Crucial RealSSD 128GB

[Saxito Pau]

So I took the plunge:

Bought me a Crucial 128GB SSD after selling my hybrid SSD to Husk147

Ran away from work to pick it up after my mom collected it fromt eh fedex guy

I nearly had a nerd-gasm were it not for two things:
- I was at work
- I was at work in an all-boys school

Even made a co-worker bummy by literally tossing the drive at him for him to catch before installing it in my Asus UL30A His facial reaction was priceless. Good thing he happenes to be a physics teacher and quickly understood why I threw it

Windows 7 64-bit installed in 15 mins.... everything the wasn't being copied from CD finished near instantly.

so far in successive boots and using Soluto as the timer: my boot time is now 30 seconds (down from 67 seconds with the hybrid SSD)

Cost of this Glory? US$254, incl shipping. Ordered Monday morn... and would have gotten it yesterday

[Arcmanov]

Damn...SSD ftw, especially in laptops.

...and I'm pretty sure battery life will jump by about 2 hrs,
since that always-spinning HDD is no longer present.

I guess that Turtle Beach headset will have to wait then? 

[Saxito Pau]

Asus UL30A
Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 (1.3GHz)
4GB DDR3 RAM
Intel GS45 Chipset

It may not be close to "uber" fast, but it working like "whoa" for me...

Praise-worthy reductions in application/windows load times across the board...

EDIT:

I think I figured out why my speeds are not as fast as Hard O/C expected.

This SSD is a SATA3/6Gbps drive being used in a SATA2 port.

Maybe if I hook this up to my desktop home and run a benchie (I think I have SATA3 ports on my desktop PC) I will see the full advertised speeds:

This is what I got using Crystal DiskMark:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

          Sequential Read :   249.959 MB/s
          Sequential Write :   127.378 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :   228.406 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :   121.391 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    16.253 MB/s [  3968.0 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    27.515 MB/s [  6717.6 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :    65.747 MB/s [ 16051.5 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :    54.216 MB/s [ 13236.3 IOPS]

  Test : 1000 MB [C: 19.4% (23.1/119.1 GB)] (x5)
  Date : 2011/03/25 18:52:10
    OS : Windows 7 Ultimate Edition [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)
  

The advertised rates are 355MB/s seq Read; 140MB/s seq. write

[TriniXaeno]

Using an SSD as my primary drive myself. Must say....its a world of a difference.

Everything just.....happens.

Boom. You clicked it.....its there.

I swear it increased my performance in Battlefield as well. lol

What does Windows 7 say for your newly installed speed demon under the HD performance index saxman?

[Saxito Pau]

Processor: Genuine Intel(R) CPU U7300 @ 1.30GHz 4.2
Memory (RAM): 4.00 GB 4.8
Graphics: Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family 3.9
Gaming graphics: 1695 MB Total available graphics memory 3.4
Primary hard disk: 95GB Free (119GB Total) 5.9

[TriniXaeno]

That is a really poor number for an SSD.

Mine clocks in at 7.3 (see attached)

A score of 5.9 would have me a little worried. Might want to double check a few things. See if anywhere online they have advice as to what settings to change to get the most out of your drive.

It's cutting edge stuff after all. Might require a little extra tweaking to get the most out of it.

[Saxito Pau]

I did do some tweaks as per some guides I read and even found a nice lil software tool to do it automatically for you.

I definitely got a performance boost when I re-ran the benchmark, but it made no difference on the WEI.

I guess sticking the drive in my desktop will be the next step to check for a performance boost...

[TriniXaeno]

just asking the obvious...but you did re-run the assessment after making those tweaks right?

[Eroo]

When I first installed my SSD it was only giving 6.3 on the Windows score. I had my SSD running in IDE mode, switched to AHCI and got the following.



In my case switching to AHCI went from 6.3 to 7.7. However you cant just change it in the bios as it will crash your Windows on next boot. Follow this guide below and let me know if it makes a difference for you.

http://windows7themes.net/switch-to-ahci-after-install-windows-7.html

[TriniXaeno]

Sweet score Eroo.

Which SSD are you running?

Also, this little tool may come in very handy for gamers like us on SSDs.

Steam Mover

http://www.traynier.com/software/steammover

Been using it a few weeks now and so far so good.

Promised Awesome I'd post about it on the site after mentioning it on mumble but clean forgot...so here goes.


The problem:

You bought an SSD but its tiny compared to your regular mechanical hard disks. Typically 80-128GB vs 500Gb - 1500GB. Your game library on STEAM is now totaling in excess of 200GB and you cannot store all of the games on your SSD.

The solution:

Use "Steam Mover" to quickly and efficiently move just the games you want to the SSD while leaving all the rest on your roomy HD by running some slick NTFS commands in the backgroud. The STEAM app itself is non the wiser. It still thinks all your games are in one place and works perfectly.


Here is a screen shot of what it looks like. You can see which games I've got on the SSD (as they are listed under Junction Point)

[Spazosaurus]

Nice. Maybe make a post in the official steam thread so it wont get lost in the clutter.

[TriniXaeno]

See how yuh cyah please some people? lol

I'll probably add some more meat around it (explain the NTFS commands in use, etc...) and place it as an article.

Project for a quiet weekend.

[Spazosaurus]

lol @ please ppl.

Is you self I go bother when I get my SSD and want to implement this magic and cant find the post.

[Eroo]

@Wyatt OCZ Agility 2 60GB

That programs looks real good, gonna try it now 

+1 to you

[TriniXaeno]

thank you, thank you

lol @ awesome. alright, I'll copy it in the steam thread too for safe keeping.

[Saxito Pau]

just asking the obvious...but you did re-run the assessment after making those tweaks right?

Indeed, you do ask the obvious. I did re-run the assessment: no effect

I have noted that my battery life (at least according to BatteryBar Pro) has jumped from about 6.5 hours to approaching 9 hours using power saving settings. Wil update as the undergo more discharge/recharge cycles

[EmperorXavier]

here is the same 128GB SSD on a SATA 3 (6GB) interface. (i also did a benchmark on a 2TB SATA 3 HDD for comparison)
=[PT]=

[Arcmanov]

Good GOD.

Screw GPU upgrade yes.  I have to get me one a dem sumbichez. 

[Spazosaurus]

lol you certainly do!

[Saxito Pau]

Good GOD.

Screw GPU upgrade yes.  I have to get me one a dem sumbichez. 

Oh, NOW you wanna get one....  after all this time...