my new G.Skill Falcon SSD

[polonyc2]

finally decided to jump onboard the SSD bandwagon...I purchased the G.Skill Falcon 256GB SSD...I went with G.Skill because 1) performance is on par or slightly better then the OCZ SSD's (they share the exact same Indilinx controller so they pretty much are the same drive)...2) price was a good amount cheaper with more storage space then similar SSD's...3) I heard so much about how this was the one upgrade which would make a huge noticable difference in everyday use

I did some benchmarking using the older Firmware 1370 which came with the drive...attached the benchmark results below...I did not immediately upgrade the firmware because Indilinx released a new firmware this week (FW 1711) which hopefully G.Skill will have up any day now...both SuperTalent and OCZ released new firmwares this week (and since they all use Indilinx controllers, the firmwares should all be the same)

I also installed Crysis to test the game's loading levels...Crysis always had pretty long loading screens with my HDD so I decided that it would be the perfect test to see how the SSD performs...results: huge difference...not instant loads but the loading bar pretty much races along the screen

overall I'm very impressed with this SSD...yes I'm still worried about performance degradation and such but there are a few tools I can use which hopefully will keep performance levels high (HDDErase and the beta TRIM tool)...prices are still high on SSD's but I definitly do not regret my purchase (yet )

here are some nice reviews on the G.Skill Falcon which helped me with my purchase decision:

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...sd-review.html

GSkill Falcon 128GB SSD review

G.Skill 64GB Falcon (FM-25S2S-64GBF1) | CCE Reviews

[CrowdAds]

[Sir Skully]

Congrats on new SSD, your write speed is higher then I've seem on single drives. And your read speed is right on for single drive. Anywho good numbers.....
OCZ has had two FW updates this week, I just flashed the second FW, before I went to bed. I've got over 2 months with these SSD's. They have preformed at their peak all this time.......:magic

[polonyc2]

Originally Posted by Sir Skully

Congrats on new SSD, your write speed is higher then I've seem on single drives. And your read speed is right on for single drive. Anywho good numbers.....
OCZ has had two FW updates this week, I just flashed the second FW, before I went to bed. I've got over 2 months with these SSD's. They have preformed at their peak all this time.......:magic

thanks...yeah your RAID SSD setup is amazing...very impressive benchmark numbers you've posted...I'm not planning on going RAID so that's another reason why I wanted to get a large capacity drive...I'm happy with my SSD so far...hopefully I can get even higher numbers once I flash to the latest firmware

[fvbounty]

Congratulations on your new drive, have you timed boot up and shut down times? Hows it feel on every day things like load times on programs, Fire fox is one that bugs me?

[polonyc2]

Originally Posted by fvbounty

Congratulations on your new drive, have you timed boot up and shut down times? Hows it feel on every day things like load times on programs, Fire fox is one that bugs me?

everything OS related loads instantly...havn't timed it but boot times are definitely faster then with my HDD...although my boot times with my HDD seemed fast as well for some reason...anything where reading off the hard drive is concerned is noticably faster compared to an HDD...and as I said in my first post game loading times just fly by

I also read an article which stated that the custom Garbage Collection firmware which OCZ recently released will most likely be released for all Indilinx based SSD's in the near future

if you're still unsure about SSD's check out this new review of the G.Skill Falcon published yesterday...very detailed review comparing it to SSD's from Intel and OCZ...very interesting read...

G.Skill Falcon 128GB

compare my SSD results to the benchmarks of my former HDD, the Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB WD6401AALS which I posted here:

Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB

[fvbounty]

Thanks for the link, I want a 250 gig or more ssd, so yours is in the ballpark for sure!

[polonyc2]

Originally Posted by fvbounty

Thanks for the link, I want a 250 gig or more ssd, so yours is in the ballpark for sure!

I went with the 256GB version because I did not want to use the drive solely as an OS boot drive...I wanted to use it to install my games as well...so I needed one which would hold a lot of games...as a baseline I looked at a recent fresh install of Vista SP2 I did which after all my software and current games were installed took up 92.2GB...and that is with 7 recent PC games installed plus Steam which has another 6 games on it...so I'm thinking my SSD will hold at least another 10-15 games which is fine for me

I'm using Windows 7 RC1 with the SSD and the read speeds on this are incredible and after benchmarking the drive it pretty much matches its rated speed of 230MB/s (and that's before any firmware upgrade)...the drive also ships with a nice long motherboard jumper for firmware flashing which is a nice touch...one thing which is a bit annoying is that the G.Skill drives all require firmware flashing via the jumper method in which you need a spare drive to do the flash...as such you lose all data with each FW upgrade...the OCZ drives do not use this method hence you should not lose all your data after flashing

another somewhat negative about G.Skill is that their support forums suck and are pretty much a ghostown so you need to have a somewhat high skill level in order to deal with any potential issues and overall SSD knowledge...I actually bought this SSD 3 weeks ago but had to RMA my first one as after less then 1 day of use my BIOS would no longer recognize the SSD and my operating system constantly became corrupted...got the new SSD 2 days ago and everything is running smooth

