So who's went over to using SSD drives in their computers?

[It01Firefox]

So it seems to me that head crashes and similar mechanical failures are the main reason for RAID. So I wonder how useful RAID is when using SSD. I recently replaced a RAID-1 array for a client with a single SSD. I suspect it will be at least as reliable, though that's based on my educated guess. Any opinions?

I think that's just asking for trouble. The reason the client was using a RAID-1 in the first place was probably because a HD failure causing downtime wasn't an option. That didn't change just because the drives were replaced by a SSD drive. It's still a single point of failure. And SSDs are definitely not failure proof. We don't even have any long-term test results that prove that SSDs are more reliable or even as reliable as HDDs.

I personally don't trust SSDs any more than any other HDD, meaning everything that's important is backed up somewhere else and any system that has to be available at all times is RAIDed.

 

[fyrstormer]

"It's not a bug, it's a feature".

WinXP (Home) doesn't permit NTFS on "Removable Disk" media, Fat32 is the best it can do unless I trick it via regedit or something similar, to fool NTFS into thinking its a fixed disk. Then my options are wide open and I can do all sorts of things.

I think that one route would be along the lines of what fyrstomer suggested a few days ago re: the Hitachi driver.

This and/or this.

It's a little late now I suppose, but don't ever buy the "Home" edition of Windows again. It always lacks something important. I can't count the number of times I've had to tell someone they can't do something on their computer because they have Windows Home Edition.

Anyway, you might be able to format it in NTFS by right-clicking on My Computer, selecting Manage..., and formatting the card through the Disk Management panel of the Computer Management window. If not, just plug the card into a different computer that has XP Pro on it and format it in NTFS there.

 

[fyrstormer]

I've had a small amount of experience with SSD. It's very exciting, and as a colleague said, now that SSD is coming, everything we know about storage management is going to be wrong. A lot of our long-earned tips apply to the characteristics of hard drives (with platters), with their advantages and disadvantages. So it seems to me that head crashes and similar mechanical failures are the main reason for RAID. So I wonder how useful RAID is when using SSD. I recently replaced a RAID-1 array for a client with a single SSD. I suspect it will be at least as reliable, though that's based on my educated guess. Any opinions?

Head crashes and similar mechanical failures are not the main reason for RAID. The main reasons for RAID are redundancy, higher transfer speed, and expandability by adding extra disks. Head crashes and similar mechanical failures are reasons why platter disks need redundancy, but ALL disks benefit from redundancy if they have important data on them. A flash disk can become unusable just as easily as a platter disk if it gets dropped the right way, or hit by a power surge from a failing power supply, or if it's just plain old defective. Single points of failure are a Very Bad Thing when your computer can hold more data than the Library of Congress.

 

[Kestrel]

It's a little late now I suppose, but don't ever buy the "Home" edition of Windows again.

A more polite statement would be something like:
"It's a little late now I suppose, but please don't provide advice in such a condescending manner."

 

[fyrstormer]

Forget I said anything. I'm not going to get in a fight about the wording of my advice.

 

[blasterman]

You DO NOT want to enable write-caching on flash memory. There is no benefit because flash memory has no moving parts that need to be aligned before data can be written.

Beg to differ on that. Virtualization, particularly *real* virtualization that uses a hypervisor crawls when write-through cache is enabled for a whole lotta reasons. None of them have anything to do with the mechanical speed of the drive. SSD's are slowly making their way into my data centers, but only for some IOPs intensive reasons where write latency in a concern. For laptops they should be mandatory. For desktops, maybe, if you have the cash and can afford the big Intel SSD's go for it.

It's a little late now I suppose, but don't ever buy the "Home" edition of Windows again.

Main difference between Win 7 home -vs- Pro (besides the price) is being able to join Active Directory and "XP mode". Home users have no need for AD and I increasingly discourage it for small business, and while XP mode is convenient it's obsolete in terms of virtualization. Sorry, but Win 7 Pro is not better than Home because the former says "Pro".

Re: RAID 1:

Set up a lot of servers in my day and RAID 1 *does not* have a positive benefit on performance and with some software based RAID cards can actually cost a bit of performance. To get a performance improvement from RAID 1, which is nothing more than a mirror, you need to add more drives in either a RAID 0/1 or RAID 10 array. Personally I prefer RAID 10 over RAID 5 anyday because RAID 5 can burn you if the parity stripe gets corrupted, which it does more than people admit. Frankly I'd fire anybody working for me who set up a RAID 5. However, it takes at least four drives to create a RAID 10, and the performance improvement isn't as good as RAID 0 for write or RAID 5 for read, but RAID 10 is pretty much bullet proof. In other respects, the *only* reason for RAID 1 is redundancy against drive failure. It's worth it for some home users provided other back-up scenarios are met and they need the redundancy.

 

[nfetterly]

Good News:

1) Go to http://google.com

2) Type "PCMCIA to flash adapter"

3) You will get tons of hits

Bad News:

Not all of them provide maximum throughput. I am sure one of them is a good one, but many are most likely quite slow.

