OCZ Core SSD in X61s

Message

TotallyT · #1 Post by **TotallyT** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 5:57 am

I've ordered a X61s and am planning to put a new OCZ Core SSD 64GB in it.

It is a SATA II 2.5" so am hoping it will work fine?

http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/f ... ii_2_5-ssd

SHoTTa35 · #2 Post by **SHoTTa35** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 8:43 am

will work just fine. The x61 takes normal 2.5" drives so any 9mm 2.5" SATA drive will work just fine.

netrider · #3 Post by **netrider** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:37 pm

dont worry, it will work. could u tell me where u bought it and what u paid for? what will be the approx. delivery date?

masterus · #4 Post by **masterus** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 3:34 pm

hi,

ocz core ssd it's completely new product link
have contacted ocz and got info that series will be available in next 2 weeks

rgds,

kunfuchopsticks · #5 Post by **kunfuchopsticks** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 10:00 pm

I love the pricing on these.

Gary Miyakawa · #6 Post by **Gary Miyakawa** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 9:59 pm

FYI,

PLEASE SEE MY UPDATE BELOW IN SEPARATE POST! Things may not be as good as we hoped.

I just upgraded my X60s with the 128gb OCZ drive. Cloned my 64gb spinner to the ssd and booted it up.

The laptop is now, basically silent (just a hint of fan noise). Heat wise, I'm still testing.

Battery life seems better but will learn more as time goes on.

Speed is amazing. Loading up visio or VBE 2008 or Word is unbelievable.

I got this one from Compusa (online) and was something like $560 to the door.

I, for one, am very pleased with it!

Gary M

Switchcorp · #7 Post by **Switchcorp** » Sat Jul 19, 2008 12:28 am

Is it possible for someone to run a HDTach Test or any other HDD benchmarking ? (read/write)

Gary Miyakawa · #8 Post by **Gary Miyakawa** » Sat Jul 19, 2008 1:35 am

Hope this helps....
http://www.pointsofdata.com/OCZSSD128gb.jpg

I'm guessing the drop in the middle was from email or some firing up. I did not disable everything for the test. Just quickly thru HD Tach on the system and ran it (a couple times to make sure it was stable).

Gary Miyakawa

mod edit: please keep inline pics to < 50 kb! -- gator

Switchcorp · #9 Post by **Switchcorp** » Sat Jul 19, 2008 1:44 am

My question comes after these benchmarks :

http://www.bluefi.co.uk/

Can you do the same (HD Tune) to see if the result of the write test is the same ?

Thank you

Gary Miyakawa · #10 Post by **Gary Miyakawa** » Sat Jul 19, 2008 8:08 am

I'm sorry but I'm not able to do the write benchmark because I have multiple partitions. I did run the read side and I have to wonder about the utility. The speeds dropped below 1mb transfer rate. This is the only tool I've seen that went that low (and I have run a number of them).

Cheers,

Gary Miyakawa

gunston · #11 Post by **gunston** » Tue Jul 22, 2008 6:41 pm

looking forward to upgrade SSD soon

khtse · #12 Post by **khtse** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 9:04 pm

There is $40 rebate going with them now.
Amazon and Newegg are both eligible for the rebate but both of them are out of stock.

Amazon is slightly cheaper if since they ship free, so I pre-ordered a 64GB one with them.

Gary Miyakawa · #13 Post by **Gary Miyakawa** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 12:48 am

Folks,

I might have spoken too soon....

Shortly after my glowing review, I started running into file corruption and write delays. I worked for 4 days trying to resolve the issues and to date, I have not been able to.

It got to the point that I just rebooted the machine and got a message that then registry file was corrupted and the system blue screened and continually rebooted.

There appears to be some issues with certain disk controllers (x60s to be one of them) though, OCZ is looking into the problem.

I'm back to the old harddrive waiting to see IF they can resolve the issues.

Hope this helps someone.

Gary M

khtse · #14 Post by **khtse** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 5:52 pm

Gary Miyakawa wrote:Folks,

I might have spoken too soon....

Shortly after my glowing review, I started running into file corruption and write delays. I worked for 4 days trying to resolve the issues and to date, I have not been able to.

