The SSD Improv: Intel & Indilinx get TRIM, Kingston Brings Intel Down to $115
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 17, 2009 7:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Final Words
TRIM is a huge step forward in SSD maturity and readiness for the masses. There are only so many people who have the patience to listen to a NAND flash explanation to understand why their luxury storage device gets slower the more you use it. TRIM not only simplifies the problem but it makes SSDs work the way they should. When you delete a file TRIM ensures that the file is no longer tracked by the SSD. And it just works.
The driver limitations are a bit annoying, especially given Intel knew this was coming. Difficulty in coordinating schedules is one of the downsides of having such a huge organization.
It's also ridiculous that Intel has done nothing to take care of it's original X25-M G1 customers. Those who spent over $600 on Intel's first SSD deserve to be taken care of but instead they get no TRIM support and no SSD Optimizer. Both of these are things that Indilinx has offered it's customers before Intel. Vertex owners have had a wiper tool since before Intel ever announced intentions to enable TRIM on the G2.
The write speed improvement that the Intel firmware brings to 160GB drives is nice but ultimately highlights a bigger issue: Intel's write speed is unacceptable in today's market. Back when Indilinx first arrived there was no real threat, but today Intel is facing a much more mature group of competitors. Our heavy trace benchmark is a prime example of why this is an issue. I fully expect Intel to address it with the third gen drive next year but it makes buying a drive today unnecessarily complicated.
From a compatibility standpoint, Intel has the advantage. It's just a much larger company than Indilinx and has the ability to do more compatibility/reliability testing.
The performance side is a bit more difficult to break down. The more sequential writing you do to your drive the more you'll stand to benefit from Indilinx's higher write speeds. In nearly all other situations the two controllers perform similarly or Intel is in the lead. The fact that both controllers support TRIM makes it even more difficult.
The easiest way to decide continues to be to buy the largest drive you can afford. 64GB? Indilinx. 80GB? Intel? 128GB? Indilinx and 160GB Intel. If you're buying an Indilinx drive the rate of firmware releases pretty much dictates that you'll want to buy from OCZ or SuperTalent. None of the other Indilinx manufacturers have Windows 7 TRIM support yet (Crucial has now posted a firmware update with TRIM support). The additional testing and exclusive agreements that OCZ/ST have with Indilinx provide their customers a tangible advantage in this case.
Kingston's 40GB option is super interesting. Anyone who's sold on SSDs will probably opt for a bigger drive but if you're on the fence, the Kingston solution might be for you. The write speed is disappointing but for application launches and boot time it's got the speed. If Newegg can keep these things in stock at $85 after rebate it's a gold deal. I'd prefer the price without the rebate but these things are still selling at a premium unfortunately.
Next year SSDs will get even more interesting. I attended a couple of Intel's SSD tracks at IDF this year and got a glimpse into what Intel is working on. Through TRIM and other architectural enhancements Intel is expecting to deliver much higher consistent performance on its future SSDs, regardless of how full they are. We can also expect to see a decoupling of capacity from the number of channels the controller supports; right now Intel has a couple of oddball sizes compared to the competition, but future designs will allow Intel to more closely mimic HDD capacities regardless of controller configuration.
I still firmly believe that an SSD is the single best performance improvement you can buy for your system today. Would I recommend waiting until next year to buy? This is one of the rare cases where I'd have to answer no. I made the switch last year and I wouldn't go back, it really does change the way your PC behaves.
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Celeus - Monday, November 9, 2009 - link
No comment regarding Anand, but the quote of $85 seems to be based on a press release from kingston.http://www.kingston.com/press/2009/flash/10c.asp">http://www.kingston.com/press/2009/flash/10c.asp
Now, I've been trying to find these for that price at Newegg, and can't. The drive now shows up (just the 2.5" one, not the one including the bracket) but for $124.99 before rebate $104.99 AR.
I bet this is an error they will fix, as $104.99 Before Rebate would make $84.99 AR, which is what Kingston mentions in their press release.
Rebate looks good for 2 per person, so I plan on buying two for a new Windows 7 box.
virtualgeek - Saturday, October 31, 2009 - link
Disclosure, I work for EMC (an enterprise information infrastructure - which includes all sorts of storage arrays).Looking at some of the comments, I'm not sure if people understand the impact of the x-25 getting down to the prices they are (both via kingston OEM and the 80/160GB drives).
Flash will rapidly replace all high-performance disk use cases. There will only be room for very large SATA and SAS disks, and all high performance use cases will be dominated by Flash.
