text:
Online tool that helps how the insurance rules and limits apply to a depositor's specific group of deposit accounts—what's insured and what portion (if any) exceeds coverage limits at that bank.
Learn if your bank is insured, view locations, track history, and more.
The secure Internet channel for FDIC-insured institutions to conduct business and exchange information with the FDIC.
The inventory of other assets for sale -- including office furniture, fixtures, and equipment.
The Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments of
1996 (E-FOIA) require agencies to make available by
electronic means records released in response to popular FOIA
requests. Many former popular FOIA requests are now permanent
features of the FDIC web site (see below), and the FDIC will
continue to post popular FOIA requests from time to time.
Washington Mutual Bank Purchase and Assumption Agreement - PDF 2,507k (PDF Help)
- ATTENTION: The reference to Schedule 3.1a in Article III, Paragraph
3.1, (page 9) of the WAMU P&A Agreement is a scriveners errorthere is
no Schedule 3.1a.
Washington Mutual Bank Purchase and Assumption Agreement - PDF 2,507k (PDF Help)
- ATTENTION: The reference to Schedule 3.1a in Article III, Paragraph
3.1, (page 9) of the WAMU P&A Agreement is a scriveners errorthere is
no Schedule 3.1a.
Information for FDIC Receivership Contractors
Regulations and Publications for Financial Institutions
The FDIC and other federal banking agencies frequently issue policy
guidance, regulations, and similar publications involving the use and
application of technology and matters of related concern to banks and their
customers. This page contains technology-related information pertaining to
Anti-Terrorism, Customer Information Safeguards, Electronic Banking, Equal
Credit Opportunity, Fair Credit Reporting, Bank Secrecy Act, Identity Theft,
Privacy, Truth in Lending, and other useful technology resources of interest
to the public.
Failed Bank
The FDIC is often appointed as receiver for failed financial
institutions. This page contains useful information for the
customers and vendors of these institutions. This includes
information on the acquiring institution (if applicable), how
your accounts and loans are affected, and how vendors can
file claims against the receivership.
This list includes institutions which have failed since
October 1, 2000.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) provides
deposit insurance to financial institutions and depositors of
these institutions. If a financial institution is closed, by
a regulatory agency, the FDIC is appointed as Receiver and is
responsible for the payment of insured deposits and the
liquidation of the remaining assets.
In some instances funds remain unclaimed, often
The FDIC Institution Directory (ID) provides the latest
comprehensive financial and demographic data for every
FDIC-insured institution, including the most recent quarterly
financial statements, with performance and condition
ratios. This is one of the FDIC's most visited Web pages, and it
contains a wealth of information on every financial institution insured by
the FDIC.
Decisions and Orders
The FDIC Enforcement Decisions and Orders (ED&O)
contains the full text of the formal enforcement actions
against financial institutions that are regulated by the FDIC
or against their affiliated parties.
Very recent Decisions and Orders, which have not yet been
incorporated into the searchable database, may be viewed at Recent
Orders and Decisions
Report and TFR Data
This site provides a searchable database of all publicly
available financial information from regulatory reports for
all FDIC-insured institutions. Users can retrieve facsimiles
of the quarterly financial reports filed by financial
institutions for each quarter beginning with the March, 1998
report. The site is updated quarterly. An option to download
the data is also available from the Report Options page
within the site.
FDIC Research
Quick Links for Analysts provides links to many FDIC
databases, research and analysis.
Community Reinvestment
Act (CRA) Performance Ratings
These pages enable you to find current and past CRA ratings
and Performance Evaluations (PEs) for specific institutions that have been examined by
the FDIC since July 1, 1990. The site offers users the
opportunity to search for the ratings and PEs of one or more
institutions through the use of drop down search options for
criteria such as "Asset Size", "Exam
Period", "CRA Rating", "City",


text:
The 19-year-old joins the Scottish Premier League club on loan until 31 May next season - but the Blades could recall him in January.
Robertson, who has not appeared for the Blades' first team, had loan spells at Northampton and Torquay last season.
United manager Craig Levein said: "Jordan is the type of direct young striker I've had in mind."
Levein said the striker would be a good addition to the squad and would bolster his attacking options.
"Although only 19, Jordon has already gained first-team experience on loan and proved that he can play at that level," Levein told the club website.
"I'm delighted that Sheffield United have given us permission to make use of this player and the fact that they want an option to take him back early shows you how highly they rate him."
Meanwhile, the SPL club have farmed out 19-year-old Marco Andreoni and 21-year-old William Easton on loan.
Wing back Easton has joined First Division outfit Stirling Albion, while midfielder Andreoni has moved to Third Division side Montrose.
Both will stay out on loan until January.
What are these?

