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Somnambul33t
L33t.
Premium Member
join:2002-12-05
00000

1 recommendation

Somnambul33t

Premium Member

[Review] Intel x25-V 40GB

I have one arriving today. Will be used as boot disk for W7 64. i bought it from tigerdirect for $116 after bing cashback (had 10% when i purchased) and free shipping. i will be using tweaktown's optimization guide except i may keep prefetch enabled for boot files and/or programs (1 or 2 instead of 3 for everything and 0 for off)

System specs
Q6700 @ 3.6
Asus Maximus Formula
8GB RAM
XFX HD5870
Hitachi 750GB 32MB
Win7 64

like most, ive been craving an SSD for quite a while, but they've been out of reach to use 1 drive for boot/games/apps. i usually have over 100GB of games installed through steam and use a 40GB OS partition so i'd been looking for the 160-200GB drives. i cant justify $300-500 for a hard drive so i put it on the back burner. then along comes Intel's value series with the debut of the 40GB model at a modest $130 tag. this is an interesting drive, as it has 10GB more space than most drives with which it's competing and is appropriately the same proportion more expensive. i always felt 30GB was a little small for me even with a separate applications partition. my current OS partition is 40GB and has 7.5 free. the normally $100 30GB drives seemed OK, but many didnt have the advanced features of the larger drives and the size was just a little too small for comfort. the Intel is relatively cheap @ 130 and can be found cheaper and the extra 10GB is really nice.

after reading some reviews, i found the performance to be excellent. it supports TRIM and has read speeds on par or close to that of the larger M-series drives, which are among the fastest available. the write speeds appear rather dull, but shouldnt matter much for a boot drive. Intel is selling this drive as a boot OS drive and after looking at extensive reviews, it looks like they pegged this right on the nose. cheap, enough space for OS (and for most people basic apps or a few games), and the best performance of any drive under $200.

i will probably install after work today but may not have some test results or anecdotal replies for another day or 2. just wish i could install BFBC2 onto it with it's slow-ass load times but it's in steam so i'd have to move everything in steam with it which wouldnt come close to fitting on the drive lol

koitsu
MVM
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
Humax BGW320-500

1 edit

koitsu

MVM

Neat timing -- I just got mine today too! (Yes really!) Being used as an OS drive. 40GB is barely enough given the needs for swap/etc. on a *IX machine -- so I would've preferred 80GB, but the price for the 40GB was too good to pass up.

Haven't bothered to do benchmarks/etc. because... well, it's an OS drive. Stable, huzzah!

Oh, and I still need to download/upgrade to the latest F/W...

icarus# smartctl -a /dev/ad8
smartctl 5.39 2009-12-09 r2995 [FreeBSD 8.0-STABLE amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-9 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net
 
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     INTEL SSDSA2M040G2GC
Serial Number:    CVGB003103FP040GGN
Firmware Version: 2CV102HB
User Capacity:    40,020,664,320 bytes
Device is:        Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is:   7
ATA Standard is:  ATA/ATAPI-7 T13 1532D revision 1
Local Time is:    Wed Mar 10 10:07:30 2010 PST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
 
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
 
General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x00) Offline data collection activity
                                        was never started.
                                        Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0) The previous self-test routine completed
                                        without error or no self-test has ever
                                        been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection:                 (   1) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:                    (0x75) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                                        No Auto Offline data collection support.
                                        Abort Offline collection upon new
                                        command.
                                        No Offline surface scan supported.
                                        Self-test supported.
                                        Conveyance Self-test supported.
                                        Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
                                        power-saving mode.
                                        Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01) Error logging supported.
                                        General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (   1) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (   1) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (   1) minutes.
 
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 5
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0020   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0030   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       13
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       17
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       4
225 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0030   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       244
226 Load-in_Time            0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       2857
227 Torq-amp_Count          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
228 Power-off_Retract_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       2280595681
232 Available_Reservd_Space 0x0033   100   100   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
233 Media_Wearout_Indicator 0x0032   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
184 End-to-End_Error        0x0033   100   100   099    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 
SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged
 
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
No self-tests have been logged.  [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]
 
Note: selective self-test log revision number (0) not 1 implies that no selective self-test has ever been run
SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 0
Note: revision number not 1 implies that no selective self-test has ever been run
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.
 
