Slashdot Mirror

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

"This is important for a database system, as a transaction cannot COMMIT until the data has really, really hit permanent storage. [It's unsafe to use the regular disk's write cache, and personally, I don't trust a battery-backed write cache on the RAID controller much either. So not having to wait for a mechanical seek is really useful. Read speeds are also better (10x less latency), and the sustained throughput is about 2x as good. So, yes, SSDs are a good idea for database loads, where the interaction is with the real world, and where once a transaction has completed, some other real-world process has happened." - by Richard_J_N (631241) on Sunday September 06, @04:38PM (#29334123)

Exactly! I noted that back in 1996, for EEC Systems (now SuperSpeed.com) - which, in turn, helped lead to a GOOD review in "Windows NT Magazine" (now Windows IT Pro) in the April 1997 Issue "Back Office Performance" pg. #61 topic (cover story), & for their ramdisk softwares (SuperDisk - whilst I improved their diskdriver block device driver diskcache, SuperCache I/II, by up to 40% more on paid contract to they)...

They took the same idea you expound on now, when I noted it back then, & that idea worked to place EEC Systems/SuperSpeed.com as a FINALIST @ Microsoft Tech-Ed 2001-2002, 2 yrs. in a row, in the hardest category there - SQLServer Performance Enhancement (which it works great for, as the results in the URL I first post above clearly shows in how SSD's &/or RAMDrives can clearly enhance both DB server performance AND Webserver performance as well).

IT JUST WORKS!

Others have noted it as well, but NOT ONLY FOR DB performance gains - also for WEBSERVERS, FILESERVERS, & MORE... an example thereof being here -> http://techreport.com/articles.x/17183/8

HOWEVER, I'd like to note some "creative uses" of these units (same ideas I put out for CENATEK, which for years was featured on their main page as "An Independent users review" of their SSD product, of which I am a proud & happy owner of no less) Albeit, this time, for more "home/end user" type application:

System RAM is SHARED RAM, first of all - more than 1 thing is "going on" in it, @ ALL times (this is not the case w/ using SSD's for specialized tasks (& they tend to EXCEL in webserver or DB server environs & tasks. Proof of that much is from the responder I replied to, and, from techreport above (see that url))).

Personally, for more "end-user" type tasks here @ home? Well - I use SSD's here, "true" ones, meaning NOT based on FLASH RAM (with its slower write cycles & inferior longevity).

----

1.) A CENATEK RocketDrive (2gb PC-133 SDRAM, PCI 2.2 133mb/sec. bus transfer rates)

2.) A GIGABYTE IRAM (4gb DDR-400 RAM, SATA 1 150mb/sec. bus transfer rates)

----

I use TRUE SSD's in this manner here for performance gains:

----

1.) Pagefile.sys placement (all alone by itself on the CENATEK RocketDrive on a 2gb NTFS partition, uncompressed, so it is a "dedicated task" there & that one only).

2.) WebBrowser Program Caches (all of them in IE, FireFox, & Opera) - &, on an NTFS compressed partition, so the files are even TINIER & pickup that much faster into memory (small offset due to decompression of data into memory, but, today's CPU's & RAM speeds make up for that - on GIGABYTE IRAM)

3.) OS and application logs (like eventlogs & far more from apps + the OS also - on GIGABYTE IRAM) - again, on an NTFS compressed partition, for the same reasons as above.

4.) %Temp% &/or %tmp% environment alteration (so app & OS 'temp ops' take place in a higher speed environs & off the main disk too - on GIGABYTE IRAM)

5.) %Comspec% placement (cmd.exe on Windows NT-based OS' - on GIGABYTE IRAM)

6.) PRINT SPOOLER location (o

" Why not just add more RAM? SSD is cheaper than DDR ( ~$3/GB vs ~$8/GB ), but also ~100 times slower. - by gabebear (251933) on Sunday September 06, @08:39AM (#29330641) Homepage

System RAM is SHARED RAM, first of all - more than 1 thing is "going on" in it, @ ALL times (this is not the case w/ using SSD's for specialized tasks (& they tend to EXCEL in webserver or DB server environs & tasks. Proof thereof is here -> http://techreport.com/articles.x/17183/8 for ALL KINDS of "Back Office/Server Class" type tasks - this is, by this point, a WIDELY recognized industry fact though...))

Personally, for more "end-user" type tasks here @ home? Well - I use SSD's here, "true" ones, meaning NOT based on FLASH RAM (with its slower write cycles & inferior longevity).

----

1.) A CENATEK RocketDrive (2gb PC-133 SDRAM, PCI 2.2 133mb/sec. bus transfer rates)

2.) A GIGABYTE IRAM (4gb DDR-400 RAM, SATA 1 150mb/sec. bus transfer rates)

----

I use TRUE SSD's in this manner here for performance gains:

----

1.) Pagefile.sys placement (all alone by itself on the CENATEK RocketDrive on a 2gb NTFS partition, uncompressed, so it is a "dedicated task" there & that one only).

2.) WebBrowser Program Caches (all of them in IE, FireFox, & Opera) - &, on an NTFS compressed partition, so the files are even TINIER & pickup that much faster into memory (small offset due to decompression of data into memory, but, today's CPU's & RAM speeds make up for that - on GIGABYTE IRAM)

3.) OS and application logs (like eventlogs & far more from apps + the OS also - on GIGABYTE IRAM) - again, on an NTFS compressed partition, for the same reasons as above.

4.) %Temp% &/or %tmp% environment alteration (so app & OS 'temp ops' take place in a higher speed environs & off the main disk too - on GIGABYTE IRAM)

5.) %Comspec% placement (cmd.exe on Windows NT-based OS' - on GIGABYTE IRAM)

6.) PRINT SPOOLER location (on GIGABYTE IRAM)

----

So, that all "said & aside"? What kind of performance gains do I see, & how do they work? Ok:

----

A.) Faster seek/access to said files, especially since they're small & OF BOTH "READ/WRITE NATURE" (which normal RAM types FLY on, vs. FLASH, & no "writeback caching" required really).

B.) A lot less "read/write head movement contention" on my main OS + Programs bearing HDD's, simply by moving said files + activities from my main HDD's

C.) No fragmentation of my main OS + Programs bearing diskdrive from said activities &/or files I moved from my main OS + Program bearing HDD's

----

That's also "borne out" by tests OTHERS RAN, an example of the likes of which, is here -> http://hothardware.com/Articles/Gigabyte-IRAM-Storage-Device1/?page=3 OR here -> http://techreport.com/articles.x/17183/5 as well as many other technically oriented websites online.

(The gains seen? Hey, they only make complete sense, as the types of RamDrives/RamDisks/SSD's I use here are (respectively as listed above) based on PC-133 SDRAM &/or DDR-400 here, because they're F A S T E R by far & do not need "writeback caching" to offset write performance hits FLASH RAM has)... FLASH based units are fine for reads, but not so fine for writes (though writeback caches CAN offset this some).