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Kingston SSDNow V+100 Reviewby Anand Lal Shimpi on 11/11/2010 3:05 AM EST
- Posted in
- Storage
- SSDs
- Kingston
- SSDNow V+100
96 Comments
Back to Article
Dorin Nicolaescu-Musteață - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkAnand, what about the Samsung 470 Series?
It's been out since August and looks like a very nice drive. Why in the world the reviews have only started to appear this week on-line. Reply
Nickel020 - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkThanks for the review! I've got a few suggestionss/questions though.
I've been out of the loop for a while and looking at Sandforce and other newer drives. So some Sandforce drives have the I/O limitations that were intended for the SF-1200 and some have SF-1500 like performance?
I'm surprised the Corsair F40 does so well. I thought the lower capacity drives performed worse than the 120GB versions, but it holds up really well. Or is this just a special case with the 40GB one and the 60GB is worse than the 40GB one? The 60GB Sandforce are also much better value than the 40GB ones, 50% more capacity at >20% more price. I find it strange you didn't include them and mentioned the 64GB C300 to be the value drive at their price point.
I'm pretty sure the Indilinx 60GB, the unlocked SF-1200 60GB and the X25-M 80GB are the most popular drives out there, which makes them great reference points, but they're not in the review. The former two are not on Bench either unfortunately. Do you have some around and could test them?
You tested the Crucial drives on the ICH10R, right?
Also, I would appreciate some blog posts or small articles about developments with newer FWs. I remember the FW development improving the Indilinx drives significantly, and am always wondering how accurate your older reviews still are given there are newer FWs out now. It would also be nice if you could list the tested FW version in Bench.
It would also be great if you could look at SSD performance in Macbooks. I want to put one in my Macbook Pro (Late 2008), but all the talk of freezing has me hesitating, and I haven't seen an in-depth look at this issue. Is it related to what kind of SSD you use, and does it make a difference wheter you have a late 2008 or mid 2009? It would also be interesting to see how tha lack of TRIM actually affects different drives under OSX.
That's all for now, thanks again! Reply
retnuh - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkI've had a OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 240GB in my late 2008 MBP since may, not one issue or freezing. Best upgrade you can do.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/internal_storage/Me... Reply
iwod - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkI posted and asked on many forums and did not found an answer to my MBA ( Macbook Air ) question.
Why did the MBA do so well in its test, while its performance data were below the King of SSD controller, Sandforce?
No one could answer. There were number of review pointing out that their MBA actually feels snappier then their Macbook with Sandforce or Intel SSD. Although this is impossible when first heard, numerous other review site seems to confirm similar findings. Of cause there is no way to test it out since the MBA does not have an regular SATA slot.
Now this article actually print out the truth. The same Toshiba SSD controller used in MBA's SSD, is top of the chart in BOTH Synthetic Benchmarks and Real World usage ( Anand Bench ) Benchmarks. What we have been talking as the Holy Grail of SSD Performance Delta, the 4K Random Read / Write, didn't matter when Toshiba was literally the bottom of the chart in those test.
There is a reason why Apple choose a Inferior part ( To us at the time ) instead of Sandforce. The argument for choosing it because of always On GC doesn't make sense, since Sandforce has the same capabilities within the Firmware itself.
One reason would be Toshiba is a NAND manufacture itself, and buying NAND and Controller directly from Toshiba would be cheaper. The other reason being Toshiba ( properly involve Sandisk as well since their JV ) had a controller chip which is very fast.
There has to be an missing pieces in our performance test, something that these companies knows and we dont. Reply
Chloiber - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkI'd like to see more real world tests - and I don't consider the AnandTech Storage Bench to be "real world" - it's still a bench, like PCMark.
But yes, you are right: synthetic tests tell us little about the performance you actually get from an SSD. There are more unknown variables than we think.
You may see big differences in benches like SysMark or PCMark - and even bigger differences in synthetic tests like AS SSD or even IOMeter. But these scores tell us little about REAL world performance - and with REAL I mean things like:
- "How long does it take to start Photoshop while running Virus Scan?"
- "How long does it take to start iTunes while unzipping a not-so-much-compressed zip-file?"
That's the things I care about. And interestingly, you often get COMPLETELY different results, than what you would think when looking at synthetic tests or "half-synthetic"-tests like PCMark or AnandTech Storage Bench. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkI used to run a lot of those types of tests, however I quickly found that if you choose your iometer and other benchmarks appropriately they don't any new data. And often times they are so limited in their scope (e.g. launch an application with virus scan in the background) that you don't see any appreciable differences between drives. Most high end SSDs are fast enough to do most of these types of tasks just as quickly as one another. It's when you string a bunch of operations together and look for cumulative differences in response time or performance that you can really begin to see which one is faster. These types of scenarios are virtually impossible to perform with consistency by hand, that's where our test suite comes in.
AnandTech Storage Bench, PCMark and even SYSMark do what is necessary - they measure performance of a more complex usage case. PCMark Vantage is a great showcase of truly light workload I/O performance, while SYSMark is more CPU bound and shows you how small the differences can be. Our own benchmark offers a more modern set of usage models (we actually do run photoshop while virus scan is active and actually edit images in photoshop, all while doing other things as well).
All of these tests are application based, they are simply scripted or isolate the I/O component specifically. They give us a look into bursts of activity that's, again, near impossible to reproduce by hand with a stopwatch.
Benchmarking a specific task usually just repeats some information we've already presented, fails to present the bigger picture or shows no repeatable difference between drives. I can absolutely add those types of benchmarks back in, however I originally pulled them out because I believed they didn't add anything appreciable to the reviews.
Of course this is your site, if you guys would like me to present some of that data I definitely can :)
Take care,
Anand Reply
Nickel020 - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkThe problem is that the synthetic tests you do are hard to interpret for just about anyone. "What drive is the best for this usage profile?" is still really hard to answer after reading your reviews (not that anyone else does a better job).
And even if there is little difference between todays drives in the level loading time tests you used to do, we don't know that even if you do. Right now the average AT reader reads this test and doesn't know that the more expensive drives won't load his games noticeably faster or perform better when doing video editing.
Maybe you should give recommendations for certain usage profiles, like video editing, photo editing, gaming etc. Even if you're just saying that there's not gonna be a noticeable difference. Reply
wumpus - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkIt might help if you included statements like "you don't see any appreciable differences between drives. Most high end SSDs are fast enough to do most of these types of tasks just as quickly as one another." a bit more often in the articles. While we might be interested in the technical data, it would usually be foolish to buy SSDs by things other than size, price, and reliability. Reply
Chloiber - Saturday, November 13, 2010 - linkBut that's the thing. You don't see any difference in an application a "normal" homeuser would use. We see huge differences in those synthetic tests, but in reality, you don't have any faster loading time.
Of course you can test it like this and say:
"You don't see much difference between these three SSDs in "real world" application tests. Get the cheapest SSD (or most robust, whatever)."
Or another position (I think the one you are currently in) is:
"You don't see much difference between these three SSDs in "real world" application tests so let's stress them some more and base our verdict on those stresstests."
The thing is:
a) You don't know how the SSDs would REALLY react if you stress them in reality like this. They are still synthetic tests and unless you can prove that there are scenarios where differences appear (without any influence of some kind of bench program) they don't tell us that much.
b) I think we have to begin to widen our horizon a little bit. Why exactly is it, that you don't see any beneftit using a, let's say, 50k IOPS drive and a 15k IOPS drive? Shouldn't you see some significant faster load times?
Im telling you this because of future SSDs. We get 30k IOPS, soon 60k IOPS, and in one year maybe over 100k IOPS. The score in your benches gets bigger and bigger...and bigger...
And what exactly is it the user gets? NOTHING because everything else in his computer is limiting his SSD (which is already happening right now!)!
I agree that you have to test hardware in scenarios, where nothing else is limiting your subject. That's why you use a 4GHz i7 when testing GPUs. That's why you test CPUs game performance using a very low resolution.
But I think it's really important that you also test scenarios a user experiences in reality. And that means in this case: "real world" benches. And yes, there will be nearly no difference there. But isn't this the thing I want to know? If I spend 600$ on a fking RevoDrive and nothing loads faster, I WANNA KNOW ABOUT IT!
I hope you see my point :) Reply
Out of Box Experience - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkReal World testing of SSD's should be done in a worst case scenaio on the lowest common denominator
They should be plug and play on XP machines without any tweaks on the slowest computer you use to amplify the differences between drives
I use a copy/paste test on ATOM CPU's to guage the Real World differences between Platter drives and SSD's
Using 200MB of data (900+ files in 80 or so folders), I simply time a copy/paste of that data on the ATOM computer
Using a faster computer WILL reduce the "Relative" speed gap between drives to the point where it becomes hard to tell which of two drives is actually the fastest
Using Windows 7 with its funky caching scheme will make ALL the drives appear to copy and paste at the same speed on the ATOM core and therefore cannot be used for this test
A 40GB Vertex 2 can copy and paste this data in 55 seconds (3.6MB/sec)
A 5400RPM Western Digital Laptop drive does it in 54 seconds
A 7200RPM Western Digital Desktop Drive takes 17 seconds
ALL testing was done under XP-SP2 without ANY tweaks!
All tests were repeated for accuracy
Sandforce SSD's are HORRIBLE at handling data that is NOT compressible or that is already on the drive in compressed form
Any drive that requires Windows 7 or multiple tweaks just to give you "Synthetic" numbers that have no bearing in the Real World are worthless
Show us how they compare in a worst case scenario on the least common denominator for results we can use please
I'm tired of hearing how great Sandforce drives are when they can't even beat a 5400RPM laptop drive in a Real World test such as the one I've just described
dagamer34 - Saturday, November 13, 2010 - linkIf you're buying an SSD, I see no reason why your OS should still be Windows XP. Reply
Oxford Guy - Sunday, November 14, 2010 - linkSome may not want to pay the Microsoft tax. Reply
Out of Box Experience - Monday, November 15, 2010 - linkWhat you see is irrelevant to what I use!
I see several good reasons to use XP and None to using Windows 7
The number 1 OS is still XP and has the highest user base so why does OCZ think the public will spend an extra $200 for Windows 7 just to use their overhyped SSD's?
Why doesn't OCZ just build SSD's for the majority of people on XP instead of making their customers jusmp though all these hoops just to get synthetic speeds from their drives that have little to do with real world results? Reply
sprockkets - Sunday, November 21, 2010 - linkOh, I don't know, TRIM support, built in alignment support, build in optimization after running WEI for SSDs?
But if you want to stick with a 9 year old OS which lacks basic security, poor desktop video rendering, etc, go right on ahead. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkRepresenting the true nature of "random" access on the desktop is very difficult to do. Most desktops don't exhibit truly random access, instead what you get is a small file write followed by a table update somewhere else in the LBA space (not sequential, but not random). String a lot of these operations together and you get small writes peppered all over specific areas of the drive. The way we simulate this is running a 100% random sweep of 4KB writes but constraining it to a space of about 8GB of LBAs. This is overkill as well for most users, however what the benchmark does do is give an indication of worst case small file, non-sequential write performance. I agree with you that we need more synthetic tests that are representative of exactly what desktop random write behavior happens to be, however I haven't been able to come across the right combination to deliver just that. Admittedly I've been off chasing phones and other SSD issues as of late (you'll read more about this in the coming weeks) so I haven't been actively looking for a better 4KB test.
Now OS X feeling snappier vs. SandForce I can completely agree with. I don't believe this is 100% attributable to the data you see here, Apple also has the ability to go in and tweak its firmwares specifically for its software. I believe the ultra quick response time you see from boot and resume comes from firmware optimizations specific to OS X. Although I am going to toss this Kingston drive in my MBP to see what things look like at that point.
Take care,
Anand Reply
iwodo - Friday, November 12, 2010 - linkARH, Thx,
"toss this Kingston drive in my MBP to see what things look like at that point."
I never thought of that. Keep thinking mSATA was blocking anyone from testing it.
I am looking forward to see your SSD issues and MBP testing.
Tech news has been dull for number of years, SSD finally make thing interesting again. Reply
sunjava04 - Friday, November 12, 2010 - linkhey anand,
would you provide a different SSD test result with macbook pro?
like me, many macbook unibody or new mac book pro users use mainly for browsers and office, iphoto, itunes. we like to have ssd to make our experience better and faster. i search many website and blogs, but there are no clear answer for this.
even, apple keeping quite about "TRIM" support!
after, reading your article, i am still not sure which ssd is good for my macbook unibody. i got the an idea of garbage collection which was very helpful. but didn't know, how long ssd last if we use for general purpose?
i really appreciate if you provide descriptive guideline of ssd for OS X.
please, also tell us, is it worth to waiting for intel 3rd gen.?
i desperately need ssd for mac book unibody!
i dont mind to pay premium as long as performance stay as it is! also, i can store movies and other data in external hard drive!
Rishi Reply
iwodo - Saturday, November 13, 2010 - linkAs of Today, i just read another review on SSD comparison. Namely Intel SSD and Sandforce,
While the Sandforce wins on all synthetic benchmarks like Seq Read Write and Random Read Write.
It was booting slower, starting up Apps slower, finish task slower then Intel SSD.
And by an noticeable amount of percentage. ( 10 - 30% )
I am beginning to think there are things Sandforce dont work well at all. But again, we have yet to find out what. Reply
Out of Box Experience - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkSandforce controllers give you the "illusion" of speed by writing less data to flash than contollers without hardware compression
If I wanted to test the speed of a copy and paste involving 200MB of data in the flash cells of a sandforce based controller, how can I tell exactly how much data is in the flash cells?
I mean, would Windows tell me how much compressed data is represented in the flash cells (200MB), or would Windows tell me how much compressed data is in the cells (maybe only 150MB) ?
The only way I can see fairly comparing an SSD with hardware compression and one without is to be sure you are actually writing the same amount of data to the flash cells (in this case - 200MB)
If sandforce based SSD's will only tell you how much data is represented and not what is actually on the drive, then I think the best way would be to use data that cannot be compressed
The tests I described in another post here involved copying and pasting 200MB of data which took 55 seconds on an ATOM computer with a Vertex 2
200MB / 55 sec = 3.6MB/sec
But if the 200MB was only a representation and the actual amount of data was for example 165MB in flash, then the actual throughput of my Vertex was even worse than I thought (In this case - 165MB / 55sec = 3.0MB/sec)
I need to know exactly how much data is indeed in flash or I need to start using non-compressible data for my tests
Make sense? Reply
Out of Box Experience - Monday, November 15, 2010 - linkThere has to be an missing pieces in our performance test, something that these companies knows and we dont.
Like smoke & Mirrors?
Sandforce Controllers Compress the data to give you the impression of speed
check the speed without compression and then compare drives Reply
pvdw - Monday, November 15, 2010 - link"check the speed without compression and then compare drives "
That makes no sense!
It's like saying disable branch predictions on one processor because another doesn't have it. Or disable the turbo on one car when comparing to a competing car that is naturally aspirated. Reply
Out of Box Experience - Monday, November 15, 2010 - linkIt makes all the sense because it would be a fair comparison of all the SSD's available
Not all drives have compression and not all data is compressible so why not test them all without compression?
Are you afraid that OCZ would be at the bottom of the list in a fair test like this?
Well, you may be right!
Lets test them to be sure Reply
.harm - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkI'm not an expert on SSDs and RAID. So excuse me if my question is a bit stupid.
I always understood that it´s impossible to use TRIM with a RAID configuration because the RAID controllers can't ´pass' the TRIM commands. So the SSD performance would drop overtime when using RAID. Now the SSD controller has "always-on garbage collection". Does this mean the performance in a RAID configuration doesn't drop? Reply
AnnihilatorX - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkI would think so, it would at least be better off than other drive with less aggressive garbage collection. Reply
sparky76 - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkWill controllers like this leave OS X with a performance advantage over Windows 7, precisely because OS X has no support for the TRIM command?
It seems that Win7 will have some system overhead in running TRIM while any OS without TRIM support will not suffer this, as garbage collection will be left to the firmware in the drive. Reply
DoktorSleepless - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkI would love to see loading and minimum frame rate tests from actual games like what was done here a while back.
It's just really hard to visualize real world performance even from Vantage.
I would bet a game like Fallout 3 would benefit a lot in the minimum frame rate department since it's always loading new data from the hard drive. Reply
Nickel020 - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkI second this. While the IOPS for Bench are a nice measure, I don't know how to actually translate that into real world performance differences. I.e. are the differences in IOPS between say the new Kingston drive and Sandforce drives actually noticeable, and if yes, how noticeable?
I would like to see a review that shows how much faster a Sandforce drive is than my old Vertex 1 and X25-M G2. Reply
Chloiber - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkI'd also like to see that, as I said before.
Just look at this test from (german) CB as an example:
Huge differences in synthetic tests, but a normal desktop system is just too slow to actually benefit from this!
I'm also missing these kinds of tests here. I think your earlier tests were better - now you just go through synthetic tests and show us the results, this isn't the thing I expected 1 or 2 years ago from an SSD test from anandtech.com. I'd like to see more tests which actually measure performance a user really gets when doing everyday tasks. Reply
pavlindrom - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkWouldn't it be better to have a drive-based sort function run to test how responsive the drive is? I would guess it would stress all of the corners of SSD performance. Write a bunch, shuffle in small portions when flipping values. Maybe it wouldn't test sequential erase. I still think it would show great info. Reply
