Thinkpads Forum

"Write endurance" is a technical spec, measured in terabytes or petabytes. 1 petabyte = 1000 terabytes.

There are three classes of SSDs,
consumer, enterprise, and datacenter. But "enterprise" is actually nonsense, as they are no better than "consumer." In fact, Intel's specifications document provides no specification for write endurance of "enterprise" drives.

But "data center"makes a difference. I recently purchased an Intel 400GB pci-e drive for a new workstation. I had a choice: the consumer version cost ~$379, the datacenter ~$800. I went for the datacenter version, because the write endurance is incredibly greater than that of the consumer version.

Consumer version endurance: 127 terabytes written
(from http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ ... -spec.html)

Datacenter version endurance: 62.05 petabytes written (62050 terabytes)
(from http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ ... -spec.html)

I'm no fan of SSDs, but this was the only way to hibernate and restore 128GB of RAM in a reasonable time.

Are there any laptop SSDs constructed to datacenter standards of write endurance?

Suspend (to RAM) is your friend.

RealBlackStuff wrote:http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Fultondal ... 1286883921

That is not a laptop compatible drive. The active power consumption is up to 25 watts. See http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/int ... ,3858.html

Based on your signature you have SATA II machines. $ cost average for performance. It's your money but I wouldn't spend much on an SSD drive for a laptop. If you have a SATA III thinkpad, different story. A 240-256GB SSD probably Micron or Samsung. Just my two cents.

I have older SATA II SSDs in two machines, an X61 and T400. The machines are considerably faster than my other X61 and T400, which use Seagate Momentus 750 hybrid drives. And the machines with Seagate hybrids are significantly faster than they were with plain spinners.

IMHO, and in my experience, its' definitely worth it to install a typical consumer grade SSD in any Thinkpad that has at least SATA II. Hypothetically, if an SSD drive with ratings similar to datacenter SSDs were available, but with a correspondingly high price, the cost would be excessive.

Even the worst SATA III SSD will be able to max out the read speed on an SATA II bus. Not the write speed. People do not realize unless you are writing large amounts of data. The write speed is not as important. On paper the read speed of an SSD is important but in real life performance it's not as important unless you are using your Thinkpad as a server.

Hans Gruber wrote:Even the worst SATA III SSD will be able to max out the read speed on an SATA II bus. Not the write speed. People do not realize unless you are writing large amounts of data. The write speed is not as important. On paper the read speed of an SSD is important but in real life performance it's not as important unless you are using your Thinkpad as a server.

I'm not arguing the numbers, only the experience. My SSD machines are more responsive.

precip9 wrote:Are there any laptop SSDs constructed to datacenter standards of write endurance?

How much space do you need per drive?

I have a T400 and an X61s equipped with older 256GB drives. The size seems right for an OS and some activity related content. 128GB is too much of a squeeze.

I'm no great fan of SSDs, because of the write endurance issue. But I've found it's possible to convert an X61s into an approximation of an instant-on device. It also obviates the desirable habit of waiting for the drive to spin down before putting the laptop in the case. Overall resistance to non-operating shock might also be superior.

I suspect you are going to recommend one of the small SLC flash drives that show up at reasonable prices, typically 64GB. The size is too small.

precip9 wrote:I suspect you are going to recommend one of the small SLC flash drives that show up at reasonable prices, typically 64GB. The size is too small.

Not quite...

Micron produced "enterprise-grade" - yes I know that you're not keen on the term - SATA III SLC 2.5" drives. I own a couple of 100GB examples, but 200GB was also available and I *believe* that there was a 400GB option as well. The problem with these drives - mostly known as P300 - is that they'll run about $1/GB.

They are SLC: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... Ww&cad=rja

which means serious durability. But the one buyable example goes for $3/GB:

http://www.amazon.com/Micron-RealSSD-So ... icron+P300 : $3/GB

The larger ones may not be buyable.

FWIW, there's a seller on feebay that offers the 100GB version quite often for around $100. Mine came with less than 10 hours on it. Don't have a link available right now, but IMO it's well worth it if 100GB format works for your needs.

Test/review from the times when these were new:

http://www.storagereview.com/micron_rea ... view_100gb

... a possibly related thread is The SSD Endurance Experiment: They're all dead....

Johan