The SSD Anthology: Understanding SSDs and New Drives from OCZ
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 18, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Application Launch Times
You know the drill; grab a stop watch and let's see how fast some of these apps run. The first on the list was just how long it takes to boot my application testbed. This is a fully configured machine with over 50GB of applications and data. I started timing as soon as I hit the power button and stopped it as soon as I got to the Windows desktop. Note that around 15 seconds of the boot takes place before the machine ever finishes its POST:
Most of the SSDs perform similarly here and all of them are a good 20 - 30% faster than the WD VelociRaptor.
I tried launching Adobe Photoshop CS4:
Not all applications will launch faster than a VelociRaptor on a SSD, but let's not forget that the VelociRaptor is the world's fastest consumer desktop hard drive. Put one of these SSDs in a notebook and you'll completely redefine the word performance.
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VaultDweller - Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - link
I love it when people critique someone's critique of grammar... and get it wrong.It's an SSD, not a SSD.
gwolfman - Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - link
lolzsidex - Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - link
I would like to know the firmware version of Vertex used in your review. To me sounds the old 0112kensiko - Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - link
Yes that is important to know.I'm sure this is not done with the latest firmware available which is 1199. This version got better performance.
Firmware 1275 is coming also.
Anand, will you update your benchmarks with the latest firmware?
If not, then the benchmarks are obsolete.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - link
I tested with the shipping firmware for this article (0122). I've been playing around with 1199 in the lab and will most likely have an update in a couple of weeks once I've done a thorough evaluation of it. By then I should also have the final version of the new Samsung drive and maybe even some other interesting things.For now, I've got to get to work on the new Mac Pro and the updated Ion article :) I need a small break from SSDs por favor :)
Take care,
Anand
VaultDweller - Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - link
Awww, don't you have some underlings to do your SSD-related will?Would love to see an update, and would love to see Corsair's SSD drive tested as well (it's based on Samsung's last generation MLC controller, and doesn't seem to emphasize sequential like the Summit does).
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - link
I will do an update on the new firmware, I just want to do it right so it'll take some time :)I'll put in a request for the Corsair drive as well :)
-A
Slash3 - Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - link
Page 29: "Not all applications will launch faster than a VelociRaptor on a SSD, but let's not forget that the VelociRaptor is the world's fastest hard drive."Really? What about the nice and speedy enterprise-level 15k SAS/SCSI drives everyone neglects to acknowledge? :)
George Powell - Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - link
I believe it refers to consumer drives. While SAS drives are beginning to be a possibility on the desktop with newer motherboards supporting them natively, the drives themselves are too expensive and too noisy for most consumers to actually want them.FishTankX - Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - link
Good info. However, I noticed one mistake.Second page
Samsung had a MLC controller at the time but it was too expensive than what SuperTalent was shooting for.