Plus - as you can see above? Well - I do a great deal of tasks that need BOTH read and WRITE speeds here on SSD's, & I go into them above in my 2nd list (&, they work - you can try them yourself IF you have an SSD of the type I use especially (not FLASH RAM based)).

Nor do they require measures (that have overheads mind you) like "garbage cleanup" &/or "wear-levelling" engines to function properly,

" Why not just add more RAM? SSD is cheaper than DDR ( ~$3/GB vs ~$8/GB ), but also ~100 times slower. - by gabebear (251933) on Sunday September 06, @08:39AM (#29330641) Homepage

System RAM is SHARED RAM, first of all - more than 1 thing is "going on" in it, @ ALL times (this is not the case w/ using SSD's for specialized tasks (& they tend to EXCEL in webserver or DB server environs & tasks. Proof thereof is here -> http://techreport.com/articles.x/17183/8 for ALL KINDS of "Back Office/Server Class" type tasks - this is, by this point, a WIDELY recognized industry fact though...))

Personally, for more "end-user" type tasks here @ home? Well - I use SSD's here, "true" ones, meaning NOT based on FLASH RAM (with its slower write cycles & inferior longevity).

----

1.) A CENATEK RocketDrive (2gb PC-133 SDRAM, PCI 2.2 133mb/sec. bus transfer rates)

2.) A GIGABYTE IRAM (4gb DDR-400 RAM, SATA 1 150mb/sec. bus transfer rates)

----

I use TRUE SSD's in this manner here for performance gains:

----

1.) Pagefile.sys placement (all alone by itself on the CENATEK RocketDrive on a 2gb NTFS partition, uncompressed, so it is a "dedicated task" there & that one only).

2.) WebBrowser Program Caches (all of them in IE, FireFox, & Opera) - &, on an NTFS compressed partition, so the files are even TINIER & pickup that much faster into memory (small offset due to decompression of data into memory, but, today's CPU's & RAM speeds make up for that - on GIGABYTE IRAM)

3.) OS and application logs (like eventlogs & far more from apps + the OS also - on GIGABYTE IRAM) - again, on an NTFS compressed partition, for the same reasons as above.

4.) %Temp% &/or %tmp% environment alteration (so app & OS 'temp ops' take place in a higher speed environs & off the main disk too - on GIGABYTE IRAM)

5.) %Comspec% placement (cmd.exe on Windows NT-based OS' - on GIGABYTE IRAM)

6.) PRINT SPOOLER location (on GIGABYTE IRAM)

----

So, that all "said & aside"? What kind of performance gains do I see, & how do they work? Ok:

----

A.) Faster seek/access to said files, especially since they're small & OF BOTH "READ/WRITE NATURE" (which normal RAM types FLY on, vs. FLASH, & no "writeback caching" required really).

B.) A lot less "read/write head movement contention" on my main OS + Programs bearing HDD's, simply by moving said files + activities from my main HDD's

C.) No fragmentation of my main OS + Programs bearing diskdrive from said activities &/or files I moved from my main OS + Program bearing HDD's

----

That's also "borne out" by tests OTHERS RAN, an example of the likes of which, is here -> http://hothardware.com/Articles/Gigabyte-IRAM-Storage-Device1/?page=3 OR here -> http://techreport.com/articles.x/17183/5 as well as many other technically oriented websites online.

(The gains seen? Hey, they only make complete sense, as the types of RamDrives/RamDisks/SSD's I use here are (respectively as listed above) based on PC-133 SDRAM &/or DDR-400 here, because they're F A S T E R by far & do not need "writeback caching" to offset write performance hits FLASH RAM has)... FLASH based units are fine for reads, but not so fine for writes (though writeback caches CAN offset this some).

Plus - as you can see above? Well - I do a great deal of tasks that need BOTH read and WRITE speeds here on SSD's, & I go into them above in my 2nd list (&, they work - you can try them yourself IF you have an SSD of the type I use especially (not FLASH RAM based)).

Nor do they require measures (that have overheads mind you) like "garbage cleanup" &/or "wear-levelling" engines to function properly,

• They only have 4 nodes with these drives
• Each node has 16 DDR2 slots that hold 4GB sticks

They aren't maxing out the RAM slots on each node and they seem to be relying on these IO nodes to increase performance. I'd like to know how/why and this article doesn't explain anything.

DRAM/DDR drives aren't anything new; hooking up 1TB of DDR would be expensive, but so is 1TB of X25-E drives
http://techreport.com/articles.x/16255/12
http://www.ddrdrive.com/

It's actually more complicated than that. The six-core chips have the ability to configure up to a quarter of the 6MB L3 cache as a probe filter. This keeps most snoop traffic from reaching down into the L2 and L1 caches of the other cores on the same die and all cores on other die in a multi-socket system. The result is better memory latency and improved memory bandwidth. Here's a link: http://techreport.com/articles.x/16448

Sadly, that is incorrect.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/17402/11

"Interestingly enough, the systems based on Phenom II quad-cores (including the X4 965) draw quite a bit less power at idle than our Q9550-based test system."

"That said, the X4 965-based system draws only 15W more than the Q9550-based one. The gap between the Q9550- and X4 965-based systems is thus smaller than the processors' TDP ratings alone suggest. [In full load]"

"By virtue of its lower system power draw at idle and its ability to finish the rendering task sooner, the Phenom II X4 965 fares better than the Q9550 in our two most important measures of energy efficiency."

The Tech Report's review has a few more benchmarks, and their unique scatter graphs illustrate the value angle of over 20 CPUs from both Intel and AMD.

The Tech Report's review has a few more benchmarks, and their unique scatter graphs illustrate the value angle of over 20 CPUs from both Intel and AMD.

Tech Report tells a different story:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/17402/11

A story that says that you can't necessarily compare like-for-like when using different motherboards. At any rate, xbit seems to have grabbed a pretty power hungry MB for their testing. Looking back at the TR article, the Q9550 numbers are probably a little high, though, as Intel has told them to underclock a different processor for their Q9550 numbers.

In either case, you'd normally want a MB/Processor combo that was lower at Idle than at full load anyway, as most people will not be pegging their CPU all the time.

Mods, the parent is not trolling. This is what Nvidia CEO said a while back http://techreport.com/discussions.x/14538

But that's GMA 500, Intel's Atom mobile video chipset that has real video acceleration. See here for a video test of the chipset: Quicktime 720p plays smooth (better than on a system with twice the processing power and GMA 950 graphics), but once you move to web video it craps-out.

The reason you don't see it on many netbooks is the high cost of the chipset, and the poor 3D performance (even worse than GMA 950).

The GP's netbook has GMA 950. It cannot play 720p video from anything except MPEG2 (acceleration is supported) or perhaps something less-agressive than h.264 with a low bitrate. Nothing modern or high-quality will play.

Sadly, the requirements were made known due to a leaked internal document so I can't link directly to the source, however, here's one place you can do some reading up on it.

It's a reasonable conclusion that manipulating hardware specs fit the criterion of abusive monopoly behavior.

>Is it relevant because they shrunk the overall thing and now its a "netbook" ?

