All about SSD!! – 1233 days old

[M.i.S. Nemesis]

Considering that we are embarking on a new age for hard drives, I figure to keep this thread up to date with the progress. Already we are seeing a grand transition from conventional rotating hard drives to Solid based drives.

Let's post this thread with the current updated information of this great new technology!

[M.i.S. Nemesis]

I wasn’t supposed to be able to tell you about this until Monday, but it looks like the news leaked early so IMFT gave us the green light.

Intel and Micron jointly formed IMFT (Intel-Micron Flash Technologies), LLC back in 2006. The two companies share production from the venture. Intel gets 49% of IMFT’s flash production and Micron gets 51%.

In the usual Intel tradition, IMFT aggressively scales process technology to be competitive. The company started manufacturing at 72nm, spent 2008 at 50nm and just last year scaled down to 34nm. The latter is what found its way into Intel’s X25-M G2 as well as Micron’s soon-to-be released RealSSD C300.

Today IMFT is announcing that it has begun sampling 2-bits-per-cell MLC NAND flash manufactured using 25nm transistors. The company believed it had a 6 month head start over the competition in 34nm, and now believes that with 25nm NAND it’s roughly a year ahead of anyone else.

Volume production will happen sometime in Q2, with products shipping before the end of the year. In my last SSD article I mentioned that Intel’s 3rd generation X25-M would be shipping in Q4 at 160GB, 320GB and 600GB. These drives will use IMFT’s new 25nm flash.

The first 25nm product is an 8GB (64Gbit) 2-bits-per-cell MLC NAND flash. A single 8GB die built on IMFT’s 25nm process has a die size of 167mm2. Immersion lithography is apparently necessary to produce these 25nm NAND devices, but the extent is unclear. This is technically Intel’s first device that requires immersion lithography to manufacture.


25nm IMFT 2-bit MLC NAND Flash, 8GB, 167mm2

The 34nm flagship was a 4GB (32Gbit) 2-bits-per-cell MLC NAND device with a die size of 172mm2. At 25nm you basically get twice the capacity at the same die size, which should translate into twice the SSD capacity at the same price as a 34nm drive today.


34nm IMFT2-bit MLC NAND Flash, 4GB, 172mm2

Obviously supply and demand economics play their roles here. We may not see the sort of aggressive pricing we want to on 25nm X25-M drives if demand remains as high as it has been for the 34nm G2s.

Last year IMFT announced plans to deliver a 3-bit-per-cell 34nm MLC NAND flash. Today's announcement pretty much negates the need to bring those devices to market. Although at some point we'll probably see 3-bit-per-cell at 25nm. At this point 3-bit-per-cell MLC flash is only suitable for cheaper or low cycle devices like USB sticks. In a SSD the performance and reliability tradeoffs just aren't worth it.


34nm IMFT 3-bit MLC NAND Flash, 4GB, 126mm2

The 25nm IMFT NAND devices support ONFi 2.2, meaning the interface speed can reach a maximum of 200MB/s.

The other major change to the 25nm NAND is an increase in the page size. At 50nm and 34nm, IMFT’s page size was 4KB. At 25nm on the 8GB device the page size is now 8KB. Block size has also gone up from 128 pages to 256 pages. This will obviously have performance implications and require some firmware reorganization, but given that Intel has known this was coming for some time now I would expect that its 3rd generation drives will be optimized for 25nm.

IMFT believes there’s still hope for scaling flash devices even further. It's ridiculous to think about how small these transistors are getting. As we approach single-digit-nm dimensions we can start counting atoms when we look at these transistors:

Note:If IMFT can ramp up production of 25nm NAND flash, 2012 may be the year of the first truly affordable mainstream SSDs.


Source:http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3731

[MSUredux]

It's got a long way to go in price before I'll consider one. Considering you can get a 1TB HD for about $80 and a 1TB SSD is about $3,800. I was hesitant to get the last drive I bought, at about $200 for 300GB (a WD Velociraptor) an SSD around that size is about $600 for 250GB. The things are just way too rich for me right now. Would love to have one though.

[M.i.S. Nemesis]

Like all new technologies, price will be extraordinary. But my attempt at this thread was to monitor the technology & price.

By the time SSD will go main stream along with price, we will see such a huge performance hike by next year.

