It's a RAID system using 24 Samsung 256GB SSDs. I'm not normally in the habit of propogating viral advertising videos but it is pretty awesome in a very nerdy way.
Writing huge files is all well and good, but what about writing tons of small files? That's what SSD:s are usually bad at, and what the Intel SSD is tops at...
Using Ubuntu WITHOUT this incredible drive start up times on my PC are under a minute, and that includes the 8 second wait at the dual boot screen. And it's pretty too thanks to 'Extra' visual settings, certainly enough to put vista to shame. Over 6 minutes to boot? I cringe.
And as for the 75GB for "windows and applications"...
Any chance of including some useful metrics in these benchmarks, like IOPS?? Not everyone wants to schlump multi-gig files all over the place. For example somme SSD's really make ZFS fly when used as a ZIL device, but IOPS is the killer there.
Consider just how "awesome" it really is by working out how much throughput they SHOULD get from 24 drives in spanned RAID and how much they actually get out of it. They could achieve those results with a quarter of those resources - or less.
Nice review, however many imaging programs such as ghost can have the effect of defragmenting your drive when they write out the image (as they are not strictly speaking drive imaging, but more filesystem imaging).
It would be worth verifying that you don't see a similar increase in speed(or at least a partial one) on imaging to another hard drive.
It takes HOW long to boot a Windows laptop!!!! And you find this 'acceptable'?
No wonder Macs and Linux are overtaking Windoze. After over 20 years with Macs I can't remember EVER having to wait more than 2 minutes, and that was with a Mac SE with 512k of memory and a 5Mb hard drive in 1991.
Anyone know if this is the one used in the Macbooks etc?
They advertise a 256Gb model and I can't imagine they'd use a non descript company.... I am ready to order one with the SSD in, even better if this is the SSD they use!
While windows may or may not be particularly slow to boot, 6 minutes certainly hasn't much to do with windows itself but the hunk o' crapolade the author installed.
I tried it on two of my comps both considerably "slower" specced than that box. One admittedly with a relatively fresh install (xp ~4months), the other with an older install (w2k3, 3 years+).
To boot from cold, up to windows logon prompt:
fresher xp: 40s
staler w2k3: 52s
The total to desktop, including me entering my not really short password and including launching explorer till explorer showed the shares on my remote file server:
fresher xp: 56s
staler w2k3: 83s
I never specifically tried to optimize for boot time. But then again i'm also not a fan of installing random shit. And that was my point. Windows at most plays a minor part in those awful boot times
</bitten>
As a sidenote back on the topic, i really hope they do get down with the prices of well performing SSD soon. It needn't be 256GB or more, but let's say the OS and maybe a scratch space, something like 64GB total at a price even remotely comparable to (much larger) mainstream platter-drives and i'm out to get one.
I do hope Samsung is not targetting El Reg readership with this one. Granted, the name is suitably awesome in a very nerdy way, I doubt it will be enough. This drive seems to be very, very light in the "friend" department*. For that kind of price, you'd expect better. Samsung should take advice from Asus.
* certainly not enough for El Reg, though I reckon that the same "friend" might gain significant audience of the 4chan type... just scribble the date on the drive.
Up to six minutes to boot with a high clocked quad core?
"Windows, ZoneAlarm firewall, Windows Defender, Sophos..." plus what else? Got lots of pretty icons in your task tray, my friend - do they make you feel important or well provisioned?
A clean system that's getting old? That's utterly ridiculous. Computers running Windows do not slow down because they get old. They slow down because Windows collects cruft like a stray dog collects fleas, and the registry collects errors like the DNA of a radiation poisoning victim. This is a maintenance issue, not an age issue.
You ought to take a look in the run keys in the registry and removed all your vendor cruft-ware. Then clean out the run-on-login folder in your start menu. Then run regclean about twenty times.
Statements like "...system that's getting old" to explain those boot times do not inspire confidence, buddy.
One reason for Linux's smaller footprint is that shared libraries are used to a greater extent, whereas Windows programs tend to carry their own copies. This no doubt has an effect on boot time. However, I boot Debian from an IDE disk(ATA-66, I think) and I get kdm in under a minute. How can people find these times acceptable?
