Thinkpads Forum

Did anybody installed an OCZ Solid Series SSD on his/her X61(1) ?

From the specs, it seems that buying the higher level SSDs (Vertex and Apex) do not
really make sense considering the SATA-1 limitation.

Any actual experience ?

Maurizio De Cecco

Try to wait for SanDisk SSD.
my friend working at SanDisk develop team told me new SanDisk SSD will be available in Q2 2009. I mean, if you dont mind to wait. Or u can get OCZ vertex new SSD which has a new controller in it.

I am sure SanDisk will come up with better and cheaper SSDs. OCZ too, Samsung and all the others.
The market is moving very very fast, and if you look at the specs, today SSDs are at least
twice as big and twice as fast as last year SSDs. I am sure that in one of two years we will
see laptops with SSD connected directly thru PCI Express 4x and getting thruputs of around 500 Mbytes/sec.

My point is different: it has been discussed in this forum that the x61(s) motherboards
limits the SATA thruput to around 110 Mbytes/sec. So, is it worth going for SSDs that
show performance over 200 Mbytes/sec, and costs twice as much and a basic one,
when anyway they will not be fully used on our laptops ?
OK, it is not as simple: this kind of sustained thruput can be obtained only on
large files, and small random operations get radically lower thruputs; so, it may be useful
to have faster SSDs anyway.

The OCZ Solid Series is affordable, a lot cheaper than the Vertex, and from user reviews in
Internet it seems that the freeze problem has been solved. All this on paper.
Anybody have real experiences ?

Maurizio

Hi, i Just got myself a new X61s and the fist thing i did was to put in a OCZ SSD. I choosed the solid 60GB model.

If you are running Xp i would recommend making a clean installation and not using the Lenovo recovery disc.
The Lenovo Vista recovery discs however vorked great.

I also struggled a bit with trying to move the already installed data partition from the original hard drive but gave that up.

The reason for using a clean XP installation is that lenovo recovery disc partitions and formats the hard drive uncorrect with bad alignment offset in the xp-case.
Vista installation makes the repartitioning with correct parameters.

Having the correct alignment is critical to get good performance from the trive, avoiding stuttering and also to avoid shortening the life lengt of the SSD.

For more information om how to set correct partition alignment offset please read this threads first post. (looks complicated but only takes a few seconds)
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum ... hp?t=48309

And then of course in the xp installation choose not to redo the partition.
This way you wont get the whole recovery partition for xp on the drive but i know i wont miss it and i also get a few more GB of hard disk space this way. (if you want the whole ibm recovery partition i have only succeeded getting it with the vista recovery media from lenovo.)

And yes, there is (i think) no need of buying a superfast SSD. At least not for the maximum transfer rate, maybe other SSD:s are faster on small files and better in other ways.
I top what seems to be the motherboard maximum tranfer rate at 110-114MB/s with the cheap OZC solid series SSD.

The computer is very fast with this drive.

Also of course Windows 7 works great on the SSD if you want to go Beta.

Anything else you want to know regarding this, just ask.

Best regards
Jonas - Sweden

maurizio.dececco wrote:... I am sure that in one or two years we will see laptops with SSD connected directly thru PCI Express 4x and getting thruputs of around 500 Mbytes/sec....

My point is different: it has been discussed in this forum that the x61(s) motherboards limits the SATA thruput to around 110 Mbytes/sec. Maurizio

1. I dream of the day that SSD reaches 0.5GBps, but it's just not in the cards (read: next 2-8 years for the mainstream). If anything, in the next 1-2 years there will be a transition period where SATA SSDs (or HDDs) are used as Data disks and mini PCIe SSDs are used for the OS and Program info.

