Confused by SSD read and write times

[lastexile69]

Evening all
Considering buying an SSD to give my PC rig a spring refresh (along with a clean install of W7 64bit), but I'm confused by the different read and write speeds listed.

For example, the Intel X-25 80gb drive, which appears to be universally praised in reviews, lists its write speed as up to 70m/b sec. The OCZ Vertex 64gb drive (which to be fair seems also be highly rated) lists its write speed as up to 170mb/sec. They both have read speeds listed as 230mb/sec.

So my question is, given that I'm going to use this a boot drive only (all my other data is on a separate sata drive), will the wide difference in write speeds make much difference? Presumably the read speed is more critical than the write speed when using it drive as a boot drive?

Cheers

[va1o]

Sorry I'm tired and don't feel like writing a long and detailed response, but I had the same worries as you before getting mine last December, and have found the drive to be exceptionally fast so I don't think it matters that much. Seems the respoonse time and read speed and the important figures, and X25-M G2 excels at those.

[Man-At-Arms]

lastexile69 said:

Presumably the read speed is more critical than the write speed when using it drive as a boot drive?

a high read speed is good, but Windows also uses a pagefile, and this causes A LOT of writing
by default it's created in the boot drive, but you can change it

so have a fast SSD for your OS, but relocate the pagefile onto a normal HDD

if you were going to keep rewriting data onto the SSD, i would suggest you look into wear levellling
where the drive wears itself away the more it is written and rewritten to
but i've somewhere that only Intel have currently got around this problem

[james_gt3rs]

The SSD's are pretty fast at writing anyway - It would still feel much faster.

[buggalugs]

lastexile69 said:

For example, the Intel X-25 80gb drive, which appears to be universally praised in reviews, lists its write speed as up to 70m/b sec. The OCZ Vertex 64gb drive (which to be fair seems also be highly rated) lists its write speed as up to 170mb/sec. They both have read speeds listed as 230mb/sec.

I think the magic phrase 'up to' is the one to pay attention to there! One could be sustained, one could be burst.

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

The IBM drivers were the kings, but not any more (or for some time in fact).

This is the best review site I've found for them http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_c...

I've got OCZ Agility's (120GB) and can't fault them.

[HellDiver]

Iv'e a Crucial M225 128GB SSD, and it's been excellent. I really notice the difference between the SSD powered computer and the one at work which uses a 10k WD Velcoiraptor. The 10k machine is considerably slower.

[UncappedTag]

These things have slipped under my nose in recent months. I will wait for the price to drop somewhat, but they seem to be getting amazing reviews.

Good points to look out for in this thread too, cheers

[lastexile69]

cheers all, some reassuring info there. best get the wallet out then! raid 0 boot drives here we come!

[V]

lastexile69 said:

raid 0 boot drives here we come!

But remember with SSDs in RAID 0 you can't enable TRIM, which means performance will degrade over time. See http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2010/02/0...

[lastexile69]

V
Thanks for that info about the TRIM function.