X301 - OEM SSD vs Intel X-18M G2?

[immaculate]

Hey folks,

I may have just acquired an X301 w/the 128gb SSD option. Tried to find some CrystalDiskMark benchmarks for that particular SSD but my search-fu sucks today. I'm a huge Intel X25-M G2 fan and have quite a few of those in multiple machines, so naturally I am considering the X-18M G2 for the X301. My question is about how well the samsung 128gb SSD in the X301 performs and if an upgrade to the X-18M is even worthwhile. Has anyone done a comparison of the two on here? I've seen some charts on other forums, but wanted to check with folks on this forum.

btw, amount of storage doesn't matter to me at all, so the "downgrade" from 128gb to 80gb is a non-issue for me. I'm primarily interested in the speed, esp on the slightly-dated X301.

thanks!

aaron

edit to add: my X301 is brand new, so it should have the latest samsung ssd...

[kkyoung]

Hi, I am sorry I am not replying your question because I don't own a X301 but I am considering to buy one. I want to do the same thing as you and you probably saw those same test results I searched. I just want to ask you how is X301? Is it running programs very smooth? Worth of having one? Thank you

[immaculate]

hi kkyoung,

i'll post back here in a few hours and let you know - fedex just dropped it off and i'm imaging the machine now =]

cheers

aaron

[immaculate]

Update:

Didn't get any responses about the X18-M but I did bench the SSD in my new X301 and was pretty impressed (this is just after imaging w/Win7 Ultimate x64 and Office 2010 RTM...NO antivirus installed yet). My goal of late has been to move all of my machines that are not fileservers over to Intel SSDs where available, but I think I might keep the OE 128gb SSD in this machine.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aaronliao/4566298349/

Win7 rates the SSD at a 7.1. I imagine the X18-M G2 will be a bit faster, but for now I'll hold off.

kkyoung - So far, I am VERY impressed with the X301. The proc is a bit outdated but for most tasks, it should be just fine. The SSD makes it seem a lot faster than it probably is. I run Photoshop CS2 and process large 21megapixel JPGs from a Canon 5D2 and did a few trials on the X301 - it's not a powerhouse by any means, but it runs my usual workflow just fine. The WXGA+ screen res is great for stuff like Visual Studio. The most surprising part to me was the build quality/overall feel of the X301 - it far surpasses that of all my other X-Series thinkpads in my opinion (and i've got a few as listed in my sig).

hope this helps - i'll update with new CrystalDiskMark scores if I get the X18-M.

aaron

[kkyoung]

hey Aaron,
Thank you for your sharing. I believe X301 is a pretty good machine, just wondering whether it could meet requirement of those softwares in the future 3 or 4 years if I will use it to watch movies sometime, process pictures maybe (if I got professional DC first), and surf on the internet. And I hope it could get longer battery life...> 5hr. To use bay battery, screwdriver is needed...not so convenient... it's a trade-off...

According what I searched about Intel SSD, I think your SSD's performance is good. I am not saying it's faster than Intel SSD. I agree with you that an Intel SSD will be faster, just... I, personally, don't think the difference is big enough to upgrade.

[immaculate]

kkyoung,

i still use my 1.4ghz pentium m x40 on a regular basis (that one has a kingspec SSD) as well as a 1.5ghz pentium m x41 every day. both are not fast by any means. i frequently use photoshop cs2 to edit my photos, watch videos, write code, check email, etc. none of them are unbearably slow, and the x40 is ~5 years old at this point =]

what i will say about the x301 is that so far, i am NOT impressed with the battery life. my x200s gets absolutely incredible battery life. the x301, on the other hand...not so much. i have the 6cell right now and plan on buying the 3cell bay battery as well. i don't ever use cds/dvds anymore so the battery would stay in the machine at all times, negating the need for a screwdriver.

and i agree with you about the intel ssd not being a big enough upgrade for cost - i have a whole bunch of intel x25-m in my other laptops and really love them, but they are still rather costly for 80gb and the samsung SSD seems plenty fast...for now ;]

aaron

[Mugrunty]

Well this is weird and dissapointing. I also have the lenovo 128GB SSD in my X200 Tablet. I did a benchmark on it, and I didn't get those results. See for yourself:



Am I doing something wrong? Also,my Primary Hard disk Rating is only a 6.9 on windows 7. I noticed mine was 64 bit, but would that make a difference?

[Mugrunty]

Actually, I just ran the 512K test again, and got better results. This is confusing... Still not as good as immaculate's.

