I was under the impression that the tests would be redone using a different version of PowerDVD or something and that we would have the updated results and opinion soon after.
I got to read the original review. Anand was critic of the platform, saying that ION was trying to make something out of a netbook that netbooks were simply not aimed at and he was probably right.
I'm worried a bit that the article has been removed and not updated because of pressure.
Please do include a regular HDD for comparison. A French site did that recently, and the HDD turned out actually faster AND more energy efficient.
My understanding at the moment is that SSDs are kinda competitive performance and power-wise if price is not an issue, and that long-term reliability is a big question mark.
I actually fail to see any situation where paying up for an SSD makes sense, except when you have already bought everything else, or if you want bragging rights. Maybe as a dedicated OS/boot disk, but how much perf does that $80 actually buy me ? For my twice monthly reboot ?
The original article was extremely biased and flawed. It made Anand look like an idiot because he wasn't using hardware acceleration which is a must with the ION platform. It's like complaining that a graphics card doesn't work when in reality you forgot to turn the computer on.
Seriously, Anand should really stop with the HTPC reviews because he sadly has no fucking clue. If he doesn't know how to enable something as simple as hardware acceleration, he is not qualified to write this review. He needs to put his ego in check and get someone credible to do the review.
I read your original report before you pulled it. I thought it was very well done.
While I agree that you should have noted nVidia's exception to your findings, explaining that they (and you) would continue to explore the matter in an effort to determine why your experience was so different from their claims, I do NOT think you should have pulled the article. A manufacturer certainly deserves a chance to respond to a negative review. And, should the review process be found faulty, a clarification or retraction is certainly appropriate.
HOWEVER, I think your pulling the article is a cop-out and that your action reflects poorly on the journalistic integrity of your site. It calls into question the strength of your positive reviews.
You should check if it was enabled when playing videos.
I use media player classic homecinema edition in Windows XP with laptop + quadro 160. 1080p runs with very little cpu load.
If DXVA is not enabled, cpu load raises even to 100%
I read most of the article but not the comments, and it didn't occur to me that USB could be part of the problem. I left thinking "OK if I want 1080p playback, don't get a single core Atom." Perhaps there was enough information in the article to indicate otherwise, but I didn't read it closely enough or "read into it" to get a different conclusion. So I understand the article coming down for now. If a revised testing procedure comes around, I think the article will probably be revived with those updates, and with pointing out the inadequacies in the software and/or USB connection.
I managed to read the article before it was pulled. I personally support his position viz. using a CPU with little or no headroom even if it can perform the task at hand is a bad idea. But I did sense that Anand was heavily editorializing against using the Atom platform to do something it was not supposed to do. He should have measured his results twice, published them once and still come to the same conclusion.
I have similiar system, not ion but NVidia 9400 based and 2.5GHz dual core.
OS is linux and using VDPAU, cpu load is almost zero when playing any HD material. Even killa sampla plays fine.
When are AMD and Nvidia going to learn that they can't depend on the bozos at Cyberlink to write code that takes full advantage of their hardware for playback? Anyone who has built an HTPC knows how disappointing the support for hardware offload is in PowerDVD and how it varies from release to release.
Most of the time the CPU can pull the chestnuts out of the fire, but with ION it just plain doesn't work unless the GPU is doing all it can.
There is no reason to pull the article. If you later find there is more information to add then do just that, add on tot he article later. Right now your actions make it look like nvidia has influence on the objectivity of anandtech.
Actually, I expect that pulling the article has more to do with embarrassment on the part of AT than pressure from nVidia.
Having managed to read the article and comments before they were pulled, I can summarize it as "single core ION platform did not have enough horsepower to play retail (encrypted) Blu-ray movies off of a USB connected Blu-ray drive". Comments were that it's possible that the problem is the overhead of the USB that pushed the playback over the edge, rather than the decryption.
IMHO, the wording of the original article appeared to have a strong bias to find the ION platform lacking, and ignored the relative inefficiencies of USB drives. This would make it very embarrassing to AT if the ION actually proved capable. It's also likely that the article would have gained a life of it's own, and be used as evidence of an epic failure, even though the test was not valid to start with.
