SSD Drive
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it has a Samsung 840 series ssd drive (new tech for me)..any tips on how to look after it,care,'trim' etc
gman
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Mikesphotaes
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Yes I thought that because Neil said so, however I'm pretty sure he came back and amended that advice.
No doubt he'll be along shortly
neil_g
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Mikesphotaes said:Yes I thought that because Neil said so, however I'm pretty sure he came back and amended that advice.
No doubt he'll be along shortly
Sorry been in bed with man flu.. :|
Run the Samsung util and it will advise what needs turning off. I found that despite running WEI it still said that some things were still enabled.
OP
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Thanks guys for all your help..ran the disc which came with it,ran the windows experience thingy..7.4 whatever that means 
all i know is its blindingly fast compared my old system,the first time i clicked on Lightroom it all came up so fast it scared the life out of me,nearly had me out of the chair
all i know is its blindingly fast compared my old system,the first time i clicked on Lightroom it all came up so fast it scared the life out of me,nearly had me out of the chair
Slaphead
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I hate them, as far as my customers are concerned, when they go bad they go very very bad.
They're fine as long as you keep very regular backups, but most users don't despite telling them time and time again.
Just had 3 this week where the controller gave up the ghost. One customer was meh about it, but the other two were practically suicidal when we got the report back from a dedicated data recovery outfit that there was no chance at all to recover the data. Their entire lives and businesses were on those SSDs.
Yes they are more unreliable.
As I understand it if something goes wrong, thats it, no last chance. With a physical disk you can sometimes rescue data.
neil_g
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Craft said:
Reliability and recoverability (appears thats a word, it passed a spell check) are two different things.
From what I've read there are no figures to show whether hdd or ssd are more reliable. Most legacy issues with ssd have been resolved with firmware updates etc.
srichards
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http://maxschireson.com/2011/04/21/debunking-ssd-lifespan-and-random-write-performance-concerns/
Interesting maths about how long an SSD drive should last.
If they often fail in an unrecoverable way then they're inferior to HDD. If the unrecoverable fail is a rare event then it might be a different matter.
Interesting maths about how long an SSD drive should last.
If they often fail in an unrecoverable way then they're inferior to HDD. If the unrecoverable fail is a rare event then it might be a different matter.
Slaphead
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I agree that all the facts and figures would seem to indicate that SSDs are more reliable than the standard spinning rust - even if an SSD is worn out then the data should still be readable.
The biggest problem is when the controller packs up as the controller is effectively the gatekeeper of the data. The data still exists, but due to the wear levelling employed the data is actually spread all over the SSD. It's the controllers job to keep track of all this.
For example on a normal Hard disk block 42 is always block 42. It's always in the same physical location on the disk (Ok, blocks can be reallocated, but it happens seldom enough to not really be a problem). This makes it relatively easy to extract the platters and reconstruct the data. With an SSD however block 42 may start out as block 42, but as it's rewritten it's written to physical block 11298 and then physical block 23159 and then physical block 14478. Basically block 42 ends up being written to different places on the SSD as it's rewritten. The controller looks after this and always knows the physical location of block 42.
When the controller fails you've still got the data, but it's so jumbled up on the SSD that it's all but impossible to piece the data back together. Simply taking the SSD's memory and attaching it to another same controller board will not get the data back as the new controller board doesn't know the physical locations of the data. Hence the unrecoverability of SSD's
This is admittedly a very simplified explanation of the SSDs workings
Some firms have been experimenting with extrapolating the wear levelling algorithms to try and guess where the data is, however this has only had limited success due to the variety of controllers and firmware versions.
My final opinion of SSDs is that yes they can seriously improve the performance of your system, but I'm still left with the feeling that SSDs are a somewhat of a bodge job due to the requirement to use complex wear levelling to prevent them from wearing out prematurely. Basically the wrong technology for the job.
The biggest problem is when the controller packs up as the controller is effectively the gatekeeper of the data. The data still exists, but due to the wear levelling employed the data is actually spread all over the SSD. It's the controllers job to keep track of all this.
