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My suggestion to you is to ask a question or two before taking a flying fuck at a rolling assumption. Did you overlook the word "early"?
I bought an OCZ core in 2008 largely based on the (at the time) impressive cost-per-GB and this review: http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=200&Itemid=1&limit=1&limitstart=9

I later got a Kingston V-series which was supposed to have a fixed controller - at first, they didn't admit it was actually a JMicron but a Toshiba. After questioning them, it turned out Kingston, JMicron and Toshiba made some adjustments to the design to mitigate stuttering at the cost of a reduction in read/write speed. It was better but would still stutter under load, just not as often or for quite as long.

Oh, and this claims that it has a maximum power usage of 5W http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=180&Itemid=63&limit=1&limitstart=1

Someone hasn't been paying attention...

For starters, OCZ, Intel, and Crucial/Micron have had the better performing SSDs for some time now, and they're not even on your review's list.

There is a problem with these Indilinx Barefoot controllers. They have this eerie UFO drawn on the chip. Any guesses what the hell is that supposed to mean?!

A fair number of the desktop stuff can take sustained writes for quite a long while- e.g. the entire disk or more.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=454&Itemid=60&limit=1&limitstart=10

If that's not enough, some of the desktop benchmarks/tests, involve writing to the entire disk first, and then seeing how far the performance drops.

e.g.
http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3702

See: "New vs. Used Performance - Hardly an Issue"

They're not cheap, but they sure are cheaper than USD100K.

FWIW, you can get near linear scaling on many MB RAID controllers with SSD drives up to 3 drives. You may get a boost on the 4th drive as well, but it's not as much (some MB RAIDs top out at around 666MB/s and 3 Intel SSD drives will push this limit). As a matter of fact, with less than 4 drives, the difference in speed between built-in MB RAID and dedicated HW RAID is almost indistinguishable.

There are plenty of benchmarks on the net if you look for them that show both a large speedup in transfer rates and in IOPS with MB-based RAID and SSD's.

BTW, your USB drive copying example is flawed... by that logic, you should never buy a drive that does more than about 30MB/s because that's currently where USB tops out. Transfer rate is important for other things such as processing large video files, multimedia creation, loading large datasets (video game levels), etc.

I ordered a new system based on an Intel CORE i5 750 2.66GHZ CPU running on the Asus Xtreme Design P7P55D-E Premium w/8 GB DDR3 1333 Mhz ram two days ago, and have been monitoring the net for signs of this mobo to actually hit the shelves. I will be running this with an unremarkable 64 GB Patriot SDD as the boot drive, until the new SATA 6 Gbps SSDs come out - which could take a awhile I imagine. I expect blazing speed from this platform, and can hardly wait for it. The only unknown is when will the mobo arrive. If it drags on and on, at least there is the option of an add on card that will convert one of the other ASUS X58 boards to USB 3 & SATA 6. I just hope I haven't made a mistake with the decision to wait. The P7P55D-E Premium motherboard will retail for $299 while the U3S6 add-on card will be $29.

Here are a host of links I collected on it this morning...

Asus Unveils USB 3.0 Motherboard
Asus Xtreme Design P7P55D-E Premium
The motherboard, unveiled Wednesday [October 28 2009], is 4.8 inches by 3 inches and is scheduled to be available next month for $299.

October 30th, 2009
USB 3.0 and SATA 6G Performance Preview - ASUS brings the goods
the P55-Express based P7P55D-E Premium is very close to hitting the market.

October 29th, 2009
USB 3.0 and SATA 6G Performance Preview

October 29th, 2009
This Is The First USB 3.0 Motherboard

October 28th, 2009
ASUS debuts USB 3.0 motherboard and add-on card
The P7P55D-E Premium motherboard will retail for $299 while the U3S6 add-on card will be $29. Both will be available November.

October 28th, 2009
ASUS brings the first mobo with SATA 3 and USB 3

October 28th, 2009
ASUS P7P55D-E Motherboard Offers USB 3.0 and SATA-III 6G Performance
North American Availability
The P7P55D-E Premium and U3S6 expansion cards will be available at ASUS authorized retailers early November at $299 and $29 respectively.

Here are a few more reviews for today: The Tech Report, Phoronix, AnandTech, X-bit labs, and Benchmark Reviews. It's all enough to make your eyes bleed. There's a list for the Core i7 870 at 0x6877.com

Lots and lots of tests and bechmarks. Looking good.