It actually had nothing to do with the overhead of USB. It boiled down to an PowerDVD audio decoding inefficiency, or at least that's what it seems like.
The platform isn't shipping yet so poor performance with an older version of PowerDVD doesn't really matter. Either way I'll have the system back in my hands soon and a complete article up asap.
Hopefully by then I'll be done with all of this SSD mess as well :)
"the wording of the original article appeared to have a strong bias to find the ION platform lacking, and ignored the relative inefficiencies of USB drives."
Not likely. The Ion will be launched and we will probably never hear about this review again. Shame on Anandtech for removing this article without SPECIFIC proof on why it was an epic fail at BD playback. I could handle that Anand received a bum sample to review, or if the software was flawed. Simply removing it reeks of "damage control" from Nvidia.
Either case (bum sample or software bug) do not merit pulling the article. Instead, a follow-up with results from the corrected platform would be in order.
Not likely. The Ion will be launched and we will probably never hear about this review again. Shame on Anandtech for removing this article without SPECIFIC
I won't publish NVIDIA's findings, only my own. The thinking is that there was an issue with the version of PowerDVD I was using which has since been corrected. I won't say for sure until I re-run the tests myself but I have reason to believe that NV is correct in this case. I simply didn't want the story to spread like wildfire if there was any chance that my findings were incorrect. I've always been in this for the truth, not the sensation :)
Thanks for your understanding and now, once again, it's back to SSDs :)
All that matters is that your results are consistent with the version of PowerDVD that you used (and documented). Do you pull video card reviews when a newer driver is released? No that would be stupid because it is understood that the results in the review are a reflection on the drivers used. Newer drivers could provide better performance. This is nothing new. Put the article back up.
Your findings were not "incorrect" if there was a flaw in PowerDVD. The findings simply are the results of the test setup.
The thing to do is to keep the article up, with a note about a possible bug with PowerDVD, et cetera. The whole "incorrect results" thing only is fair if your results do not match the data the test setup gave you.
It's hard to get around the fact that the Atom is a painfully slow chip.
Intel meanwhile has little incentive to improve it, already netbooks seem to be cannibalizing far more than intel intended, more or less to the detriment of everybody.
yay for cheap portables. booo for an architecture that resets the lowest common denominator to a chip that can barely run an 8 year old widows operating system and turns anything from flash, to hi def video (or just launching firefox) into a horrible slideshow.
See I don't get comments like this. It's beyond stupid. They don't need to scale up Atom because their higher end chips occupy the segment. Instead, Atom will go further down into SoCs so Intel can tap the big smartphone market.
Sure they can introduce a chip that costs $40 and performs like Nehalem, IF THEY ARE STUPID and want to bankrupt themselves in a month.
And it runs everything perfectly fine. Most people that have Netbooks apparently disagree with you.
Anand, you should have left the article online. Even if nvidia come up with different results, we'd rather believe your testing than theirs. I won't believe them until you retest and confirm whatever they claim.
I notice that there is very little discussion of LIFETIME of these devices. This has the appearance of an unpleasant truth that no one wants to get into. Sort of like the fact that the new low energy "long-lifetime" compact flourescent bulbs actually burn out very quickly in normal use, where they're switched on and off.
And I recently saw an OCZ post in their forum on the care and feeding of SSDs. It turns out these things are really touchy, with all kinds of arcane issues you never think of with HDDs.
So, while I too would love to see all those moving parts replaced with solid state, I would be very, very careful about getting in now. It may be years before you can buy a robust SSD that's price-competitive with HDD and faster in all regards.
quote: And I recently saw an OCZ post in their forum on the care and feeding of SSDs. It turns out these things are really touchy, with all kinds of arcane issues you never think of with HDDs.
Care to link, or are you content to just spread FUD?
It's not FUD just because you're too lazy to find it yourself. The post was correct, some OCZ SSD with JMicron controllers need a few tweaks to get rid of long lags or pauses in use.