2. SATA throughput limited to 0.110GBps? Where'd you get that info? Last I checked SATA1.5Gb/s (aka SATA 1.0) is rated at 0.187GBps (1.5Gb/s / 8bits per byte). I would be disappointed to know that the X61s can't take advantage of the full standard.

iamdmc wrote: 2. SATA throughput limited to 0.110Gbps? Where'd you get that info? Last I checked SATA1.5GB/s (aka SATA 1.0) is rated at 1.5GB/s. I would be disappointed to know that the X61s can't take advantage of the full standard.

What you are referring to as 1.5 GB/s (gigabyte/s), is actually only 1.5 Gb/s (gigabit/s)

Marin

@Fnord: I´m not a x6x user, but I´m pretty interested in the little topic you are having here. I´d like to ask, do you experience any hangs or performance problems (e.g. copying tons of small files, multitasking etc.) with the OCZ SSD?

Thanks

Marin

iamdmc wrote: 2. SATA throughput limited to 0.110Gbps? Where'd you get that info? Last I checked SATA1.5GB/s (aka SATA 1.0) is rated at 1.5GB/s. I would be disappointed to know that the X61s can't take advantage of the full standard.

I think he meant 0.110 GB/s not Gbps.

Standard SATA I handles about 1.2Gbps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA (or 150MB/s, but what was said was not that it actually was the sata interface that was the limit but something on the mainboard which still of course could be the SATA interface.)

f.e. if you buy a cheap sata raid controller card for 20$ it will give you a lot less actual speed than a 500$ card with 256MB onboard memory and connection to a 4x PCI-e port. even thouh they would both have 4x SATA II ports and using raid 0 with 4 standard ssd-disks.

It's not only the sata-port itselfs that decides the actual maximum speed. My SSD performes about 34Mb/s higher speed in my tower computer with higher speed buses and SATA II even though a SATA I should be able to give the same 144MB/s

Marin85 wrote:@Fnord: I´m not a x6x user, but I´m pretty interested in the little topic you are having here. I´d like to ask, do you experience any hangs or performance problems (e.g. copying tons of small files, multitasking etc.) with the OCZ SSD?

First time i used my SSD i did experience a lot of that, but then they found out the thing with aligned offset and after setting up the partition with correct alignement offset i have not experienced that kind of problem again. Now it is just all that much better than a regular HDD.

Fnord wrote: First time i used my SSD i did experience a lot of that, but then they found out the thing with aligned offset and after setting up the partition with correct alignement offset i have not experienced that kind of problem again. Now it is just all that much better than a regular HDD.

Could you please explain what you mean by "setting up the partition with correct alignment offset?" Is there a web link that explains it? TIA.

Look at Fnord´s first post in this thread. There he provides a link to that kind of information.

The Sata interface is 1.5Gb/s - but it is 10b per byte with encoding so 150MB/s peak. Nobody will ever hit peak in real hardware.

awolfe63 wrote:The Sata interface is 1.5Gb/s - but it is 10b per byte with encoding so 150MB/s peak. Nobody will ever hit peak in real hardware.

The Intel SSDs reach 220 MB/s sustained read and 160 MB/s sustained write...

They are SATA-II. SATA-II is 3Gb/s or 300MB/s peak.

@ Fnord, which exact model of OCZ 60GB SSD did you get and what was the cost?

awolfe63 wrote:They are SATA-II. SATA-II is 3Gb/s or 300MB/s peak.

Ah, ok, I didn´t understand you correctly.

The Solid Series actually look quite affordable. Also, Vista seems not to be suffering from the same symptoms as XP is. which make things a little bit simpler for me (even though some tweaks will be necessary, most of them I already have anyway). Vista 7...a pardon Win 7 promises to bring some improvements as well (I don´t really know how much has been worked out regarding SSD as of the beta) and I´m really starting considering buying one...

As an alternative to the OCZ I decided to order one of these Photofast CR-9000:
http://www.photofast.tw/eng/SSD_CR9000.html
http://www.ultra-imagination.com/Memory%20Card.htm

I am planning to use it just as a spare drive but I was thinking of using it as a primary SSD for my x61t. Anyone have opinions on whether this would be a good idea?