No, it's relevant because it's $500 instead of, say, a $2000 Fujitsu Lifebook.

I don't think it's relevant enough for the front page, since Gigabyte released their first "touch-screen tablet netbook" a year ago.

Gigabyte has since released an updated 10.1" model, so potential buyers should know that ASUS isn't the only curent player in this netbook sub-category.

Do the 2TB drives draw more power than the 1TB? I have not looked.

It all depends on the number of platters. Overall they don't draw any more power and actually draw far less power per byte.
Especially with all the new "low power" drives.

"Read distance measured in microns, magnets, heads, cylinders, normal forces, weight and my favorite, impact functions - all of these seem like great reasons to move to SSD." - by krulgar (250929) on Thursday June 18, @10:16AM (#28373611) Homepage

They are: Here are more, for BOTH "industrial environs", AND "home user/end user" environs as well!

(However, in defense of your points? Well - I also disagree with "FLASH-RAM" SSD use, for the very reasons you note, but, I use a diff. kind (not based on FLASH RAM))... read on:

SSD's ROCK - AND, especially in "industrial environs", such as for DB work... see here:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/9312/7

TREMENDOUS GAINS result!

I saw & first only "theorized" this, as far back as 1996 for EEC Systems & their "SuperDisk" application!

(That was while I wrote portions of their SuperCache I/II program, increasing its effectiveness &/or performance by up to 40% more ("tesla like gains"))...

AND?

Hey, it worked SO well? It took them to a FINALIST position @ Microsoft TechEd 2 yrs. in a row, in its HARDEST category, which applies on this note, perfectly: SQLServer Performance Enhancement & also reviewed very well in Windows NT Magazine (now Windows IT Pro) April 1997 "BACK OFFICE PERFORMANCE" issue, page 61!

Also, ALBEIT, on a "home user/end user" platform? It helps as well, & in ways that are NOT "immediately apparent", but exist, nonetheless!

How so? Well... The apparent one, is increased speed in seek/access, which not ALL gains from, but, consider that most of the time? The end user does MOSTLY "READS" work... & here is where you gain: In the File I/O access cycle of Open/Read-Write/Close file (&, everything, even screendevice contexts are abstracted out as a file mind you, but that does not apply here, just making a point in modern OS' is all on that note)? YOU HAVE TO FIND THE FILE, first... here is how they make gains, apparent ones.

HOWEVER, NOW? I'll note the "less apparent" ones!

I use a CENATEK "RocketDrive" TRUE SSD (not based on FLASH RAM, with its slower write cycles which I suppose, a writeback cache COULD theoretically offset some, nor, with FLASH RAM's inevitable decay in longevity & performance, wear-levelling notwithstanding)...

I use it for these purposes here (and, this is since late 2002 no less to present day 2009, no problems @ all whatsoever):

----

PARTITION #1, 1gb

1.) pagefile.sys placement - both read/write in nature

PARTITION #2, 1gb

A.) Webbrowser (Opera, FireFox, & IE) caching location - both read/write in nature
B.) %temp% & %tmp% ops placement (environment alteration) - both read/write in nature
C.) SandBoxie placement (a webbrowser sandboxing tool, goes VERY slow on std. HDD's, & much fsater on this SSD, by far) - read/write in nature
D.) Print Spooler location - read/write in nature
E.) Windows' EventLogs - read/write in nature
F.) DrWatson Logging - read/write in nature
G.) Windows' Firewall logs - read/write in nature
H.) Windows Management WMI logging - read/write in nature
I.) HOSTS file placement - MOSTLY read in nature (some write)
J.) %comspec$ placement (cmd.exe location, environment alteration) - read in nature

----

All for 2 reasons:

1.) Greater seek/access speeds

&

2.) NOT "cluttering" my main disk w/ them (which can aid fragmentation also) + NOT burdening my MAIN C: drive (OS & Programs MOSTLY here only) w/ dealing w/ those files & tasks associated w/ them...

(IT WORKS, & just on "common-sense" principals...)

Sure, you CAN do the same w/ multiple HDD's & I told folks to do that, if they could afford it, decades back (distribute workloads across drives) BUT, you don't get sub-ms seeks/accesses w/ mechanical HDD's either though... SSD's? They DO yield that

"Aren't hard disk prices always at an all time low? Have they ever gone up in price?" - by riflemann (190895) on Thursday June 18, @09:47AM (#28373145)

Per my subject-line? Agreed, 110% but, there are gains w/ SSD's, @ least the type I use, for LONG and SHORT-TERM gain!

(E.G./I.E.-> I have been utilizing it since late 2002, no problems, & has F A S T writes w/ out writeback caching needed, OR, wear-levelling)

Still? DO read on: Because in the end of this post? I agree with you, because of the velociraptor which I bought myself recently no less, but I have to "extoll some of the virtues of SSD's" first, & apparent PLUS less apparent ones.

SSD's ROCK - AND, especially in "industrial environs", such as for DB work... see here:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/9312/7

TREMENDOUS GAINS result!

I saw & first only "theorized" this, as far back as 1996 for EEC Systems & their "SuperDisk" application!

(That was while I wrote portions of their SuperCache I/II program, increasing its effectiveness &/or performance by up to 40% more ("tesla like gains"))...

AND?

Hey, it worked SO well? It took them to a FINALIST position @ Microsoft TechEd 2 yrs. in a row, in its HARDEST category, which applies on this note, perfectly: SQLServer Performance Enhancement & also reviewed very well in Windows NT Magazine (now Windows IT Pro) April 1997 "BACK OFFICE PERFORMANCE" issue, page 61!

Also, ALBEIT, on a "home user/end user" platform? It helps as well, & in ways that are NOT "immediately apparent", but exist, nonetheless!

How so? Well... The apparent one, is increased speed in seek/access, which not ALL gains from, but, consider that most of the time? The end user does MOSTLY "READS" work... & here is where you gain: In the File I/O access cycle of Open/Read-Write/Close file (&, everything, even screendevice contexts are abstracted out as a file mind you, but that does not apply here, just making a point in modern OS' is all on that note)? YOU HAVE TO FIND THE FILE, first... here is how they make gains, apparent ones.

HOWEVER, NOW? I'll note the "less apparent" ones!

I use a CENATEK "RocketDrive" TRUE SSD (not based on FLASH RAM, with its slower write cycles which I suppose, a writeback cache COULD theoretically offset some, nor, with FLASH RAM's inevitable decay in longevity & performance, wear-levelling notwithstanding)...

