Optimal SSD ?

[visitor]

I believe that, like me, many X6x users are still in the dark when it comes to maximizing storage performance, so I'm sure it would be of great benefit to discuss experiences and alternatives.
The obvious thought is SSD, a solution that not only improves performance but also relieves mobile users from the dreadful fear of disk failure.
I've read many threads trying to locate keys to some issues which remain obscure, so I will list what I've gathered so far, as a starting point for a hopefully constructive thread.

Issue #1: unlike with 2.5' SATA HDs, you can't just use the fastest performing 2.5' SATA SSD in a machine such as my X60s, because I understand the notebook's BIOS and bus architecture imposes a limit to real writing and reading times. So the question here is: how does one find out the values of these limits ?

Issue #2: once the above limits are figured, the following step would be to look for the most reliable and cost-effective SSD model which effectively meets those limits so there's no waste. Trouble is when looking at specs of a given SSD one usually reads "up to x mb/s", which sets an idea of a maximum performance, but tells nothing about minimum or average performance. Question here: how to figure out the exact writing times performance of an SSD before purchasing it ?

Issue #3: if one finds the SSD with best writing times that his notebook acknowledges, should he or she get an SLC or MLC version of it ? With recent improvements of MLC technology could one safely rely on that cheaper choice for demanding use ?

Issue #4: I've read that SSDs have problems with Windows XP 32-bit and that some tweaks should be applied to the registry or other system areas. Could anyone elaborate on what these problems are and how to solve them ?

Issue #5: While the four issues above concern internal SSD use, here the aim is external solutions, in other words which would be the best performing method for an external SSD in a notebook such as the X60s ? I understand that in most connectivity options there is some kind of bottleneck which impairs external performance so it seems that an external SSD wouldn't be much faster than an external HD. I'll list down the possibilities :
The intriguing thing is that besides USB 2.0 and a probably slow SD slot, the X60s has firewire and a cardbus PC card slot. There reportedly is an adapter to fit an XpressCard in the PC Card slot but while this solves the physical connection it does not allow true XpressCard performance supposedly because the card follows a USB bus.
Could a Cardbus adapter do ? I've read that, again, a Cardbus adapter would fit an e-Sata card but limitations on the Ricoh controller would cap down performance of even a SATA 1 device. Wonder if my old X31 would have this problem too.
Final alternative is firewire: maybe an external firewire enclosure would allow more of an external SSD's performance. But then I read that Windows XP following service pack 2 has capped down firewire performance to the point of barely allowing DV video capture.
The one possibility that I could not read about is whether an SSD of different dimensions could be placed and perform to content elsewhere inside the notebook (mine doesn't have a Wlan card, so should I assume there is an available empty slot inside ?).

As a side note, it occurs to me that unlike with the X6x models the X3x Thinkpads could use a Dock which had mini-pci slots. These could accomodate things like a Matrox 650 video card and thus DVi (not possible with X6x), so maybe X3x users could enjoy fast SSD though mini-pci ?

Hopefully the sharing of experiences and opinions here will shed light on X users.
All the best to all.

[ZaZ]

I think you should always have a good backup. The notion that a SSD will never fail seems a bit presumptuous. I had the 64GB Samsung SLC in my R60, which is a SATA I machine. It's probably a good choice because its throughput is 100MBps and the SATA I cap speed is right around 120MBps, though the newer drives are probably less expensive. Other than it booting it a bit faster and a few slower opening apps like Photoshop or iTunes starting a little quicker, I really couldn't tell much of a difference between it and my regular 7200RPM platter based drive in general usage. You'll probably get some more battery life with a SSD, which is probably its biggest benefit in a SATA I machine.

[yak]

There reportedly is an adapter to fit an XpressCard in the PC Card slot but while this solves the physical connection it does not allow true XpressCard performance supposedly because the card follows a USB bus.

Not necessarily. There are ExpressCard eSATA adapters that use the PCI-Express lane available in the ExpressCard slot. Here's one example quoting data transfer rates up to 3 Gbps:
http://www.delock.de/produkte/gruppen/E ... anguage=EN
(note that AFAIR, this particular one is made by German company for local market only but I'm sure there are others)

[loyukfai]

Not necessarily. There are ExpressCard eSATA adapters that use the PCI-Express lane available in the ExpressCard slot. Here's one example quoting data transfer rates up to 3 Gbps:
http://www.delock.de/produkte/gruppen/E ... anguage=EN
(note that AFAIR, this particular one is made by German company for local market only but I'm sure there are others)

AFAIK, the X6x has no "real" ExpressCard support. ExpressCard is supported via adapters which means...