Kestrel seems quite satisfied with his Lexar 32-bit CardBus PCMCIA adapter, so that might be a brand worth pursuing.

EDIT: Illum, I would get Lexar RW021-001. Purchase from the most affordable dealer you can.

@Kestrel, I'm not sure if this helps you or not:

Link

Link 2

Link 3

I have a CardBus adapter (efilm pro 32 bit cardbus adapter) - ROCKS, in my laptop right now. If anyone wants a PCMCIA CF adapter let me know and I'm pretty sure I have one that I can mail them - there is no comparison between the two. The only good thing about the cheap PCMCIA adapter is that it it recognized right away by XP. The cardbus adapter needs to be "installed" with software.

 

[fyrstormer]

.....

 

[ElectronGuru]

This just in...

Certain ZIF 1.8 SSD's can be installed into HD model iPods, including sought after 5th gens with Wolfson chips

 

[cdrake261]

I'm looking into an intel 510 SSD for the boot drive, and a TB HDD for my data

 

[jamie.91]

I've been considering an SSD for my netbook ( eeepc ), faster, quiet and better battery life, not got round to finding the right one yet though:/

 

[turbodog]

Don't you mean RAID 0 ? RAID 1 is the same speed or less as one drive.

Raid 1. Reads are faster. Most of your time is spent reading. Use a good controller will help.

 

[Onthelightside]

My MacbookAir came with a SSD installed. I love it. I am not sure what kind apple uses but Macword(or maybe MacLife) has put the apple and other SSD's to the test and the apple drive lasts about twice as long (rewriting capacity)

 

[guiri]

I tried one in my puters but I wasn't impressed.

 

[Scenic]

Been running a sandforce SSD in my main rig for almost 2 years. Makes loading maps in BF3 very fast. My macbook air also has an SSD. I could never go back to a regular HD after using SSD's. They are the biggest bottleneck holding computer performance back.

 

[fyrstormer]

My MacbookAir came with a SSD installed. I love it. I am not sure what kind apple uses but Macword(or maybe MacLife) has put the apple and other SSD's to the test and the apple drive lasts about twice as long (rewriting capacity)

Macbooks use Intel SSDs.

 

[Scenic]

Macbooks use Intel SSDs.

I have never heard of apple using intel ssd's. All the current airs use Samsung or toshiba

 

[subwoofer]

The post below really presents the pertinent facts:

Flash memory has limited read write cycles (far more limited than HDD) and will fail quickly when used for an OS. When you use this type of memory to record photos or videos and then copy these onto your PCs HDD, they are fine, but for an OS continually writing to its storage you will have problems soon.

Flash memory also suffers form a lack of being able to recover data. Hard disks can be scanned and data recovered. Flash stores data here there and everywhere and when the FAT becomes corrupt you loose the lot.

For a small device that you use just for internet access and you can live without (which probably uses ROM and RAM rather than flash memory) then it is a good idea, but for a laptop, until a new technology giving a long life with masses of read write cycles, I would steer clear and use a HDD (currently still the most reliable storage medium, perhaps competing with tape).

Yes, fyrstormer is correct that the SSD drive needs software support (the "trim" command"), available in Windows 7 but not WinXP.

Note also that only certain SSD drives support the trim command, so you need compatibility both on the software and the hardware sides. There is an intel utility you can download free designed to measure specs for intel SSD drives, which can also be used with other drives to check them out for compatibility with the trim command.

The trim command disables defragmentation of the HD (which is not helpful for SSD drives) and tries to minimize delete/write cycles, since SSD HD's have an upper limit and their performance degrades over time as these cycles increase. Operating systems have an unfortunate tendency to keep writing/deleting info. on the HD, and the availability of the trim command indicates some effort to reduce these cycles.

Of course, if you are using an old computer and a new SSD revitalizes it, why not? You may not run up the cycles to the point where it becomes a problem and, in the limit, you could put in yet another SSD (kind of like replacing incan bulbs!) if necessary.

The disadvantage of the SSDs is capacity. I put in one as my main bootup device and then found I was running out of space, even though it was 128GB.

So you need a secondary standard HD with the large capacity if this is an issue with you. Put the minimum software necessary on the bootup SSD drive, and everything else on the large standard one.

One interesting middle solution is to use a flashdrive which can be used together with an existing standard (magnetic) HD to speed up the bootup process. USB flashdrives that are compatible are labeled readyboost or something like it. It has software support in Windows Vista.

Of course, one can also work to eliminate problems that are slowing up the bootup process, including cleaning up temporary files, defragmenting (standard) HDs, eliminating unnecessary programs and processes... regardless of the HD used.

Probably the biggest bottleneck for old computers is actually graphics performance, with the internet and youtube and what have you throwing graphics challenges every day, not to mention games.

Probably a good discrete graphics card, plus enough memory, are upgrades that can help revitalize a computer the most in today's environment.

 

[rotozip]

My Macbook Air has SSD and it is screaming fast. I can't see going back to a mechanical drive ever again.

 

[LEDAdd1ct]

Haven't closed my browser in a couple weeks and have 34 windows open, plus many tabs in each window. A zippy SSD drive would be a treat right now!