WD My Passport Essential 500GB Portable Hard Drive - Black (USB 2.0)
WD Caviar Black 1TB Hard Drive (Serial ATA-300, 7,200 RPM, 32MB)
WD My Book Essential Edition External 1TB Hard Drive (USB 2.0, 16MB)
Intel X25-M Gen2 160GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (SATA)
WD My Passport Essential Portable 320GB Hard Drive - Black (USB 2.0)
Samsung PB22-J 256GB SSD
Anonymous Coward
This is a *good* drive.... #
Posted Tuesday 17th March 2009 14:12 GMT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dWOEa4Djs&fmt=22
See?
Ian Ferguson
If you like this drive, you need to see this! #
Posted Tuesday 17th March 2009 14:12 GMT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dWOEa4Djs&fmt=22
It's a RAID system using 24 Samsung 256GB SSDs. I'm not normally in the habit of propogating viral advertising videos but it is pretty awesome in a very nerdy way.
K
Great review #
Posted Tuesday 17th March 2009 14:12 GMT
Cheers guys, perfect timing, I've just decided I need on.
Mikael Eiman
What about small file performance? #
Posted Tuesday 17th March 2009 14:30 GMT
Writing huge files is all well and good, but what about writing tons of small files? That's what SSD:s are usually bad at, and what the Intel SSD is tops at...
Anonymous Bastard
I'm a fanboy/geek/troll today #
Posted Tuesday 17th March 2009 14:57 GMT
Using Ubuntu WITHOUT this incredible drive start up times on my PC are under a minute, and that includes the 8 second wait at the dual boot screen. And it's pretty too thanks to 'Extra' visual settings, certainly enough to put vista to shame. Over 6 minutes to boot? I cringe.
And as for the 75GB for "windows and applications"...
Matt Brigden
Your joking right ? #
Posted Tuesday 17th March 2009 15:01 GMT
Anyone that wants to shell out £420 on a 256gb drive needs their head read . Think I'll wait for the price to drop a lot before I go near ssd .
Anonymous Coward
Give it a 60% score #
Posted Tuesday 17th March 2009 15:01 GMT
Because the reviewer does not like SSD, and perfers solidstate and downloads... LOL...
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/03/03/review_blu_ray_drive_lg_blue_be06_lu10/
Peter Hawkins
Useful metrics? #
Posted Tuesday 17th March 2009 15:01 GMT
Any chance of including some useful metrics in these benchmarks, like IOPS?? Not everyone wants to schlump multi-gig files all over the place. For example somme SSD's really make ZFS fly when used as a ZIL device, but IOPS is the killer there.
Adrian
@Matt #
Posted Tuesday 17th March 2009 15:06 GMT
Try eBay , USA sellers are charging £600+
Not many takers for some reason :-)
Leo Waldock
2GB test files #
Posted Tuesday 17th March 2009 15:47 GMT
For the record the 2GB of test files is not one enormous file but is six AVI movie files that total 2GB.
Anonymous Coward
YouTube RAID #
Posted Tuesday 17th March 2009 17:04 GMT
Consider just how "awesome" it really is by working out how much throughput they SHOULD get from 24 drives in spanned RAID and how much they actually get out of it. They could achieve those results with a quarter of those resources - or less.
Bronek Kozicki
I said this before #
Posted Tuesday 17th March 2009 21:48 GMT
... and will say again: please use iometer for SSD benchmarks
Anonymous Coward
you may want to check your imaging results... #
Posted Tuesday 17th March 2009 22:43 GMT
Nice review, however many imaging programs such as ghost can have the effect of defragmenting your drive when they write out the image (as they are not strictly speaking drive imaging, but more filesystem imaging).
It would be worth verifying that you don't see a similar increase in speed(or at least a partial one) on imaging to another hard drive.
Pete
@Leo Waldock #
Posted Wednesday 18th March 2009 10:20 GMT
Ahem, the RIAA want you to stop copying their 6 pr0n AVI's...
Anonymous Coward
HOW LONG!!! #
Posted Wednesday 18th March 2009 10:20 GMT
It takes HOW long to boot a Windows laptop!!!! And you find this 'acceptable'?
No wonder Macs and Linux are overtaking Windoze. After over 20 years with Macs I can't remember EVER having to wait more than 2 minutes, and that was with a Mac SE with 512k of memory and a 5Mb hard drive in 1991.
Scott Mckenzie
Macbook #
Posted Wednesday 18th March 2009 12:33 GMT
Anyone know if this is the one used in the Macbooks etc?