I use it for these purposes here (and, this is since late 2002 no less to present day 2009, no problems @ all whatsoever):

----

PARTITION #1, 1gb

1.) pagefile.sys placement - both read/write in nature

PARTITION #2, 1gb

A.) Webbrowser (Opera, FireFox, & IE) caching location - both read/write in nature
B.) %temp% & %tmp% ops placement (environment alteration) - both read/write in nature
C.) SandBoxie placement (a webbrowser sandboxing tool, goes VERY slow on std. HDD's, & much fsater on this SSD, by far) - read/write in nature
D.) Print Spooler location - read/write in nature
E.) Windows' EventLogs - read/write in nature
F.) DrWatson Logging - read/write in nature
G.) Windows' Firewall logs - read/write in nature
H.) Windows Management WMI logging - read/write in nature
I.) HOSTS file placement - MOSTLY read in nature (some write)
J.) %comspec$ placement (cmd.exe location, environment alteration) - read in nature

----

All for 2 reasons:

1.) Greater seek/access speeds

&

2.) NOT "cluttering" my main disk w/ them (which can aid fragmentation also) + NOT burdening my MAIN C: drive (OS & Programs MOSTLY here only) w/ dealing w/ those files & tasks associated w/ them...

(IT WORKS, & just on "common-sense" principals...)

Sure, you CAN do the same w/ multiple HDD's & I told folks to do that, if they could afford it, decades

"And the difference in the two is an order of magnitude or more using the very fastest consumer drives (WDVR) and a quality SSD (Intel X-25)." - by initdeep (1073290) on Thursday June 18, @09:52AM (#28373237)

Per my subject-line? Agreed, 110% - AND, especially in "industrial environs", such as for DB work... see here:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/9312/7

TREMENDOUS GAINS result!

I saw & first only "theorized" this, as far back as 1996 for EEC Systems & their "SuperDisk" application!

(That was while I wrote portions of their SuperCache I/II program, increasing its effectiveness &/or performance by up to 40% more ("tesla like gains"))...

AND?

Hey, it worked SO well? It took them to a FINALIST position @ Microsoft TechEd 2 yrs. in a row, in its HARDEST category, which applies on this note, perfectly: SQLServer Performance Enhancement & also reviewed very well in Windows NT Magazine (now Windows IT Pro) April 1997 "BACK OFFICE PERFORMANCE" issue, page 61!

Also, ALBEIT, on a "home user/end user" platform? It helps as well, & in ways that are NOT "immediately apparent", but exist, nonetheless!

How so? Well... The apparent one, is increased speed in seek/access, which not ALL gains from, but, consider that most of the time? The end user does MOSTLY "READS" work... & here is where you gain: In the File I/O access cycle of Open/Read-Write/Close file (&, everything, even screendevice contexts are abstracted out as a file mind you, but that does not apply here, just making a point in modern OS' is all on that note)? YOU HAVE TO FIND THE FILE, first... here is how they make gains, apparent ones.

HOWEVER, NOW? I'll note the "less apparent" ones!

I use a CENATEK "RocketDrive" TRUE SSD (not based on FLASH RAM, with its slower write cycles which I suppose, a writeback cache COULD theoretically offset some, nor, with FLASH RAM's inevitable decay in longevity & performance, wear-levelling notwithstanding)...

I use it for these purposes here (and, this is since late 2002 no less to present day 2009, no problems @ all whatsoever):

----

PARTITION #1, 1gb

1.) pagefile.sys placement - both read/write in nature

PARTITION #2, 1gb

A.) Webbrowser (Opera, FireFox, & IE) caching location - both read/write in nature
B.) %temp% & %tmp% ops placement (environment alteration) - both read/write in nature
C.) SandBoxie placement (a webbrowser sandboxing tool, goes VERY slow on std. HDD's, & much fsater on this SSD, by far) - read/write in nature
D.) Print Spooler location - read/write in nature
E.) Windows' EventLogs - read/write in nature
F.) DrWatson Logging - read/write in nature
G.) Windows' Firewall logs - read/write in nature
H.) Windows Management WMI logging - read/write in nature
I.) HOSTS file placement - MOSTLY read in nature (some write)
J.) %comspec$ placement (cmd.exe location, environment alteration) - read in nature

----

All for 2 reasons:

1.) Greater seek/access speeds

&

2.) NOT "cluttering" my main disk w/ them (which can aid fragmentation also) + NOT burdening my MAIN C: drive (OS & Programs MOSTLY here only) w/ dealing w/ those files & tasks associated w/ them...

(IT WORKS, & just on "common-sense" principals...)

Sure, you CAN do the same w/ multiple HDD's & I told folks to do that, if they could afford it, decades back (distribute workloads across drives) BUT, you don't get sub-ms seeks/accesses w/ mechanical HDD's either though... SSD's? They DO yield that much!

APK

P.S.=> However, the article IS making a point: UNTIL THE CO$T$ per mb/gb fall on SSD's, as well as storage size possible (especially on the types I use, in 32-bit, the device driver memory access limit IS only 4gb)? They DO have a point - dollar for dollar/"pound-for-pound"?? HDD's still

"A little more speed" ? how a bout a lot more speed ? Putting the OS on a quality SSD gave lots of people immense performance gains." - by zaibazu (976612)
on Thursday June 18, @09:46AM (#28373131)

Per my subject-line? Agreed, 110% - AND, especially in "industrial environs", such as for DB work... see here:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/9312/7

TREMENDOUS GAINS result!

I saw & first only "theorized" this, as far back as 1996 for EEC Systems & their "SuperDisk" application!

(That was while I wrote portions of their SuperCache I/II program, increasing its effectiveness &/or performance by up to 40% more ("tesla like gains"))...

AND?

Hey, it worked SO well? It took them to a FINALIST position @ Microsoft TechEd 2 yrs. in a row, in its HARDEST category, which applies on this note, perfectly: SQLServer Performance Enhancement & also reviewed very well in Windows NT Magazine (now Windows IT Pro) pril 1997 "BACK OFFICE PERFORMANCE" issue, page 61!

Also, ALBEIT, on a "home user/end user" platform? It helps as well, & in ways that are NOT "immediately apparent", but exist, nonetheless!

How so? Well... The apparent one, is increased speed in seek/access, which not ALL gains from, but, consider that most of the time? The end user does MOSTLY "READS" work... & here is where you gain: In the File I/O access cycle of Open/Read-Write/Close file (&, everything, even screendevice contexts are abstracted out as a file mind you, but that does not apply here, just making a point in modern OS' is all on that note)? YOU HAVE TO FIND THE FILE, first... here is how they make gains, apparent ones.

HOWEVER, NOW? I'll note the "less apparent" ones!

I use a CENATEK "RocketDrive" TRUE SSD (not based on FLASH RAM, with its slower write cycles which I suppose, a writeback cache COULD theoretically offset some, nor, with FLASH RAM's inevitable decay in longevity & performance, wear-levelling notwithstanding)...

I use it for these purposes here (and, this is since late 2002 no less to present day 2009, no problems @ all whatsoever):

----

PARTITION #1, 1gb

1.) pagefile.sys placement - both read/write in nature

PARTITION #2, 1gb

A.) Webbrowser (Opera, FireFox, & IE) caching location - both read/write in nature
B.) %temp% & %tmp% ops placement (environment alteration) - both read/write in nature
C.) SandBoxie placement (a webbrowser sandboxing tool, goes VERY slow on std. HDD's, & much fsater on this SSD, by far) - read/write in nature
D.) Print Spooler location - read/write in nature
E.) Windows' EventLogs - read/write in nature
F.) DrWatson Logging - read/write in nature
G.) Windows' Firewall logs - read/write in nature
H.) Windows Management WMI logging - read/write in nature
I.) HOSTS file placement - MOSTLY read in nature (some write)
J.) %comspec$ placement (cmd.exe location, environment alteration) - read in nature

----

All for 2 reasons:

1.) Greater seek/access speeds

&

2.) NOT "cluttering" my main disk w/ them (which can aid fragmentation also) + NOT burdening my MAIN C: drive (OS & Programs MOSTLY here only) w/ dealing w/ those files & tasks associated w/ them...