Intel 'Lynnfield' Core i5 750 and Core i7 870 Performance Testing Introduction :: TweakTown
Intel Core i5 and Core i7: Lynnfield CPUs reviewed - Intel, Core i5, Core i-750, Core i7, Core i7-860, Core i7-870, Lynnfield, Bloomfield, AMD Phenom II X4 - PC Games Hardware
Core i5 750 - Core i7 860 and 870 processor review
HEXUS.net - Review :: Intel Lynnfield Core i5 750, Core i7 860 and Core i7 870 CPU review: bombarding the mid-range : Page - 1/12
Legion Hardware
Intel Core i5 750 & i7 870 Review - Page 1 - The Next Nehalem-based CPU lineup
PC Perspective - Intel Lynnfield Core i7-870 and Core i5-750 Processor Review
Introduction - Intel Lynnfield Core i5 and Core i7 Processors | [H]ard|OCP
In Theory: How Does Lynnfield's On-Die PCI Express Affect Gaming? : Introduction - Review Tom's Hardware
AnandTech: Intel's Core i7 870 & i5 750, Lynnfield: Harder, Better, Faster Stronger[/QUOTE]
Intel Core i5 750 Core i7 870 Review - Overclockers Club
Techgage - Intel Core i7-870 & i5-750 - Nehalem for the Mainstream
Core i5-750 and Core i7-870 Processors Review | Hardware Secrets
Intel Core i5 750 Processor Review - TechSpot News
Intel Core i5 And Core i7: Intel?s Mainstream Magnum Opus : Introduction - Review Tom's Hardware
Intel Lynnfield Core i5-750 & Core i7-870 Processor Review
Intel's Core i5-750 and Core i7-870 processors - The Tech Report - Page 1
bit-tech.net | Review - Intel Core i5 and Core i7 Lynnfield review
bit-tech.net | Feature - Intel Lynnfield: Details and Architecture
Intel Core i5, Core i7 800 Processors and P55 Express - HotHardware
Intel Core i5-750 Processor BX80605I5750 | Intel Core i5-750,BX80605I5750,Lynnfield,LGA1156,CPU,Proocessor, Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield LGA1156 CPU Benchmark Performance Test Processor Review | Benchmark Reviews Performance Tests
Intel Core i7 870/Core i5 750/P55 Express chipset Review :: Introduction :: Motherboards.org

What I love about slashdot is its scalability. The discussion ranges anywhere from the design of a Google data center in 2015 to some guy's psychological stance toward his next netbook purchase in 2009. Sometimes it's unclear which end of the spectrum is under debate, but the discussion happily progresses in a state of astral superposition. When this gets too confusing, even for slashdot, the moderation system helps to sort things out. For example, if the comment

Flash memory is set to replace rotational media.

is moderated +1 insightful, then we know we're talking about some guy's future netbook purchase. Or if the same comment is moderated -1 troll, then we know we're talking about Google data centers in 2015.

Flash memory begins to fade - ZDNet.co.uk from 2005

"The scaling laws are not favourable to flash," said Tom Lee, an associate professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University and a founder of Matrix Semiconductor, which makes a 3D memory chip that performs flash-like functions. "The noises are getting louder now, so it looks like manufacturers are already in that new age of diminished gains."

Numonyx Breakthrough Delivers First 45nm NOR Flash Memory Chips from Jan 2009

"Numonyx engineers overcame major scaling limitations by developing new process techniques to produce the 7th generation MLC NOR flash on the industry's most advanced 45nm technology, and to be the first to bring the cost and performance benefits to our customers."
...
"At a time when the entire industry grapples with the scalability of all flash memory technologies, ..."

Brewster Kahle

I think Brewster Kahle is going to jump off a bridge when he learns that Seagate is exiting the disk drive business in 2010. If you think CERN or EOS cost a lot of money, try updating the budget with SSD specified as the primary storage layer.

A useful way to view this transition is the long tail on steroids. 99% of the world's stored information will be held by a few hundred mega-scale institutions (NASA, Google, CERN, GenBank) on rotating hard drives, while 99% of the world's gadgets have no hard drive at all.