I notice that there is very little discussion of LIFETIME of these devices. This has the appearance of an unpleasant truth that no one wants to get into. Sort of like the fact that the new low energy "long-lifetime" compact flourescent bulbs actually burn out very quickly in normal use, where they're switched on and off.
And I recently saw an OCZ post in their forum on the care and feeding of SSDs. It turns out these things are really touchy, with all kinds of arcane issues you never think of with HDDs.
So, while I too would love to see all those moving parts replaced with solid state, I would be very, very careful about getting in now. It may be years before you can buy a robust SSD that's price-competitive with HDD and faster in all regards.
I have to disagree on this one. While there is a lot of variability in SSD performance, I want one now. I'm not going to replace my 1TB RAID5 array with SSDs anytime soon, but I can see them as very useful for containing the system files that get read a lot more than they are written.
On Linux or other Unix-type OSs, I'd put everything except /home, /tmp and /var on a relatively small SSD. Because I'm mostly concerned with read performance and power usage, I have a lot of choice.
So why haven't I done this yet? There are a few reasons.
1) SSDs are advancing rapidly in performance while prices are dropping rapidly. I want, but don't need, the performance increase I can get from the SSD so I'm willing to wait.
2) In my current systems, I've used up all the onboard SATA connectors for the RAID drives. Adding in a SATA card would increase the cost and power usage.
3) The amount of disk space it actually takes to hold the OS and all the program files is minor compared to the total disk space available on the RAID arrays, so space on the RAID array is essentially free. The space needed for OS and program files isn't a consideration when sizing the RAID arrays.
4) My notebook computer also could really benefit from a good SSD with reasonable write performance. However, it only has a PATA HD interface, so I'm out of luck there.
In short, my reasons for not currently using an SSD have nothing to do with any supposed problems with the devices. If I was getting a new workstation or notebook, I'd look very seriously at SSDs.
That depends, those CFLs. I have the original ones that came out, ones from Phillips that are the straight kind and the large spiral or helix ones from Lights of America. They last for 7 years plus, and I still have a few going now. They costed $12-17 each when they came out. You can still find on the internet those Phillips bulbs, and they still command those high prices.
Nowadays, they are all made in China and last on average 2-3 years, if that, brands like Feit, GE, Home Depot Brand, and others. All they are interested in is bulk and cheapness, not quality. It give's CFLs a bad reputation.
Good LED bulbs are $50. And I'm sure once they become popular, they also will go down in quality once the Chinese start making them.
Don't get me wrong, they can make good quality stuff if you want them to, but most of the time they are used for cheapness, and the companies employing them will try to extract every cent out of them.
First, how much discussion of lifetime is there with mechanical hard drives? To focus on this now, when an SSD is expected to last longer than a mechanical HDD, wouldn't make much sense.
The OCZ drives have quirks because of the poor controller they use. Benchmarks will help us determine which makes and models of drive do have these issues and which do not, though keeping a small database of the controllers used could be a good predictor in the future.
SSD are already more robust, price is the only thing left as once the flash chip prices are low enough and density high enough, you'll also see rising capacity.
I've had CFL lights in a bedroom last years of daily use. And the OCZ guidelines are ways to get around the craptastic JMicron controller, I'm doubting users with Intel SSDs have to bother aligning boundaries and disabling cache writes. The rated lifetime is very long for the SSDs, but obviously few have actually been around all that long in consumer hands.
I have had at least nine CFLs die within one or two weeks of use (most of them Wal-Mart brand). Some of the bulbs from the same box work and others died quickly.
Still, unless the article itself is really really bad it should have remain active until proven otherwise. Pulling because someone or a company thinks it's inaccurate is not the right decision. Heck, I don't even erase what I write but instead place a strikethrough mark over it.
Agreed, it could've been edited to clarify that these results are only preliminary indicators of the performance using a USB2 connected drive (which is also useful to know), that addt'l testing will be needed to determine if Atom can handle the load with drives using other busses.
