* 3x120gig OCZ SSD's in RAID-0 *

[polonyc2]

the SSD I'm looking into getting is the GSkill Falcon 128 MB one...very similar if not better performance then the Vertex...uses the same Indilinx controller as the Vertex...benchmarks very well too and it's a bit cheaper then the Vertex plus a tad bit more storage space

Newegg.com - G.SKILL FALCON FM-25S2S-128GBF1 2.5" 128GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid state disk (SSD) - Solid State Disks

[Sir Skully]

Originally Posted by polonyc2

the SSD I'm looking into getting is the GSkill Falcon 128 MB one...very similar if not better performance then the Vertex...uses the same Indilinx controller as the Vertex...benchmarks very well too and it's a bit cheaper then the Vertex plus a tad bit more storage space

Newegg.com - G.SKILL FALCON FM-25S2S-128GBF1 2.5" 128GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid state disk (SSD) - Solid State Disks

Most likely a Samsung rebadged, like OCZ. Only difference being firmware.
But yeah it looks like a good drive. I got a cash back on my $399. It was $20.
plus a $20. rebate. So in the end my SSD will be $360 per. I like buying some things from a brick and mortar store, in this case it is MicroCenter.
Another thing I liked, is OCZ support its great. Plus I know two of the mods on the forum.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Sir Skully

Most likely a Samsung rebadged, like OCZ. Only difference being firmware.
But yeah it looks like a good drive. I got a cash back on my $399. It was $20.
plus a $20. rebate. So in the end my SSD will be $360 per. I like buying some things from a brick and mortar store, in this case it is MicroCenter.
Another thing I liked, is OCZ support its great. Plus I know two of the mods on the forum.

I can get the GSkill SSD Indilinx drives for $360 a pop for the 128gig version. I may just order a couple of them tonight.

[Ozzie]

Boy, does that sound fun...sure would love to have the cash to lay down to try it out.

[XJ.]

W7 Primary HD Score is only 7.6 ??? There must be some insanely fast stuff on the horizon to have your uber-fast raid array not maxing out the score at 7.9.

[polonyc2]

The Risky Solid-State Drive...

according to John C. Dvorak...SSDs are a dead end...people maintain a persistent belief that SSDs fail at least twice as often as conventional hard disks...Flash memory appears to be a stopgap technology hanging around until a better nonvolatile memory technology appears...

The Risky Solid-State Drive - Columns by PC Magazine

[ctal]

Skully -- Awesome results! Truly awesome!

Poly -- Good find. I had expressed the concern about limited erase/write cycles several months ago. Here's a quote from this Wikipedia article:

Limited write (erase) cycles: Flash-memory cells will often wear out after 1,000 to 10,000 write cycles for MLC, and up to 100,000 write cycles for SLC[18], while high endurance cells may have an endurance of 1–5 million write cycles (many log files, file allocation tables, and other commonly used parts of the file system exceed this over the lifetime of a computer).[33][34][35] Special file systems or firmware designs can mitigate this problem by spreading writes over the entire device (so-called wear leveling), rather than rewriting files in place.[36] In 2008 wear leveling was just beginning to be incorporated into consumer level devices.[18] However, effective write cycles can be much less, because when a write request is made to a particular memory block, all data in the block is overwritten even when only part of the memory is altered. The write amplification, as referred by Intel, can be reduced using write memory buffer.[37] In combination with wear leveling, over-provisioning SSD flash drives with spared memory capacity also delays the loss of user-accessible memory capacity. NAND memory can be negatively impacted by read and program (write) disturbs arising from over accessing a particular NAND location. This overuse of NAND locations causes bits within the NAND block to erroneously change values. Wear leveling, by redirecting SSD writes to lesser-used NAND locations, thus reduces the potential for program or write disturbs.[38] An example for the lifetime of SSD is explained in detail in this wiki.[dubious – discuss] SSDs based on DRAM, however, do not suffer from this problem.

As a result of wear leveling and write combining, the performance of SSDs degrades with use [39][40]. Eventually, wear leveling will use each page on the drive at least once, so further writes always involve a block erase. Although write combining (if supported by the device) offers advantages, it causes internal fragmentation in the SSD which degrades the sequential read speed. Such fragmentation cannot be mitigated by the operating system.

So one way of improving the odds is to have a lot of excess capacity (= more $).

Regards,
-- Al

[Sir Skully]

Originally Posted by XJ.

W7 Primary HD Score is only 7.6 ??? There must be some insanely fast stuff on the horizon to have your uber-fast raid array not maxing out the score at 7.9.

Here's the funny part. When I was running 2 sdd's Primary HD Score was 7.7....in W-7.....

[Sir Skully]

Yea I knew the naysayers would pop-up. It always seems their the ones that don't own a SSD. I did know the life of the drives could be short. I've always got great service with OCZ, on bad memory, bad PSU. OCZ has a 2 yr. warranty on their SSD. The thing is @ the moment there is nothing better/faster. I LIVE in the now, this moment. Who can know if they even have a future. The older I get the more I live in the now. So now I'm having one hell of a great time with these SSD's......

[Sir Skully]

Originally Posted by ctal

Skully -- Awesome results! Truly awesome

Thanks, its more fun then a new CPU.

[Ozzie]

There you go my friend...enjoy that bad boy...

[polonyc2]

Originally Posted by ctal

Here's a quote from this Wikipedia article

that's one of the main reasons I am hesitating buying an SSD...after doing a lot of research it seems this is not as big of a deal as I had originally thought (apparently most SSD's will last 10 years) but there's no way of knowing for sure since the technology is so new...this is an educated guess at best...that along with the price per GB makes this a luxury item

plus the fact that the SSD technology is rapidly advancing week-by-week and MUCH better drives are being produced every few months makes early adoption a roll of the dice...I think I read about a new controller coming out soon which dramatically increases performance...plus since Windows 7 is the first OS to support SSD drives the closer we get to it's release I'm sure we will be seeing much better SSD's coming out

I was going to buy the GSkill Falcon SSD but after thinking about it I'm leaning against it...it's just not worth it...plus SSD's require a learning curve to use as a lot of the things we are so used to doing with mechanical drives no longer apply to SSD's (defragmenting for one)...I think it's better to wait this technology out a bit more

OT: what is going to happen to products such as Diskeeper and PerfectDisk once SSD's penetrate the market?

[Sir Skully]

Originally Posted by polonyc2

The Risky Solid-State Drive...

according to John C. Dvorak...SSDs are a dead end...people maintain a persistent belief that SSDs fail at least twice as often as conventional hard disks...Flash memory appears to be a stopgap technology hanging around until a better nonvolatile memory technology appears...

The Risky Solid-State Drive - Columns by PC Magazine

Thanks for the read, go ahead get that SSD. If your worried about the life span of SSD. Get a smaller SSD drive, and use it mostly for your OS and a few app's.

[Sir Skully]

I love to tweak, and these SSD's were born to tweak. I've tweaked a new high ATTO, HDtune, score, have a look see......

[Sir Skully]

Originally Posted by Griff

I can get the GSkill SSD Indilinx drives for $360 a pop for the 128gig version. I may just order a couple of them tonight.

Hey Griff that's a good price. Once ya try SSD its very hard to go back to mechanical drives. You'll really enjoy SSD's....