Sufo - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkJust a quick recommendation. I have one of these, and i can confirm that with windows 7 (ie TRIM) and a 6gbps bridge the performance is pretty delicious. Grab one, if you meet these requirements. Reply
Taft12 - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkCan you comment on any penalty for 3Gbps SATA?
I'm not convinced any SSD can exhibit any performance impact of the older standard except in the most contrived of benchmarks. Reply
Sufo - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkWell, i've seen speeds spike above 375MB/s tho ofc this could well be erroneous reporting on windows' side. I haven't actually hooked the drive up to my 3gbps ports so in all honesty, i can't compare the two - perhaps i should run a couple of benches... Reply
Hacp - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkIt seems that you recommend drives despite the results of your own storage bench. It shows that the Kingston is the premier ssd to have if you want a drive that handles multi-tasking well.
Sandforce is nice if you do light tasks, but who the hell buys an ssd that only does well handling light tasks? No one! Reply
JNo - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - link"Sandforce is nice if you do light tasks, but who the hell buys an ssd that only does well handling light tasks? No one!"
Er... I do. Well obviously I would want a drive that does well handling heavy task loads as well but there are limits to how much I can pay and the cost per gig of some of the better performers is significantly higher. Maybe money is no object for you but if I'm *absolutely honest* with myself, I only *very rarely* perform the type of very heavy loads that Anand uses in his heavy load bench (it has almost ridiculously levels of multi-tasking). So the premium for something that benefits me only 2-3% of the time is unjustified. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkThat's why I renamed our light benchmark a "typical" benchmark, because it's not really a light usage case but rather more of what you'd commonly do on a system. The Kingston drive does very well there and in a few other tests, which is why I'd recommend it - however concerns about price and write amplification keep it from being a knock out of the park.
Take care,
Anand Reply
OneArmedScissorB - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - link"Sandforce is nice if you do light tasks, but who the hell buys an ssd that only does well handling light tasks? No one!"
Uh...pretty much every single person who buys one for a laptop? Reply
cjcoats - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkI have what may be an unusual access pattern -- seeks within a file -- that I haven't
seen any "standard" benchmarks for, and I'm curious how drives do under it, particularly
the Sandforce drives that depend upon (inherently sequential?) compression. Quite possibly, heavy database use has the same problem, but I haven't seen benchmarks on that, either.
I do meteorology and other environmental modeling, and frequently we want to "strip mine" the data in various selective ways. A typical data file might look like:
* Header stuff -- file description, etc.
* Sequence of time steps, each of which is an
> array of variables, each of which is a
+ 2-D or 3-D grid of values
For example, you might have a year's worth of hourly meteorology (about 9000 time steps),
for ten variables (of which temperature is the 2'nd), on a 250-row by 500-column grid.
So for this file, that's 0.5 MB per variable, 5 MB per time step, total size 45 GB, with
one file per year.
Now you might want to know, "What's the temperature for Christmas Eve?" The logical sequence of operations to be performed is:
1. Read the header
2. Compute timestep-record descriptions
3. Seek to { headersize + 8592*5MB + 500KB }
4. Read 0.5 MB
Now with a "conventional" disk, that's two seeks and two reads (assuming the header is not already cached by either the OS or the application), returning a result almost instantaneously.
But what does that mean for a Sandforce-style drive that relies on compression, and implicitly on reading the whole thing in sequence? Does it mean I need to issue the data request and then go take a coffee break? I remember too well when this sort of data was stored in sequential ASCII files, and such a request would mean "Go take a 3-martini lunch." ;-(
FunBunny2 - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkI've been asking for similar for a while. What I want to know from a test is how as SSD behaves as a data drive for a real database, DB2/Oracle/PostgreSQL with 10's of gig of data doing realistic random transactions. The compression used by SandForce becomes germane, in that engine writers are incorporating compression/security in storage. Whether one should use consumer/prosumer drives for real databases is not pertinent; people do. Reply
Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkYes I have been wondering about exactly this sort of thing too. I propose a seeking and logging benchmark. It should go something like this:
Create a set of 100 log files. Some only a few bytes. Some with a few MB of random data.
Create one very large file for seek testing. Just make an uncompressed zip file filled with 1/3 videos and 1/3 temporary internet files and 1/3 documents.
The actual test should be two steps:
1 - Open one log file and write a few bytes onto the end of it. Then close the file.
2 - Open the seek test file and seek to random location and read a few bytes. Close the file.
Then I guess you just count the number of loops this can run in a minute. Maybe run two threads, each working on 50 files. Reply
Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkIntel charging too much, surely you must be joking!
Do you know what the Dow Jones Industrial Average would be trading at if every DOW component (such as Intel) were to cut their margins down to the level of companies like Kingston? My guess would be about 3000. Something to keep in mind as we witness Bernanke's helicopter induced meltup... Reply
melgross - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkSo, with all of this info presented, which drives would be best as a Photoshop scratch drive? Reply
Out of Box Experience - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkAny modern platter based drive should be fine for a photoshop scratch drive Reply
Klober - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkThis is my perspective from what I see throughout the review:
The Corsair Force drives and the Crucial RealSSD drives are very close performance-wise in most of the comparisons; however, when price is included in the scenario the Corsair Force drives (60GB/120GB) win hands down.
The only true advantage the C300 has over the Force drives from what I can tell is in scenarios where the data is mostly uncompressible - I don't think this comes close to making up for the price disadvantage of the C300 drives since most likely users will have a large mechanical drive for their storage drive rather than opting to use their C300 for that purpose.
Taking into account the fact that you can get the Corsair Force 60GB SSD for $5 more than the 40GB at NewEgg, I would say that pretty much nullifies the cost/GB advantage of the C300 at the lower capacity - at that point you're looking at $2.109/GB for the C300 and $2.031/GB for the Force 60GB assuming it has 64GB NAND capacity (that's going by dividing the Force 120GB specs in half...if we instead use the specs from the Force 40GB that would put the Force 60GB at an amazing $1.805/GB for a low capacity SSD!).
If I were to buy an SSD tomorrow it would almost definitely be the Corsair Force 60GB for its fantastic (at least by SSD standards) cost/capacity at a low price point.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents! Reply
Aikouka - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkWhy are you assuming the Corsair drive magically has more space than it actually lists? If it's a 60GB drive, then you only get 60GB of usable space with some other amount set aside as a scratch area.
Personally, I base my purchases more on random read than anything. Based on the prices, I'd most likely pick up the Crucial C300 64GB if I was looking for a new boot drive. Reply
7Enigma - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkJust a simple request for a G2 80gig Intel drive for future reviews. I think many of us have one of these and know the 160gig drive is significantly faster in some tests (sequential write), but almost identical in others (random read I believe). Reply
DanNeely - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkAre there any tools available that will let you see how much of the write capacity of an SSD you've exhausted? Reply
Iketh - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linki own an intel 40gb and intel's trim software reports it... it's part of a drive's SMART data, so any SMART reading program should be able to tell you, but i could be mistaken Reply
MadMan007 - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - link"Note that not all SandForce drives are created equal here. If a manufacturer doesn't meet SandForce's sales requirements, their drives are capped at a maximum of 50MB/s here. This is the case with the Patriot Inferno, although OCZ's Agility 2 voluntarily enforces the limit."
I understand there is the 'higher performance' Sandforce firmware (Vertex 2 vs Agility 2 for example) and the Agility 2-type firmware is the one that gets 'capped,' but what exactly do you mean by 'meet Sandforce's sales requirements'? Is this to say that the firmware the retail companies are licensed to use and able to ship is restricted based upon sales figres/order quantity, so that if say OCZ buys 100k SF controllers while Patriot only buys 10k, Patriot is limited in which firmware they are allowed to offer? If it's not that, what exactly do you mean? And most importantly how can we as end-users making a purchase determine this difference, is looking at IOPS all that's needed? Reply
7Enigma - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkAnand,
I didn't like the wording of the power consumption in terms of not being better at load than a mechanical hard drive. Just like your praise of Intel's hurry up and get idle (with turbo), all of these SSD's have an advantage in bursting and then getting idle.
I had mentioned it in a previous SSD article but what we really need is a moderated workload suite. Something like virus scan and total power draw during that time. While load voltages might be the same or higher for the SSD's, the total power consumption during that time will (should) be less. I think a virus scan is perfect on a normal system as it should take 10-20min and give a measureable difference between drives. Grab a laptop from one of your recent reviews (not an Atom or other super-slow mobile to prevent the SSD from waiting around), and measure the total power drawn over the scan.
This is less important in a desktop obviously but for the mobile crowd (whom sees the biggest benefit over the traditional laptop drives anyway) might just be one more criteria to help make a decision (or just show that it's the type of drive (mech/SSD) and not really differences between the SSD's themselves).
Glad to have a new SSD review though. I love reading these and am trying to justify upgrading from my 80gig Intel G2 drive that has been fantastic for the last year. The great thing about the SSD tech is that you can hand-me-down smaller capacity, slower drives and completely revolutionize an older system.
Thanks again. Reply
JohnBooty - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - link"Kingston ships the V+100 with a 3-year warranty and to Kingston's credit I haven't had any other drives die as a result of wearing out the NAND. Even if the V+100 has higher effective write amplification than the competition, your usage model will determine whether or not you bump into it."
Firstly, thank you for being the industry standard when it comes to articles about SSD. It's a favorite topic of mine and your articles have steered a lot of purchases in my personal and professional circles (and you haven't steered us wrong!)
My request...
One of the lingering questions about SSDs is how long they'll actually last in the real-world before the NAND is fried. When I see you mentioning that you've never actually fried any NAND, that seems like an opportunity for you to give it a shot and give the public some answers.
I'd love to see a "torture test" article where you run simulated workloads against SSDs 24/7 until they can't take any more writes, and report on the results. Reply
Gonemad - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkYes, a longevity test. Put it on grind mode until it pops. P51 Mustangs benefited from engines tested that way.
Now, this one, should it be fully synthetic or more life like? Just place the drive in "write 0, write 1" until failure, record how many times it can be used, or create some random workload scripted in such a manner that it behaves pretty much like real usage, overusing the first few bytes of every 4k sector... if it affects any results. What am I asking is, will it wear only the used bytes, or the entire 4k rewritten sector will be worn evenly, if I am expressing myself correctly here.
On another comment, I always thought SSD drives were like overpriced undersized Raptors, since they came to be, but damn... I hope fierce competition drive the prices down. Way down. "Neck and neck to mag drives" down.
And what about defragmenting utilities? Don't they lose their sense of purpose on a SSD? Are they blocked from usage, since the best situation you have on a SSD is actually randomly sprayed data, because there is no "needle" running over it at 7200rpm in a forcibly better sequential read? Should they be renamed to "optimization tools" when concerning SSD's? Should anybody ever consider manually giving permission to a system to run garbage collection, TRIM, whatever, while blocking it until strictly necessary, in order to increase life span? Reply
Iketh - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkwin7 "automatically disables" their built-in defrag for SSDs, though if you go in and manually tell it to defrag an SSD, it will do it without question
prefetch and superfetch are supposedly also disabled automatically when the OS is installed on an SSD, though I don't feel comfortable until i change the values myself in the registry Reply
cwebersd - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkI have torture-tested a 50 GB Sandforce-based drive (OWC Mercury Extreme Pro RE) with the goal to destroy it. I stopped writing our semi-random data after 21 days because I grew tired.
16.5 TB/d, 360 disk fills/day, 21 days more or less 24/7 duty cycle (we stopped a few times for an hour or two to make adjustments)
~7500 disk fills total, 350 TB written
The drive still performs as good as new, and SMART parameters look reasonably good - to the extent that current tools can interpret them anyway.
If I normally write 20 GB/d this drive is going to outlast me. Actually, I expect it to die from "normal" (for electronics) age-related causes, not flash cells becoming unwritable. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkThis is something I've been working on for the past few months. Physically wearing down a drive as quickly as possible is one way to go about it (all of the manufacturers do this) but it's basically impossible to do for real world workloads (like the AT Storage Bench). It would take months on the worst drives, and years on the best ones.
There is another way however. Remember NAND should fail predictably, we just need to fill in some of the variables of the equation...
I'm still a month or two away from publishing but if you're buying for longevity, SandForce seems to last the longest, followed by Crucial and then Intel. There's a *sharp* fall off after Intel however. The Indilinx and JMicron stuff, depending on workload, could fail within 3 - 5 years. Again it's entirely dependent on workload, if all you're doing is browsing the web even a JMF618 drive can last a decade. If you're running a workload full of 4KB random writes across the entire drive constantly, the 618 will be dead in less than 2 years.
Take care,
Anand Reply
Greg512 - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkWow, I would have expected Intel to last the longest. I am going to purchase an ssd and longevity is one of my main concerns. In fact, longevity is the main reason I have not yet bought a Sandforce drive. Well, I guess that is what happens when you make assumptions. Looking forward to the article! Reply
JohnBooty - Saturday, November 13, 2010 - linkAwesome news. Looking forward to that article.
A torture test like that is going to sell a LOT of SSDs, Anand. Because right now that's the only thing keeping businesses and a lot of "power users" from adopting them - "but won't they wear out soon?"
That was the exact question I got when trying to get my boss to buy me one. Though I was eventually able to convince him. :) Reply
Out of Box Experience - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkHere's the problem
Synthetic Benchmarks won't show you how fast the various SSD controllers handle uncompressible data
Only a copy and paste of several hundred megabytes to and from the same drive under XP will show you what SSD's will do under actual load
First off, due to Windows 7's caching scheme, ALL drives (Slow or Fast) seem to finish a copy and paste in the same amount of time and cannot be used for this test
In a worst case scenario, using an ATOM computer with Windows XP and Zero SSD Tweaks, a OCZ VERTEX 2 will copy and paste data at only 3.6 Megabytes per second
A 5400RPM laptop drive was faster than the Vertex 2 in this test because OCZ drives require massive amounts of Tweaking and highly compressible data to get the numbers they are advertizing
A 7200RPM desktop drive was A LOT faster than the Vertex 2 in this type of test
Anyone working with uncompressible data "already on the drive" such as video editors should avoid Sandforce SSD's and stick with the much faster desktop platter drives
Using a slower ATOM computer for these tests will amplify the difference between slower and faster drives and give you a better idea of the "Relative" speed difference between drives
You should use this test for ALL SSD's and compare the results to common hard drives so that end users can get a feel for the "Actual" throughput of these drives on uncompressible data
Remember, Data on the Vertex drive's is already compressed and cannot be compressed again during a copy/paste to show you the actual throughput of the drive under XP
Worst case scenario testing under XP is the way to go with SSD's to see what they will really do under actual workloads without endless tweaking and without getting bogus results due to Windows 7's caching scheme Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, November 12, 2010 - linkThe issue with Windows XP vs. Windows 7 doesn't have anything to do with actual load, it has to do with alignment.
Controllers designed with modern OSes in mind (Windows 7, OS X 10.5/10.6) in mind (C300, SandForce) are optimized for 4K aligned transfers. By default, Windows XP isn't 4K aligned and thus performance suffers. See here:
If you want the best out of box XP performance for incompressible data, Intel's X25-M G2 is likely the best candidate. The G1/G2 controllers are alignment agnostic and will always deliver the same performance regardless of partition alignment. Intel's controller was designed to go after large corporate sales and, at the time it was designed, many of those companies were still on XP.
Take care,
Anand Reply
Out of Box Experience - Saturday, November 13, 2010 - linkThanks Anand
Thats good to know
With so many XP machines out there for the foreseeable future, I would think more SSD manufacturers would target the XP market with alignment agnostic controllers instead of making the consumers jump through all these hoops to get reasonable XP performance from their SSD's
Last question..
Would OS agnostic garbage collection like that on the new Kingston SSD work with Sandforce controllers if the manufacturers chose to include it in firmware or is it irrelevant with Duraclass ?
I still think SSD's should be plug and play on ALL operating Systems
Personally, I'd rather just use the drives instead of spending all this time tweaking them Reply
sheh - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkThis seems like a worrying trend, though time will tell how reliable SSDs are long-term. What's the situation with 2Xnm? And where does SLC fit into all that regarding reliability, performance, pricing, market usage trends? Reply
DanNeely - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkThe 2xnm lifetimes will be shorter. The flash lifetime is a function of feature size, so as processes shrink lifetime will as well. At the same time, it's only likely to be a concern if you're doing very IO intensive activities. My 128GB Indilinx drive is at 96% after a year in my main desktop. At this rate I'll be nowhere near the maximum write limit when the flash dies of old age in another 4-9 years even if I keep it as my main drive the whole time which is doubtful.
If scaling is linear with feature area, as the 50% drop in life-cycles from 50 to 34 nm implies, 22nm 2 level flash will last about 2500 write cycles. This still will probably be long enough not to matter. 14nm flash and beyond might not be unless they switch to SLC for consumer SSDs, and only use MLC for memory cards and thumb drives. With 10x the allowed number of write cycles SLC flash should remain good for several additional process shrinks.
OTOH that might be a moot point because the power levels needed to write flash doesn't drop with each process, and unless something changes flash is expected to hit a will in the teens because the wires on the chip won't be able to carry the load without melting. Reply
Iketh - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkAnand, couldn't you just continue running your random write test 24/7 until it falls dead, or is this not feasible?