ExpresssCard --> USB-to-PC Card converter --> PC Card

Hence if the adapter requires PCIe connection, it will not work.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

[ThinkRob]

I'd recommend an intel X-25M.

Why? Simply put: for desktop usage, no other SSD even comes close to the performance. Of the (relatively small) group of affordable SSDs that *aren't* complete jokes (performance-wise), Intel's drive is vastly superior from both performance and power-usage standpoints.

The four issues you mentioned aren't really issues. Here's why:

Issue #1: unlike with 2.5' SATA HDs, you can't just use the fastest performing 2.5' SATA SSD in a machine such as my X60s, because I understand the notebook's BIOS and bus architecture imposes a limit to real writing and reading times. So the question here is: how does one find out the values of these limits ?

The SATA bus is capped at 1.5Gbit. Yes, this is technically slower than the theoretical maximum of some SSDs, but unless you're doing a massive sequential read under perfectly optimal conditions, it's extremely unlikely that this will be your limiting factor.

Issue #2: once the above limits are figured, the following step would be to look for the most reliable and cost-effective SSD model which effectively meets those limits so there's no waste. Trouble is when looking at specs of a given SSD one usually reads "up to x mb/s", which sets an idea of a maximum performance, but tells nothing about minimum or average performance. Question here: how to figure out the exact writing times performance of an SSD before purchasing it ?

Ignore the max transfer rates. Those are for sequential reads/writes under optimal conditions.

For desktop usage, the four most important stats are:

1) Random read -- this is the most important stat, since a massive portion of desktop usage consists of this.

2) Random write -- most writes during normal desktop usage are small, random writes.

3) IOPS under load -- some SSDs choke when you have more than a few outstanding writes. The JMicron-based drives are notoriously bad in this regard. This is the cause of the "stuttering" issue that some cheap SSDs have.

4) Power usage -- cheap MLC SSDs and many SLC drives have fairly high power consumptions (> 1W under load.) Good MLC drives have very low power consumptions; the X-25M has an *active* power consumption of 150mW.

Issue #3: if one finds the SSD with best writing times that his notebook acknowledges, should he or she get an SLC or MLC version of it ? With recent improvements of MLC technology could one safely rely on that cheaper choice for demanding use ?

MLC. MLC is far cheaper, and is perfectly fine for desktop usage.

As for longevity: the X-25M has a MTBF of 1.2 million hours. IIRC Intel has said that you can overwrite the entire drive every day for a couple years before you run into problems. It's not a big deal, since you're doing regular, redundant backups... right? Right?!?

Issue #4: I've read that SSDs have problems with Windows XP 32-bit and that some tweaks should be applied to the registry or other system areas. Could anyone elaborate on what these problems are and how to solve them ?

AFAIK there are no inherent problems with Windows XP in this regard. All the tweaks I've seen for it revolve around reducing the number of random writes that it makes -- a reduction that's only really necessary if you're using a crappy SSD w/ a JMicron controller.

Seriously, I'd recommend the X-25. It has amazing random read/write performance, fantastically-low power consumption, and (with the move to 34nm) is very aggressively priced. The only drive that even comes close is OCZ's Vertex. It's an order of magnitude slower w/ regard to random write performance, and I'm a *lot* more confident in Intel's engineering than I am OCZ's. (It took OCZ four firmware releases just to make the drive a serious contender -- and one of the releases actually *introduced* a data-loss bug. To their credit, they're fairly open about fixing stuff, but still...)

[yak]

AFAIK, the X6x has no "real" ExpressCard support. ExpressCard is supported via adapters which means...

ExpresssCard --> USB-to-PC Card converter --> PC Card

Hence if the adapter requires PCIe connection, it will not work.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

You're right. My bad.

I knew the X6x have a single slot (unlike for example a T60 which has CardBus and ExpressCard slots) but I thought it was ExpressCard when it actually is a CardBus/PCMCIA.

[virge]

I believe that, like me, many X6x users are still in the dark when it comes to maximizing storage performance, so I'm sure it would be of great benefit to discuss experiences and alternatives.
The obvious thought is SSD, a solution that not only improves performance but also relieves mobile users from the dreadful fear of disk failure.