Definitely should not have been pulled just because Nvidia didn't like the results. Will be interesting to see what kind of spin they (Nvidia) try and put on it.
Anand's review utilized a USB BluRay drive (and possibly also a USB HDD, not sure). At least a few posters felt that the high CPU utilization associated with USB unfairly handicapped the Atom, which made the article's conclusion that Atom CPUs are inadequate for BluRay playback questionable.
If a netbook has all the same attributes of other netbooks but a 12" screen and enough room for an optical drive, is it still a netbook? It will be good to know if Atom can handle Blu-Ray, even if it seems unlikely that a system with a low-cost Atom would have a high-cost Blu-Ray drive.
Also remember, many might want to stream video instead of directly reading off a disc. I don't carry discs around when there's a lan or sufficient internal HDD storage for a rip, and more and more people are feeling the same way.
"BluRay on netbooks is already pointless, slow processor or not. 1080p video on a 7-10" low resolution screen? Why would you?"
So you can take it to a friends/family members house and show them how good their large 1080p screen can look with the right source material? Netbooks do have a video out feature...
Regardless of whether this is about netbooks or the ion, there is no built in drive. To use a Blue-ray drive with the Ion platform, you would have to use USB or an e-sata drive. Trying to find a pre-built Blue-ray drive with an e-sata interface is quite difficult at best. The test was done with currently available hardware and what at least 90% of the people using this device for Blue-ray playback would probably use to play their movies.
The only way pulling the article would be justified if Ion can't handle Blu-Ray via USB-2 is if all USB-2 Blu-Ray players were to ship to big stickers on the front that say "not for use with the Atom processor", and even then it would be worthwhile to put up an article showing why those stickers exist.
SSD are the way of the future but give me a 500GB SSD thats only at around a $50 premium to an equal size HD, than I'll buy one and herald the age of SSD, until then..., an interesting expensive toy.
Yes! SSD's are much more exciting! HDD's are slowly going the way of AGP. The only thing HDD's have going for them is that they are cheaper per Gigabyte. SSD's already destroy HDD's in speed, now I'm waiting for SSD's to go down in price and increased capacity.
They have been saying that for at least 15 years, and probably longer than that. It only now looks like it may actually happen. Even so, rotating media could still come up with a few tricks up its sleeve, just like it has done for years now. Either way, I am happy that the biggest bottleneck in the system is really getting much better.
Ever seen a storage-cell data-retention-time vs number of write-cycles chart for any SSD? If you have, please post the URL. And have you ever seen a SSD warranty for 5 years?
For a high-tech website, I am highly disappointed in the "follow the crowd" drooling by Anandtech over SSDs. Time for Anand to dig deep into the storage technology of high-density SSD flash-memory with a thorough TECHNICAL analysis of where SSDs can safely be used LONG-TERM and where they should be avoided and hard-disks given preference.
Two essential key components of this analysis will be:-
(a) the extraction of the CELL data-retention-time vs number-of-write-cycles profile from the manufacturers of the flash-storage components in any SSD. Best of luck !!!
(b) the attributes of the wear-leveling algorithms used and how they
match the intended applications and prior storage profile of the SSD. Plus their impact on access times. (For example, imagine a SSD >85% full of 'static data', the remaining <15% handling rapidly changing data (c.f: Windows virtual memory) and where the "static data" still has to be shuffled to even out the "wear". Moving around that static data every time the dynamic data changes accelerates the overall wear-out... ).
Failing the acquisition of such data, I suggest to Anand the following crude test:- Take a SSD and fill it, say, to 95% with static data. Bang on the remaining 5% with AT LEAST 10 million write-cycles of changing data. That should give the wear leveling algorithms a good workout. At the end of the test, image all the data and store elsewhere. Now leave the SSD statically-powered and check the data-integrity against the stored record every day for at least 3 months. Do not write to the SSD at all at any time during this integrity test. Im sure that the Anandtech crew can come up with a far more vicious test than I. At least, maybe I have prodded the Anandtech elephant to sit up and take notice of the fact that there has not been any technically-critical analysis of data-retention capabilities of the storage elements of SSDs.