The same thing happened in software. The C language represents a tiny sliver of source code written over the last ten years, but if you could measure the number of machine instructions executed by language of origin, C would continue to represent a very large slice of the pie. A major factor in the success of scripting languages is that the problems these languages don't handle well can be off-loaded to a well established compiled language. If you cherry pick your niche, it's amazing how much more convenient it looks compared to the ancestral technology which didn't.

I thought the paper was quite good, and more relevant than 99% of what I read these days. I'm always interested in analysis of hybrid solutions. In the engineering world, there is a de facto allergy to hybrid solutions. We tend to achieve the best result by scaling a single virtue to the max, rather than engaging in the jello-like trade-offs involved in balancing complementary virtues. I first began to think about this when ethernet trounced ATM by the simple measure of vastly over-provisioning bandwidth.

The exception to this is on the large scale where operational costs exceed all other costs, such as major data centers.

This is one of the reasons why progress in ecology is so painfully achieved: ecological systems almost always demand hybrid solutions, and we're not terribly comfortable with this. Engineers prefer monarchy. In ecological systems, life is complicated, and you can't just sit there and

Incorrect. Don't buy anything other than Intel drives, Samsung drives, or any drive with the Indilinx Barefoot controller. You just want to avoid the JMICRON controllers like the plague.

For example, here's some OCZ Vertex benchmarks that might change your mind.

One thing about this research paper is that they used only one model MemoRight GT MR25.2 in 8/16/32 GB capacities to do their testing before 2008-11-11 publication of the paper in the United Kingdom.

I'm concerned that the research test and results are largely skewed against SSDs because they used only that one model to do all their testing with based on only one price point for the SSDs.

There is a very large difference in performance between many various SSD drives based on the original flawed JMicron JMF602 chipset (stuttering/freezing on write), newer JMF602B (smaller stuttering), Samsung's chipset, Intel's chipset (fastest random writes by 4x), and the newest Indilnix Barefoot chipset (balanced sequential/random read/write). Additionally the huge drops in prices in the last 6-12 months ($1,500->$400) is a big change in the SSD arena. These price, capacity, and performance changes are going to continue fluctuating for the next few years yielding much better drives for the consumers.

I believe that the research in the paper will be shortly obsolete, if it isn't already, given the latest products on the market and price points and the Q3/Q4 new upcoming products from Intel and others.

I'm helping a friend of mine build an all-in-one HTPC / Desktop / Gaming system and I've been doing research into SSDs for the past few weeks based on reviews and benchmarks so I wanted to share my info.

Basically there are only two drives to consider and I list them below. A good alternative at this time is to purchase smaller SSDs and create RAID-0 (stripping) sets to effectively double their performance instead of buying a single large SSD. The RAID-0 article below shows great benchmark results to this effect.

Intel X25-M

The Intel X25-M series of drives is the top performance leader right now, and the 80GB drive is barely affordable for a desktop system build if you consider the increased performance of the drive.

Intel X25-M SSDSA2MH080G1 80GB SATA Internal Solid state disk (SSD) - Retail - $383.00 USD ($ 4.7875 / per GB)

OCZ Vertex

The new OCZ Vertex series of drives with the newer 1275 firmware is the price/performance leader and they are much more affordable than the Intel drives. When you combine two of these smaller 30/60 GB drives into RAID-0 (stripping) you get double the performance at still acceptable prices.

OCZ Vertex Series OCZSSD2-1VTX30G 2.5" 30GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid state disk (SSD) - Retail - $129.00 USD ($ 4.3 / per GB)

OCZ Vertex Series OCZSSD2-1VTX60G 2.5" 60GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid state disk (SSD) - Retail - $209.00 USD ( $ 3.483 / per GB)

Reviews

Required Reading:
AnandTech - The SSD Anthology: Understanding SSDs and New Drives from OCZ

AnandTech - Intel X25-M SSD: Intel Delivers One of the World's Fastest Drives

AnandTech - The SSD Update: Vertex Gets Faster, New Indilinx Drives and Intel/MacBook Problems Resolved

RAID-0 Performance:
ExtremeTech - Intel X25 80GB Solid-State Drive Review - PCMark Vantage Disk Tests

BenchmarkReviews - OCZ Vertex SSD RAID-0 Performance
(Be Warned about BenchmarkReviews! Synthetic benchmark results only, no real-life benchmarks such as PCMark Vantage.)

this is how the web works after all

"Intel's X25-E Extreme SSD is easily the fastest flash drive on the market,

Actually, according to pretty much every review I can find, FusionIO's IoDrive spanks the pants off of the Intel Extreme, even in raid-0 eight drive combinations. It can saturate PCIe x4.