Maybe it's not feasible with the Kingston drive because the random write performance is too slow? Which could bring up speculation that it's intentionally handicapped so this type of test is avoided? Reply
Skiprudder - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkHello Anand,
Really interesting article as usual. I had no idea that there was such a gulf between various Sandforce controllers. There was one line however that perplexed me, "The V+ 100's sequential read speed is excellent, just a hair above the top drives from Intel and Crucial. There's not much room for improvement here unless you go to a 6Gbps interface."
Why didn't you use a Sata 6 controller? I think that most of us buying boards today will be looking at Sata 6 since so many today's current SSDs clearly outstrip Sata 3, to say nothing of the upcoming 500MB/s and better drives coming down the pipeline. I'm sure you have a good reason, and I know there has been some weird controller issues with AMD I believe, but I'm very curious! Thank you. Reply
Casper42 - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkJust saw this on Gizmodo
Puts it at around $1.60/GB and if you skip past the synthetic benchmarks and look at AT Storage Bench, its a pretty formidable drive. Makes me a little sad I spent more than this on my 160 X25M G2 a while back. Reply
BoboGO - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkThe true cost vs. useability (usable nand) price breakdowns are as follows... I think... :)
SSD Price Comparison - November 11, 2010
SSD Useability % Price $/GB of USEABLE NAND
Western Digital SiliconEdge Blue 93.13% $214.99 $1.80
Corsair Nova V128 128GB 93.13% $219.99 $1.85
Kingston SSDNow V Series 128GB 93.13% $224.99 $1.89
Corsair Force F120 120GB 87.34% $229.99 $2.06
OCZ Agility 2 120GB 87.34% $229.99 $2.06
OCZ Vertex 2 120GB 87.34% $234.99 $2.10
Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB 93.13% $134.99 $2.26
Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB 93.13% $269.99 $2.27
Kingston SSDNow V+ Series 128GB 93.13% $277.00 $2.32
Kingston SSDNow V+ 100 128GB 93.13% $278.99 $2.34
Intel X25-V 40GB 93.25% $ 94.99 $2.55
Patriot Inferno 60GB 87.34% $149.00 $2.67
Intel X25-M G2 160GB 93.13% $409.00 $2.74
Kingston SSDNow V Series 30GB 93.00% $ 82.99 $2.97
Corsair Force F40 40GB 77.71% $124.99 $3.35 Reply
SeetheSeer - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkBrilliant...just needs controller info added. I think I'll do some searching later tonight if I have time.
Is total capacity listed in GB (10^9) or GiB(2^30)? What about usable capacity? I wish people paid more attention to this, especially in area such as this were flash storage (typically in GiB) is being used for a drive (typically in GB). Reply
SeetheSeer - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkAnand,
Do you think a short description of which controller each drive uses could be added to the table on page 2? It seems to me that it would be much more instructive to sort the drives based on this, rather than the often rebadged brand. Reply
Out of Box Experience - Sunday, November 14, 2010 - linkHow about this info when comparing SSD's? >
1. Is it truly Plug and Play on any OS?
2. Does it have Alignment Agnostic Controllers?
3. Does it handle incompressible Data really well under XP?
Since the majority of computers still run XP, this information is the most valuable to the most people Reply
snakyjake - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkThere's a lot of stats for the drives, however I'm not any closer in choosing a drive.
I have 3 systems:
1. Windows 7. This system is mostly lots of opened web browsers hogging memory, email, maybe a Word document, video encoding, and reference software (i.e. encyclopedia). I assume the browser is caching to the drive, same with the virtual memory and other background apps. I don't turn the machine off, so boot time is not important. For video encoding, I'd like to keep the data on a HDD since it is a lot of storage that SDD's are not affordable at storing, and it is most likely CPU bound.
2. Media Center. Want a SDD for the main drive (OS and apps), but will use a larger/slower drive for the media storage. Need something low heat. This is what I really want a SDD for.
3. Linux. Mostly emailing and web browsing. All the apps I use are cloud apps.
Obviously the fastest drive would be the one I want if money is no object. But I want to know how much faster my experience is going to be for how much more money? My goal is a snappy system and less time waiting around. I want to know what I'd sacrifice by getting a "value" drive versus the higher quality.
Also, MTBF is important. I hate losing data! Hope the drives have SMART or some other methods of warnings.
Jake Reply
Out of Box Experience - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkIf all you want to do is boot up quickly and load your apps really fast, then a sandforce drive is perfect for you
If you want to manipulate data already on the drive or copy & paste to the same drive, then you are much better off with a 7200RPM desktop drive as far as I can tell
Anyone wanting to spend their time doing actual work instead of constantly tweaking their SSD to get synthetic benchmarks that have little bearing on real world results should avoid sandforce based drives like the vertex 2
Please read my other posts in this thread for more info Reply
7Enigma - Friday, November 12, 2010 - linkI've ready your other posts and you are selecting a very specific situation which most people will not encounter (that is copy/paste using XP with no SSD tweaks). That's like putting in an NVIDIA video card and not installing the drivers and complaining about performance. The XP OS was designed so far before SSD's were even available to enterprise markets let alone the consumer space its no wonder they don't perform well.
The vast majority of people are no longer on XP (trust me I was one of the last to hold out due to my dispise for Vista). But you are artificially setting limitations on a product and then using it to generalize performance in all situations that are to you "real world".
I have real concerns about the Sandforce drives due to variable performance. I have an Intel 80gig G2 SSD and am still amazed at how well it does (to me) in the most important benchmarks, that is random read/write and sequential read. Even with the cheap(er) pricing of SSD's and the *hopefully* significant decrease once we get to the next node with Intel's 3rd generation these are still not capable of storing the majority of our data (unless you think 1-2 grand is chump change). That being said these are mainly going to be access drives and rarely used for moving large amounts of data around (which is why the sequential write becomes much less important for day to day use, besides the odd large install such as a video game).
I keep my 80gig with about 45GB free. Win7 install (including User data), a couple programs, the current 1-3 games I'm playing and that's it. I have a 250GB secondary 7200rpm drive for music/movies/etc. and a larger external HDD for backup and infrequently used data. Reply
Out of Box Experience - Friday, November 12, 2010 - linkQuote:
these are mainly going to be access drives and rarely used for moving large amounts of data around (which is why the sequential write becomes much less important for day to day use, besides the odd large install such as a video game).
In that case, I'd grab a Crucial Real SSD
Best read speeds now on Sata 2 and reasonable for Sata 3
64GB is very reasonably priced for the read speeds you will get Reply
Out of Box Experience - Monday, November 15, 2010 - linkQuote:
The vast majority of people are no longer on XP (trust me I was one of the last to hold out due to my dispise for Vista). But you are artificially setting limitations on a product and then using it to generalize performance in all situations that are to you "real world".
Where did you get that incorrect data?
It will be a few years before Windows 7 sells more copies than XP
XP is still used on more computers than Vista and Windows 7 combined!
Any SSD manufacturer who misleads their customers into thinking that their SSD's are plug and play compatible with XP by omission of pertinent information should go into spam marketing!
Why should the consumer spend another $200 for a new OS to use a Vertex when Intel SSD's work just fine with XP without all the tweaks? Reply
ceomrman - Friday, November 12, 2010 - linkI can't stand all the SSD articles with no real world benchies at all. I don't care about transfer speed or even IOPS. I care about how fast it boots, how fast it loads my work, displays my porn, plays my games, etc. Reply
slickr - Friday, November 12, 2010 - linkI only see theoretical performances of the drives, while this is some indication of how it would perform in real case scenarios, its not the most accurate and its hard to translate into real world.
I would like some tests that test all of the SDD's abilities at once.
For example running a virus scan while pasting 2GB or big and small data, while moving hundreds of pictures into a image viewer, all on top while downloading a torrent and surfing the web. Reply
B - Friday, November 12, 2010 - linkGreat Table. Would be nice if there was a column identifying which controller was used in each of the drives. Reply
snakyjake - Friday, November 12, 2010 - linkObjective performance measurements are good to have, however these comments are suggesting some difficulties in interpretation because the majority of us don't know how to relate to a synthetic benchmark. My recommendation is to create some user profiles (gamer, video artists, graphics artist, serious web surfer, media PC, low power, etc). Have some people utilize the machines and ask for their feedback.
Because here's my bottom line: I don't want to pay for more than I'll notice. If PEOPLE can't tell the difference between a top synthetic rated drive versus middle of the pack....then I don't want to pay extra.
For example: If a more expensive SSD drive will not speed up my Media Center PC, I don't want to pay the extra. I want to know what a real person thinks and experiences. Rather talk to my buddies than get comments from a robot performing synthetic tests. Reply
GullLars - Friday, November 12, 2010 - linkDear Anand, I would love a reply here, since I've raised these points in the past, and been ignored.
"Concerned enough to recommend running it with 20% free space at all times (at least). The more free space you have, the better job the controller can do wear leveling."
I feel the need to critique this statement. If TRIM is not active, there is no difference whatsoever if you use 10% or 100% of the LBAs avalible to the user, since the drive can't tell the difference.
The only way you could make sure 20% of the NAND is free at all times is to not partition it in the first place (or not include it in a partition after a secure erase).
Also, you've included 4KB random write at QD 32, but still not 4KB random read. If you compare your results, you will see a much larger difference between read performance as QD scales than you do for write. This is due to write coalessing and attenuation, while reads don't have this benefit.
I feel both random read and write @ QD 32 should be included to show what the drives are capable of within the NCQ spec. Ideally would be a graph showing IOPS by QD scaling, but i understand that it may be a bit much work.
When benchmarking my own SSDs, i scale 4 dimentions in IOmeter; Read:write ratio, seq:ran ratio, block size, and QD. Due to size of the data set, i only scale them against each other at 4KB and a couple of larger sizes. A few thousand data points is enough pr drive :P Reply
Ao1 - Saturday, November 13, 2010 - linkQuote:
"SandForce's partners who have to pay a big chunk of their margins to SandForce as well as the NAND vendor are actually delivering the best value in SSDs. Kingston and Western Digital also deliver a great value. Not Crucial/Micron and not Intel, which is not only disappointing but inexcusable. These companies actually own the fabs where the NAND is made and in the case of Intel, they actually produce the controller itself".
Are you forgetting that Intel spent over 2 billion on the JV with Micron? They are the ones carrying the investment risk, not the likes of OCZ.
Also Intel spend money and time on getting their products right before market and use much higher quality components throughout, not least better QA'd NAND. (Intel do not sell SSD grade NAND. They sell NAND that has to be further processed by whoever buys it).
You have consistently ignored these facts and they make a big difference.
Whilst I'm at it I can't understand your assertion that SF drives are so good. There are countless problems with them even now after numerous f/w updates. They degrade badly with uncompressible data, they have weak GC and they don't trim in the same way as other drives. It's quite easy to see performance drop by 50%, even OCZ have admitted that. Read performance, without writing also degrades.
I used to look forward to your reviews but it seems your objectivity when it comes to the X25 and C300 in favour of SF drives is seriously lacking. Reply
Ao1 - Saturday, November 13, 2010 - linkFrom OCZ's forum:
"Here is the thing, if you hammer the driver with say enough writes that the drive would under normal use/see in 7 days within a few hrs, the drive will slow down for 7 days, maybe longer. It does this to protect the nand life. So your guys seeing a 50% drop may actually see 30% which is the normal drop, then a further 20% because at some stage they have hammered the drive and then not realised its going to take 5 days or longer for the speed to creep back up. Also remember this write quantity slowdown is further impacted by how you use the drive after you have hammered it."
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...l=1#post528... Reply
eckre - Saturday, November 13, 2010 - linkSo this seems like a perfect drive for a RAID because of it's aggressive always on garbage collection would make up for lack of TRIM support. ?
Am I correct? Thoughts? Reply
JohnWPB - Saturday, November 13, 2010 - linkI have built probably 10 pc's in the last 2 yrs, and wonder if adding a SSD as a boot drive would be worth the effort.
I see you guys making lots of comments, but as a newbie on SSD's, I would really like to see a thread on how to introduce a SSD to a system that has a bunch of SATA drives.
Exactly how does one go about installing Windows XP Pro? I imagine that I should disconnect my SATA drives and just hook up the SSD and then do a CD install?
Can programs like CasperXP ( mirror imaging program ), be used to do a mirror image backup from an SSD to a Sata drive ( C: boot drive SSD to D: mirror drive SATA ).
My apologies if this was posted in the wrong thread. Reply
Out of Box Experience - Saturday, November 20, 2010 - linkQUOTE:
Exactly how does one go about installing Windows XP Pro? I imagine that I should disconnect my SATA drives and just hook up the SSD and then do a CD install?
You are correct as far as I can tell...
I just spent the past 2 days retesting the copy/paste speed of a Vertex 2 with the alignment tweak recommended by OCZ
There was no speed benefit resulting from the alignment of the partition as OCZ described
Copy and paste speed was still a miserable 3.6 megabutes per second
But just to be on the safe side, I will start using ONLY Intel SSD's with Windows XP
Anand says Intel controllers are alignment agnostic and should be the best for non-compressible data under XP
So, untill other SSD manufacturers start making alignment agnostic controllers that are capeable of doing a copy and paste faster than my 5400RPM laptop drive under XP, I think I'll just stick with Intel
(Better Flash Quality as well) Reply
Ezekeel - Saturday, November 13, 2010 - linkHi Anand,
you noted that due to the aggressive garbage-collection this SSD will have a large write-amplification, so the flash will wear-out more quickly. What would happen when using this SSD with an OS that supports TRIM? Will TRIM support the internal GC and lead to a smaller write-amplification and thus a longer lifetime of the SSD? Reply
mpx - Sunday, November 14, 2010 - linkCan you test how VMs behave on SSD? I understand it's partially there in synthetic IOPS and bandwith tests - that show what can you get max. from these drives. But "normal" load from multiple VMs should be different than normal load from a single OS, so drives that do good at normal load in current test migth be not performant under normal load of multiple VMs.
This test with few VMs makes sense for larger drives (160, 256GB), as there just won't be enough place for multiple OSes on small drives. Also longevity becomes more important when you have few times larger load. Reply
tecknurd - Sunday, November 14, 2010 - linkI use Linux and its TRIM command support is sparse. Finally a drive that does not require the TRIM command. I know it comes at a cost of more wear and tear, but I do not mind because pros out weighs the cons. It will give me no noise from the storage system and it be about 60 times quicker than my hard drive to access files. I do not think $280 for 128 GB is not a bad deal for a SSD that does not require the TRIM command to function great. Though, one thing that comes to mind is does the Kingston SSDNow V+100 come with ECC because all hard drives includes ECC for data integrity. Reply
Ezekeel - Sunday, November 14, 2010 - linkWhy sparse? The kernel supports TRIM since 2.6.33 (early 2010). Reply
tecknurd - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkTrue, but the file system also have problems with SSD. Not all file system in Linux are SSD aware. EXT3 and EXT4 does not have good support to handle SSD. Reply
Ezekeel - Friday, November 19, 2010 - linkLinux filesystems ext3/ext4 are designed for magnetic drives - but that is also true for ntfs and hfs+, so the problems with SSD are not unique to Linux. However, it is true that while at least Windows7 does some automatic optimizations, you have to configure everything manually under Linux. Reply
sprockkets - Sunday, November 21, 2010 - linkAll you have to do is format the drive with ext4, add the discard option, and you are set. TRIM is enabled automatically in the background; no need to manually run the command anymore.
Even with the latest firmwares, this isn't an issue anyway. Reply
Ezekeel - Thursday, December 09, 2010 - linkThat is all you have to do to enable TRIM, yes.
However, I was talking about optimizations for an SSD (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SSD#Tips_for_... http://cptl.org/wp/index.php/2010/03/30/tuning-sol... which you all have to do manually while Windows7 afaik does at least some optimizations automatically if you install it on an SSD, like disabling (Super)PreFetch and indexing. Also partition setup with diskpart under Windows automatically takes care of a proper partition alignment while you still have to do it manually under Linux (http://randomtechoutburst.blogspot.com/2010/03/4k-... Reply
ClagMaster - Monday, November 15, 2010 - linkYou are right Mr Shimpi that this is confusing and I got a headache.
I am not certain what I am going to get if I order a Kingston Drive. Performance is so diverse and the model nomenclature so similar.
I am going to get a OCZVertex 2 or an Intel X-25 G2 instead. I know what I am getting with these brands. Reply
psyside1 - Sunday, November 21, 2010 - link
Hi Anand and all who read this.
Let me start of by saying that i'm new to SSD tech (noob) and i'm starting to learning but there are some things which where not pointed in the reviews as far as i remember.
Heck, even in this review you said that Inferno is somewhat capped to 50 mb/s if i'm not wrong?
So in short,
Where i live i'm limited to 2 models, one is Patriot Inferno and the Other A-DATA S599 with possibly 50K IOPS firmware, as Newegg and Amazon specs confirm?
Now, does that firmware insure i won't get slowdowns (at some points) like the Inferno model in this review? or there is some more about it. if there is, i really got no idea how is that possible same controller, same build? and heck in most of the test the Vertex 2 is still fastest, even faster then the other drives which now share the 50K IOPS firmware, G.Skill Phoenix pro, Corsair Force etc??
i'm mostly interested in SSD which will have good read/write speeds (4K etc) and to be fast during programs/games installation. I got 6 pcs connected in network so that means alot to me, in short does my needs require higher IOPS firmware or i would not notice any difference in performance during installation of big size programs/games.
Also, is it possible to know what revision you get without actually buying the product? is there any info on the package/sticker or part number? the difference in performance i noticed in some reviews was 2x higher random write (4K) speed on the models with OCZ "exclusive firmware. And as far that point goes i'm totally clueless does it really matter at all, and if its not how that that translate in real world usage?
Please answer i don't want to regret my purchase :(
Thanks and sorry for slight off topic :) Reply
psyside1 - Sunday, November 21, 2010 - link
Sorry for double post there is no edit option, actually Madman007 was asking the same i did on the more appropriate way, my English is bad. Reply
tno - Sunday, May 01, 2011 - link"Remember that NAND is written to at the page level (4KB), but erased at the block level (512 pages)." I think you meant '512 KB.' Reply
Gaucherre - Friday, May 06, 2011 - linkInstead of $259, the Kingston V100+ 96GB is available for $119.99 after rebate from Buy.com. This pricing completely changes the value rating from acceptable to outstanding value! The mail-in rebate is rotating from one online store to another. Last month it was at Newegg.com; right now it's at Buy.com. Next month - who knows? Anyway, the cost per Gigabyte when tested here at Anandtech.com was around $2.70. Now it's $1.25 per Gigabyte, and a 96GB drive is large enough for Windows plus quite a few installed programs and games. Pretty good value. Think I just talked myself into ordering one ....... Reply


