I just installed an SSD and...

[mark1234]

...the benefits of NCQ.

What benefits would NCQ bring to an SSD? I get it on a traditional drive as there is physical movement of the heads, but SSDs have, effectively, zero seek time.

[itznfb]

Just make sure you aren't buffering live TV to the SSD. We've done a lot of endurance testing and most drives crap out within 8-9mo when used as a buffer.

I don't mean to go off topic, but do you have the details of the testing posted anywhere? I'd be interested to see how it compares to the link assassin posted here.

I'd be interested in seeing that endurance testing as well.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... nm-Vs-34nm

SSD's last a fraction of time compared to spindle. Every single write counts against it's lifespan. That's why SSD's come with a monitor that shows it's wear level. This is not a myth and saying so is a completely ignorant statement. Some SSD's were killed within a matter of days during the endurance tests.

Assassin literally posted a link to the same thread that shows what he said was incorrect.

If you don't sleep your media center and don't stop live TV when you aren't watching (ie: you just get up and leave) then the live TV buffer is literally writing 24/7 to the disk. SSD will not last long at all under these conditions. YMMV depending on which drive/controller/size.

Again... Assassin cherry picked 2 results out of hundreds and based his suggestion on that out of spec information. MOST of those drives in the test died within 2-4 weeks.

[assassin]

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... nm-Vs-34nm

SSD's last a fraction of time compared to spindle. Every single write counts against it's lifespan. That's why SSD's come with a monitor that shows it's wear level. This is not a myth and saying so is a completely ignorant statement. Some SSD's were killed within a matter of days during the endurance tests.

Assassin literally posted a link to the same thread that shows what he said was incorrect.

If you don't sleep your media center and don't stop live TV when you aren't watching (ie: you just get up and leave) then the live TV buffer is literally writing 24/7 to the disk. SSD will not last long at all under these conditions. YMMV depending on which drive/controller/size.

Again... Assassin cherry picked 2 results out of hundreds and based his suggestion on that out of spec information. MOST of those drives in the test died within 2-4 weeks.

Again, you must live on another planet.

Its not if the SSDs failed its when did they fail. This was a torture test. Are you really going to be writing 700+ TiB to your SSD?

The point --- for those reading other than itznfb --- is not to worry about this using a SSD in a HTPC as you will never reach these limitations. Don't be scared off by something this guy posts as says as he is a generous source of misinformation.

[barnabas1969]

Assassin, I agree with you... but the recommendation to NOT put your live TV buffer on the SSD is a good recommendation. I'm not sure why itznfb is reacting the way he is in his latest post... Richard was simply asking for a link to the test results.

[assassin]

Assassin, I agree with you... but the recommendation to NOT put your live TV buffer on the SSD is a good recommendation. I'm not sure why itznfb is reacting the way he is in his latest post... Richard was simply asking for a link to the test results.

Fair enough and I respect your recommendation.

I still think its fine to leave on the SSD as long as you choose a good SSD.

[acraigl]

Anywaaaay...

I was able to switch to ACHI and my WEI jumped from 7.0 to 7.5. Oddly it now takes windows longer to boot -- sticks on a black screen for 20 seconds or so, then cotinues loading. Once up and running it's as fast as before, but find it strange that I see this delay under the new drive mode, and not with IDE.

[newfiend]

...the benefits of NCQ.

What benefits would NCQ bring to an SSD? I get it on a traditional drive as there is physical movement of the heads, but SSDs have, effectively, zero seek time.

NCQ in solid-state drives

NCQ is also used in newer solid-state drives where the drive encounters latency on the host, rather than the other way around. For example, Intel's X25-E Extreme solid-state drive uses NCQ to ensure that the drive has commands to process while the host system is busy processing CPU tasks.

NCQ also enables the SSD controller to complete commands concurrently (or partly concurrently, for example using pipelines) where the internal organisation of the device enables such processing.

For example, the SandForce 1200[ based OCZ Vertex II 50GB drive running on a Dell Perc 5i (which doesn't support SATA NCQ) delivers about 7,000 4k IOPS (50% write) at a controller queue depth of 32 IOs. Moving the drive to the similar Dell Perc 6i (which does support SATA NCQ) increases this to over 14,000 IOPS on the same basis.

[assassin]

Anywaaaay...