Well, this is certainly on point. Just tonight, the HDD in my wife's X61s appears to be on its way out (blue screens, fails PC-Doctor tests). Fortunately, I had made a backup of her files earlier today. I'm also planning on putting the drive in an external case to see what else I can pull from it.

Re disk failure: I don't know the numbers when it comes to likelihood of failure, but SSDs DO fail. Just go on newegg or amazon and look at the reviews. It seems that with SSD failure, there are no reliable data recovery methods. At least with a mechanical drive, the platters can be read even after a drive failure.

Still, I had previously ordered am OCZ Vertex and a Samsung SSD (both MLC) to try out in the X61s. They're on their way. The Intel X-25M is probably faster, but not 200% faster...considering it costs 2X as much, I didn't go that route. Also, the X61 motherboard limits the SATA to about 110mb/s so I don't know how much of the Intel's performance is "wasted."

I have an Sandisk SSD in my R60. Its an older model using SLC with specs something along the lines of 75mb/s read and 45mb/s write. Its definitely quicker booting and starting programs than the 80GB 5400RPM drive it replaced. Feels faster than the original 160GB/7200RPM drive in the X61s...

[visitor]

Very good points made.

FredGarvin, I agree that SDD reliability has yet to prove itself, it's a very recent technology. What has so far been considered is that, like RAM, SSDs have no moving parts which is something typically prone to failure in HDs. So we "believe" that by replacing an HD with an SDD we will be able to use our portable X notebooks more freely on the move without worrying much as we would using an HD.
Still Virge has brought an interesting aspect: can SSD data be recovered like with HDs ?

XP problems with SSDs ? I wish I could elaborate, but all I can tell is that Google shows thousands of threads about it: http://tinyurl.com/nwhc2y

I also totally agree with redundant backups, one can never be safe in the digital world, and I get terrified about people producing critical data that stays inside the computer. But backup is a task which may be done on the cheap with cheaper and larger HDs in USB enclosures. The topic I've brought up here aims more at clarifying storage performance as part of a system's overall performance, which inevitably implies a more expensive approach. And this does not necessarily mean professional work: say you're constantly dealing with home videos (unload from camera, convert, edit, copy, etc) you can easily find that things get slow at some point given the amount of work and data involved. So here it certainly helps to get the fastest drive, and then again the question is how fast will an X6x handle ? SATA 1 is 1,5 gb/s in theory but it's been stated that in real world the cap occurs at 1,2 and it's also been stated that not even that much is suported by X notebooks.

Thinkrob, I appreciate your very valuable information regarding random read/writes and IOPS, I'll try to focus on that so that I can better understand them. Am I correct to assume that the random values are the ones to more severely affect say working with many small files as opposed to a single big file ? I have a Sandisk Extreme 4 CompactFlash which I connect by USB 2.0 in my X60s (or Firewire 800 in a Mac) and the transfer of large video files is very fast while small text files are much slower.

And yes the Intel X-25M looks very good and it would be interesting to see how the Samsung compares to it within the X6x bus limitations. I see that more and more units are popping up at places like Newegg, but the Intel seems the one to beat.

As to using externally, I'm afraid we'd have to move to the X200 or other line of Thinjpads with true XpressCard to enjoy better performance, as I've read previous threads complaining that X6x BIOS revisions have never addressed the Ricoh controller limitations, what a drag.
I was considering a cardbus eSATA or FW800 for an external drive but it doesn't seem to make sense if performance will be capped down internally to USB rates.

[RDR]

I have an X41 non-tablet running the KingSpec 64gb SSD and flying! It really works well, extends the battery to well over 6+ hours (extended battery) and makes no noise. I have just purchased an X61 tablet to expand the note-taking ability. Is there a recommendation as to what SSD I should be using for the X61 Tablet. Specifically the 7764CTO? I have seen Crutial SSD - 64gb for $130. I don't require lots of storage as I work off of flash drives most of the time.

If I can get the X61 running very well, look for the worlds most PERFECT X41 on the 4-sale section!

[ThinkRob]

Thinkrob, I appreciate your very valuable information regarding random read/writes and IOPS, I'll try to focus on that so that I can better understand them. Am I correct to assume that the random values are the ones to more severely affect say working with many small files as opposed to a single big file ? I have a Sandisk Extreme 4 CompactFlash which I connect by USB 2.0 in my X60s (or Firewire 800 in a Mac) and the transfer of large video files is very fast while small text files are much slower.