[MSUredux]

Like all new technologies, price will be extraordinary. But my attempt at this thread was to monitor the technology & price

Oh I know, sorry if it sounded like I was poo pooing the technology. I was just making a comment about it's afford ability. I think it will be great when the prices come down, which they will of course.

[Alakazam]

Inside IM Flash Technologies: A Tour of Intel and Micron's Fabrication Plant

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...2358627,00.asp

[M.i.S. Nemesis]

SSD Tweak Utility

SSD Tweak Utility

With all the advice online for SSD hard drives it can take hours of research and fiddling to properly setup your SSD drive. Now with this little app you can Tweak Windows 2K/XP/Vista & 7 including x64 in seconds.

Lets you Tweak the following:

* Windows Indexing Service
* System Restore
* Windows Defrag
* Use Large System Cache
* Ntfs Memory Usage
* Disable 8.3 Filenames
* Disable Date Stamping
* Disable Boot Tracing
* Windows Prefetcher
* Windows Vista Superfetch
* Windows Services



http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...-Tweak-Utility

[ImaginAsian]

No one should be buying SSDs for mass storage at this point. It should be as your boot and application drive. leave all the storage to cheap magnetic hard drives.

[labatts]

this stuff is no hype thats for sure been really enjoying the pretty much instant access to anything on this intel drive..looked at a folder with a bunch of pics and the thumbnails were instant,on my hard drive i would see them being rendered...the bench marks are one thing but IA was right this is real performance gain,not just bench numbers..very nice and silent,plus using less power...win win for me,although not my wallet ...i don't regret it though.

[M.i.S. Nemesis]

Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDSA2M080G2XXX 2.5" 80GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - OEM

$219.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820167016

[MSUredux]

Ya know, every time this thread comes up under new posts, I glance at the title and think it says "All about STD's"

[M.i.S. Nemesis]

Ya know, every time this thread comes up under new posts, I glance at the title and think it says "All about STD's"

BUAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAAAA

[labatts]

Thats a good price for that drive

[ZemaTalon]

Great thread, more & more of us will be searching for this information as we transition to SSD's.

[Troy]

I hope one of you guys in the know could give a guide to us laymen on the steps we need to go through.
How to make you hard drive your cache and shyte, and when to do TRIM.
Where to get it, and how to do it.
Would be mucho appreciated.

[M.i.S. Nemesis]

I got some info from ImaginAsian:

The Intel SSD Toolbox app is what you want to manage your drive. Its a nifty tool that allows you to check drive status, information and run the manual version of the TRIM function called SSD Optimizer. TRIM has received a lot of hype but one tech site I read said the performance hit of a "used" x25-m over a freshly trimmed one was less then 7(?)% overall. if i can find the link, i will post. apparently, the G2 doesn't get impacted as much as other SSDs when it comes to this. here is a link to a SSD toolbox article.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1112/2/

Intel pulled the latest firmware which enabled Windows 7 TRIM support because the flash apparently bricked some drives after the update. Everyone is anxiously waiting for the corrected firmware to be released.

Nothing particular to do for partitioning, the system will see the drive as just another SATA drive, albeit a freaking fast one.

I recommend you disable windows file indexing on the drive, move your virtual memory to a magnetic hard drive and avoid defragging your SSD to preserve its life.

here is a URL to save...its the intel SSD forum.

http://communities.intel.com/community/tech/solidstate

you are going to love your purchase, its the single best speed upgrade for your system today hands down.

Latest Updates from Intel:
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Deta...&DwnldID=18363

[Troy]

Is that just for Intel drives? Because I have an OCZ one.

[M.i.S. Nemesis]

Is that just for Intel drives? Because I have an OCZ one.

SSD Tweak Utility

With all the advice online for SSD hard drives it can take hours of research and fiddling to properly setup your SSD drive. Now with this little app you can Tweak Windows 2K/XP/Vista & 7 including x64 in seconds.

Lets you Tweak the following:

* Windows Indexing Service
* System Restore
* Windows Defrag
* Use Large System Cache
* Ntfs Memory Usage
* Disable 8.3 Filenames
* Disable Date Stamping
* Disable Boot Tracing
* Windows Prefetcher
* Windows Vista Superfetch
* Windows Services



http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...-Tweak-Utility

[Troy]

Thanks, Nems.

[M.i.S. Nemesis]

Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDSA2M080G2XXX 2.5" 80GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - OEM

$219.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820167016

I am being tempted to just buy two of these and RAID 0 them!!!!!