text:
|From: Richard Cobbe (cobbe at ccs.neu.edu)
Date: Sun Jun 27 17:49:46 EDT 2010
Is there an alternative to the `command-line' form that supports the use of raco-style (svn-style, cvs-style, etc.) command lines, where the first argument is a subcommand, and each subcommand takes a different set of arguments and options? I know that in v4, planet had such a library, but it started with a prominent disclaimer that it wasn't ready for prime time. From what I can see right now, raco uses ad-hoc logic to deal with this. I'm in the process of writing something similar to the existing `command-line' form that will handle this style of command line, and I wanted to avoid duplicating effort. Thanks, Richard
|Posted on the users mailing list.


text:
Organizational Structure Metaphors Essay by Neatwriter
Organizational Structure Metaphors
$49.95 Buy and instantly download this paper now
This paper discusses various metaphors used in organizational structures. The paper explains the military or mechanical model metaphor and the organic or biological system metaphor. The paper also examines the cognitive system metaphor and the ecosystem metaphor. The paper presents a discussion as to how effective the metaphors are in enabling a greater understanding of organizational processes to be developed.
From the Paper:"In today's hyper-competitive world, organizations struggle daily to garner and maintain valuable market share. Thanks to globalization, businesses are experiencing competition from all four corners of the globe. It is now common for competitors to operate in completely different environments, both internally and externally. Despite the increased opportunities offered by globalization, it becomes increasingly difficult for some companies to remain competitive. As such, aspects such as "superior/subordinate relationships, leadership, teamwork, motivation, and conflict management" (Norris, 2000, p. 105) become ever more important, and each of these hinges upon the organization's structure."
Cite this Essay:
APA Format
Organizational Structure Metaphors (2005, July 11) Retrieved August 22, 2017, from http://www.academon.com/essay/organizational-structure-metaphors-59968/
MLA Format
"Organizational Structure Metaphors" 11 July 2005. Web. 22 August. 2017. <http://www.academon.com/essay/organizational-structure-metaphors-59968/>


