for 30 mins that overwrite data in 4KB chunks. This *seems* to be an ultra-extreme case. In reality, most server drives are getting a choppy, fluctuating mixture of read and write operations with random pauses so the GC has much more time to do it work than the consistency test allowed, right?
Should I be concerned about using the M5 Pro is low-to-moderate use server situations? Should I over-provision the drives by 25% to ameliorate this? Or, worse yet, are these drives so bad that I should return them while I can? Or is this test case so far away from what I'll likely be seeing that I should use the drives normally with no extra over-provisioning? Reply
JellyRoll - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - linkFor a non-TRIM environment this would be especially bad. You are constrained to the lowest speed of each SSD. In practical use in a scenario such as yours you will be receiving the bottom line of performance constantly. The RAID is only as fast as the slowest member, and with each drive dropping into the lower state frequently, one SSD will surely be in this low range constantly. Therefore your RAID will suffer.
These SSDs are simply not designed for this usage. They are tailored for low QD, and the test results show that clearly. Reply
lunadesign - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - linkUnderstood, if my server's workload were to be relatively heavy. But do you really think that my server's workload (based on an admittedly rough description above) is going to get into these sorts of problematic situations? Reply
'nar - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - linkI disagree. RAID 5 stripes, as does RAID 0, so they need to be synchronized(hard drives had to spin in-sync.) But RAID 1 uses the drive that answers first, as they have the same data. RAID 10 is a bit of both I suppose, but I also don't agree that you think that the lack of TRIM forces the drive into a low speed state in the first place.
Doesn't TRIM just tell the drive what is safe to delete? Unless the drive is near full, why would that affect its' speed? TRIM was essential 2-3 years ago, but after SF drives GC got much better. I don't even think TRIM matters on consumer drives now.
For the most part I don't think these "steady state" tests even matter on consumer drives(or servers as lunadesign has). Sure, they are nice tests and have useful data, but it lacks real world data. The name "steady state" is misleading, to me anyway. It will not be a steady state in my computer as that is not my usage pattern. Why not test the IOPS during standard benchmark runs? Even with 8-10 VM's his server will be idle most of the time. Of course, if all of those VM's are compiling software all day, then that is different, but that's not what VM's are setup for anyway. Reply
JellyRoll - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - linkGC still does not handle deleted data as efficiently as TRIM. There is still a huge need for TRIM.
We can see the affects of using this SSD for something other than its intended purpose outside of a TRIM environment. There is a large distribution of writes that are returning sub-par performance in this environment. The array (striped across RAID 1) will suffer low performance, constrained to the speed of the lowest I/O.
There are SSDs designed for this type of use specifically, hence why they have the distinction between enterprise and consumer storage. Reply
cdillon - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - linkRe: 'nar "RAID 5 stripes, as does RAID 0, so they need to be synchronized(hard drives had to spin in-sync.)"
Only RAID 3 required spindle-synced drives for performance reasons. No other RAID level requires that. Not only is spindle-sync completely irrelevant for SSDs, hard drives haven't been made with spindle-sync support for a very long time. Any "synchronization" in a modern RAID array has to do with the data being committed to stable storage. A full RAID 4/5/6 stripe should be written and acknowledged by the drives before the next stripe is written to prevent the data and parity blocks from getting out of sync. This is NOT a consideration for RAID 0 because there is no "stripe consistency" to be had due to the lack of a parity block.
Re: JellyRoll "The RAID is only as fast as the slowest member"
It is not quite so simple in most cases. It is only that simple for a single mirror set (RAID 1) performing writes. When you start talking about other RAID types, the effect of a single slow drive depends greatly on both the RAID setup and the workload. For example, high-QD small-block random read workloads would be the least affected by a slow drive in an array, regardless of the RAID type. In that case you should achieve random I/O performance that approaches the sum of all non-dedicated-parity drives in the array. Reply
JellyRoll - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - linki agree, but i was speaking specifically to writes. Reply
bogdan_kr - Monday, March 04, 2013 - link1.03 firmware has been released for Plextor M5 Pro series. Is there a chance for performance consistency check for this new firmware? Reply