Super Talent SSD: 16GB of Solid State Goodness
by Gary Key on May 7, 2007 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Hardware Setup
We are utilizing an Intel QX6700 quad core CPU to ensure we are not CPU limited in our test results. A 2GB memory configuration is standard in our XP test bed as most enthusiasts are currently purchasing this amount of memory. Our choice of high-range OCZ Flex XLC PC2-9200 memory offers a very wide range of memory settings with timings of 3-4-3-9 for our benchmark results. The target platform for the Super Talent drive is unlikely to have such high-end features, but at the very least we can be certain that we won't be bottlenecked elsewhere during our initial tests with an SSD. Our video tests are run at 1280x1024 resolutions for this article at High Quality settings. All of our tests are run in an enclosed case with a dual optical/hard drive setup to reflect a moderately loaded system platform. Windows XP SP2 is fully updated and we load a clean drive image for each platform to keep driver conflicts to a minimum.
The drive is formatted before each test run and five tests are completed on each drive in order to ensure consistency in the benchmark results. The high and low scores are removed with the remaining score representing our reported result. We utilize the Intel ICH8R SATA ports along with the latest Intel Matrix Storage driver to ensure consistency in our playback results when utilizing NCQ or RAID settings.
We are not reviewing the Super Talent 16GB SSD directly against the Seagate Momentus 7200.2 or the Western Digital WD1500 Raptor as this drive is marketed for the commercial and industrial sectors. We utilized these two drives to show results from the highest performing hard disk drives in the consumer notebook and near-enterprise desktop markets.
We will be providing test results with consumer based SSD units from Samsung and SanDisk in the near future that feature up to 67MB/sec read speeds and 45MB/sec write speeds along with a random read rate of 7000 inputs/outputs per second (IOPS) for a 512-byte transfer - more than 100 times faster than a hard disk drive. These upcoming reviews will also include a Windows Vista desktop platform, Intel's soon to be released Santa Rosa notebook platform, and a new test suite designed to take advantage of these new technologies. As such today's test results are more of an indicator to show strengths and weaknesses of the initial SSD units that are likely to end up in the commercial, industrial, or rugged device markets.
| Standard Test Bed Test Application Results |
|
| Processor | Intel QX6700 - 2.66GHz Quad Core |
| Motherboard | DFI Infinity 965-S |
| RAM | 2 x 1GB OCZ Reaper PC2-9200 Settings - DDR2-800, 3-4-3-9 |
| OS Hard Drive | 1 x Western Digital WD1500 Raptor - 150GB |
| System Platform Drivers | Intel 8.1.1.1010 Intel Matrix RAID 6.2.1.1002 |
| Video Card | 1 x MSI 8800GTX (Liquid Cooled) |
| Video Drivers | NVIDIA ForceWare 158.19 |
| Optical Drive | Plextor PX-760A, Plextor PX-B900A |
| Cooling | Tuniq 120 |
| Power Supply | OCZ GameXStream 850W |
| Case | Cooler Master CM Stacker 830 |
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
We are utilizing an Intel QX6700 quad core CPU to ensure we are not CPU limited in our test results. A 2GB memory configuration is standard in our XP test bed as most enthusiasts are currently purchasing this amount of memory. Our choice of high-range OCZ Flex XLC PC2-9200 memory offers a very wide range of memory settings with timings of 3-4-3-9 for our benchmark results. The target platform for the Super Talent drive is unlikely to have such high-end features, but at the very least we can be certain that we won't be bottlenecked elsewhere during our initial tests with an SSD. Our video tests are run at 1280x1024 resolutions for this article at High Quality settings. All of our tests are run in an enclosed case with a dual optical/hard drive setup to reflect a moderately loaded system platform. Windows XP SP2 is fully updated and we load a clean drive image for each platform to keep driver conflicts to a minimum.
The drive is formatted before each test run and five tests are completed on each drive in order to ensure consistency in the benchmark results. The high and low scores are removed with the remaining score representing our reported result. We utilize the Intel ICH8R SATA ports along with the latest Intel Matrix Storage driver to ensure consistency in our playback results when utilizing NCQ or RAID settings.
We are not reviewing the Super Talent 16GB SSD directly against the Seagate Momentus 7200.2 or the Western Digital WD1500 Raptor as this drive is marketed for the commercial and industrial sectors. We utilized these two drives to show results from the highest performing hard disk drives in the consumer notebook and near-enterprise desktop markets.
We will be providing test results with consumer based SSD units from Samsung and SanDisk in the near future that feature up to 67MB/sec read speeds and 45MB/sec write speeds along with a random read rate of 7000 inputs/outputs per second (IOPS) for a 512-byte transfer - more than 100 times faster than a hard disk drive. These upcoming reviews will also include a Windows Vista desktop platform, Intel's soon to be released Santa Rosa notebook platform, and a new test suite designed to take advantage of these new technologies. As such today's test results are more of an indicator to show strengths and weaknesses of the initial SSD units that are likely to end up in the commercial, industrial, or rugged device markets.
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JarredWalton - Monday, May 7, 2007 - link
The 100,000 writes is per sector (or whatever the flash block sizes are) of the drive, so even if you're generating thousands of writes per day if the writes are all going to different blocks it becomes much less of an issue. That's what the "proprietary wear leveling algorithms along with built in EDD/EDC functions to ensure excellent data integrity over the course of the drive's lifespan" are supposed to address.Unless you are intentionally rewriting a single location repeatedly, I don't doubt that the drives can last 10 years. Considering I have a lot of normal hard drives fail within five years, that's not too bad. Besides, with the rate of progress it's likely that in the future SSDs will get replaced every couple of years just like today's HDDs.
PandaBear - Thursday, May 10, 2007 - link
With wear leveling, it doesn't matter where you write, it is internally mapped to different physical location each time, so it is 100k write per sector x # of sectors = total # of write you can get out of the entire drive.In this case, a bigger drive buy you more than just space, it buys you extra blocks/sectors that it can cycle through and reduce the wear on every single drives.
Reflex - Monday, May 7, 2007 - link
[quote]That's what the "proprietary wear leveling algorithms along with built in EDD/EDC functions to ensure excellent data integrity over the course of the drive's lifespan" are supposed to address.[/quote]Just to address this specifically, there is no such thing as a 'standard wear leveling algorithm', every flash producer has thier own method of wear leveling, so by default they are all proprietary. I am relatively certain that this company has not come up with something so revolutionary that it would essentially change the entire market as you seem to be implying, if they have I am pretty certain these flash chips would be the industry standard by now. Furthermore, were it any more advanced than the competition, it would not be advertised with a 100k write limitation when the industry standard is 250k writes.
Reflex - Monday, May 7, 2007 - link
I am very aware of how it works. However write operations can happen across several sectors. Once again, consider the market these are intended for. You will NOT get ten years out of one on a typical workstation, it simply will not happen. You will get at least a decade out of one as part of a cash register, assembly line robot, or other industrial/embedded purpose, which is what their statement is all about.You are likely to get one to two years out of one of these, tops. Furthermore, when it fails it will be sudden, and you will not be able to recover your data through conventional means.
I highly suggest you test this before you reccomend your readers to use these things as a main drive. I have tested it extensively myself as part of my job. My email is in my profile if you feel the urge to contact me about this.