text:
Ambrosia Triple Corona 5 Pack
Ambrosia Triple Corona
If you are looking to try out something that you have never had before then Ambrosia Cigars will give you what you want. This is made in 3 different wrappers blended with some of finest tobacco Drew Estate could find. You will find these striking flavors come from the spices of Asia and Europe.
well built but boring; prefer the spice
Good sweet taste Good Draw Nice Appearance Good Burn not even but Ok
I was given this cigar by a co-worker. I have been trying to find a good cigar ever since they stop making the Kaluha brand cigars. I've found my New cigar. I would highly recommend it to my friends and any one else who likes acid cigars.


text:
Order by: most recent most popular relevance
J.R. Simplot Co. has filed a patent infringement suit against McCain Foods USA, Inc. alleging McCain copied Simplot's twisted potato fries product
The Topps Co. has filed a patent and trade-dress infringement lawsuit against Koko's Confectionery & Novelty Inc. alleging that Koko's Squeezy Squirt
Ganeden Biotech Inc. has filed a lawsuit against American Brewing Co., Inc. and its 2015 acquisition, B&R Liquid Adventure, alleging the companies
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has affirmed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board ruling that a method of enzymatic hydrolysis of soy
An Illinois federal court has granted summary judgment in favor of Kellogg North America Co. in a lawsuit disputing the patented design of resealable
A federal jury in Pennsylvania has found that H.J. Heinz Co. did not appropriate the idea of a dual-opening condiment packaging, the "Dip & Squeeze"
A Pennsylvania federal court has denied H.J. Heinz Co.'s motion for summary judgment in a lawsuit alleging that the company stole the idea for the
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a lower court's ruling that unauthorized public use of the Scarlet Royal and Autumn King varieties
A consumer-interest organization that was dissatisfied by a Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) ruling in the appeal of a patent
A full panel of the Federal Court of Australia has upheld its earlier ruling that an isolated but naturally occurring nucleic acid, BRCA1, can be