The phenomenon you're experiencing with the CF adapter is a perfect example of the differences between random and sequential write performance.

Some of the newer OCZ drives are a good alternative to the X-25 for the budget-conscious. That said, I don't tend to trust OCZ drives quite as much -- they have a worse track record than Intel when it comes to the stability of their firmware, and for me data integrity is paramount. (In all fairness, they've pretty much gotten their act together at this point, but the Vertex's launch left a bad taste in my mouth.)

If you're really on a budget, I'd go with an OCZ Agility drive. They've got the exact same controller as the Vertex, but use different flash. The Agility uses either Toshiba or Intel flash. If you're lucky you'll get one with Toshiba flash, and enjoy performance that's quite close to that of the Vertex. If you're unlucky, you'll get some other brand of flash, and... well... performance will still be pretty good.

The OCZ Summit is just a re-labeled Samsung drive. It's got decent performance (far worse than the X-25 when it comes to random I/O, but still far better than a spinning-platter drive), and has excellent power consumption stats.

I'd recommend you read Anandtech's "SSD Anthology" and "SSD Relapse" articles -- they'll give you an excellent in-depth analysis with performance, price, and power-usage information for all the major players.

[Utwig]

I've been testing 160GB G2 Intel Postville in my X61T and while app starts, boot-up was noticeably faster, the real World difference (I have Hitachi 7k100) in my opinion is not worth spending 300+ Euros more than WD Scorpio Blue 500GB costs.

160GB Intel Postville G2

Code: Select all

--------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 2.2 (C) 2007-2008 hiyohiyo
      Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
--------------------------------------------------

   Sequential Read :  119.118 MB/s
  Sequential Write :   80.068 MB/s
 Random Read 512KB :  105.759 MB/s
Random Write 512KB :   80.148 MB/s
   Random Read 4KB :   13.631 MB/s
  Random Write 4KB :   22.509 MB/s

         Test Size : 100 MB
              Date : 2009/09/20 11:19:08

100GB Hitachi 7K100

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--------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 2.2 (C) 2007-2008 hiyohiyo
      Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
--------------------------------------------------

   Sequential Read :   18.681 MB/s
  Sequential Write :   17.086 MB/s
 Random Read 512KB :   12.698 MB/s
Random Write 512KB :   16.599 MB/s
   Random Read 4KB :    0.327 MB/s
  Random Write 4KB :    0.298 MB/s

         Test Size : 100 MB
              Date : 2009/09/20 11:57:38

Code: Select all

				Intel	Hitachi	Diff

Power-on to logon screen	0:21	0:36		42%

Hibernate				0:32	0:44		27%
Resume to logon screen		0:19	0:22		14%

Measured from BIOS POST

Here are my results. The reason for low score is probably the limit of ICH7, ULV 1.6GHz processor and the artificial limit to SATA1 speeds chosen by Lenovo.

Also for some reason I left the BIOS in Compatibility instead of AHCI mode.
System
Thinkpad X61 Tablet 7763-CU8
1.6GHz Intel ULV C2D
4GB DDR2
Win7 X64 Ultimate RTM

[ThinkRob]

I've been testing 160GB G2 Intel Postville in my X61T and while app starts, boot-up was noticeably faster, the real World difference (I have Hitachi 7k100) in my opinion is not worth spending 300+ Euros more than WD Scorpio Blue 500GB costs.

For any single-app load, there's not necessarily gonna be a massive increase in the perceived speed.

SSDs -- particularly Intel's MLC and most SLC drives -- excel under heavy load. A mixed read/write workload with a deep queue of outstanding requests is the sort of thing that an X-25 can handle with ease, but that will keep a Scorpio pegged to the point of being unusable.

Resume from suspend is pretty much just a sequential read -- and the platter-based drive holds up correspondingly well. Boot, on the other hand, consists of a ton of random reads, and the (virtually non-existent) access times of the SSD provide a massive decrease in boot time.

As for whether the improvement is worth the money... well that depends on the buyer.

Personally, I'd say it is. My X61s gets almost an entire hour more battery life with an X-25M than it did with the original drive. I tend to work on the move quite a bit, so that's a big deal for me. The added shock resistance is another perk; SSDs will tolerate a drop much, much, much better than a standard disk will. Again, what that's worth depends on the buyer, but for me it's worth the price difference.