Some people don't understand that even at TODAY's prices, for some (many) use cases (just not consumer focused ones), they are more economical. For example, the kingston drive, measured in IOPs/dollar is 37x **cheaper** than a 15K SAS drive. That's the acquisition cost. When you think that it would take 37 15K SAS disks, consuming more power, space and cooling - you can immediately imagine the impact this has on the enterprise storage market.
The rapid price decline we've all seen over the last year (a 40GB MLC drive cost ~$900 at the beginning of the year) means that in the next year or so, we'll have SSD with the $/GB of a large, fast rotating magnetic media disk, but still 100x better random IOps/$
While perhaps PCM non-volatile storage will eventually replace flash, that will happen well after flash replaces spinning media.
Great article Anand!
I did a post on it here...
http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2009/1...">http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_...ill-chan...
iwodo - Friday, October 30, 2009 - link
If V Series stays at $85, then making a Raid with 2 40GB V will be an VERY attractive option.So may be do a review on 2 40GB V series with Intel Software Raid? as well as other raid card?
excalibur3 - Thursday, October 29, 2009 - link
Thanks for the great article! I am just curious if the Kingston UltraDrives can use the same firmware update as intel and can be considered the same drive or if it is something like with OCZ and Super Talent in that they have separate firmware updates. Would the Kinston be a cheaper alternative to the Intel?Saturn1 - Thursday, October 29, 2009 - link
Is there a way to get the manual trim to run from the toolbox if you do not have that last firmware update?linster - Thursday, October 29, 2009 - link
Apparently Intel pulled the iso. Here's what you get after you click on the link,"02HA Firmware Upgrade for Windows 7* Systems - Unavailable
Intel has been contacted by users with issues with the 02HA firmware upgrade on Windows 7* systems and are investigating. We take all sightings and issues seriously and are working toward resolution. We have temporarily taken down the firmware update while we investigate.
Thank you for your patience."
Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, October 29, 2009 - link
Can you guys do some testing on the Runcore Pro IV 16GB PATA SSD? It supposedly uses the indilinx controller.coconutboy - Thursday, October 29, 2009 - link
Good article Anand, and I like the new tests you guys came up with. I have a request for a new type of test and I know others in the various hardware forums have these same questions.SSDs are too small for many of us to use as the lone drive in our system, and we thus have to combine an SSD as an OS/app drive w/ a traditional hdd for our file storage. Given that this is a reality for many of us eager to jump into SSDs, it'd be great if we could see a test that demonstrates a real-world scenario of users loading DBs/pictures/videos etc from our storage drive while still running our apps/OS from the ssd.
I know it's probably not something you guys could do regularly because the amount of testing would be a huge burden, but perhaps you fellas could do a one-off article just to highlight the differences? Maybe show a couple different usage scenarios such as:
~ a budget/midrange P55 setup w/ OS/apps on a small Indilinx ssd and a single 1TB drive for storage
~ an older Core 2/AMD system with the new Kingston offering used for OS/apps and the storage drives being pair of 640GBs in RAID 1.
I think this kind of article would be very useful to your readers and I know there's lots of us in various forums who are hesitant to jump into a hybrid ssd/hdd setup because we're unsure of exactly how it will affect us.
coconutboy - Thursday, October 29, 2009 - link
Still not a lot of info out there showing real-world usage scenarios w/ an ssd as the os/app drive and a regular 7200rpm or two as storage, but perhaps for others interested in this kinda testing something like this will suffice. From the MSI p55-gd65 review-http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3655&am...">http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3655&am...
krumme - Wednesday, October 28, 2009 - link
How about this collection:http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=34...">http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=34...
It measures where the speed matters most (sorry can not get link to work)
Is the world that different today than 2009?
We need to se results balanced like this
I do get a feeling that the 2009 test suite is heavely favoring the g2 drives
It is plain and simple what takes time. Not iops, we need seconds. And seconds where you can feel it; fx. seconds for diferent types of filecopying, handling large files, working while making backup, working while having virus scan.
The g2 is way overhyped, the samsung way underrated
Reading the results you can have the impression the velociraptor doesnt work for desktop use
The need for trim is overhyped and having severe consequenses
And the results from defective and bad bios updates from indilinx and espec. Intel, was to be seen in advance.
Are we going to se some new benchmark suite when gfx lrb arives??
The end results. Ordinary desktop people having hdd for servers and gfx for research.
It doesnt make sense.
Some bad thought creap into my mind. Help me. Is the Intel marketing a problem, if you dont behave? :) - or did they just give you the random 4k engineering hammer?
Anand - we need another ssd article !!! :)
Take care