text:
Moose Open Preseason with Dub
The two appeared to create chances throughout the game and MacKinnon's pace seemed to be too much for a young Cape Breton defense. Having seven returning rearguards, Cape Breton was likely using this first preseason game to figure out who was worth giving a further look.
With a young defensive core combined with only a sprinkling of veterans up front, the Screaming Eagles fail to generate much offense.The Mooseheads started rookie goaltender Zachary Fucale, whom they selected with the 11th pick of this year's Q draft. Despite not seeing a great deal of action, Fucale seemed very composed in the net and posting a shutout through his period and a half of work. Anthony Terenzio finished the second half of the game.
In addition to Frk, Trey Lewis, Ryan Falkenham added powerplay markers for the Mooseheads and Matt Boudreau added a shorthanded empty netter to put the game away.
Jonathan Béland had the lone goal for the Eagles.
Halifax and Cape Breton will close out this preseason home-and-home tomorrow.


text: Pioneer of the Drum and Bass movement of South America, Eduardo Laforgia, just like Tim Roth in Reservior Dogs was baptized Orange. With time his he was dubbed the Bad Boy of Buenos Aires, as he refused to play the "good boy" and injected local dancefloors with the down and dirty basslines of jungle in the 90's when house and techno were the mainstream. Today he continues to fight the current, keeping locals up to date on the most avante garde of contemporary Drum and Bass and gaining international fame for his long running party +160 with its constant showcase of the best Djs on the scene. He's been mackin the dj booth since he was 16, and today his experience shows. His faithful devotion has to Drum & Bass is a godsend to the genre and a blessing to those who habitat his dancefloor.Bad Boy Orange's biography Bad Boy Orange Musician


text:
The history of St. Francis starts with the loggers, who cleared the forests leaving land suitable for the farmers.
The farmers were successful enough to keep the gristmill busy grinding flour.
By the close of the 1800's, the thriving little community had a factory, a creamery, a post office, a cannery, and a store, in addition to the gristmill and the saw mill.
History loves to record "firsts," even though the very first person to do something is often lost in the business of actually doing it!
The first settlers in the St. Francis area were George Armsby, E. Fowler and Ezra Randall in 1855.
Ezra Randall is credited with building the first house in town. It was still standing in 1964, and was owned by Fred Gillman.
They were joined by Patrick Mc Donald, about 1866, who allegedly spent two weeks chopping a trail to get to his homestead. His was the only house between St. Francis and Elk River.
In 1866 the first creamery was started and the first buttermaker was A. S. Tapin. This is according to Mrs. Merle Gaslin, who wrote a history of St. Francis in 1964.
At some point the creamery was sold to Rev. R.A. Shadick, the first pastor of the St. Francis Baptist Church.
Rev. Shadick was involved in several businesses in the area, including the store.
Behind the creamery was a huge barn that housed 18 horses used to deliver and to pick up milk all over the county.
St. Francis Starch Manufacturing Co. was founded in 1895.
The first year the company made 600 tons of starch, most of which was shipped to Chicago and Boston.
Albert Goodrich writes in his "History of Anoka County, "The average run per annum since has been about 300 tons, varying with the character of the season and the price of potatoes."
The factory was bulldozed when footings were needed for the new bridge in 1964.
Goodrich goes on to tell us that the St. Francis Canning Factory, incorporated in 1900, canned corn only, but in quantities exceeding 2500 cases a year.
"In a good year the factory should turn out double that amount."
It was incorporated at a value of $20,000 raised by selling 400 shares of stock for $50.00 each.
(According to the book of deeds housed at the Anoka County History Center.)
Riverside Hotel was built along the banks of the Rum River. It still stands today as the Rum River Inn, a favorite among locals.
Its unique architecture makes it a convenient reference point in old photos of the town.
Other local businesses included the Streetly Livery Stable, a blacksmith shop owned by Silas E. Clements, the Goodrich and Jennings Drug Store, a millinery shop run by Eva Boobar, and T. H. Miller's place where wagons and sleighs were manufactured.
Blanchette's Sample Room Beer Parlour opened in 1890, but when the school was built, no liquor was allowed near the area, so it turned into an ice cream parlor, doing business until Blanchette's death in 1933.
Editor's note: Maria King is a volunteer for the Anoka County Historical Society.


text:
Furniture Service Technician - Worthing (Field-Based)
- Recruiter
- Abalon Ltd
- Location
- Worthing, West Sussex
- Salary
- £10.6
- Posted
- 03 May 2017
- Closes
- 07 May 2017
- Sector
- Manufacturing
Job Description Our client, a leading furniture warranty specialist, is looking to expand their team in the Worthing area on a contract basis. You will be required to travel to customer homes and carry out professional repairs on a variety of household furniture such as 3-piece suites, armchairs and cabinets. Therefore, we are looking for an individual with at least 3 years' experience in upholstery and furniture repair - CVs without relevant time-served experience in similar roles will not be considered. A van, fuel card, specialist tool kit and PDA will be provided to fulfil the role. You must, however, supply your own standard tool kit and mobile phone. If successful, you will be required to complete a 2 week residential course at the client's head office, where you will be introduced to the company's processes and procedures. Key Responsibilities Inspect and repair both upholstered and leather sofas & chairsInspect and repair cabinets, wooden furniture and bed framesUpdate PDA in a timely fashionAchieve care kit sales targetsAchieve monthly productivity targetsCleanliness of company vanEfficient use of parts and materials Personal Requirements Excellent customer service skillsSkilled at inspecting and repairing furniture from a variety of brandsProficient time management skillsQuality focused, with great attention to detail Additional Info: This is a contract position therefore the number of hours worked may vary from week to weekTechnicians living with M25 area will receive a London salary allowanceStarting salary dependant on skillset and experienceAll technicians will receive a salary review after 12 weeks


text:
MyChart Login
Home > Classes & Events > Event Results
Quality Inn and Suites
Some heart attacks are sudden and intense — the "movie heart attack," where no one doubts what's happening. But most heart attacks start slowly, with mild pain or discomfort. Often people affected aren't sure what's wrong and wait too long before getting help. By knowing the symptoms of a heart attack, you can take the correct actions on getting medical care.
North Addition Conference Rooms AB
Information about what to expect during the beginning days of breastfeeding will be discussed to help make breastfeeding a positive experience. Current information on breast feeding will be presented.
I want to...
1111 Duff Avenue Ames, Iowa 50010
515-239-2011 Email us
Ames 515-239-6877
Marshalltown 641-754-6877
Anywhere in Iowa 800-524-6877


text:
Torrent sectionJanuary 27, 2008 at 12:03 pm | Posted in 1 | Leave a comment
Someone asked me to create an entire section for torrent files.
Torrent files were the main idea of this project.
So I decided to give people an entire section were users could find any kind of torrent.
Nowaday there are about 100k torrents, so I think that a section only for those kind of items is the best way to publicize my site.
C ya
The firstJanuary 22, 2008 at 12:28 pm | Posted in ChangeLog | Leave a comment
This is the first post about ag.gregate.it and the updates it needs (or the updates I'm going to develope).
Recently I added an hourly automatic update of all the existing feeds.
Someone ask me to add an entire section for torrent files and so, here it is.
C ya
Blog at WordPress.com.
Entries and comments feeds.