[M.i.S. Nemesis]

Micron 34nm SSD with 6Gbps SATA reaches 355MB/s

http://www.dvhardware.net/article39566.html

[M.i.S. Nemesis]

I DID IT!!!

2 INTEL 80GB purchased for a new RAID 0 setup!!!!!!! BIATCHES!!!!!!

[dolittlejerry]

Me too just order this.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820167016
Let me know if I need to update the firmware to trim. I was realy going to wait till the price came down but.!!!!!

[M.i.S. Nemesis]

Me too just order this.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820167016
Let me know if I need to update the firmware to trim. I was realy going to wait till the price came down but.!!!!!

There are two updated files you can download. We need to see what we get then we can update the firmware.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Sear...gh+Performance

[labatts]

You guys will not be disappointed ..especially Nems running them in raid will make for some very fast computing ...You Bastid

[M.i.S. Nemesis]

Muahahahahaa!

[labatts]

Oh and a heads up(you probably know already) but when in raid you can't use trim..not yet supported by the Intel toolbox

[Alakazam]

When you get your drives, the sticker on it will have the firmware number that the drive was shipped with, if it's 02HD, you're good to go. "Crystal Disk Info" is a small program that will also show you what FM version you're using and let you know if TRIM is being passed through or not.

[M.i.S. Nemesis]

Thanks Labatts & Alakazam.

I am thinking to Benchmark my first SSD, then RAID it and see what difference. I know the latency def increases in RAID 0 for SSD.

[M.i.S. Nemesis]

SSD's came in and the Firmware version reads 02HA

[M.i.S. Nemesis]

Ok, SSD's are in. No problems really installing and I flashed both drives.


So I attached two screen shots from ImaginAsian's 1 SSD benchmark results and I added my RAID screen shots.

From the CrystalDiskMark shots, you can see the huge boost the RAID 0 provides, funny enough in the 4K testm the Read was almost the same while the write was just barely enough.

In the Atto results, the READ is over 500 MBs and the write was just under 200.

[Alakazam]

Well crap Nems, I figured by now that they would come with the latest FM, which was out in December I think. What I did was disconnect all my drives except the SSD and of course the cd-drive when I flashed the new FM. I know you got a pair, but as a precaution I would only connect one at a time, (my humble opinion).

I can never keep track of who is running what MB's and processors as I've got signatures turned off on the forum so what are you going to be running these on?


Edit: I was typing while you were posting, LOL. Looking great Nems!!!

[M.i.S. Nemesis]

I have an old (2006) ASUS P5W DH Deluxe Mobo, with an Intel E6600 (2.4Ghz) cpu, with 4 GB of GSkill RAM.

[M.i.S. Nemesis]

So with 4 (10K) Raptors all in RAID0, I got a 6.2 Windows7 rating. With 2 SSD in RAID 0, I get the max of 7.9 for Disk performance.

[Alakazam]

Yep, that's the only way to max out disk performance in WEI, I get 7.7 for a single, good going Nems.

[M.i.S. Nemesis]

How would you like to see 40 SSD in RAID 0??

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=22727

Project Artemis system information:
40 x 256GB Patriot Torqx SSD drives (PFZ256GS25SSDR)
48GB (12 x 2GB) Patriot 1333MHz DDR2 ECC-Registered memory (PS34G13ER-E)
5 x LSI Mega-RAID SAS 9260-8i RAID controller cards
1 x SuperMicro X8DTH-I X58 server motherboard
2 x Intel Xeon 5500 CPUs

Patriot’s Project Artemis 10TB SSD based Full ATX Workstation with over 150,000 IOPS will be on display at this year’s CeBIT Germany. Press viewings of Project Artemis will occur at 12:00 PM, 2:00 PM and 4:00 PM each day. Find us at Hall 17 Booth H53.

[labatts]

0.9 seconds to rip a 27 gig blue ray...that's insane..but so is the hundred grand price tag.

[M.i.S. Nemesis]

Think about it, by a few years tops, we should be able to do that.

[dolittlejerry]

Good bench Nemes hope mine will be same. I have a ? What are you all using to install the drive to you desktop computer duck tape gum or.. I have been looking at adapters for 2.5 to 3.5 drives at new egg.

[Troy]

I have been looking at adapters for 2.5 to 3.5 drives at new egg.

Don't know much about them but I bought the 20.00 one and it works.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82SP&x=15&y=27