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  1. #1
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    Best SSD drives for dedicated and Raid

    We are looking at adding SSD drives to our dedicated server offers, am curious what drives people are finding to work the best as a standalone drive and as a Raid drive?
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  2. #2
    Intel 320 series SSD, hands down. Great reliability, great performance, good pricing.
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  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by funkywizard View Post
    Intel 320 series SSD, hands down. Great reliability, great performance, good pricing.
    Any thoughts on the newer 520 series? That's what I've been considering myself.

  4. #4
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    Corsair Pro series are RAID friendly.
    http://www.corsair.com/ssd/performan...eries-ssd.html

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by MyITGuy View Post
    Any thoughts on the newer 520 series? That's what I've been considering myself.
    Haven't tried them yet, sorry.
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  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by funkywizard View Post
    Haven't tried them yet, sorry.
    Are the 520 raid friendly?

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by nibb View Post
    Are the 520 raid friendly?
    The firmware has the background garbage collection functionality in it's firmware if that's what you're referencing...and I've seen multiple reviews with people running them in various RAID configurations.

  8. #8
    I'm extremely happy with Crucial's M4. Even put them in my macbook and computer.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
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    We use OCZ Vertex2 and Vertex3 without problems but be warned, I have read lots of people do have problems. WMMV....

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by MyITGuy View Post
    Any thoughts on the newer 520 series? That's what I've been considering myself.
    See:
    http://www.anandtech.com/Show/Index/...y-to-sandforce

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by david_halliday View Post
    We use OCZ Vertex2 and Vertex3 without problems but be warned, I have read lots of people do have problems. WMMV....
    We have a couple hundred ocz vertex 2's in production now and have been using them for the last 2 years or so. Only recently have we seen problems. Problems being we had a double drive failure knock out a raid 1 array. Their serials were about 100 units apart. We also had 2 instances in the last 3 months where a drive dropped off the controller. Popping it out and back in and it came alive fine. I believe that's the sandforce controller issue others see and are reporting as the typical windows bsod. We've since switched to intel 320's.

    Having a double drive raid failure when the serials are that close is interesting to note. It leads me to believe that you have to be more careful with ssd raid because failed drives are likely to occur in batches. We check serials now and make sure not to put them close to one another in the same array.

  12. #12
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    The only SSDs I trust are Intel (other than the 520's as I just don't like the history of the Sandforce controllers) and Samsung (the only company that controls the entire product, cache memory, controller, NAND, and firmware).
    Karl Zimmerman - Founder & CEO of Steadfast
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  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by KarlZimmer View Post
    The only SSDs I trust are Intel (other than the 520's as I just don't like the history of the Sandforce controllers) and Samsung (the only company that controls the entire product, cache memory, controller, NAND, and firmware).
    Would choose the Samsung ones over the Intel ones?

    What story is that with the 520

    Sorry but I just are completely out of the picture regarding SSD, I would be looking for the ones you can go to sleep at night knowing they will not fail 1 month after being installed.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by nibb View Post
    Would choose the Samsung ones over the Intel ones?

    What story is that with the 520

    Sorry but I just are completely out of the picture regarding SSD, I would be looking for the ones you can go to sleep at night knowing they will not fail 1 month after being installed.
    Even though the 520 is an Intel and went through 1+ year of QA with Intel, it is still based on the Sandforce controller. I believe they fixed many of the issues, but with the general poor long term reliability of the Sandforce controllers I simply don't trust them. I've already seen reports od BSOD with those on Windows, which is one of the common Sandforce issues.

    Samsungs have been extremely reliable as well, and we're looking to use Samsung 830's instead of Intel 520's ourselves. Samsung is the only company with full control over the ENTIRE manufacturing process, and can thus control quality throughout, building just an extremely solid unified system. If you are fine with SATA II and a little slower overall, the Intel 320 is still a great SSD.
    Karl Zimmerman - Founder & CEO of Steadfast
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  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by KarlZimmer View Post
    Even though the 520 is an Intel and went through 1+ year of QA with Intel, it is still based on the Sandforce controller. I believe they fixed many of the issues, but with the general poor long term reliability of the Sandforce controllers I simply don't trust them. I've already seen reports od BSOD with those on Windows, which is one of the common Sandforce issues.

    Samsungs have been extremely reliable as well, and we're looking to use Samsung 830's instead of Intel 520's ourselves. Samsung is the only company with full control over the ENTIRE manufacturing process, and can thus control quality throughout, building just an extremely solid unified system. If you are fine with SATA II and a little slower overall, the Intel 320 is still a great SSD.
    Anand says in the article link I posted that Intel created their own firmware for sandforce and retains the limited rights to use it (regarding the 520's). In their tests they were not able to replicate the BSOD problem exhibited by the other sandforce controllers using non-intel funded firmware development.

    How do you get your hands on the samsungs? Meaning through what outlet can I purchase them right now?

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by KarlZimmer View Post
    Even though the 520 is an Intel and went through 1+ year of QA with Intel, it is still based on the Sandforce controller. I believe they fixed many of the issues, but with the general poor long term reliability of the Sandforce controllers I simply don't trust them. I've already seen reports od BSOD with those on Windows, which is one of the common Sandforce issues.