It got to the point that I just rebooted the machine and got a message that then registry file was corrupted and the system blue screened and continually rebooted.

There appears to be some issues with certain disk controllers (x60s to be one of them) though, OCZ is looking into the problem.

I'm back to the old harddrive waiting to see IF they can resolve the issues.

Hope this helps someone.

Gary M

I found this was being mentioned in one of the review:

EDITORS NOTE 07/25/08: There have been an above-average number of reports indicating data corruption on the OCZ Core SSD. The problem is primarily attributed to the ACHI feature being enabled in the BIOS, even though the manual suggests that this feature is disabled to preserve stability. Benchmark Reviews received our sample unit directly from OCZ and was asked to return it after only a few days, and because of this arrangement were unable to complete long-term stability testing for product reliability.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?o ... mitstart=8

Gary Miyakawa · #15 Post by **Gary Miyakawa** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 9:23 pm

I wonder who could have told Olin about the issue....

Still trying to figure it all out. Love the drive when it works !

Gary M

khtse · #16 Post by **khtse** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 11:26 pm

I just went to OCZ forum. It seems that a lot of people are having the same issue.

OCZ pepole suggest using Vista SP1 and that AHCI must be turned off for SSD drives.

Well, I am holding off my purchase until either (i) OCZ officially solves the problem or (ii) a solution is found such that every person on the forum says "hey, it works!"

Gary Miyakawa · #17 Post by **Gary Miyakawa** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 10:32 am

Well, I am holding off my purchase until either (i) OCZ officially solves the problem or (ii) a solution is found such that every person on the forum says "hey, it works!"

I think that is an excellent idea.

I did find one last set of drivers for my laptop (new Matrix) and loaded it. Then ghosted the drive and for now (last 18 hours) it seems to be working (but not holding breath). Poor machine has been rebooted and diskchecked to an inch of it's life!

Will continue updates at warrented.

Cheers

Gary M

adrianaitken · #18 Post by **adrianaitken** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 6:15 am

You do know the current rumours ? OCZ pushed out these over priced,low capacity disks quickly because Samsung is about to stuff the market with high capacity, cheap SSD's within the next few months. I'm talking 256 Gig for low $$hundreds.
I'm keeping my 32Gig SSD for now and will wait until the end of the year and treat myself (er,my laptop) to a BIG SSD for Christmas.

hexproject · #19 Post by **hexproject** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 11:02 am

Gary, any new developments?

I may want to pick up a SSD this weekend to put in my X61...
Thanks.

Gary Miyakawa · #20 Post by **Gary Miyakawa** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 4:02 pm

Sorry to be bearer of bad news.

I've given up on the drive. I seemed to get the corruption problem under control but the hesitation in writing was killing me. (up to 8 seconds to write a file @ 192kb in size).

The OCZ website has a some really upset people on it about the drive and I've returned my drive (128gb) for refund. It wasn't worth the pain.

I also noticed that most places selling the SSD Core Series drives (Compusa, Newegg, etc) have removed them from their web pages.

It was nice (and quiet) for a time but not worth the major pain (and 2 weeks of debugging) to me.

Cheers,

Gary M

adrianaitken · #21 Post by **adrianaitken** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 4:06 pm

Not to gloat but my Samsung 32Gb in my X61 has been running fine (and quiet) for months now

hexproject · #22 Post by **hexproject** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 6:20 pm

going to get my OCZ drive tomorrow.
Going to pop it in my X61.

I will post results.

hopefully, the newer laptops have better chipsets for compatibility.

keep my finders crossed.....

hexproject · #23 Post by **hexproject** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 3:52 pm

just got it..
installed it.. from Recovery DVD and it's working so far.
No BSOD yet.

i need to update some driver, Service Pack first.
Will let you know if it crashes..

This is the OCZ 128GB Core series...

on a Lenovo X61.

had a 7200 200GB before.
so will do some boot tests later...

khtse · #24 Post by **khtse** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 12:36 pm

hexproject, please let us know how it perform after a week or two. I am using also an X61 myself, and I am seriously considering getting a 128GB SSD.