Punchline
join:2005-10-11
University Of Richmond, VA

Punchline to Somnambul33t

Member

to Somnambul33t
If one of you has a chance, could you run a quick Crystal Disk Mark and give us a screenie? I'm just curious, and I'm looking for an excuse to buy a new toy :P.

»crystalmark.info/softwar ··· x-e.html

I updated the firmware of my M this past weekend, but it's the 80 gig model and it seems they still lag behind the larger capacity versions for some reason. I'm thinking it's artificial - intel encouraging people to buy the more expensive version or something?

-P

asdfdfdfdfdf
@opera-mini.net

asdfdfdfdfdf to Somnambul33t

Anon

to Somnambul33t
" I'm thinking it's artificial - intel encouraging people to buy the more expensive version or something?"

smaller drives generally have fewer nand devices on them, which is why the performance is generally lower relative to larger versions.

koitsu
MVM
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
Humax BGW320-500

1 edit

1 recommendation

koitsu to Punchline

MVM

to Punchline
I think Somnambul33t See Profile will have to run the benchmarks you're looking for; my X25-V is in a FreeBSD box.

So for those familiar with FreeBSD:

make -j2 buildworld dropped from ~23 minutes to ~17 minutes. And yeah, /usr/src and /usr/obj are both on the SSD. Filesystem is UFS2 + softupdates. Chipset is ICH9 with AHCI enabled, but I'm using ataahci.ko (e.g. classic ata(4) AHCI, meaning no NCQ) not ahci.ko (which does AHCI/SATA-to-CAM and provides NCQ). So there's even more room for improvement.

What this means is basically 0ms seek time plays a huge role and/or makes up for the overall decrease in sequential I/O write speed. Pretty amazing; I'd have expected a slight decrease (maybe 21 minutes), but not this. Once the 80GB drives drop to this price, hoo boy, my servers are in trouble.

pflog
Bueller? Bueller?
MVM
join:2001-09-01
El Dorado Hills, CA

pflog

MVM

I can appreciate the FreeBSD specific "benchmark" here for sure!

But damnit, now you've got me thinking of buying one just for /usr/src, /usr/ports and /usr/obj! hahah

Somnambul33t
L33t.
Premium Member
join:2002-12-05
00000

Somnambul33t

Premium Member

here's a quick crystalmark:

aurgathor
join:2002-12-01
Lynnwood, WA

aurgathor to koitsu

Member

to koitsu
said by koitsu:

What this means is basically 0ms seek time plays a huge role and/or makes up for the overall decrease in sequential I/O write speed.
RAID 0 can get the sequential write speed back on track.

koitsu
MVM
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
Humax BGW320-500

1 edit

koitsu

MVM

said by aurgathor:

said by koitsu:

What this means is basically 0ms seek time plays a huge role and/or makes up for the overall decrease in sequential I/O write speed.
RAID 0 can get the sequential write speed back on track.
Except for the fact that:

1) It's not cost effective: the X25-V costs ~$130, so two of them = ~$260. I can get a WD Caviar Black 1TB drive, which can do ~100MB/sec both read and write, for ~$90.

Hmm let's see: 3x faster sequential writes + 25x more space for 1/3rd the price?

2) SSDs aren't immune to going bad -- and yes, we HAVE had a few X25Ms go bad at my workplace -- so RAID-0 is still risky business. People should do backups, obviously, but it's still risky business.

aurgathor
join:2002-12-01
Lynnwood, WA

aurgathor

Member

said by koitsu:

1) It's not cost effective:
I think that's a common knowledge
Hmm let's see: 3x faster sequential writes + 25x more space for 1/3rd the price?
And seek times that are not even close to basically zero
2) SSDs aren't immune to going bad -- and yes, we HAVE had a few X25Ms go bad at my workplace
Hmmm, I would've thought thought that with all the fancy defect handling and wear leveling it would take a little while for them to fail. What's the failure rate in %?

koitsu
MVM
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
Humax BGW320-500

koitsu

MVM

Re: failure rate in %: I can't really give you this number given that we don't have a tremendously large number of them in use. I think we've maybe 50, and to date we've had 3 fail in odd ways, all on different physical systems.