(IT WORKS, & just on "common-sense" principals)

APK

P.S.=> However, the article IS making a point: UNTIL THE CO$T$ per mb/gb fall on SSD's, as well as storage size possible (especially on the types I use, in 32-bit, the device driver memory access limit IS only 4gb)? They DO have a point - dollar for dollar/"pound-for-pound"?? HDD's still make more "sense" for your DOLLARS & CENTS... which is why I JUST PICKED UP A WD "Velociraptor" for my next machine's main OS + Programs bearing HDD... speed! $270 when all was said & done, for 10k rpm super-fast HDD access that uses (afaik, finally) "PRT" tech as well... but, @ around $1/mb? I may have "overpaid", but - I WANT THAT SPEED! apk

What about one of this ones? They could probably take good advantage of a 6 Gb/sec speed

" The hard part in multi-threading IO-intensive apps has quite a bit more to do with latency issues and atomicity guarantees (the complete lack thereof) rather than the inability of the storage device to do 2 things at once (which, for a physical disk, is impossible anyway, meaning that it would have to back-convert into a serial process anyway)." - by Wrath0fb0b (302444) on Wednesday May 27, @07:27PM (#28116993)

Great post by the by, found it informative (& IF I could "mod you up" as an A/C, I would) - still, I have a question:

Wouldn't the use of Solid-State disks help "offset" the latency portion of this restrictions you note, since they tremendously reduce latency (seek/access mainly)?

(Thanks for the answer - you actually seem QUITE knowledgeable on this subject material, & that's a rarity in my book (even on THIS site, which is one of the better ones, as far as the "technical talent" around this place, vs. other forums online, imo @ least))

Sincerely,

APK

P.S.=> Some background as to WHY I ask this: I am an "avid user" for many years, of a "True SSD" here (not FLASH ram based, which is slower on writes & yes, perhaps write-back caching CAN offset that, but I don't like the idea of wear levelling being needed to offset their short lifespan, vs. the type I use), since late 2002!

It's called a CENATEK "RocketDrive" (PCI 2.2 bus, PC-133 SDRAM, 2gb (can be spanned into 16gb between 4 of these units))... Thus, why I ask the question above, since I like these units quite a lot & they can be used for a plethora of things!

See - @ home at least, I use for things like:

1.) Pagefile.sys placement
2.) ALL logging from the OS & applications (where possible on both & it is largely, e.g.-> Windows Event Logs & far more which I went into here -> http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1100343&cid=26573497 in far more detail)
3.) %temp% & %tmp% system-wide environment variable alterations to its 2nd partition
4.) Webbrowser cache location (IE, FireFox, & Opera)

These not only access/seek faster, but also "offload" my main OS + Programs bearing C: drive here, making it, in essence, faster (since it is NOT burdened by those duties & far more... AND, it helps stop fragmentation imposed by the clutter of those operations files as well!)

& more...

(It is widely known that SSD's are tremendous for databased work. & in various work environs, I have had such luck in using them for this type of application, mainly websites that are database driven, OR, for SQLServer or Oracle DB device placement (for temp ops/scratch tables only sometimes, since SQLServer since v. 6.5 or 7.0 began using System RAM for that afaik).

Also, it's been shown as effective for DB work, such as seen here from this review -> http://techreport.com/articles.x/9312/7 & my own work back in 2001-2002 for SuperSpeed.com @ Ms Tech-Ed (SQLServer Performance Enhancement finalist 2 yrs. in a row, albeit, using a software-based mirroring back to HDD ware they produce called SuperDisk)...

AND, it works!

Anyhow/anyways, back onto my question above?

Well - I ask this, because I am looking to purchase a Gigabyte IRAM soon (faster bus in SATA 2.0, DDR Ram also vs. the unit I have now for my 2nd machine I am putting together lately)... but, if this new bus spec is coming?

Well, I would like to see a PCI-e implementation of such a unit, & I wonder if it will also offset that which you state is a "stumbling block" in regards to multithreaded application design (which I have been doing since roughly 1996 in both shareware/freeware & commercial apps + work apps, no stranger to it here, but I usually do what is known as "coarse multithreaded design" (where the data being worked on by separate threads is discrete & sepa

I thought Windows 7 was everybody's pet name for Vista SP1.

no its Vista SP2

Vista SP2 was finished more than a week ago and Windows 7 will be finished in October at the earliest.

So this lame joke should be updated to "Windows 7 is Vista SP3" (minus all those features that are being added to Windows 7 but not added to Vista).

, which is slower than the previous one, and that requires bigger hardware.

Well, Win2k is faster than XP, perhaps we should downgrade to that? Oh, wait, Windows 98 is faster than Win2k. I'm wondering how quick MS-DOS would run on a quad core!

Screw MS-DOS. I'm waiting for someone to port the VIC-20 OS to the PC.

, which is slower than the previous one, and that requires bigger hardware.

Well, Win2k is faster than XP, perhaps we should downgrade to that? Oh, wait, Windows 98 is faster than Win2k. I'm wondering how quick MS-DOS would run on a quad core!

It's just tipped above 1% for consumer systems that are used for internet usage. http://techreport.com/discussions.x/16860

Munging together servers and clients is a pointless benchmark. Linux could have 30% of the server ecosystem, but that would make a 0.001% indent on client share.

Regardless, 1.02% is a far cry from 5 or 6 percent, never mind 10%. Who would even say that a Linux machine makes up 1 in 10 machines on the web, haven't they seen all the Windows machines, all the business machines, etc?

But not good when you have to type while others sleep. Some of us need the quiet keyboards or have them bashed over our heads at 2am.

ABS's M1 keyboard is a mechanical switch keyboard that provides the important tactile feedback, but supposedly does not produce those auditory clicks according to Tech Report's recent review.

I don't know how important the audible clicks are, but a quiet option exists.

More FUD. The companies you mention don't have a history of using bloggers to shil. Microsoft does.

You're either full of it or another zealot lying to yourself if you don't think IBM/Redhat/Novell pays bloggers to be their shills. I find it downright humorous you'd even suggest otherwise.
Where exactly do you think the "TCO" studies proving linux is a better deal than MS comes from? Here's a hint: the companies doing the reviews aren't doing it out of the goodness of their hearts.

As for Vista, adoption rate speaks louder than words. This seems appropriate:"Everytime the topic comes up, your type gets shot down... here I thought you'd learn."

