SSD's: 64GB Ultra-Performance vs. 128 GB Mobility

Thanks for all the info guys. I am looking at the e4300. It seems they may have worked out the bugs with this machine and will now be shipping them with the new motherboards.

I'm not sure which physical size SSD/HD the e4300 uses, but I will not use an aftermarket SSD. I just need to decide between the 64GB Ultra and the 128GB Mobility.

From what I am hearing, I am going with the 64GB Ultra. The savings in money is not important to me compared to any performance difference. I boot my computer many times during the day, and a savings of even a few seconds on boot times and app loading times is big to me.

 

The E4300 uses a standard 2.5" SATA HDD. So you've got a lot of options if you want to use an aftermarket HDD.

 

If you go through random pages in the new SSD thread, you will find that Samsung MLC drives probably have the fewest problems from users - which is why I recommend Samsung. Intel MLC drives are next, but lately there has been some questionable information regarding massive slow downs when doing intensive tasks and having a nearly filed up drive. A lot of other companies, most notably OCZ (Jmicron controller), has lots of issues with "stuttering" in Windows, especially when running MS Outlook.

Recently, there has been an explosion of new products from many companies and there has not been enough testing of these products to know MLC reliability or whether or not any of these stuttering or controller problems have been resolved. SLC drives are separate, and generally experience none of these problems since they're based off of a different type of flash technology which has been used for at least the last 10+ years in very sensitive mission critical applications and are generally better than there MLC counterparts in terms of random reads and writes in general. The downside is that SLC often has lower capacity and higher price.

 

Another downside of SLC (at least recent releases) along with the higher price and the lower capacity is the seemingly lower reads and writes. Something to keep in mind for folks who backup their data regularly and like to live on the edge with MLC drives that scream performance (like moi)

 

I think it's actually the opposite? Case in point being the Intel X25-E and X25-M: these are essentially the same drives with SLC and MLC flash chips, respectively, but the X25-E has significantly higher write speeds than the X25-M whereas read speeds are about the same.

Then again, it may be a matter of implementation as the Samsung SLC and MLC drives of the same generation generally have similar sequential and random speeds.

 

Not that we have many real benchies of the X25E in the SSD thread but I think, at least in the case of the Intel, you are right. With Samsung, it may just be a matter of generational leaps, i.e. we are still on the 2nd Gen SLC (as far as I know) while the MLC is on the 3rd generation.

The Mtrons are all SLC and all comparatively slow. The MLC in my E4200 is 2nd generation though it appears to be faster than the MLC drives in that eBay listing. The 3rd gen Sammy (of which the 256GB SSD in the newer XPS units is one) is the one that has fast reads. No 3rd Gen Sammy SLC in the channel yet that I am aware of. Perhaps you are right, that it will catch up eventually and the point will be moot. However, with the exception of the Intel, the MLC drives appear to be faster at the moment.

 

The sequential speeds listed on the product really don't translate into much in real life performance. While it might say 200MB/s read, when it comes to random reads it might only be 5MB/s. Even though it seems like SLC drives are slower, they are not.

 

That is true and this is why I can't really notice much of a difference between my Gen 1 SLC or my Gen 2 MLC. They 'feel' the same to me.