They advertise a 256Gb model and I can't imagine they'd use a non descript company.... I am ready to order one with the SSD in, even better if this is the SSD they use!
F Seiler
@boot times #
Posted Wednesday 18th March 2009 21:36 GMT
While windows may or may not be particularly slow to boot, 6 minutes certainly hasn't much to do with windows itself but the hunk o' crapolade the author installed.
I tried it on two of my comps both considerably "slower" specced than that box. One admittedly with a relatively fresh install (xp ~4months), the other with an older install (w2k3, 3 years+).
To boot from cold, up to windows logon prompt:
fresher xp: 40s
staler w2k3: 52s
The total to desktop, including me entering my not really short password and including launching explorer till explorer showed the shares on my remote file server:
fresher xp: 56s
staler w2k3: 83s
I never specifically tried to optimize for boot time. But then again i'm also not a fan of installing random shit. And that was my point. Windows at most plays a minor part in those awful boot times
</bitten>
As a sidenote back on the topic, i really hope they do get down with the prices of well performing SSD soon. It needn't be 256GB or more, but let's say the OS and maybe a scratch space, something like 64GB total at a price even remotely comparable to (much larger) mainstream platter-drives and i'm out to get one.
Greg
If you want a fast boot... #
Posted Thursday 19th March 2009 15:24 GMT
...Ubuntu Jaunty would help. ;-) Running the alpha on two of my machines and holy hell it boots up fast. Really really fast!
Pierre
Marketting wreck? #
Posted Friday 20th March 2009 20:06 GMT
I do hope Samsung is not targetting El Reg readership with this one. Granted, the name is suitably awesome in a very nerdy way, I doubt it will be enough. This drive seems to be very, very light in the "friend" department*. For that kind of price, you'd expect better. Samsung should take advice from Asus.
* certainly not enough for El Reg, though I reckon that the same "friend" might gain significant audience of the 4chan type... just scribble the date on the drive.
Noel Bourke
What the hell? #
Posted Friday 20th March 2009 21:24 GMT
1 minute 14 seconds, Jesus that's an awful boot time.
I use an OCZ Apex running Ubuntu Jaunty with a custom kernel.
My boot time recorded by bootchart is 8.4 seconds.
Maybe another 2 seconds for X & Gnome Startup and that's it.
No more disk light. Desktop fully usable.
And I use around 10% of my 60GB drive for the OS & Apps.
Only exception with the apps is the 8GB taken up by
Call of Duty 4 and Visio... The only two windows apps I still use.
E
Boot times #
Posted Monday 23rd March 2009 14:50 GMT
Up to six minutes to boot with a high clocked quad core?
"Windows, ZoneAlarm firewall, Windows Defender, Sophos..." plus what else? Got lots of pretty icons in your task tray, my friend - do they make you feel important or well provisioned?
A clean system that's getting old? That's utterly ridiculous. Computers running Windows do not slow down because they get old. They slow down because Windows collects cruft like a stray dog collects fleas, and the registry collects errors like the DNA of a radiation poisoning victim. This is a maintenance issue, not an age issue.
You ought to take a look in the run keys in the registry and removed all your vendor cruft-ware. Then clean out the run-on-login folder in your start menu. Then run regclean about twenty times.
Statements like "...system that's getting old" to explain those boot times do not inspire confidence, buddy.
E
@Anonymous Bastard #
Posted Monday 23rd March 2009 14:51 GMT
You said it, mate. Leave aside installations of various FPS games:
XP + Visual Studio + Office + Firebadger = somewhere north of 20 GB.
Linux* + KDE** + GCC + libraries + kitchen sink = less than 12 GB.
*Fedora 8 or 10, SuSE 9.x thru 11.2, Slackware to 12.x
**I just like it.
Can't speak for Ubuntu, it drives me nuts. To each his own.
Now... which version of Emacs do you use?
BioTube
Linux footprint #
Posted Tuesday 24th March 2009 09:40 GMT
One reason for Linux's smaller footprint is that shared libraries are used to a greater extent, whereas Windows programs tend to carry their own copies. This no doubt has an effect on boot time. However, I boot Debian from an IDE disk(ATA-66, I think) and I get kdm in under a minute. How can people find these times acceptable?
K
Very pricey... #
Posted Tuesday 31st March 2009 13:24 GMT
These units are now available, though they're a very pricey £575 from Novatech..