Care to cite some statistics to back up your bullshit?
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/12472

Yes, the GTX260 is a different card...but the 250 is an improvement of the die-shrink of the original 8800 GTS/9800 GTX - 9800GTX+. ...takes 20 seconds to find an article for reference... http://techreport.com/articles.x/16504 The card is actually a little different, but the gpu architecture is the same...in fact...the gpu is just a re-branded chip of the same fab line as the 9800GTX...

A few years ago someone figured out that Intel's compiler was engaged in dirty tricks: it inserted code to cause poor performance on hardware that did not have an Intel CPUID.

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/8547

But perhaps they have cleaned this up before the 10.0 release:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=518

steveha

A few decades? 50Mb is coming out now, don't think it will be a few decades before 100Mb will be out and common place. http://techreport.com/discussions.x/14481 Of course, if Bittorrent crashes who needs a 50Mb line anyway? ;)

In short, no.

There's nothing new under the sun. We used to do it with system RAM dedicated to the purpose, back in the '80s.

Back in the stone age, we used to do it with RAM in a drive box. And then with add-in cards that acted like disk but stored RAM. I bet you noticed that RAM costs a lot of money if you need 320 GB of it. For a brief moment so long ago that I forget the date, we did it with something called "bubble memory".

I also talked about this here two or three years ago, before this product was produced, so I look forward to providing some prior art to the inevitable patent troll discussion.

But that's not the point. This is a startup, and they're at a vulnerable cusp in their history. If you need this product I suggest you buy it before somebody discovers the motive and method to kill it. I can think of three motives and two methods offhand, so if I were you I'd get crackin'.

Actually, I felt that the limiting factor was probably the craptastic single-core Pentium 4 EE they used to run all these benchmarks.

What, you shove thousands of dollars worth of I/O into a system, and run it through the paces with a CPU that sucked in 2005? I'm not surprised at all that most tests showed very little improvement with the RAID.

As of this afternoon, they /do/ make chips that expensive, and more:

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/16298

Their new top-of-the-line chip:
Opteron 8386 SE 8 sockets max 2.8GHz 105W $2,649

"so, this is just as worthless as Gigabyte's i-RAM." - by KonoWatakushi (910213) on Thursday January 22, @08:11AM (#26558515)

What is worthless about being able to place things onto a faster media like a solid-state drive like a Gigabyte IRAM or Cenatek ROCKETDRIVE?

(Especially a true one that does not have the horrible write latency that FLASH based units do, where ones like the Gigabyte IRAM or Cenatek ROCKETDRIVE do not, since they use DDR Ram OR PC-133 SDRAM, respectively, which does not have the 10x or more slower performance on data writes that FLASH ram has).

Placing your web browser program caches, operating system and program logs, %temp% &/or %tmp% operations, and pagefile.sys duties onto a RamDisk card like the IRAM, the RocketDrive, or this ACARD not only increases the speed of those operations (since the media itself is faster on both reads and writes than std. hard disks are) but, also lessens fragmentation of the original disk those operations took place on initially/originally (usually C: drive in a Microsoft OS).

Also:

E.G. -> For database, webserver, workstation transactions, and other kinds of work? Ramdisks/Ramdrives (on a card like the Gigabyte IRAM or the Cenatek RocketDrive are), ABSOLUTELY HELP, & for better performance!

Proof?

See here:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/9312/7

In closing? Above ALL else here, I'd advise you learn something about this area...

APK

P.S.=> ... that is, before you go and by just reading something and spitting it back, without any thought on your part, & ending up only making yourself look quite stupid in the process of doing so... apk

Yes, I am aware of that fiasco. But the SD1A firmware for the 1.5 TB drive was released back in November for the stuttering issue on RAIDs. I thought they were different firmwares as one is for the 1.5 TB drive and the other is for the 1 TB drive. The ISO image for the 1.5 TB drives that I used is called Brinks-4D8H-SD1A.ISO but the one that was released recently for the 500/750/1 TB drives was called MooseDT-32MB-SD1A.ISO. Are you saying they are the same? Can you confirm if a 1.5 TB drive flashed with the Brinks-4D8H-SD1A.ISO FW has both the stuttering and bricking issues fixed? My drives had FW SD17 and I updated them without problems.

For a review that has all the game benchmarks AND is also fun to read, with insightful analysis and clever commentary, check out The Tech Report's comparo of the GTX 285 to SIXTEEN competitor cards and configs. Why settle for just benchmark results and technical jargon when there's humor in the pixels?

How about the Seagate 1500GB drive hang error? To my understanding Windows has been fixed, but the problem still persists in Linux. Could this potentially make a difference? I've been looking to build myself a nice NAS and those 1500GB drives are _cheap_. I can pick one up for about $160. I remember not too long ago that could only get me 80GB.

You may want to hold off on those Seagate drives. It appears the entire line of 7200.11 are faulty.

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/16232

The AM3 Phenom II's are supposed to be able to work in an AM2+ motherboard (and utilize DD2 memory). TechReport's review of the chip has some more details on this:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16147

In one of the neater tricks we've seen along these lines, Socket AM3-capable Phenom II processors will, happily, be backward compatible with current Socket AM2+ motherboards and DDR2 memory.

So AM2+ is still a viable socket for the future since AM3 processors will fit in. I wonder if the backwards compatability will work both ways - could an AM2+ processor be used in an AM3 motherboard?

http://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=56926

recently got back from a small gathering of security experts that work with encryption. We saw a wonderful demonstration of a data security expert performing a challenge. We were asked to bring in a disk drive that had been deployed, wiped, deployed, wiped, and deployed. So I personally did a BSD install, Then Linux, then XP.

The demonstrator asked if the disk drive was "expendable", I said sure, it was an old 60 gigger. He then opened up the drive's housing and dropped it in a tank of liquid nitrogen. He removed it and smashed the platter with a hammer.

He took the platters and, as far as I can tell litterally taped them together with Scotch tape.

He took out a weird wand looking device and started, platter by platter, scanning them in. On the screen we could see the hard disk being reconstructed. It took about 2 hours to "wand" the platters of my demo disk.

We ajourned for the day as the software went to work. Now I stuck around the lobby and bar for a while and chatted with the demo guy asking what he just did.

"I used a special magnetic scanning probe to record the contents of the disk platter parts. The liquid nitrogen makes it easier to break the metal rather then bend it to hell. The process still works, it's just more dramatic."

I asked, "Neat how much does the wand thing cost?"

"They're not for sale to the public but I'd wager at least 30 grand for one."

"Ouch!"

"Spendy isn't it?"