It has a SATA II setting so I'm assuming it would work the same as the OCZ but I'm not completely sure. Also, it only works in RAID 0 which is probably how an OCZ works as well but I would have liked the option to use other RAID options such as 1,5, or 10.

thanks!

Problem: SD is slow

uddinf wrote:. Also, it only works in RAID 0 which is probably how an OCZ works as well but I would have liked the option to use other RAID options such as 1,5, or 10.

I don´t believe you would have free space for a second OCZ SSD in your x61 It is just one-drive-configuration, hence no RAID scheme.

I dream of the day that RAID is possible inside of a notebook...

Two 1.8" SLC SSD SATA6Gb/s (releasing in 09) for the data and two mPCIe SLC SSD (32-64GB) for the OS. Say goodbye to backups

Apart from 17'' monsters like W700 or modells of Eurocom and Alienware, Sony has recently "outsourced" portable model with two 1.8'' SSDs in RAID setup (with switchable discrete graphics and pretty 1600x900 display), I believe it´s a 13.3'' model

EDIT: And here is a link to Sony Vaio Z

Marin85 wrote: I don´t believe you would have free space for a second OCZ SSD in your x61 It is just one-drive-configuration, hence no RAID scheme.

what I mean is that each SD card in the photofast product operates in RAID 0. It is likely that the OCZ has individual memory chips (lowers cost) which are also in RAID 0 just like the photofast.

iamdmc wrote:Problem: SD is slow

When the SD cards are combined in RAID their speed is cumulative. If you look at the benchmarks for the product you can see that the more cards inserted, the faster it is and it reaches SATA II speeds.

uddinf wrote: what I mean is that each SD card in the photofast product operates in RAID 0. It is likely that the OCZ has individual memory chips (lowers cost) which are also in RAID 0 just like the photofast.

Hm, could be, that´s indeed an interesting question!

uddinf wrote:When the SD cards are combined in RAID their speed is cumulative. If you look at the benchmarks for the product you can see that the more cards inserted, the faster it is and it reaches SATA II speeds.

But then how reliable are these cards? I mean, what if one of them fails...

iamdmc wrote:Say goodbye to backups

RAID does nothing at all in terms of eliminating the need for regular backing up. You should still backup RAID arrays on the same basis that you should backup a single disk.

Cheers,

Bill B.

Marin85 wrote:The Solid Series actually look quite affordable. Also, Vista seems not to be suffering from the same symptoms as XP is. which make things a little bit simpler for me (even though some tweaks will be necessary, most of them I already have anyway). Vista 7...a pardon Win 7 promises to bring some improvements as well (I don´t really know how much has been worked out regarding SSD as of the beta) and I´m really starting considering buying one...

Yes Vista sets the partition alignment offset correctly for ssd:s but other than that i dint think it's better than XP.

I didn't notice Win 7 handling a ssd diffrent (yet), still wanted to do automatic defrag and use index and stuff like that.

Harryc wrote:@ Fnord, which exact model of OCZ 60GB SSD did you get and what was the cost?

Hi, i got this one in 60GB.
And i gave 205 US$ for it here in Sweden.

Thanks. That drive is $117.79 after rebate here. I predict that the 60GB SSD's of this generation will be under $100 very soon.

bill bolton wrote: RAID does nothing at all in terms of eliminating the need for regular backing up. You should still backup RAID arrays on the same basis that you should backup a single disk.

Cheers,

Bill B.

I believe he/she will be happy to have mirrored drives

Fnord wrote: Yes Vista sets the partition alignment offset correctly for ssd:s but other than that i dint think it's better than XP.

I didn't notice Win 7 handling a ssd diffrent (yet), still wanted to do automatic defrag and use index and stuff like that.

I didn´t say Vista is better than XP As for Win 7, I hope M$ is going to automatize all these tweaks. If not, I guess we will be doing it in the same old way.