I was able to switch to ACHI and my WEI jumped from 7.0 to 7.5. Oddly it now takes windows longer to boot -- sticks on a black screen for 20 seconds or so, then cotinues loading. Once up and running it's as fast as before, but find it strange that I see this delay under the new drive mode, and not with IDE.

Do you have the bios splashscreen and logo turned off in bios?

[richard1980]

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... nm-Vs-34nm

SSD's last a fraction of time compared to spindle. Every single write counts against it's lifespan. That's why SSD's come with a monitor that shows it's wear level. This is not a myth and saying so is a completely ignorant statement. Some SSD's were killed within a matter of days during the endurance tests.

Assassin literally posted a link to the same thread that shows what he said was incorrect.

If you don't sleep your media center and don't stop live TV when you aren't watching (ie: you just get up and leave) then the live TV buffer is literally writing 24/7 to the disk. SSD will not last long at all under these conditions. YMMV depending on which drive/controller/size.

Again... Assassin cherry picked 2 results out of hundreds and based his suggestion on that out of spec information. MOST of those drives in the test died within 2-4 weeks.

If you want to defend your position, at least tell the truth. You are making wildly inaccurate statements about the test data. Re-read the test data. Pay specific attention to how many drives are in the test, the reason why testing was ended, the dates they entered and exited the test, and how much data they were able to write during the test. Also check the MWI for each drive and compare that to how much data was actually written.

Don't take that to mean I agree with assassin. I don't. But I do understand the test data.

[acraigl]

Anywaaaay...

I was able to switch to ACHI and my WEI jumped from 7.0 to 7.5. Oddly it now takes windows longer to boot -- sticks on a black screen for 20 seconds or so, then cotinues loading. Once up and running it's as fast as before, but find it strange that I see this delay under the new drive mode, and not with IDE.

Do you have the bios splashscreen and logo turned off in bios?

I do... it gets past the BIOS and the windows loading graphic (about 1.5 seconds of that) then black for 20 seconds, then right into Windows. With the IDE setting getting from BIOS to windows took about 8 seconds.

[newfiend]

Anywaaaay...

I was able to switch to ACHI and my WEI jumped from 7.0 to 7.5. Oddly it now takes windows longer to boot -- sticks on a black screen for 20 seconds or so, then cotinues loading. Once up and running it's as fast as before, but find it strange that I see this delay under the new drive mode, and not with IDE.

Do you have the bios splashscreen and logo turned off in bios?

I do... it gets past the BIOS and the windows loading graphic (about 1.5 seconds of that) then black for 20 seconds, then right into Windows. With the IDE setting getting from BIOS to windows took about 8 seconds.

Do you shut down your PC each night or sleep it? I use S3 and sleep the PC. I rarely boot from totally off so I guess I don't notice the longer delay at boot. I use MCE Standby Tool and have it set to reboot the PC once a Day but it happens at night while I sleep so I never notice the length of time it takes to boot.
If you sleep the PC It wakes pretty quick and you can use the PC much quicker.
newfiend~

[acraigl]

I reboot it once a week. Otherwise, it's always on. It's not a big deal, but I just found curious that ACHI is slower to boot than IDE (at least on my system)

[stairmand]

Just thought i'd chip in, I've been using a Kingston 64GB SSD for well over a year now in all 3 of my HTPCs (my media comes from my home server) I watch TV exclusivly through it and record perhaps 7 or 8 programs a day (I have 3 tuners attached) it's left on 24/7 although I do try to remember to stop TV playback at night and I only reboot it once a month for Windows updates.

No problems with any of the SSDs so far, thinking about it, it's probably closer to 2 years since I fitted it.

[barnabas1969]

Anywaaaay...

I was able to switch to ACHI and my WEI jumped from 7.0 to 7.5. Oddly it now takes windows longer to boot -- sticks on a black screen for 20 seconds or so, then cotinues loading. Once up and running it's as fast as before, but find it strange that I see this delay under the new drive mode, and not with IDE.

I saw a similar delay when I changed a machine from IDE to AHCI. I don't remember the exact steps I took, but I basically disabled the IDE drivers in Windows, and the delay went away. It seems that when both drivers are trying to load, it causes a delay.

I think I just went through the same registry tweaks that were used to enable AHCI, and reversed the process to disable IDE.

