Intel Gen2 SSD: "Postville" 34nm discussion (Harder Better Faster Stronger...Cheaper)

[jackboot]

Intel has not yet formally announced their new line of SSDs based on 34nm nand flash, but some details have leaked out slightly early. There should be an official announcement within the week.

The (very) basic details:

- cheaper
- 80 / 160 / 320GB models
- faster
- anticipated in stock at the end of July

More in-depth details:
(thanks to IntelUser at notebookreview for the below quote):

Consumer PC/Mobile Segment

-Halogen Free
-32MB wear levelling buffer
-90MB/s sequential write
-AES 128-bit Encryption
-Advanced NCQ Features: Enhanced performance through status aggregation
-Advanced Smart Support: Improved drive statistics to monitor drive life

Workstation/Server

-Power Safe Write Cache
-All other features similar to Consumer/Mobile Segment(except sequential speeds of course)

Since this is RFD, the main point for me is that the new models are cheaper than the outgoing ones. This is significant because the price per GB will now be in line with competing SSDs (namely Indilinx and Samsung) but with significantly higher performance.

For pricing info, I've found 2 links so far that should give an idea of the USA MSRP for the 80GB model:

$276

$261

[Gab_T]

Intel has not yet formally announced their new line of SSDs based on 32nm nand flash, but some details have leaked out slightly early. There should be an official announcement within the week.

The (very) basic details:

- cheaper
- 80 / 160 / 320GB models
- faster
- anticipated in stock at the end of July

More in-depth details:
(thanks to IntelUser at notebookreview for the below quote):



Since this is RFD, the main point for me is that the new models are cheaper than the outgoing ones. This is significant because the price per GB will now be in line with competing SSDs (namely Indilinx and Samsung) but with significantly higher performance.

For pricing info, I've found 2 links so far that should give an idea of the USA MSRP for the 80GB model:

$276

$261

How does OCZ Gen. 2(Vertex) stack up(64 MB Cache) available for nearly half that price right now(30GB capacity)? I know Intel is the fastest but I thought OCZ would have been right up there as well.....certainly offering better performance than the Samsung!

[someguy91]

Will probably buy this one unless Indilinx has an answer to Intel...

[ventro]

I am probably going to get a 160GB version when Snow Leopard comes out. Time to ditch my noisy Velociraptor...

[Dave98]

How does OCZ Gen. 2(Vertex) stack up(64 MB Cache) available for nearly half that price right now(30GB capacity)? I know Intel is the fastest but I thought OCZ would have been right up there as well.....certainly offering better performance than the Samsung!

this is what I get with a 60GB Vertex

[jackboot]

How does OCZ Gen. 2(Vertex) stack up(64 MB Cache) available for nearly half that price right now(30GB capacity)? I know Intel is the fastest but I thought OCZ would have been right up there as well.....certainly offering better performance than the Samsung!

OCZ Vertex 60GB - $199 (after rebate): $3.32/GB
OCZ Vertex 30GB - $129 (after rebate): $4.30/GB
Intel Postville 80GB - $250 (estimated street price): $3.13/GB

So the new Intel postville should be the cheapest per GB. It also undoubtedly has the fastest small random write performance...well above 3x faster than the Indilinx controller for the outgoing generation.

With that said, the Indilinx-based drives still have great performance. Intel does not offer a drive smaller than 80GB capacity - so I suppose you could buy a 30GB Vertex and "save" about 50%. But I know that I can't get by on 30GB - I need 60GB as a minimum - so I am planning on springing for postville.

[sgogeta4]

Though it is US prices, Dell has the Samsung for the cheapest $/GB with a good controller. It's almost half the price of other good SSDs and is easily the best bang-for-your-buck SSD, especially if you want space and speed. Anything less than that and it really depends on your needs:

<32GB - $90+ USD Indilinx ($2.813+/GB)
64GB - $175+ USD Indilinx ($2.734+/GB)
80GB - $250+ USD Intel Gen 2 ($3.075+/GB)
128GB - $300+ USD Indilinx ($2.344+/GB)
160GB -$490+ USD Intel Gen 2 ($3.038+/GB)

Samsung's 256GB for $480 USD - $1.875/GB

http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...postcount=6756

Intel's 80/160GB Gen 2 for $246/486 USD - $3.075/GB and $3.038/GB respectively

http://forum.notebookreview.com/show...postcount=6837

[jackboot]

I agree that the newest Samsungs (pb22-j controller) are a very good value. They are undoubtedly the lowest-priced SSD that performs about as well or better than a HDD. JMicron-based drives are cheaper, but they perform much worse than a HDD overall.

With that said, the latest Samsung controller is very disappointing in small random write performance. The benchmarks that I've seen place them just on par with a standard 5400rpm HDD (<50 IOPS @ 4KB).

The V1 Intel drives, in comparison, benchmark at about 33,000 IOPS @4KB. That's a staggering difference. Also, we don't know how much of an improvement postville will have but I'm guessing it will be significant enought to mention.

Personally I don't see the point in upgrading to SSD if the performance is only as good (or worse) than the HDD it is replacing.

[jackboot]

OK, so that Japanese blog is claiming that:

4kb random write 50nm (gen1): 3,300 IOPS
4kb random write 34nm (gen2): 6,600 IOPS (80GB model)
4kb random write 34nm (gen2): 8,600 IOPS (160GB model)

In brief, postville doubles random write speeds. Note that the above specs are with a very high queue depth of 32 and an 8GB section of the disk (as per Intel's spec sheet). Such a high queue depth makes it very difficult to compare this specification with other drives because they usually test at a queue depth of only ONE to inflate the benchmark results.

So to compare, Anandtech has published the following IOPS results using IOMeter (8GB, Queue depth = 3, 3 minutes run time):

OCZ Solid (JMicron): 6
OCZ Summit (2 x JMicron): 8
Kingston V-Series (JMicron/Toshiba): 20
5400rpm HDD: ~50
7200rpm HDD: ~80
OCZ Vertex (Indilinx): 1,700
Intel G1 80GB: 6,000
Intel G2 80GB (estimated*): 12,000

*To compare with Anandtech's previous results, we can estimate that Intel's G2 80GB (postville) will be twice as fast (based on the japanese blog post).

[flyz]

What about TRIM support?

I hope Intel releases a firmware for Gen1 drives, otherwise that's a huge slap in the face for early adopters imo

[asmielia]

It's out!

http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/21/i...odel-in-sight/

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...oc.aspx?i=3605

Looks like no TRIM support for Gen1. No 320gb version. Otherwise looks like a nice evolutionary step. IMO, prices still need to drop by 50% to be really viable. Still a luxury option for most.

[flyz]

I hope they're priced aggressively when Win7 comes around. I'm planning to get a 160GB version to coincide with the new OS

[jackboot]

With the 80GB version priced at $225 USD I'd say that it is easily priced right as a performance upgrade. This is one piece of hardware that will make your computer go from OK -> speedy.

In comparison, it was very recently that it cost over $200 to upgrade to 4GB of memory.

[flyz]

With the 80GB version priced at $225 USD I'd say that it is easily priced right as a performance upgrade. This is one piece of hardware that will make your computer go from OK -> speedy.

In comparison, it was very recently that it cost over $200 to upgrade to 4GB of memory.

Yup, it costed me $350 for 6GB DDR3 when i7 first came out. No regrets though.
You also gotta remember the WD Raptors debuted at around the same price.

[evanx]

Good news about the TRIM command update for the new drives. Bad news that they aren't offering it to the old ones.