[fvbounty]

I did notice at newegg the last 2 reviews the people had bad drives also and was waiting on rma's, seems like you have a good one, the one thing I really want is to be able to put in my system and not have to do a bunch of stuff to keep it running, I'm on my third WD raptor (74gig 150gig and 300 gig), and never had a problem they are all still running perfectly, I'm a couple of months away from getting one so I have some time for more of the bugs to be worked out!

[polonyc2]

Originally Posted by fvbounty

I did notice at newegg the last 2 reviews the people had bad drives also and was waiting on rma's, seems like you have a good one, the one thing I really want is to be able to put in my system and not have to do a bunch of stuff to keep it running, I'm on my third WD raptor (74gig 150gig and 300 gig), and never had a problem they are all still running perfectly, I'm a couple of months away from getting one so I have some time for more of the bugs to be worked out!

I also bought my SSD through Newegg...but I did the RMA through G.Skill as I always prefer to do RMA's with the manufacturer directly...I just looked on Newegg and see that the price of my 256GB has actually increased since I bought mine...price went up by $10 and they no longer offer free shipping...weird as most SSD prices seem to be getting lower

I was going to go with an Intel SSD but they do not offer high capacity drives as of yet...I think their biggest SSD is only 160GB and I wanted something bigger

as far as tweaks...the only SSD tweaks I use are I disable Defragmentation, File Indexing and Search Indexing...I also hear that disabling Superfetch is good but I havn't done that as of yet

even with my mechanical HDD I still tweaked my OS and hard drive so it's not something specific to just SSD's

I think waiting a few more months before buying an SSD is a smart move...prices will get even lower and next generation SSD's will be released...plus it's really best to use an SSD with Windows 7 anyway...so waiting will serve you well

[fvbounty]

Originally Posted by polonyc2

I also bought my SSD through Newegg...but I did the RMA through G.Skill as I always prefer to do RMA's with the manufacturer directly...I just looked on Newegg and see that the price of my 256GB has actually increased since I bought mine...price went up by $10 and they no longer offer free shipping...weird as most SSD prices seem to be getting lower

I was going to go with an Intel SSD but they do not offer high capacity drives as of yet...I think their biggest SSD is only 160GB and I wanted something bigger

as far as tweaks...the only SSD tweaks I use are I disable Defragmentation, File Indexing and Search Indexing...I also hear that disabling Superfetch is good but I havn't done that as of yet

even with my mechanical HDD I still tweaked my OS and hard drive so it's not something specific to just SSD's

I think waiting a few more months before buying an SSD is a smart move...prices will get even lower and new generation of SSD's will be released...plus it's really best to use an SSD with Windows 7 anyway...so waiting will serve you well

Thanks again, thats what I'm waiting for is Oct 22, so I'll do both ssd and W7 at the same time!

[Griff]

Congrats on the new SSD drive polonyc2, good scores. I am happy with my 64gig Falcons in Raid0. Boot time is very quick with Win7. I bought one locally and one from NewEgg.

[Sir Skully]

Yeah W-7 is the way to go with SSD's......

[polonyc2]

Originally Posted by Griff

Congrats on the new SSD drive polonyc2, good scores. I am happy with my 64gig Falcons in Raid0. Boot time is very quick with Win7.

congrats on your new RAID SSD setup as well...very impressive benchmarks you have there...you also went with the G.Skill Falcon I see...I'm happy with mine...although you don't get the OCZ level of support, the G.Skill SSD's are excellent performers and hopefully you won't need the support

plus since both the Vertex and Falcon are based on the same Indilinx controller the info provided at the OCZ forums also apply to the Falcon drives...so in reality the support is still there but you just have to go to another manufacturer's forums to get it

boot times with Windows 7 is actually quick even with a mechanical HDD..having an SSD just makes it that much quicker

[Griff]

I have not timed my boot times yet. I am going to attach a small program to time the boot process. I have it loaded on my machine to do it the next reboot. The forum will not let me upload it, I will post a link to the program.

[polonyc2]

Originally Posted by Griff

I have not timed my boot times yet. I am going to attach a small program to time the boot process. I have it loaded on my machine to do it the next reboot. The forum will not let me upload it, I will post a link to the program.

what program do you use for this?...is it freeware?