The 1st and 2nd SSDs just completely stopped working -- 100% I/O errors during operation, and on reboot/power-cycle wouldn't appear on the SATA bus.

The 3rd SSD spit out random I/O errors on *any* ATA command (so that means SMART, disk reads, writes, etc.). Wasn't a host controller problem since the SSD was moved to another machine and exhibited the same issue.

These problems smell of drive PCB controller issues more so than the flash going bad. People so often forget that there's a controller on the drives themselves that can go bad while the actual physical medium (whether it be flash or platters) can be 100% functional/error-free.

aurgathor
join:2002-12-01
Lynnwood, WA

aurgathor

Member

I see, so it's probably infant mortality, possibly from some latent manufacturing defect that escaped QC.

howie1
Premium Member
join:2003-04-08
Antarctica

1 edit

howie1 to Somnambul33t

Premium Member

to Somnambul33t
I just got one of these 40GB Intel's today. Windows 7 boots in under 20 seconds and average reads are over 200MB/sec. I'm loving this drive....

BTW, Don't forget to update your firmware. The current version is shown above.

Somnambul33t
L33t.
Premium Member
join:2002-12-05
00000

Somnambul33t

Premium Member

said by howie1:

I just got one of these 40GB Intel's today. Windows 7 boots in under 20 seconds and average reads are over 200MB/sec. I'm loving this drive....

BTW, Don't forget to update your firmware. The current version is shown above.
im running the latest firmware as of my last post. when i get some time ill run some more becnhes. just upgraded to an i5 system and got a lot of stuff to reconfigure.

also to prev post...you cant compare SSDs to HDDs in that way. we didnt buy SSDs for capacity...
also, sequential speeds are almost meaningless. it only really affects large files, which are certainly not the norm.

my new mobo has sata3 ports...makes me wish i held out for some newer SSDs, tho i bet theyd be $$$

howie1
Premium Member
join:2003-04-08
Antarctica

1 edit

howie1

Premium Member

said by Somnambul33t:

you cant compare SSDs to HDDs in that way. we didnt buy SSDs for capacity...
also, sequential speeds are almost meaningless. it only really affects large files, which are certainly not the norm.
Yes, I believe it's the almost instananeous access times that allow SSD's to outperform most HDD's... These times are typically 100 times faster than your average mechanical hard drive. I remember after my Win 7 desktop appeared, it would take 30 seconds or for all the notification icons to load and appear when using my Seagate 7200.12 1TB, 130MB/sec. drive. With the SSD, Windows 7 is fully loaded 5 seconds after the desktop appears. It's like night and day, actually.

As for capacity, with all my favorite apps and programs installed, I was only using about 34GB of space on my 1TB system drive, so this 40GB SSD works out just fine. I have 2.3TB of additional storage for all my other stuff (music, videos, etc.) on 3 other internal HDD's.

Octavean
MVM
join:2001-03-31
New York, NY

Octavean to Somnambul33t

MVM

to Somnambul33t
Which models is this?

The Intel X25-V 40GB SSDSA2MP040G2 R5,…..?

170 / 40 sequential reads / writes,….?

I was thinking of getting the Kingston SSDNow V series 128GB or 64GB (200 / 160 or 200 / 110 read / write). That’s the SNV425-S2/64GB and SNV425-S2/128GB models. If I apply a coupon code I have I can get these models for ~$100 or ~$200 respectively.

Somnambul33t
L33t.
Premium Member
join:2002-12-05
00000

Somnambul33t

Premium Member

said by Octavean:

Which models is this?

The Intel X25-V 40GB SSDSA2MP040G2 R5,…..?

170 / 40 sequential reads / writes,….?

I was thinking of getting the Kingston SSDNow V series 128GB or 64GB (200 / 160 or 200 / 110 read / write). That’s the SNV425-S2/64GB and SNV425-S2/128GB models. If I apply a coupon code I have I can get these models for ~$100 or ~$200 respectively.
i posted the tiger direct link to it in the original post

Octavean
MVM
join:2001-03-31
New York, NY

Octavean

MVM

Ahhh,….
Thanks,….
Sorry about that,….

250 / 100 reads / writes is certainly fairly fast.