SSD cache drives for CS6 - is more than one useful?

[Les C.]

As I'm out of PCIe slots, I wanted to add one or more SSD drives for cache.

I'm curious if having more than one would be useful - and how to best use them with AE/Premiere/etc.?

BTW - I'll add my off-topic experience with purchasing a PNY drive.

Fry's had a PNY drive on sale, and oddly enough it seemed to be faster than any of the other SSDs I'd looked at:

[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]550MB/s seq. read, 520MB/s seq. write speeds, and 85,000 random read/write IOPS

However, I found that they had entered the wrong info in their ad, and it was about 60K IOPS instead (which is still pretty good).

I ordered the faster one thru Amazon, and it came in a white box with nary a sheet of paper inside besides the drive.

The interesting thing is ... the only difference between the Fry's SSD and the higher end one I bought, was the box itself. The SSD's both had the exact same label and part number.

I asked the PNY folks how I could tell I got the correct drive, the fastest?

Surely I could have them look it up by my serial #?

Unfortunately not.

So, even though PNY's seem to have very good specs, I have no idea (and neither do they) how to verify that you're getting what you pay for.

Seems like a product designed to be counterfeited.


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[Scott C]

I don't have a lot to say on the topic but if you're looking for SSDs, there are 3 brands I might recommend. 1. Crucial's M4 series, 2. Intel, 3. Samsung.

Btw, you can get some INSANE deals on M4s right now, and they are as bulletproof as SSDs get. I own 4 of them.

256 GB for $149

Also the 512 GB is around $400 right now, and if you pay attention the 128 GB is commonly in the <100 range as well.

As I'm out of PCIe slots, I wanted to add one or more SSD drives for cache.

I'm curious if having more than one would be useful - and how to best use them with AE/Premiere/etc.?

BTW - I'll add my off-topic experience with purchasing a PNY drive.

Fry's had a PNY drive on sale, and oddly enough it seemed to be faster than any of the other SSDs I'd looked at:

[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]550MB/s seq. read, 520MB/s seq. write speeds, and 85,000 random read/write IOPS

However, I found that they had entered the wrong info in their ad, and it was about 60K IOPS instead (which is still pretty good).

I ordered the faster one thru Amazon, and it came in a white box with nary a sheet of paper inside besides the drive.

The interesting thing is ... the only difference between the Fry's SSD and the higher end one I bought, was the box itself. The SSD's both had the exact same label and part number.

I asked the PNY folks how I could tell I got the correct drive, the fastest?

Surely I could have them look it up by my serial #?

Unfortunately not.

So, even though PNY's seem to have very good specs, I have no idea (and neither do they) how to verify that you're getting what you pay for.

Seems like a product designed to be counterfeited.


[/FONT]

 

[Les C.]

Crucial is always the first place I'd look for memory (all my RAM is Crucial), but ... the write for M4s is only 175 MB/s instead of 520 MB/s and the IOPS is 35K instead of 85K

I don't have a lot to say on the topic but if you're looking for SSDs, there are 3 brands I might recommend. 1. Crucial's M4 series, 2. Intel, 3. Samsung.

Btw, you can get some INSANE deals on M4s right now, and they are as bulletproof as SSDs get. I own 4 of them.

256 GB for $149

Also the 512 GB is around $400 right now, and if you pay attention the 128 GB is commonly in the <100 range as well.

 

[Les C.]

I've been doing a bit of research into SSD drives.

The reason many new SSD drives claim a write of 520 MB/s is due to a bit of cheating.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/vertex-3-sandforce-ssd,2869-3.html

The Sandforce controller will compress the data before it writes it.

This is great for text files, and may actually get them the massively high write rates they claim.

But, for our kind of use, I'm not so sure that's going to work very well.

I looked at a few SSD brands on NewEgg, and read the user reviews.

Intel, Micron/Crucial, Samsung would average 5 stars.

The other popular brands such as Corsair got a lot of negative reviews.

My recent experience with PNY was the worst imaginable.

I bought one from Fry's and one from Amazon.

They were both supposed to be the same part.

They came in a white box, without even a sheet of paper inside.

PNY refused to verify that I had purchased a valid product from the serial numbers.

They said if I had a problem, I could RMA the drive to them, but they wouldn't tell me what the drive was.

I think that PNY advertises one high end product, and then markets a lesser product to a number of vendors, who sell the lesser products as the high end.

PNY knows this, and this is why they refuse to tell me what I've purchased from the serial number.

One tech did reply by email that part didn't use the controller advertised and was slower, but ... when replied and asked for a pdf showing what I bought, warranty, etc. .... complete silence.

I've never seen such a scam.

Can you imagine calling Western Digital and asking for help in verifying that a drive is not counterfeit - and getting refused?

So, the moral to the story is ... there's no free lunch. Stay with the established players, pay a bit more and get value.

BTW - ended up purchasing the Crucial M4 256GB CT256M4SSD2. It's not the absolute fastest, but it comes out very near the top of the pack, especially when factoring in that it's not using compression.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/66

 

[Gary Paul Walker]

I have a quick (albeit probably stupid) question about SSDs...

I want to be able to have an external hot-swappable docking station for an SSD (or rather 5 of them at that price).. connected to an esata port on my laptop..

Is there and decent solution for this? I dont know if the a-typical docking station with USB3/eSata/Firewire connectors are able to accept SSDs ...

 

[Les C.]

I have a quick (albeit probably stupid) question about SSDs...

I want to be able to have an external hot-swappable docking station for an SSD (or rather 5 of them at that price).. connected to an esata port on my laptop..

Is there and decent solution for this? I dont know if the a-typical docking station with USB3/eSata/Firewire connectors are able to accept SSDs ...

If you have a 2.5 -> 3.5 adapter, that should work. The SATA data and power connector spacing is identical for a 3.5 and 2.5 drive.

In fact, you could go to NewEgg and find a 3.5" external enclosure you liked with the interface you wanted, and slide it right in without an adapter at all, and gravity and the connectors would keep it in place(not recommended, but ... I have done that).