For example on a normal Hard disk block 42 is always block 42. It's always in the same physical location on the disk (Ok, blocks can be reallocated, but it happens seldom enough to not really be a problem). This makes it relatively easy to extract the platters and reconstruct the data. With an SSD however block 42 may start out as block 42, but as it's rewritten it's written to physical block 11298 and then physical block 23159 and then physical block 14478. Basically block 42 ends up being written to different places on the SSD as it's rewritten. The controller looks after this and always knows the physical location of block 42.
When the controller fails you've still got the data, but it's so jumbled up on the SSD that it's all but impossible to piece the data back together. Simply taking the SSD's memory and attaching it to another same controller board will not get the data back as the new controller board doesn't know the physical locations of the data. Hence the unrecoverability of SSD's
This is admittedly a very simplified explanation of the SSDs workings
Some firms have been experimenting with extrapolating the wear levelling algorithms to try and guess where the data is, however this has only had limited success due to the variety of controllers and firmware versions.
My final opinion of SSDs is that yes they can seriously improve the performance of your system, but I'm still left with the feeling that SSDs are a somewhat of a bodge job due to the requirement to use complex wear levelling to prevent them from wearing out prematurely. Basically the wrong technology for the job.
srichards
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It would be impossible to work out where the data should be as you can't know how many blocks of actual data each disk has been writing.
What SSD drives could do with is a back up controller of some kind which keeps a copy of where the data has been put but you can't guarantee that won't die due to the same reason as the main controller.
What SSD drives could do with is a back up controller of some kind which keeps a copy of where the data has been put but you can't guarantee that won't die due to the same reason as the main controller.
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All 3 were around 2 years old, 2 of which were OCZ and the other was a Super Talent. I'm not sure exactly what the controllers were. We ditched Super Talent SSDs quite some time ago as the failure rates were about 40% in the first year. We've had a love hate relationship with OCZ - some models seem very reliable but with others we've had a 25% DOA rate.
The biggest problem with OCZ is that they don't have a tie in with a fab, meaning they buy all their memory from the open market. This means you're never quite sure what you're getting.
We've now standardised on Samsung for SSDs as we've had practically no problems with them.
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I was looking at the SanDisk ones the other week, those Extreme versions, and I noticed against the 830 Samsung, in nearly every test it came tops for speed and throughput.
Before then, and before knowing SanDisk produce their own NAND, I'd have lumped them in with OCZ/Corsair/and the rest, as ones to avoid rather than make a beeline for, because of their RAM modules often being highly praised.
I am still, however, cautious of the SandForce controllers, but I can't recall if the issues were with the design or the custom firmware, if indeed anyone knows for sure.
On the strength of being their own fabricator, and how well they've made a justified name for themselves in the SD/CF memory card market, I'd be inclined to give SanDisk, at least, the benefit of the doubt - considering the price is keener than Samsung.
Before then, and before knowing SanDisk produce their own NAND, I'd have lumped them in with OCZ/Corsair/and the rest, as ones to avoid rather than make a beeline for, because of their RAM modules often being highly praised.
I am still, however, cautious of the SandForce controllers, but I can't recall if the issues were with the design or the custom firmware, if indeed anyone knows for sure.
On the strength of being their own fabricator, and how well they've made a justified name for themselves in the SD/CF memory card market, I'd be inclined to give SanDisk, at least, the benefit of the doubt - considering the price is keener than Samsung.
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arad85
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There was an issue with one SF controller failing - can't remember why now, but it was the third or fourth gen one (22xx seems to ring a bell). Other SF controllers seem to be fine though. The thing about SF controllers is they are great at most benchmarks because they compress the data on the fly so have less to write. On the other hand, if you're dealing with compressed data to start with (jpegs anyone...) they will slow down.
I'm happy with SF drives as system drives, but if I'm storing data on them I tend to avoid them.
I'm happy with SF drives as system drives, but if I'm storing data on them I tend to avoid them.