I found today that there is another affordable 128GB SSD. It is made by RiData and they call it the Ultra-S Plus series. Specs and price are more or less the same as OCZ Core's, but I haven't find any review of it yet.

hexproject · #25 Post by **hexproject** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 12:43 pm

hi, update. the drive works okay.
just slow and fast.

I have enabled AHCI using directions from here:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...igr-62909.html

everything seem fine.

but the slow and fast ( like others have posted on the forum)
is still there.

But enabling AHCI doesn't crash my machine at all.

I also have checked the driver.. for the drive.. it's from 2001!!!!

anyone know of a newer drive for the OCZ SSD core series drive???

maybe that's why it's slow and fast.

i am going to to a clean install.. and see what happens.
there's nothing wrong with the drive.

I am guessing the problems we have is that intel's chipset.. or the controller chipset can't handle the speed of the SSD.

and i don't know if there's a buffer in there to slow it down or speed it up as needed like the 7200 hitach with 16 MB of cache buffer...

#26 Post by **erik** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 3:25 pm

hexproject wrote:I am guessing the problems we have is that intel's chipset.. or the controller chipset can't handle the speed of the SSD.

i'd say that's probably a bad guess (or not the right guess) given the negative reviews about this drive posted above. the 64GB samsung SSD from my X300 is quite fast in both my X61T and X61. i'd be more inclined to guess that the OCZ SSD is the issue.

hexproject · #27 Post by **hexproject** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 3:52 pm

i don't have any experience with Samsung SSD yet... getting one soon for a X200 so i can do some comparison.

Most of the problems on the forum is with data corruption.

I don't have that at all so far.. all the install went just fine...

so maybe you are right.. the firmware on the OCZ needs to be adjusted.. or the other way around which are the controller chipsets need to be updated to handle OCZ????

anyone want to take a stab at this?

Thanks. MLC vs. SLC??? or something?

AvalonXIII · #28 Post by **AvalonXIII** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 4:44 pm

hexproject wrote:i don't have any experience with Samsung SSD yet... getting one soon for a X200 so i can do some comparison.

Most of the problems on the forum is with data corruption.

I don't have that at all so far.. all the install went just fine...

so maybe you are right.. the firmware on the OCZ needs to be adjusted.. or the other way around which are the controller chipsets need to be updated to handle OCZ????

anyone want to take a stab at this?

Thanks. MLC vs. SLC??? or something?

This will answer your question:
http://www.alternativerecursion.info/?p=106

I also have a SLC SSD that performs like you described so it's not the quality of the memory itself, it is a problem with the controller.

hexproject · #29 Post by **hexproject** » Thu Aug 07, 2008 3:21 am

UPDATE: so i decided to install a fresh copy of Vista instead of XP.
Works like a charm... it's really really fast. no more choppiness when using XP....

Well worth the money.. I guess I am one of the few lucky ones to install this and have it work flawlessly.

but we'll see.. maybe i will start seeing corrupt files in a couple of days. but so far so good using Vista.

Can someone at OCZ tell me is there a difference in the driver between the XP and Vista?

I have not tried to install a fresh copy of XP, so I may try that.. I have been using Recovery Disks from IBM.

weepy · #30 Post by **weepy** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 8:41 am

Wow, i knew there would be a catch when looking at the price. Pricewise, the OCZ drives are MLC, no doubt. They try to make up for this with multichannel controller. The controller is optimized for sequential benchmark use (see the regular drops, as the buffers go empty) and write performance goes to hell in real life. The wear levelling stalls the drive (i have quite varying write performance with my transcend cf), and either bugs in firmware or very soon failing MLC chip may be responsible for the corruption. I dont believe in driver or sata chipset incompatibility, these things are on market too long and working too flawlessly. I would recommend to go with less space, but guaranteed SLC solution.

OCZ Core SSD in X61s

OCZ Core SSD in X61s

any news

will find out tomorrow!

got my OCZ 128 GIG Today

so far..

Re: so far..

yeah. we need do to more tests

Re: yeah. we need do to more tests

update.. VISTA is FAST now.

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