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Are you satisfied with your Aurora SSD?
I'm considering an Aurora with the 256Gb SSD and wondering if folks are happy with it? I've heard good things about Intel and Kingston SSDs with TRIM support but have also heard people with Samsung SSD (which is what is in the Aurora I believe) have degradation problems.
vvaldez
63 Posts
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March 3rd, 2010 16:00
I did a lot of research when buying my system, before I started posting in here. From what I found, if this is the "Samsung PM800", then stay very clear of it for gaming. Apple OEMs the same drive, and there are tons of complaints about it. So what you are hearing is true, major degradation problems after using it for a while. Here are a few links. This review by Anandtech is the most telling:
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631&p=19
Favorite quote: "Both Samsung and Intel have a lot to gain from TRIM. Samsung’s performances goes from utterly unacceptable to reasonable (but not price justified) with TRIM. Intel’s performance goes from class-leading to more, er, class-leading."
Others:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=444979&page=22
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=658571&page=9
I'm sure you may have seen some of these, the key is to search for "Samsung PM800". Most people post immediately after they get the drive, and it has awesome performance. However, as the drive fills up, and more cells are overwritten, performance lurches to a halt. This is where TRIM comes in, but does not alleviate the problem completely. Also, as the drive gets full, it performs slower (more cells to clean up). And 256 is big in terms of an SSD, but who wouldn't fill that up fast?
For the same prices as this drive, I got 2x 10k WD VR drives. Later this year I'll re-evaluate and add an SSD at that time, and most likely an Intel-based one.
I know TRIM was added to this drive, but at the time I was looking, there were reports that only Samsung could apply the firmware, meaning you have to get a replacement drive from Dell and hope it had updated firmware, you could not apply the firmware yourself. Perhaps someone who has a drive could provide more insight.
If you really want a high performance SSD drive, get an Intel X25 and install it yourself.
jay2010
58 Posts
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March 4th, 2010 13:00
I just ordered 2 X25 160GB drives so I can upgrade my system. I want to configure them RAID0. Do I need to do anything special in Windows 7 to enable TRIM? I know I need to disable the automatic defragmentation, but was wondering if there was anything else I needed to check?
maxage
33 Posts
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March 5th, 2010 12:00
I'm not sure about configuring TRIM. I heard that some mobo's have problems with SSD and TRIM when RAID is used but am not sure that applies to the Aurora.
I also want to use RAID, albeit RAID1 and not on the SSD. Instead, I'm looking at:
1 x25 160GB SSD for the OS and apps (no RAID)
2x 1Tb HDD RAID 1 for data
1x1Tb HDD dedicated for audio/video processing (no RAID)
But am not sure this will work on the Aurora either.
morblore
2.4K Posts
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March 6th, 2010 05:00
Raid + Trim is not supported yet with any OS. You need to wait untill intel comes out with a new firmware for raid trim support. Windows 7 does support trim right out of the box with no settings required by the end user to activate it.
To confirm this run a command prompt and typ in: fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify
if it returns a 0 then trim is activated.
morblore
2.4K Posts
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March 6th, 2010 05:00
I researched this for weeks before I bought one. Seems the only SSD you can truly trust is the intel G2 models. I wouldn't even touch the Kingston SSD drives because even though they are intel you can not flash the new intel firmware on them and you must be able to do that.
Like the other poster said go with the Intel x25. I am using 1 and it's fantastic. I have my OS and games on it and then I use 4 1tb set in raid 0+1 for storage. One SDD installed but not part of the raid disks will still get the trim.
Trim + Raid just isn't out yet. I am sure they will release a firmware for raid + trim support but as of yet they havn't. Buy one for now and wait till Raid support is added. One blows away almost any HDD raid set up so don't worry about performance from raid right now.
There is one issue with the Dell/Alienware systems and the SSD. Dell/Alienware do not have IDE mode support in the bios and you need that to install new firmware to the SSD. So you must find another computer to put it in to do the fireware updates. This could be the very reason why you must send them to Dell to do the firmware updates. Then again like I said the Kingston versions of the intel SSD will not take the intel firmware so that could be why.
jay2010
58 Posts
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March 6th, 2010 06:00
Raid + Trim is not supported yet with any OS. You need to wait untill intel comes out with a new firmware for raid trim support. Windows 7 does support trim right out of the box with no settings required by the end user to activate it.
To confirm this run a command prompt and typ in: fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify
if it returns a 0 then trim is activated.
Great! Thank you! I will give this a try. Do you recommend running that Intel SSD Toolbox optimization routing? The Intel Toolbox says to run it weekly.
Also, could it be that the drives need to be firmware upgraded by Dell because they are not intel drives vs that IDE support? I could throw the drive in my laptop to firmware upgrade it I suppose, but it would be so much easier to not have to take it out and reinstall it everytime I need to flash it. I was told that as long as you have your BIOS set to SATA or AHCI you should be able to flash the Intel X25-M.
morblore
2.4K Posts
0
March 6th, 2010 14:00
Raid + Trim is not supported yet with any OS. You need to wait untill intel comes out with a new firmware for raid trim support. Windows 7 does support trim right out of the box with no settings required by the end user to activate it.
To confirm this run a command prompt and typ in: fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify
if it returns a 0 then trim is activated.
Great! Thank you! I will give this a try. Do you recommend running that Intel SSD Toolbox optimization routing? The Intel Toolbox says to run it weekly.
Also, could it be that the drives need to be firmware upgraded by Dell because they are not intel drives vs that IDE support? I could throw the drive in my laptop to firmware upgrade it I suppose, but it would be so much easier to not have to take it out and reinstall it everytime I need to flash it. I was told that as long as you have your BIOS set to SATA or AHCI you should be able to flash the Intel X25-M.
You gotta set it to IDE for intell or the firmware won't install. I tried trust me:) When you DL the firmware it will even tell you that in the readme. It's not to bad using another comp since you wont be updating it all that often. I stuck mine in my laptop,booted the CD and had it done in like 5min. I have no idea how makes the Dell branded SSD's. Thought it was Kingston but I really don't know.
The intel toolbox is not needed if you have Windows 7. That is for things like Vista or XP that don't have native trim support.
Windows is supposed to turn off things such as Defrag and Superfetch when it detects a SSD but it doesn't always do that. You need to check if it did or not after you install the OS.Go here: http://www.mydellmini.com/forum/windows-7/2441-windows-7-ultimate-solid-state-drive-speed-tweaks.html plus you can google some info on what to disable.
You will also want to do a regedit and disable prefetch if it didn't do it after OS install.
jay2010
58 Posts
0
March 8th, 2010 10:00
Don't I want superfetch and prefetch? That just seems to load OS and Applications into memory. Assuming I have tons of it, that should still be preferred, no? RAM is still a much quicker medium than SSD, is it not?
morblore
2.4K Posts
0
March 9th, 2010 10:00
Windows wil turn it off by default when it detects the SSD.
jay2010
58 Posts
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March 9th, 2010 11:00
So do I want to turn it back on ?