    Samsungs have been extremely reliable as well, and we're looking to use Samsung 830's instead of Intel 520's ourselves. Samsung is the only company with full control over the ENTIRE manufacturing process, and can thus control quality throughout, building just an extremely solid unified system. If you are fine with SATA II and a little slower overall, the Intel 320 is still a great SSD.
    That's good to hear. The earlier generation Samsumgs performed like dogs. They were popular with OEMs but basically nobody else used them, and the performance was nearly as bad as the first generation jmicron controllers.
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  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by nibb View Post
    Would choose the Samsung ones over the Intel ones?

    What story is that with the 520

    Sorry but I just are completely out of the picture regarding SSD, I would be looking for the ones you can go to sleep at night knowing they will not fail 1 month after being installed.
    the major advantage of 320 series over 520 is that 320's have "super capacitors" on PCB which allows all data in buffer RAM to be saved in the event of power loss (it's called "power Safe Write Cache"). 520 does not have it so that data in buffer is not protected. how important is this? well, none of the SATA/SAS mechanical drives nor the Intel original X25-E have it either! so, judgement call is yours to make.

    if you fixed your eyes on Intel SSD's, this would be a must-read article:
    http://www.anandtech.com/show/5518/a...-of-intel-ssds
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  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by cheezus View Post
    Anand says in the article link I posted that Intel created their own firmware for sandforce and retains the limited rights to use it (regarding the 520's). In their tests they were not able to replicate the BSOD problem exhibited by the other sandforce controllers using non-intel funded firmware development.

    How do you get your hands on the samsungs? Meaning through what outlet can I purchase them right now?
    Not being able to replicate the issues in short term testing does not equate to having the same long term reliability. If you're dealing with faults in hardware design, you're not going to be able to correct all those issues with firmware.

    If I were to buy a Sandforce, it would be an Intel, but with the long term reliability of the Sandforce already proven to be bad, I'd need to see long term reliability of the Intel 520 to counter that.

    A lot of places should have the Samsung 830's, they're readily available on NewEgg, etc.
    Last edited by KarlZimmer; 02-23-2012 at 11:47 PM.
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  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by funkywizard View Post
    That's good to hear. The earlier generation Samsumgs performed like dogs. They were popular with OEMs but basically nobody else used them, and the performance was nearly as bad as the first generation jmicron controllers.
    Yes, people had gone with Samsung because of reliability, not speed. Now, they're not the absolute fastest, but they've kept the reliability and are comparable speed-wise. I'll take reliability with a small performance hit any day. Right now, they're the only thing I'd call an "enterprise ready" SATA3 SSD.
    Karl Zimmerman - Founder & CEO of Steadfast
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  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by KarlZimmer View Post
    Not being able to replicate the issues in short term testing does not equate to having the same long term reliability. If you're dealing with faults in hardware design, you're not going to be able to correct all those issues with firmware.

    If I were to buy a Sandforce, it would be an Intel, but with the long term reliability of the Sandforce already proven to be bad, I'd need to see long term reliability of the Intel 520 to counter that.
    I agree. That's the reason we went with 320's even though we have SATA3 controllers. Although he did say he's able to replicate that BSOD problem on command. Using that same method he couldn't trigger it. What that was exactly I don't know.

  21. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by KarlZimmer View Post
    Yes, people had gone with Samsung because of reliability. Now, they're not the absolute fastest, but I'll take reliability with a small performance hit any day. Right now, they're the only thing I'd call an "enterprise ready" SATA3 SSD.
    How does one go about buying the samsung drives? I thought you had to order like thousands of them at a time to actually buy em....

  22. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by cheezus View Post
    How does one go about buying the samsung drives? I thought you had to order like thousands of them at a time to actually buy em....
    Samsung 830's are readily available, NewEgg, etc. - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820147133
    Karl Zimmerman - Founder & CEO of Steadfast
    VMware Virtual Data Center Platform

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  23. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by KarlZimmer View Post
    Samsung 830's are readily available, NewEgg, etc. - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820147133
    Thanks! So that would be your first choice for SATA3 then?

  24. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by cheezus View Post
    Thanks! So that would be your first choice for SATA3 then?
    Right now, yes. Intel 520 would be #2 behind that.

    To note, my priorities may not match with the priorities of others, but to me, reliability is far and away #1. In addition, this is based largely on reading/research right now. We have really just started our own internal testing on the Samsung 830's.
    Karl Zimmerman - Founder & CEO of Steadfast
    VMware Virtual Data Center Platform

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  25. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by KarlZimmer View Post
    Right now, yes. Intel 520 would be #2 behind that.

    To note, my priorities may not match with the priorities of others, but to me, reliability is far and away #1. In addition, this is based largely on reading/research right now. We have really just started our own internal testing on the Samsung 830's.
    If reliability was your top priority and you had a SATA3 controller, would you still choose the Samsung 830 and Intel 520 over the Intel 320?

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