SSD durability question

In my laptop at work we all are using Intel SSD's. For those who have a lot of disk writes/reads, because of vmware, images, downloads etc. We've replaced the dvd-player with a ordinary mechanical harddisk bay for storing data.

At home I had a OCZ Agility 60GB, but used it a lot with acronis images and it died after a year or so. Now I'm just using a hybrid drive from Seagate (momentus xt). It hasn't have the same speed as a ssd but it's faster than a mechanical drive.

 

My SSD's are running great so far and Diskeeper 2011 Pro Premier with Hyperfast is keeping them Optimized! Very snappy Boot up after BIOS screen to Widows and able to open browser 30-35 seconds VM's are really fast now to open and to work with and most apps open almost immediately Outlook 2010 takes 2 to 3 seconds before it was 10 to 15 seconds on standard drives! Very impressive so far!

TH

Click on this picture to see better! And this only for 30 minutes.

 

What was the performance like before optimization?

 

Diskeeper with Hyperfast keeps them Optimized Automatically so Performance is always at it's peak!

Read more here: http://www.diskeeper.com/hyperfast/

TH

 

Good read Eagle Creek my SSD's are using 34 nm chips!

TH

 

No, I'm talking about before you optimized your SSD with the software. Did it report anything about your disk health?

 

No I did a clean install of Windows 7 x64 and put Diskeeper on right away then I started to load all the updates and programs so Diskeeper with Hyperfast keeps the free space optimized! I'm still learning more about SSD's myself, I don't know if TRIM is doing anything or Diskeeper is doing all the work? All I know is that I don't do any defragging at all and that is all Disable by default when I installed Diskeeper with the Hyperfast add-on! And also in the picture you see Auto-Defrag is on but it's just the service running not defragging! Customer support at Diskeeper is great as I talked to them on the phone and was very helpful to make sure it was setup properly which it was by default!

TH

Click on picture to make it larger!

 

Great article, thanks

 

I bought a Intel 320 a few days ago, just installed it yesterday. You really can't compare the speed with HDD's, it's lightning fast. The only thing I'm bothered about is the high failure rates people are reporting (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/05/the-hot-crazy-solid-state-drive-scale.html ). Those are first generation SSD's though (without TRIM and wear leveling?)

 

I read that article yesterday. Not encouraging. I'm about to run a backup right now. TRIM will do nothing to extend the lifespan. Wear leveling I guess we will see.

 

New Firmware update Firmware Upgrade Package A firmware update for Callisto deluxe™ DX Series drives is available. Please make sure your drive has a firmware version number LOWER than 3.6.1 before upgrading. http://www.mushkin.com/Digital-Storage/SSDs.aspx

I did my 2 without problems! My firmware was 3.4.0 before!

TH

 

Thanks for the update. I actually checked for that earlier and it hadn't been posted yet but I knew it was coming. I have 3.4.3. I don't know how hard mine will be. I have them in RAID 0. Fortunately I ran a full backup today.

 

Here is a Hard Drive Benchmark I got with my system! Freeware http://www.attotech.com/products/product.php?sku=Disk_Benchmark

TH

 

2 in RAID 0

 

Nice!

TH

 

I shouldn't of went after SSD's I can't use my old Laptop as it's way to slow now But the new one with the SDD's are amazing speed and very, very snappy! I might have to save my pennies and get one for my old laptop!

TH

 

Triple Helix perhaps you can straighten this out for me. I've read on a few websites that you shouldn't defrag SSD's, and a lot of people recommend disabling Window 7's built in auto defrag when using SSD's, saying SSD's don't benefit really from a defrag and it is not worth potentially shortening the life span with all the extra writes. I've heard a couple people contradict this and even after a quick google search I didn't find a clear answer.

Can you help clear up the confusion?

 

the performance improvements you get back from defrags (if any) are not worth the cost of reducing the lifespan of the SSD by quite a bit. bottom line= DO NOT DEFRAG YOUR SSD'S

 

Yep, even companies like Raxco (Perfectdisk) say that you shouldn't defrag. However, free space allocation, meaning moving the files like that you have continous free space in your SSD-drive is supposed to speed things up a little. This is of course up to debate.

In my understanding disabling default defragmenter in Windows 7 is useless as Windows 7 is already optimized for SSD-drives and should be in inactive mode if your only drive is SSD. But if you have a combination like I'm about to have soon - SSD for OS, normal HD for games and user files, you lose the benefit of defragmenting the normal HD if you disable the defragger.

 

no you dont, just because you disable automatic defrags does not mean you cant run it manually for individual hdd's

 

You are right on this one. I however talked about disabling the Windows defragmenter completely, as many guides in the internet seems advice doing. If the service is shut down, the user can't defragment at all if he/she doesn't have a external program for that. Yes, automatic defragmentation should definitely be disabled, but not more.

 

Exactly no Defragging at all on SSD's! I use Diskeeper Pro Premier with Hyperfast to keep the free space optimized! http://www.diskeeper.com/hyperfast/

HTH,

TH

 

Some good info about SSD's in general! Inside SSD's 101

TH

 

You can disable the automatic defrag schedule on your SSD without disabling the defrag for other drives. If Windows 7 recognizes the drive as SSD it will do this automatically. If not you will have to do it yourself. Not a difficult thing. I don't know how I feel about these defrag companies pushing the free space consolidation thing. If you have a drive with wear leveling it is probably overriding that and shortening the lifespan of the drive. The defrag companies need to find a way to continue existing after SSDs go mainstream but I'm not buying into what they are selling at the moment. I see no good reason to spend money on the placebo effect of installing any of these programs and burning up an expensive drive.