[immaculate]

Mugrunty - don't worry too much about the benchmarks - they're almost purely mathematic. I like them just to get an idea of how my different SSDs stack rank against each other (and also how different factors like the SATA150 limitation in the X6x laptops affect throughput).

As for doing something wrong, I doubt it. Are you running some type of antivirus or are there other tasks running in the background that might be taking cycles from your CPU/disk? I did the benchmark above on a totally fresh 64bit system image.

aaron

[Mugrunty]

Well...its fresh in terms of a lenovo system. There's always 80+ processes running and...I actually did that test while on battery power. Does it help to nuke and reinstall windows 7? I thought with lenovos "enhanced experience" their default installation would be better. I still have the recovery media on my drive, and haven't found a method to get it off yet. I'd need a DVD drive or something. with about 8GBs of free space. I tried using an external Hard Drive, but it wanted to format the thing. Maybe If I went out and bought an 8GB flash drive?

I dunno, I'm pretty happy with the performace so far. It boots/shutsdown about 8 times faster than my old T60!

[immaculate]

I can't comment on the "Enhanced Experience" from Lenovo - I honestly never looked up what that meant really other than that the hardware/software experience should be optimised for Win7. I always blow away the Lenovo image and image my machines using my own image - to me it's "cleaner" than removing stuff like ThinkVantage Access Connections, Active Protection System, and whatever else the ThinkPads come loaded with that I don't like/don't need.

Depending on your power scheme, you may or may not do better when plugged in - it's worth a shot =] And just to give you an idea of what conditions I was benchmarking on, I think I had at most 70 processes running at time of bench since my fully-up-and-running X301 now has 73 processes total.

and yea, the boot/shutdown of SSD systems is flat out incredible, isn't it?

aaron

[Investinwaffles]

Here is a bench from my X18-M G2 in my X301:


Slower in the larger write speeds, but faster in the 4K tests. Overall I love this drive. Makes my 1.4 C2D feel as snappy as my C2Q in my desktop

[alexan07]

Does the X-18M G2 also fit in the x300? I'm looking for a replacement drive for the stock 64gig drive.

[chrisndip]

Hi guys

Just ran CrystalDiskMark 3.0 last night - not sure how to post the screenshot but here's the data pulled from the software.
I'm running an Intel X18M-G2 160GB. Not sure if processor speed makes a difference but I have the 1.6Ghz SU9600.
Windows 7 has my hard drive rated at 7.7

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 258.844 MB/s
Sequential Write : 106.780 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 192.288 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 109.335 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 16.952 MB/s [ 4138.6 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 34.108 MB/s [ 8327.2 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 162.095 MB/s [ 39574.1 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 87.206 MB/s [ 21290.5 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 14.4% (21.4/148.9 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2010/06/14 21:43:04
OS : Windows 7 [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)

[AvalonXIII]

Since I'm feeling good today, I'll try to answer all your questions
immaculate, it seems that you have the Toshiba SSD, not Samsung SSD, based on your benchmark. This also helps explain why your benchmark result is better than that of Mugrunty, who definitely seems to have the Samsung SSD gen2.
If you already have Toshiba SSD, there is almost no reason to upgrade to the Intel SSD, unless you want TRIM support. The Toshiba SSD seems to have its own algorithm to prevent performance degradation, so you don't have to be too worry about this.
alexan07, yes, the Intel SSD 1.8" variant will fit in your X300, but you will be cap at SATA-I speed. Not a big problem, since random read/write are important, and those are not capped.

[masterus]

Hi

You can consider other option: OCZ VERTEX 2 1,8"

Best Regards,

[immaculate]

Since I'm feeling good today, I'll try to answer all your questions
immaculate, it seems that you have the Toshiba SSD, not Samsung SSD, based on your benchmark. This also helps explain why your benchmark result is better than that of Mugrunty, who definitely seems to have the Samsung SSD gen2.
If you already have Toshiba SSD, there is almost no reason to upgrade to the Intel SSD, unless you want TRIM support. The Toshiba SSD seems to have its own algorithm to prevent performance degradation, so you don't have to be too worry about this.
alexan07, yes, the Intel SSD 1.8" variant will fit in your X300, but you will be cap at SATA-I speed. Not a big problem, since random read/write are important, and those are not capped.

Thank you AvalonXIII - I figured out a little while ago that I had the Toshiba SSD and couldn't really find any info about that particular drive - appreciate the info =] I will stick with the Toshiba.

cheers

aaron