Remember, that a SSD with flaky storage due to a single cell with wear-related cell-leakage will have exactly the same symptoms in a PC as flaky memory. And unlike a hard-disk, there is no way to verify sector integrity by a read-write test. (When a hard-disk fails it is generally a one-way street, either a permament sector error or a spin-failure.) A write to the SSD will immediately hide a flaky cell in the wear-leveling process and the SSD will again look perfect, plus depending on the leakage it may take anything between a few days and few weeks for the cell to fail again.... if that cell is not written again in the meantime. Of course, the more times a cell is written, the worse its read-integrity becomes....
[quote]Ever seen a storage-cell data-retention-time vs number of write-cycles chart for any SSD? If you have, please post the URL. And have you ever seen a SSD warranty for 5 years? [/quote]
You have a reasonably good point. Most SSD's do have a nasty write tolerance issue. Of course, most flash has a nasty write tolerance issue, which is where wear-leveling comes from.
[quote]Remember, that a SSD with flaky storage due to a single cell with wear-related cell-leakage will have exactly the same symptoms in a PC as flaky memory. And unlike a hard-disk, there is no way to verify sector integrity by a read-write test. (When a hard-disk fails it is generally a one-way street, either a permament sector error or a spin-failure.) A write to the SSD will immediately hide a flaky cell in the wear-leveling process and the SSD will again look perfect, plus depending on the leakage it may take anything between a few days and few weeks for the cell to fail again.... if that cell is not written again in the meantime. Of course, the more times a cell is written, the worse its read-integrity becomes.... [/quote]
You're assuming that the drive has no error checking built in. I don't think that's a good assumption. It's reasonably straightforward to embed CRC on a per-sector basis into a drive like this. That would immediately show up if there were a failure.
The Anand article in your reference just swallows Intel's data and extrapolates from that. I expect far more from Anandtech !! When Anandtech takes a SERIOUS look at SSDs and comes up with a suite of INDEPENDENT black-box tests that truly stress the devices in the worst possible way, with the same test patterns being submitted to a reference set of hard-disks, then I might become a believer. The tests would obviously require inclusion of data-latency evaluation under worst-case conditions - for SSDs this would require being at the maximum spec temperature and with power applied, but zero write-data activity --- so the full battery of tests might only be completed after 2-3 months.
What would be the point of all that? It's already established that SSD are less failure prone than HDD. It would make more sense to exhaustively test HDD today. If data loss is such a concern, as always a redundant backup is prudent no matter what medium you're storing the primary copy on.
If you're looking for a real technical article, 99% of the tech websites can't give it to you. I don't think many of them are trained or experienced enough to write a technical document properly. Therefore, you can either live with what they are providing in their service or go somewhere else...that 1% in nowhere land.
Seriously, as an engineer, if I wanted tech specs I go get the datasheet and specification documents. If I don't trust what I'm reading I'll review articles on websites such as these or do the tests myself if I have the tools available.
"Do it yourself" is a lame response to someone. If you think more technical specificity is unnecessary, make that case. But, telling someone to become their own review site is rather silly.
Not so lame, you can't cater anything to everyone, if someone insists they alone need to know something, then they should do the work. If they don't care enough to do it themselves it wasn't really very important was it?
There's a difference between extremes "catering to everyone" and having superficial benchmarks that drive people to erroneously buy SSDs when they shouldn't. Simply putting out exciting benchmarks on R/Ws to empty SSDs is the blind leading the blind.
"If they don't care enough to do it themselves it wasn't really very important was it? "
Or, they don't have the budget, network, and technical access to vendors do properly bench and report on multiple SSDs?
The OP had a very valid point. The bashing just seems like website fanboyism. Some people can't even take constructive criticism...
HDDs have a lot of advantages, some of them in speed. They did an article on another website involving short-stroking hard disks, and the speed improvement was dramatic, and in many benchmarks left the SSDs in the dust. Yes, even in speed. A lot depends on the application, and what speed you're talking about. Access times will always favor the SSDs, or should, but that's only part of the equation.
