Solid state drives are starting to become more affordable and offer better performance than their spinning disk hard drive cousins, but will their performance justify the current prices? OCZ has come out with a new design that just may be what people have been waiting for. Take a look at the article and see what we think.
The folks at OCZ have come up with a creative solution to help improve performance with their new Apex line of MLC based SSD's. Available in 60, 120 and 250GB capacities with a 2.5" form factor, the Apex drives utilize a RAID-0 configuration with a JMicron JMB390 RAID controller and dual JMF602(B) JMicron SSD controllers all enclosed in the drive itself without the need for external software or hardware to assist. In addition, the JMF602 controllers each have a 16KB on-die cache to help performance. This allows users to utilize the advantages of RAID who may not want the hassle of a traditional RAID setup. We will be specifically looking at the 120GB OCZ Apex drive which currently retails for around $350...
Writes are getting better but it still hurts to see the drastic difference between reading and writing. Wonder about a RAID10 array with two mirrors, one with SSD and one with spindle, how would it perform. SSD for blazing fast reads, spindle for fast writes, and a controller to queue up writes to the slower SSDs. Hard-drive manufacturers really need to get in the ball with hybrid SSD/HDD technology.
Using 2 SSD's in a RAID 0 array would increase the write speeds but you would need a pricey RAID controller to accommodate the bandwidth. Not worth it IMO. I think the benchmarks are somewhat misleading. I don't perceive and write delays while using the PC. From the pre-release data OCZ has published, it looks like the Vertex drives will perform even better due to a new controller and more onboard cache.
FZ1 wrote:Using 2 SSD's in a RAID 0 array would increase the write speeds but you would need a pricey RAID controller to accommodate the bandwidth. Not worth it IMO. I think the benchmarks are somewhat misleading. I don't perceive and write delays while using the PC. From the pre-release data OCZ has published, it looks like the Vertex drives will perform even better due to a new controller and more onboard cache.
I'd have to disagree. All reviews in the past have shown that a raid controller with onboard cache helps phenomenally. 2 and 4 drive RAID controllers aren't expensive either, especially when compared to the drives themselves.
FZ1 wrote:Using 2 SSD's in a RAID 0 array would increase the write speeds but you would need a pricey RAID controller to accommodate the bandwidth. Not worth it IMO. I think the benchmarks are somewhat misleading. I don't perceive and write delays while using the PC. From the pre-release data OCZ has published, it looks like the Vertex drives will perform even better due to a new controller and more onboard cache.
I'd have to disagree. All reviews in the past have shown that a raid controller with onboard cache helps phenomenally. 2 and 4 drive RAID controllers aren't expensive either, especially when compared to the drives themselves.
I guess my post wasn't very clear, I meant that a single Vertex will outperform a single Apex as a single drive.
Many of the people running RAID with SSD's are using $400 adaptec controllers...cheapo ones aren't going to cut it. Apparently they are causing the RAID cards to run hot enough to require a fan too.