Make a full backup before you mess with the registry in this way. If you mess it up and cannot boot, you can restore your backup.

[mcewinter]

The delay is typically at a BIOS level. With AHCI enabled there is another process being mounted (for lack of better terms).

[assassin]

The delay is typically at a BIOS level. With AHCI enabled there is another process being mounted (for lack of better terms).

That was my thought as well. Bios is searching for all IDE devices and can't find them so it moves on to startup.

[acraigl]

Anywaaaay...

I was able to switch to ACHI and my WEI jumped from 7.0 to 7.5. Oddly it now takes windows longer to boot -- sticks on a black screen for 20 seconds or so, then cotinues loading. Once up and running it's as fast as before, but find it strange that I see this delay under the new drive mode, and not with IDE.

I saw a similar delay when I changed a machine from IDE to AHCI. I don't remember the exact steps I took, but I basically disabled the IDE drivers in Windows, and the delay went away. It seems that when both drivers are trying to load, it causes a delay.

I think I just went through the same registry tweaks that were used to enable AHCI, and reversed the process to disable IDE.

Make a full backup before you mess with the registry in this way. If you mess it up and cannot boot, you can restore your backup.

That was it! Great catch. I had to disable IDE by changing a registry setting in the same node (pciide) to 3. Basically the opposite of the msachi tweak. Once I did that, the boot up sequence is faster than ever. Thanks!

[mark1234]

...the benefits of NCQ.

What benefits would NCQ bring to an SSD? I get it on a traditional drive as there is physical movement of the heads, but SSDs have, effectively, zero seek time.

NCQ in solid-state drives

NCQ is also used in newer solid-state drives where the drive encounters latency on the host, rather than the other way around. For example, Intel's X25-E Extreme solid-state drive uses NCQ to ensure that the drive has commands to process while the host system is busy processing CPU tasks.

NCQ also enables the SSD controller to complete commands concurrently (or partly concurrently, for example using pipelines) where the internal organisation of the device enables such processing.

For example, the SandForce 1200[ based OCZ Vertex II 50GB drive running on a Dell Perc 5i (which doesn't support SATA NCQ) delivers about 7,000 4k IOPS (50% write) at a controller queue depth of 32 IOs. Moving the drive to the similar Dell Perc 6i (which does support SATA NCQ) increases this to over 14,000 IOPS on the same basis.

Thanks, very impressive.

[neilll]

This is excellent news, I've been thinking about doing this for a while, sometimes my 7MC takes an age to boot up.

The Intel 120GB 520 Series SSD gets rave reviews, the new variant with the Sandforce controller looks good

[itznfb]

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... nm-Vs-34nm

SSD's last a fraction of time compared to spindle. Every single write counts against it's lifespan. That's why SSD's come with a monitor that shows it's wear level. This is not a myth and saying so is a completely ignorant statement. Some SSD's were killed within a matter of days during the endurance tests.

Assassin literally posted a link to the same thread that shows what he said was incorrect.

If you don't sleep your media center and don't stop live TV when you aren't watching (ie: you just get up and leave) then the live TV buffer is literally writing 24/7 to the disk. SSD will not last long at all under these conditions. YMMV depending on which drive/controller/size.

Again... Assassin cherry picked 2 results out of hundreds and based his suggestion on that out of spec information. MOST of those drives in the test died within 2-4 weeks.

Again, you must live on another planet.

Its not if the SSDs failed its when did they fail. This was a torture test. Are you really going to be writing 700+ TiB to your SSD?

The point --- for those reading other than itznfb --- is not to worry about this using a SSD in a HTPC as you will never reach these limitations. Don't be scared off by something this guy posts as says as he is a generous source of misinformation.

You know a great deal about HTPC setup I'll give you that. You know [removed] about hardware though and give horribly inaccurate advice. Yes it's a torture test. And 95% of the drives in the test died within days. Translate that to the 24/7 writes of a live buffer drive and the drive won't last a year. You telling people not to worry about a $150-$400 low capacity high speed investment by sacrificing it needlessly is incredibly irresponsible. Again, you always do this and I can't fathom why people respect your opinion. You use the absolute best results in the best given scenario and use that as your advice. It's ridiculous. 700+ tib was the best of the best in terms of results. Many drives died with data writes equivalent to less than a year of live buffer usage. All but 1 or 2 drives died within 18 months worth of usage.