text:
Sorry, the book that you are looking for is not available right now.
We did a search for other books with a similar title, however there were no matches. You can try selecting from a similar category, click on the author's name, or use the search box above to find your book.
Countless writers and artists have spoken for a generation, but no one has done it quite like Chuck Klosterman. With an exhaustive knowledge of popular culture and an almost effortless ability to spin brilliant prose out of unlikely subject matter, Klosterman attacks the entire spectrum of postmodern America: reality TV, Pamela Anderson and literary Jesus freaks. And don't even get him started on his love life and the whole Harry-Met-Sally situation.
Whether deconstructing Saved by the Bell episodes or the artistic legacy of Billy Joel, the symbolic importance of The Empire Strikes Back or the Celtics/Lakers rivalry, Chuck will make you think, he'll make you laugh, and he'll drive you insane -- usually all at once. "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" is ostensibly about art, entertainment, infotainment, sports, and politics but -- really -- it's about us. All of us. As Klosterman realizes late at night, in the moment before he falls asleep, "In and of itself, nothing really matters. What matters is that nothing is ever 'in and of itself.'"
Gary Shteyngart author of "The Russian Debutante's Handbook" The funniest thing I've read in an ice age...Chuck Klosterman is a Gulliver among the cult-crit Lilliputians. America should wrap her freckled arms around Klosterman's scrawny neck and press him to her bosom. He may be the last true patriot among us.
Audience: General
Format: Audio CD
Language: English
Published: 1st June 2006
Country of Publication: US
Dimensions (cm): 14.61 x 13.34 x 2.54
Weight (kg): 0.18
Edition Type: Abridged


text:
Boy George was arrested on suspicion of possessing drugs and making a fake police report after calling 911 early Friday
Early Friday singer Boy George called 911 reporting his home had been burglarized around 3 a.m.. Soon thereafter, a police officer arrived at his Manhattan apartment and found a small amount of cocaine next to a computer. The police soon continuing to investigate.
Apparently, a police spokesman, Detective Kevin Czartoryski said that George had made a fake report and thus was arrested on suspicion of possessing drugs and making a fake police report. He is now still in police custody and waiting for an arraignment. If he later on found guilty then he would be charged with fourth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, allegedly more than an eighth of an ounce of cocaine.


text:
Celebrity - your standards are slipping : Celebrity Eclipse Cruise Review by Ade Expertcruiser63
Overall Member Rating
Celebrity - your standards are slipping
Destination: Europe - Western Mediterranean
Embarkation: Southampton
Arrived at Southampton at 10.30am, checked in by 11.00am and sipping a Pimm's in the Ocean View bar at Midday, probably the fastest check in ever!
We were allowed into our cabin (1676) by 2.00pm and were pleased with our selection as these Aft cabins have a great view . Not really any issues with soot from the ships funnels, other than More a few minor specks during the 14 days
Our cabin stewards were fine (Paul and Mark) but we are not the types to call upon their services that often. However I have experienced better service from our stewards on previous cruises, for a lower grade cabin! Concierge is really not worth the extra outlay unless you want a specific cabin location (which we did)
One thing my son missed were the towel animals (we only had 1) This is not important to the adults but is all part of the cruise experience for a child!
Ship Cleanliness
On the whole excellent but with a few minor niggles, particularly within the public toilets, where there used to be a member of staff at all times keeping it spotless but now sadly missing. Also, there were not enough waiting staff within the Ocean View café, meaning tables not cleared fast enough
This is where standards have fortunately remained high, where food in all main venues was of an excellent standard (especially the cakes in Café Bacio, Murano and the indian offerings in the Ocean View cafe)
However, we were dismayed that the Brunch Buffet would no longer be held, which was one on the highlights of any Celebrity cruise. A feeble excuse was provided around the unsuitability of the Moonlight Sonata for this event, but we all know it's another Celebrity cost cutting exercise.
Another negative was that Select dining no longer works, as if you have to book at least 2 days in advance for a table at the time YOU want, what's the point? . Select dining had been offered to far too many passengers for the system to cope with
Dress Code:
Some guests do not have a clue when it comes to formal evenings and Celebrity should really enforce the rules within the Moonlight Sonata dining room (We observed some passengers wearing shorts / t shirts and flip flops during all 3 formal evenings)
Dress rules were also not enforced within the for fee restaurants, particularly Murano, where we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. I do expect to see a man dressed like a UK coach driver, sitting in my vicinity when I have made the effort to dress appropriately
Wives please take note, if you make the effort to wear a nice dress, have your hair and nails done, ensure your partner does not look like he is dressed for a visit to a garden centre
Bar Service
This is an area where Celebrity really let their customers down!
As I could gather , many of the passengers on this particular sailing had obtained the 123 offer with a classic drinks package as part of their fare. The classic drinks package allows passengers to obtain any drink up to the value of $8, with a full charge being made for any drink over the $8 limit (for example if a cocktail costs $9.50, then the whole amount is charged, not the difference of $1.50). Celebrity reduced the costs to their business due to the considerable number of these drinks packages sold by
• drastically reducing the number of bar staff – in ALL bars , which was especially noticeable on sea days ( 1 member of bar staff / 1 waiter in the Pool bar .on a sea day! ) Simple, If you cannot get served, you cannot drink, therefore less alcohol consumed from Celebrity's stock
• Significantly increasing the cost of all alcoholic drinks onboard since earlier sailings during 2014 (I had looked at a number of bar menus from the Eclipse for sailings in June / July, which had been posted online)
Fortunately I had upgraded to the premium package before sailing but would have been pretty upset if I had found out that I could not get a glass of white wine within the Ocean View café for under $8.50 (this came from a fellow passenger I spoke to and when I checked with a barman was indeed correct)
I have noticed that Celebrity are once again pushing this 123 deal for 2015 / 16 as well as RCI offering an all inclusive package with an $8 dollar limit. If you like a drink while on holiday, I would advise you to review what actually will be available AT THE TIME OF SAILING within your $8 limit and have it confirmed in writing.
Canyon Ranch Spa:
My wife and I used the spa 4 times during our cruise and received both excellent and courteous service (although expensive, which is only to be expected) Special mention to my wife's hairdresser Stephanie, for some excellent syling for the 3 formal nights.
First the good
Sue Denning – a great cruise director and a lovely lady, really worked her socks off as we saw her morning, noon and night mingling with the guests. She always remembered my 1st name, always a good measure of a great CD. Would love to meet up with her again
Les De Merle Trio
A fantastic set of musicians and a real asset to Celebrity. Wasted in such small venue as the Ensemble Lounge. Les also gave a great lecture in Celebrity Central (standing room only!)
Lenny the DJ and the Dynamic DJ Duo
Lenny played ALL our requests during the 2 weeks. The DJ duo were a refreshing change and even played REAL house music in the Martini Bar (albeit only for an hour)
Tenors of Rock / Jeff Stevenson / Mike Doyle
All pretty good and were well worth seeing Managed to have a drink with Jeff on a number of occasions after his shows, a lovely fella! My wife really enjoyed Tenors of Rock. Very good singers unlike the ones employed by Celebrity within the ships company / house band.
Now the (REALLY) bad
Theatre Shows
The shows produced by Celebrity for this cruise were the same ones we saw in 2010 and 2011 and have got progressively worse, in terms of singing, choreography and staging.
The pool of ships theatre company entertainers must be getting smaller as they were truly awful.
The company's male lead had been promoted since 2010 and could not hold a note even if his life depended on it. The dancers were amateurish at best and could often be seen not dancing in synch with the music track. I was informed by the ships purser that the shows would only get changed after 5 years so that Celebrity could get a return on them. Not great for repeat customers! Take note Celebrity, there are lots of great dancers and singers out there, you just have to review your relationship with the company that provides your entertainment.
Now for the worst part of my cruise entertainment experience (and many other passengers I suspect!) the ship's house band The Spitfires (they also went by another name which I am unable to mention on this forum)
This so called "band" were undoubtedly the WORST set of musicians I have ever heard on any cruise ship I have sailed on. We had the misfortune to heart them on many areas of the ship and they got progressively worse over the 14 days. An example of how bad they were was when a family we met had to leave poolside at 3.00pm, get off the ship and walk around Lisbon to avoid hearing them!
As well as being terrible musicians, and having a female lead singer with the voice of cat being castrated and ruining every song they attempted to perform, their general demeanor and appearance was appalling. As representatives of Celebrity cruises, I would expect a certain standard of dress while performing in front of paying guests. A standard uniform of tailored shorts, matching shirts etc. would not cost a great deal of £ to implement, rather than the shambolic appearance on display. For example, the lead singer insisted on wearing a less than flattering toweling dress while singing poolside, which looked as if she just nicked a few of the many towels available poolside and wrapped herself in them.
Celebrity, please take note – they are representing YOUR Business and I would advise you to get rid before your next cruise season.
Ships Activities / Sun beds
Basically the standard of a UK holiday camp, but costing x10 as much
Actual enrichment programs (art classes etc.) too few and far between
Celebrity did not enforce their own 30 min sunbed rule, which caused many an argument on sea days!
Kids Club / Games Room
The kids club was fine but hardly used by my son. However, we learnt that 9 year olds were able sign themselves out, so parents who left them on board all day while at port could potentially leave them to run riot on board without supervision (which some did!)
The games room had the same machines since 2010! , these machines should really be updated every year.
Photo Store
A special mention must go to the disgraceful standard of service to passengers attempting to purchase photographs on the last day of the sailing. Things got so bad the manager left her underlings to deal with many angry passengers and went to bed!
Dis- embarkation
Off the ship at 7.30 and left Southampton at approximately 8.00am , well done Celebrity!
Although overall we had a good cruise , it was not exceptional as were previous Celebrity sailings. Celebrity would need to address the issues mentioned before they get any more of my hard earned cash.
The tag Celebrity use of "Modern Luxury" is sadly no longer the case! Less
Published 08/28/14
Cabin review:
Read Cruise Critic's Celebrity Eclipse Review >>
My first cruise ever
Nice Vacation of a Lifetime fo...
First cruise. Relaxing and enj...
First time with Celebrity
First cruise for us and defini...
First cruise with Celebrity
Lacks the luxury from its publ...
Great service, good food.
My first cruise ever
Sponsored Links


text:
What's up ninjas! We all know that the only time Juggalos are truly at home is during the Gathering. So what am I getting at? Well, the homie Sewerside made a song based on the lands that we call home served up exclusively for the fam. The single "Gather" talks about waking up in strange places, chilling with homies, the bad smells, the disgusting toilets, the unfair justification of a label thrown at us by a certain agency……. but yet he still finds a way to describe the magic of all of the insanity that goes down at the Gathering. It's definitely a dope track to bump along to in preparation for the Gathering which as we all know is real soon. So have fun fam but be safe out there!
Gather ~ Sewerside