News - A-DATA rolls out S596-series SSDs, calls them the industry's fastest

[HEXUS]

Super-speedy SSD promises to boot Windows 7 in 20 seconds.

Read more.

[0iD]

I don't care how fast it is, they're still too small (capacity), and too expensive. Plus, if I'm quite honest, I don't really care that my computer takes 60 seconds as opposed to 20 seconds to boot into windows.

[TooNice]

To small for the price for me, and I don't care about boot time improvement that much either. Still, the more competitive the market get, the sooner we will see any real price drop.

Regarding their claims, I don't think that the sequential speed is beating any record (or if it does, not by much). Would be interesting to see how it performs for small random read/write.

I also find it weird that anyone would buy an SSD drive to use it with an USB port at several time the cost - no matter how much more shock proof it is.

[sayer]

I care a lot about the speed of my hard disk, but the most important statistic for me is the random read/write speeds, not really the sequential speeds. I wish they would release information on this more readily.

[nightkhaos]

Originally Posted by sayer

I care a lot about the speed of my hard disk, but the most important statistic for me is the random read/write speeds, not really the sequential speeds. I wish they would release information on this more readily.

Me to. But I guess they don't want people to know that, with the exception of Intel X25s, SSDs don't ofter a significant improvement of Random Read/Write times when compared to tranditional HDDs.

I find this odd consideirng that HDDs need to seek the data, whereas Random Read/Write times are all in the controller when it comes to SSDs.

[Perfectionist]

Originally Posted by nightkhaos

Me to. But I guess they don't want people to know that, with the exception of Intel X25s, SSDs don't ofter a significant improvement of Random Read/Write times when compared to tranditional HDDs.

I find this odd consideirng that HDDs need to seek the data, whereas Random Read/Write times are all in the controller when it comes to SSDs.

Yeah, all the marketing is focused on sequential speeds with no mention of read/write I/Os per second (IOPS) of a 4k chunk like most benchmarks do, it's very misleading especially when it's shouting the MB/s in gaming magazines like PC Gamer. I fell for it myself recently til someone put me right and I did a bit more research!

That said though, PC Gamer UK magazine did a review this month (December 09 edition) on page 17 that's worth checking out, a fairly cheap SSD resulted in slightly more than twice as fast loads of a game level (about twice as fast booting up too). So SSDs are still better, since most use isn't of chunks of data as small as 4k - though when picking an SSD it seems to be the most important thing to look for. Won't be even considering this one since they don't share 4k IOPs data (not even dodgy "up to"/"maximum" numbers like OCZ give out which don't match up with actual use benchmarks by reviewers)

[kingpotnoodle]

Old Chinese proverb say:

"He who swallow manufacturers numbers and goes to shop is on the short road to disappointment, he who waits and reads good review with comparable products is smart man indeed..."

Nevermind that they don't "release" this 4k random info etc, typically it's inaccurate or best case scenario anyway (like spinning disk's being quoted using the fastest sectors only for example) - read some reviews first or don't buy at all is my advice. Manufacturers should get plenty of review samples out there, marketing guff is useless anyway!

[Perfectionist]

You obviously didn't read my the research link in my post where I said similar about OCZ's misleading "up to"/"maximum" 4k stats and only linked to reviews not manufacturer marketing stats

[mikerr]

Originally Posted by nightkhaos

with the exception of Intel X25s, SSDs don't ofter a significant improvement of Random Read/Write times when compared to tranditional HDDs.

LOL - have you used an SSD ? The X25 may be the best, but random read/writes is exactly where even cheap SSDs blow away normal spinning HDDs.

I've put a few "cheap" £90 X32s in PCs, and they totally transform day to day usage.
You don't need to run a benchmark for the difference to be apparent.

[this_is_gav]

Originally Posted by mikerr

LOL - have you used an SSD ? The X25 may be the best, but random read/writes is exactly where even cheap SSDs blow away normal spinning HDDs.

If you think "cheap" SSDs blow away any hard drive, you need to use an Acer Aspire One with the 8GB SSD. I think you need to clarify cheap a little more.

[mikerr]

Heh, those are slow I'll grant you, but you can't put one of those in your PC easily.
- I was talking about "real" SATA HDD replacement SSDs

[TooNice]

There is more truth in your statement than nightkhaos's. Even a Velociraptor has a read of 1.5MB/sec 4K Random Write, and 0.7MB/sec 4K Random read. Though one exception is the OCZ Summit (Samsung MLC) which only manages 1.2MB/sec 4K Random Write when in used state.

TRIM would definitely be beneficial to that drive. Drives using the JMicron controller also get murdered in random write. But it's more of a controller fault.

Still, lots of SSD can do much better than 1.5MB/0.7MB even in their 'used state'.

[12GaugeShotty]

I can boot to Windows 7 in zero seconds on my 1TB Samsung F1. My PC is on 24/7. Boot speed specs are REALLY outdated and unnecessary.

[Perfectionist]

Originally Posted by TooNice

lots of SSD can do much better than 1.5MB/0.7MB even in their 'used state'.

Yeah, I did some research on that and compared a few, tho it seems really hard to get totally accurate comparisons between SSDs both cos of the technical and the rarity of benchmarks out there

[explicit4u]

Originally Posted by 0iD

I don't care how fast it is, they're still too small (capacity), and too expensive. Plus, if I'm quite honest, I don't really care that my computer takes 60 seconds as opposed to 20 seconds to boot into windows.

Yes, because boot speeds are the only reason why people buy SSD's.

[0iD]

Well I'm never in that much of a rush, and in 8-12 months prices will bottom out anyways, same as they did with 1tb traditional drives. Prices are always silly to begin with until production volume pushes costs down.