It'd be great if citations were required for broad claims like this.

Not true. SSDs are already faster in every aspect than magnetic drives.

Easiest way for me to say this: Wrong. Here's the current king of the hill when it comes to magnetic storage http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ultrastar-cheetah-sas,2004-3.html . No SSD can come close to touching that drive in performance or price/GB... yet.

Even the price is no longer a big issue, 64GB SSD drives can be gotten for $270.

Wrong. 64GB, $250, $210 after rebate. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227344 . And that's still a freaking insanely high price/GB. Here's let's do the math.
Cheetah 15k.6 450GB ~$900 so $2/GB
VelociRaptor 300GB ~$300 $1/GB
Most 500GB drives $65 $.13/GB
Any 640GB drive $85 $.13/GB
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 750GB $99 $.13/GB (see the trend?)
Seagate Barracuda ES.2 1TB (Near-line drive, the most expensive 1TB available) $235 $.24/GB
OCZ Core Series SSD 64GB $210 $3.28/GB
One of the most inexpensive/GB SSDs is over 13x more expensive than a magnetic drive that's considered enterprise entry level (The ES.2) and over 25x more expensive than drives that are considered typical mainstream.

120mb/s sustained and sequential read and write. WD Velociraptor (the new 10k rpm drive) has that value much lower at 85mb/s sustained and 68mb/s sequential.

Wrong. The Velociraptor was not included in that benchmark. In fact, pre-release engineering samples didn't hit the benchmark sites for a month and a half after that article was published. Here's one that does include it. http://hothardware.com/News/OCZ_Core_Series_SSD_Vs_VelociRaptor_Sneak_Peek/ Also, "X sustained and Y sequential" doesn't even make sense. I think you meant read and write but even got those numbers wrong.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=149&Itemid=1&limit=1&limitstart=4

Those benchmarks are garbage. For starters they're 6 months old and a lot has changed since then. They're comparing a "brand new" latest generation SSD versus a "performance hard drive" 74GB Raptor that is now 2 generations old.

Most of the benchmark sites just piss me off when they're doing SSD reviews. They never put them head to head with the 2 market segments for which the drives are being produced and pushed. The mfgs want the high end drives in enterprise class servers that see extreme I/O levels, and the "mainstream" drives are for laptops due to power usage and durability. A lot of the enterprise class servers are already switching to 2.5" drives anyway for lower power draw, lower access times, and higher density per unit. Very few people are going to replace their 3.5" drive in their desktop with a silly expensive piece of flash ram. I'm leaning heavily toward getting one of those 64GB OCZ drives for my laptop, and it's as much for heat as anything else. The only reasons I'd look to put one in a PC is if I'm trying to accomplish making it silent or green, but none of the reviewers ever seem to realize that.

No they don't:

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=149&Itemid=1&limit=1&limitstart=5

Not true. SSDs are already faster in every aspect than magnetic drives. And the new intel ssd drive will totally offset this in favor of ssds. Even the price is no longer a big issue, 64GB SSD drives can be gotten for $270.
120mb/s sustained and sequential read and write. WD Velociraptor (the new 10k rpm drive) has that value much lower at 85mb/s sustained and 68mb/s sequential.
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=149&Itemid=1&limit=1&limitstart=4

All the brand notebooks with SSD options use first generation SSDs. These have the shattering access speeds, high durability, no noise, and power efficient benefits, but read/write performance is still mediocre.

The second generation SSDs would cost you more than a whole notebook, but have significant performance improvements:

Memoright GT vs Mtron vs Raptor vs Seagate

Memoright nails it. It is easily twice as fast as what Mac puts in their notebooks.

If you *really* want an SSD, buy one separately and install it yourself. You will not be disappointed.

BTW the file indexing that causes SSDs to slow cause HDDs to slow as well. Many people have reported unbearable slowdown, and that is with HDDs. I am sure anything slower than that would make you want to return the whole thing, but this can be fixed. Most people will tell you to just turn it off. Google has also complainted about Microsoft pre-installing an indexing system that sucks.