HDD are Sooooo yesterday, but SSDs are, like, Soooo fashion victim.
For 80 euros, I can either get a 1 To HDD or a 30 Go SSD. Not much to hesitate about for me.
Both have advantages and drawbacks. I for one don't care about speed or power requirements (and on both counts, it seems there is no clear answer on which is better, HDDs are "good enough" for me, and any difference is minimal anyway), but care a lot about price, capacity, and reliability.
[Quote]\They did an article on another website involving short-stroking hard disks, and the speed improvement was dramatic, and in many benchmarks left the SSDs in the dust.[/quote]
If I remember correctly, Anand did a similar article to investigate the pauses that sometimes occur with SSD's. All the SSD's were slower than traditional HDD's in that particular case, except for Intel's, which didn't seem to be affected at all.
Is this "other website" Tom's Hardware, by any chance?
In that case, that was a comparison using a RAID array of FOUR hard drives, with a whopping total capacity of 20-40GB, compared to only two outdated 64GB SLC drives.
Just typical TH sensationalist BS, and not even remotely conclusive. All it really said was that, in certain instances, a setup like that might be more cost effective for IT use than an unrealistically expensive SLC drive. NOTHING else can be concluded from their "tests."
In all fairness he did say "slowly" which I agree. In, hopefuly, a few more years memory would be quicker and the capacity larger so the decision between storage would be easier to make. There's already announcements for terabyte flash cards (SD, Compact, Memorystick, etc.)
Looking at the trend however, this will take a few more years to catch up on price/performance/capacity...that is unless someone really wants to be #1 and push/release ahead :)
Well, this picked my interest and it wasn't hard to find "deleted" article using google and I gotta say the test has been somewhat short and not through, so sounds like reviewer didn't setup something correctly.
Only problem being that MicroSD cards are going to be, for the most part, slower than SD variants, especially when you're dealing with more larger capacity pieces. The extra slots would be nice for giving you more space, yeah, but the speed would be no better than a WD Black drive, though it would come in at several times the cost and still hold less data.
I'd like to see how that adapter would perform with SanDisk Extreme III cards in it. Fairly expensive, yeah, but interesting to see the results, what with the RAID action it's got going on...
You think your 1.8" drive is slow?
Try a 5.25" like in my Commodore 64 Plus4... it boots an order of magnitude faster than it can... um, do pretty much anything. It sounds pretty sweet, though.
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105 Comments
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requiemDMB - Thursday, April 30, 2009 - link
So it's been 50 days since this article was originally posted/pulled... any chance it's really going to be revisited before the platform dies?Ralos - Friday, March 27, 2009 - link
So... what is happening?I was under the impression that the tests would be redone using a different version of PowerDVD or something and that we would have the updated results and opinion soon after.
I got to read the original review. Anand was critic of the platform, saying that ION was trying to make something out of a netbook that netbooks were simply not aimed at and he was probably right.
I'm worried a bit that the article has been removed and not updated because of pressure.
Is there supposed to have an update?
deeznuts - Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - link
are we still getting this or did nvidia put the clamps on it? not much longer it'll be off the front page :Djackrabbix - Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - link
I'm also interested if we're going to get a follow-up to this...(Funny how an NV article ended up turning into a discussion about tech longevity hehe)
yacoub - Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - link
It's been seven months since the last one and much has changed - new products, new tech, etc. Looking forward to the new roundup and recommendations!StormyParis - Sunday, March 15, 2009 - link
Please do include a regular HDD for comparison. A French site did that recently, and the HDD turned out actually faster AND more energy efficient.My understanding at the moment is that SSDs are kinda competitive performance and power-wise if price is not an issue, and that long-term reliability is a big question mark.