"No I just sat on my pager... but yes that is sick"

The next day the demonstration began anew. This time he went off talking about magnetic sub sampling blah blah blah... my drink was watered down and their ameretto was ghetto. He had lots of slides with what looked like oscilliscope output and WAVELETS tossed around on the slides, oh and lots of linear algebra... yuck... But he said the following that caught my attention:

"based on the way hard drives operate you can think of them much like a printer. They print on a sheet of paper a magnetic pattern to represent a 0 or 1 so to speak rather then ink. So let's imagine that you print a picture of Wayne Newton in black and white on a sheet of paper. You can see it looks like Wayne. (He actually was printing this stuff btw..) Now (putting the Wayne Picture in the printer) I'm going to print a new picture but this time in red ink. (a picture of Tom Jones) now as you can see it's hard to make out Wayne or Tom at this point. But with the right technology you could easily pick out one or the other. But imagine now if you could only print black in on the top half of the page and red ink on the bottom. Or better yet hundreds of little bands on a single page each dedicated to a different color. You could, on the same page write dozens of different pictures, each in a different color. Hard drives do the same. In that small space of the Read Write head hard disks can leave a ghost of the old content. Remember this if anything: YOU'RE DISK WIPING SOFTWARE MUST USE SPECIFIC PATTERNS TO EFFECTIVLY CONCEAL THE OLD CONTENT..."

Now what sticks out from that? the word CONCEAL. Not erase, not delete, but conceal. I used the gdisk DOD wipes between my sessions.

So he opens up my disk's profile in his software, it showed a summary screen with the most sickening line I have ever read:

"Distinct Disk Profiles Found: 9"

9? WTF?

So the demo guy clicked on the 9 and boom this is the actual display that showed:

Profiles Found (Newest First)
1 ) Windows XP - FAT32 Parition
2 ) Attempted DOD Wipe
3 ) Fedora Linux - Reiser FS, EXT2, SWAP
4 ) Attempted DOD Wipe
5 ) FreeBSD - Paritions found 6, JFS,XFS,FAT32,na,na,na
6 ) Windows 2000 - NTFS
7 ) Windows 2000 - NTFS
8 ) Attempted Low Level Format, Sectors Reallocations = 9
9 ) Attempted Low Level Format, Sectors Reallocations = 0

WTF? All I could repeat was WTF over and over again. I d

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16064

How does that setup look for a current setup? Also, if there were further performance improvements to this setup, what would you change?

that's doubtful. all three of those solutions are about half the price of the cheapest Atom netbook. perhaps an Atom 330 w/ a generic mini-ITX motherboard would be cheaper than the C7 + EPIA, but a VIA C3 CPU/motherboard combo starts at around $60. and general-purpose processing power isn't what VIA processors aim towards. if you buy a VIA processor, it's going to be for:

• its ridiculously fast encryption capabilities due to VIA's Padlock Security Engine. in AES benchmarks the VIA CoreFusion Luke (based off of the 1 GHz Nehemiah C3 core) performs 13x faster than a 2.4 GHz P4--while using almost 1/7th the amount of power (TDP of 10W versus 67.6W). meanwhile, the 1.2 GHz C3 performs 6x faster than the 3 GHz P4.
• low power consumption->low heat output->longer battery life and less noise. using a 16 stage fully-pipelined superscalar architecture w/ a specialized 128-bit vector FPU (2 in the VIA Nano), SWAR/SIMD instruction sets, out-of-order execution & advanced branch prediction, and on-die encryption & twin RNGs, VIA processors achieve the highest per-Watt performance of just about any processor on the market.
• their multimedia-specific design. VIA embedded processors are exceptionally well suited to multimedia applications when paired with VIA's robust digital media IGP chipsets. not only do they possess on-die Floating Point "media" units, but by offloading processor-intensive tasks like video encoding/decoding and audio processing to off-die coprocessors, VIA embedded systems handle multimedia applications extremely efficiently. because of hardware-accelerated video processing, VIA systems can often match the performance of systems with twice their clock speed.
• hacker-friendly open hardware. features like LVDS connectors, LPC interface, pico-ITX form-factor, Linux support, etc. make VIA embedded solutions perfect for building set-top boxes, embedded devices, and personal hacking projects.

it's simply silly to try to compare Intel Atom netbooks with VIA embedded systems that are designed specifically for embedded multimedia applications. a netbook doesn't come with dual monitor support, TV out, S/PDIF, MPEG-2/4 hardware acceleration, a video capture interface, HDTV encoding, video de-blocking, etc. if you build a VIA set-top box, you're obviously not going to use it for gaming or to run Windows Vista. but as a set-top box, VIA solutions are more than adequate. so any additional processing power is just meaningless dicksizing with no real world benefits.

besides, the C7's successor--the VIA Nano--wipes the floor with the Intel Atom in multimedia encoding (LAME mp3 audio encoding, Windows Media Encoder video encoding, DivX movie encoding, Vista Movie Maker, TMPG VOB to WMV, etc.), HD video playback (1080p), and even in general-purpose computing performance.

There is the new quick launcher and taskbar combination which shows clickable previews of windows. That's new and was a big topic of conversation a few weeks ago when it could be unlocked in one of the builds.

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/15827

Most SSD's are using Multi-Level Cells to get the most space they can. Unfortunately these are really slow when it comes to writing data. One work around is using Single Level cells, which are much faster, but half as dense obviously. Here's a pretty good article on one of Intel's new single level drives: http://techreport.com/articles.x/15931 It's only 32GB, but fast as all get out. It's also over $700 if you want one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167013&Tpk=X25-E

I use Windows' native NTFS compression on an SSD, & it works out just fine, for how I use SSD's & what for, in both HOME usage & CORPORATE ENVIRONS...

(Especially for logging, webpage caching, + %temp% ops occurring on the SSD type I use (a good one for performance on READ & WRITE I/O, not just reads (like Flash is best @ but, poorer on WRITES)):

Via the CENATEK "RocketDrive" PCI 2.2 133mb/sec bus, 4gb of PC-133 SDRAM!

----

FOR "END-USER" TYPE USE PATTERNS ON FILES THAT ARE BOTH OF READ/WRITE NATURE & CONSTANTLY ONGOING TASKS:

1gb Partition #1 = pagefile.sys placement...

1gb Partition #2 has folders on it for:

1.) %temp% & %tmp% ops to take place on it, via the environment "in memory .ini file" every app gets
2.) Webbrowser caches
3.) Logging by the OS (event logs, easily moveable via registry edits/reg file merges) + apps' logs

----

Does it make a diff., even for "end-user use patterns" of that nature?

Sure, those things which go on, ALL THE TIME mind you, of BOTH read/write nature no less (where FLASH based SSD's take a beating is writes, wear levelling notwithstanding, that's just for longevity more than performance) get F A S T E R... access/seek is MILES above std. mechanical HDD's alone!

Yes - you notice it.

Large & noticeable improvements to overall system performance results, by your std. mechanical HDD's even, in them NOT being burdened w/ constant ongoing head movements that impede program + data loads mind you (that are incurred from paging, logging, & temporary operations by the OS & apps!)

(Also, a SMALLER, but, "long-term" performance gain results, too (not huge, but present nevertheless), of less fragmentation on your main OS & Programs bearing HDD(1000x slower than SSD) from fragmentation webpage caches, logs, & paging files cause in themselves AND other files)...

Fast on my type of system for that kind of data (most of which I could care less if I lose or not mind you, even though it has a UPS backing it), because it's smallish files I move for webpage caching & SSD's are good for this, but also pagefiles, & %temp% ops, all of which are READ/WRITE I-O... because I don't use a FLASH based SSD (weaker on writes typically/historically @ least).