I actually fail to see any situation where paying up for an SSD makes sense, except when you have already bought everything else, or if you want bragging rights. Maybe as a dedicated OS/boot disk, but how much perf does that $80 actually buy me ? For my twice monthly reboot ?
slickwhick - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
The original article was extremely biased and flawed. It made Anand look like an idiot because he wasn't using hardware acceleration which is a must with the ION platform. It's like complaining that a graphics card doesn't work when in reality you forgot to turn the computer on.Seriously, Anand should really stop with the HTPC reviews because he sadly has no fucking clue. If he doesn't know how to enable something as simple as hardware acceleration, he is not qualified to write this review. He needs to put his ego in check and get someone credible to do the review.
ssj4Gogeta - Sunday, March 15, 2009 - link
@slickwhick: LOL at you, just like everybody else is.DigitalFreak - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
Where did it say he wasn't using HA?You're doing a much better job of making yourself look like an idiot than Anand ever has.
sprockkets - Thursday, March 12, 2009 - link
Some people can't help but be absolute cynics.Of course, I've been reading Anand's stuff since the Geocities' days. While he doesn't do all the work here anymore, it still is a nice site.
weh - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
I read your original report before you pulled it. I thought it was very well done.While I agree that you should have noted nVidia's exception to your findings, explaining that they (and you) would continue to explore the matter in an effort to determine why your experience was so different from their claims, I do NOT think you should have pulled the article. A manufacturer certainly deserves a chance to respond to a negative review. And, should the review process be found faulty, a clarification or retraction is certainly appropriate.
HOWEVER, I think your pulling the article is a cop-out and that your action reflects poorly on the journalistic integrity of your site. It calls into question the strength of your positive reviews.
sprockkets - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
I'd rather you check to see if this works. Screw Blu-Ray playback; I want 1080p file playback instead.http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/news.html">http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/news.html
bogey - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
Or in Windows you need DXVA for offloading the decoding to GPU.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectX_Video_Acceler...">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectX_Video_Acceler...
You should check if it was enabled when playing videos.
I use media player classic homecinema edition in Windows XP with laptop + quadro 160. 1080p runs with very little cpu load.
If DXVA is not enabled, cpu load raises even to 100%
neogodless - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
I read most of the article but not the comments, and it didn't occur to me that USB could be part of the problem. I left thinking "OK if I want 1080p playback, don't get a single core Atom." Perhaps there was enough information in the article to indicate otherwise, but I didn't read it closely enough or "read into it" to get a different conclusion. So I understand the article coming down for now. If a revised testing procedure comes around, I think the article will probably be revived with those updates, and with pointing out the inadequacies in the software and/or USB connection.grebe925 - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
I managed to read the article before it was pulled. I personally support his position viz. using a CPU with little or no headroom even if it can perform the task at hand is a bad idea. But I did sense that Anand was heavily editorializing against using the Atom platform to do something it was not supposed to do. He should have measured his results twice, published them once and still come to the same conclusion.bogey - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
I wonder if DXVA was enabled when you played the movies.Could you try with mplayer classic homecinema edition?
bogey - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
I have similiar system, not ion but NVidia 9400 based and 2.5GHz dual core.OS is linux and using VDPAU, cpu load is almost zero when playing any HD material. Even killa sampla plays fine.
someonesomewhere - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
A 2.5 Atom dual core? Because, if you're talking about a big hot desktop CPU, that's not a similar system.bogey - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
btw, cores are running at 1200MHz, even during 1080p.mikesm - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
When are AMD and Nvidia going to learn that they can't depend on the bozos at Cyberlink to write code that takes full advantage of their hardware for playback? Anyone who has built an HTPC knows how disappointing the support for hardware offload is in PowerDVD and how it varies from release to release.Most of the time the CPU can pull the chestnuts out of the fire, but with ION it just plain doesn't work unless the GPU is doing all it can.
the goat - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
There is no reason to pull the article. If you later find there is more information to add then do just that, add on tot he article later. Right now your actions make it look like nvidia has influence on the objectivity of anandtech.exterminal - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Actually, I expect that pulling the article has more to do with embarrassment on the part of AT than pressure from nVidia.Having managed to read the article and comments before they were pulled, I can summarize it as "single core ION platform did not have enough horsepower to play retail (encrypted) Blu-ray movies off of a USB connected Blu-ray drive". Comments were that it's possible that the problem is the overhead of the USB that pushed the playback over the edge, rather than the decryption.