Especially on a rig like mine, w/ only 512mb DDR-400 RAM, now running Windows Server 2003 SP#2 as a workstation (default install), tuned & trimmed "to-the-max" has been running setup like that since 2003, solid as a rock stable, & fast.

(Thus - I use SSD's to speed-up the SLOWEST part of any system - it's HDDs!)

Bottom-line here? Well:

WANT MORE SPEED? SPEED UP THE SLOWEST THING ANY PC CONTENDS WITH - DISKBOUND I/O.."

----

FOR COMMERCIAL/ENTERPRISE-CLASS/MULTIUSER/TRANSACTION-BASED ENVIRONS (take your pick)??

Take a read:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/9312/7 [techreport.com]

PERTINENT EXCERPT:

"Wow. Seriously.

The i-RAM is in another league in IOMeter, offering transaction rates that are an order of magnitude higher than its closest competition. It doesn't take long for the i-RAM to get revved up, either. The card hits its peak transaction rate with just two simultaneous I/O requests."

APK

P.S.=> Nuff said... apk

I've been using SSD's since Windows 2000 came out,

Via the CENATEK "RocketDrive" PCI 2.2 133mb/sec bus, 4gb of PC-133 SDRAM!

----

FOR "END-USER" TYPE USE PATTERNS ON FILES THAT ARE BOTH OF READ/WRITE NATURE & CONSTANTLY ONGOING TASKS:

1gb Partition #1 = pagefile.sys placement...

1gb Partition #2 has folders on it for:

1.) %temp% & %tmp% ops to take place on it, via the environment "in memory .ini file" every app gets
2.) Webbrowser caches
3.) Logging by the OS (event logs, easily moveable via registry edits/reg file merges) + apps' logs

----

Does it make a diff., even for "end-user use patterns" of that nature?

Sure, those things which go on, ALL THE TIME mind you, of BOTH read/write nature no less (where FLASH based SSD's take a beating is writes, wear levelling notwithstanding, that's just for longevity more than performance) get F A S T E R...

Yes - you notice it.

Smaller, but, "long-term" performance gains (not huge, but present nevertheless), of less fragmentation on your main OS & Programs bearing HDD (1000x slower than SSD) from fragmentation webpage caches, logs, & paging files cause in themselves AND other files...

Larger noticeable improvements to overall system performance, by it NOT being burdened w/ constant ongoing head movements that impede program + data loads mind you (that are incurred from paging, logging, & temporary operations by the OS & apps!)

Fast on my type of system for that kind of data (most of which I could care less if I lose or not mind you, even though it has a UPS backing it), because it's smallish files I move for webpage caching & SSD's are good for this, but also pagefiles, & %temp% ops, all of which are READ/WRITE I-O... because I don't use a FLASH based SSD (weaker on writes typically/historically @ least).

Especially on a rig like mine, w/ only 512mb DDR-400 RAM, now running Windows Server 2003 SP#2 as a workstation (default install), tuned & trimmed "to-the-max" has been running setup like that since 2003, solid as a rock stable, & fast.

(Thus - I use SSD's to speed-up the SLOWEST part of any system - it's HDDs!)

Bottom-line here? Well:

WANT MORE SPEED? SPEED UP THE SLOWEST THING ANY PC CONTENDS WITH - DISKBOUND I/O.."

----

FOR COMMERCIAL/ENTERPRISE-CLASS/MULTIUSER/TRANSACTION-BASED ENVIRONS (take your pick)??

Take a read:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/9312/7

PERTINENT EXCERPT:

"Wow. Seriously.

The i-RAM is in another league in IOMeter, offering transaction rates that are an order of magnitude higher than its closest competition. It doesn't take long for the i-RAM to get revved up, either. The card hits its peak transaction rate with just two simultaneous I/O requests."

APK

P.S.=> Nuff said... apk

Here is the specific page of TFA about the objects under discussion. 0.62W at idle.

Now about full out... I don't have a citation but if you get more than 1.4, let me know. That would be... interesting.

On the upside for SAS, these SATA drives plug right into your SAS array, so they've got that going for them. They don't make a SAS version of this drive yet but SAS controllers are compatible with SATA drives (although the reverse is not true). But of course you knew that. Yes, I know an SSD is technically not a "drive". If that's where you were headed don't bother. It would be tedious and pedantic.

Saying the i-RAM is in a league of its own is no longer accurate. The X25-E is directly comparable to the i-RAM.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/15931/9

The i-RAM is only twice as fast as the new flash based drive. That a storage device is anywhere close to ram in speed is a huge advance in the industry.

As for even read/write speeds, and other old flash drive problems, the new Intel drives are very well designed and do not have the same type of issues.

"This just screams dedicated database storage." - by Enderandrew (866215) on Monday November 24, @10:25PM (#25881127) Homepage

You're NOT kidding... proof?

SSD use performance gains, quantified, here, for:

1.) Database Servers

2.) WebServers

3.) FileServers

ALL - Per this review/test (for your reference):

----

Gigabyte's i-RAM storage device - RAM disk without the fuss:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/9312/7 [techreport.com]

----

That's PRACTICALLY applicable uses for them, on an INDUSTRIAL scale, no less... HUGE orders of magnitude of diff.!

In fact?

This was their conclusion, verbatim, from that test:

----

"Wow. Seriously. The i-RAM is in another league in IOMeter, offering transaction rates that are an order of magnitude higher than its closest competition. It doesn't take long for the i-RAM to get revved up, either. The card hits its peak transaction rate with just two simultaneous I/O requests."

----

& they're right...

Fact is? Well - I used the SAME techniques (albeit via a software based mirroring back to HDD ramdrive by EEC Systems/SuperSpeed.com) back in 1996 to good review in Windows NT magazine (now Windows IT Pro), & later, @ MS-Tech-Ed 2000-2002 placing as a FINALIST there, 2 yrs. straight, in the HARDEST CATEGORY:

SQLServer Performance Enhancement

By using SSD's &/or Ramdisks in Software for perf. gains & it worked... & later, I was also the #1 featured review @ CENATEK.COM, in regards to applying physical SSD ramdrives the same way... it works!

APK

P.S.=> I use one, @ home no less (older, slightly SLOWER model, same idea though (PC-133 SDRAM + PCI 2.2 bus @ 133mb/sec., in the CENATEK "RocketDrive") vs. (DDR-RAM + SATA I bus @ 150mb/sec. in the GIGABYTE IRAM - both of which maintain nearly even/level read-write speeds, due to NOT being FLASH RAM based mind you), albeit for things like:

----

A.) Pagefile.sys placement (partition #1 here, @ 1gb)

B.) WebBrowser caches (partition #2, 1gb)

C.) %Temp% ops (partition #2, 1gb)

D.) Logging from the OS (like eventlogs), & apps too

----

The ideas I note have been "modded up" here on this website before, here (recently too):

http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1014349&cid=25591403 [slashdot.org]

They're ideas "normal folks" can use, to gain extra performance @ home even, via SSD use... apk