IMHO, the wording of the original article appeared to have a strong bias to find the ION platform lacking, and ignored the relative inefficiencies of USB drives. This would make it very embarrassing to AT if the ION actually proved capable. It's also likely that the article would have gained a life of it's own, and be used as evidence of an epic failure, even though the test was not valid to start with.
the goat - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Sounds like a valid test to me. The USB bus is a part of the system. So clearly it will affect the system performance.There is no reason why the article could not be expanded to also include results of the same setup but with an SATA blu-ray drive.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
It actually had nothing to do with the overhead of USB. It boiled down to an PowerDVD audio decoding inefficiency, or at least that's what it seems like.The platform isn't shipping yet so poor performance with an older version of PowerDVD doesn't really matter. Either way I'll have the system back in my hands soon and a complete article up asap.
Hopefully by then I'll be done with all of this SSD mess as well :)
-A
someonesomewhere - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
"the wording of the original article appeared to have a strong bias to find the ION platform lacking, and ignored the relative inefficiencies of USB drives."Wrong. Read the sentence again.
"off a USB connected Blu-ray drive."
Exar3342 - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Not likely. The Ion will be launched and we will probably never hear about this review again. Shame on Anandtech for removing this article without SPECIFIC proof on why it was an epic fail at BD playback. I could handle that Anand received a bum sample to review, or if the software was flawed. Simply removing it reeks of "damage control" from Nvidia.someonesomewhere - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Either case (bum sample or software bug) do not merit pulling the article. Instead, a follow-up with results from the corrected platform would be in order.Exar3342 - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Not likely. The Ion will be launched and we will probably never hear about this review again. Shame on Anandtech for removing this article without SPECIFICAnand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
I won't publish NVIDIA's findings, only my own. The thinking is that there was an issue with the version of PowerDVD I was using which has since been corrected. I won't say for sure until I re-run the tests myself but I have reason to believe that NV is correct in this case. I simply didn't want the story to spread like wildfire if there was any chance that my findings were incorrect. I've always been in this for the truth, not the sensation :)Thanks for your understanding and now, once again, it's back to SSDs :)
Take care,
Anand
pmonti80 - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
You should have said that from the start, so as to avoid suspicion against you and suspicion against Nvidia.the goat - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
All that matters is that your results are consistent with the version of PowerDVD that you used (and documented). Do you pull video card reviews when a newer driver is released? No that would be stupid because it is understood that the results in the review are a reflection on the drivers used. Newer drivers could provide better performance. This is nothing new. Put the article back up.someonesomewhere - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Your findings were not "incorrect" if there was a flaw in PowerDVD. The findings simply are the results of the test setup.The thing to do is to keep the article up, with a note about a possible bug with PowerDVD, et cetera. The whole "incorrect results" thing only is fair if your results do not match the data the test setup gave you.
Nacho - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
The problem with that is that the article is about nvidia's ion platform, not about powerdvd's efficiency (sp?)tpurves - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
It's hard to get around the fact that the Atom is a painfully slow chip.Intel meanwhile has little incentive to improve it, already netbooks seem to be cannibalizing far more than intel intended, more or less to the detriment of everybody.
yay for cheap portables. booo for an architecture that resets the lowest common denominator to a chip that can barely run an 8 year old widows operating system and turns anything from flash, to hi def video (or just launching firefox) into a horrible slideshow.
IntelUser2000 - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
See I don't get comments like this. It's beyond stupid. They don't need to scale up Atom because their higher end chips occupy the segment. Instead, Atom will go further down into SoCs so Intel can tap the big smartphone market.Sure they can introduce a chip that costs $40 and performs like Nehalem, IF THEY ARE STUPID and want to bankrupt themselves in a month.
And it runs everything perfectly fine. Most people that have Netbooks apparently disagree with you.
ssj4Gogeta - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Anand, you should have left the article online. Even if nvidia come up with different results, we'd rather believe your testing than theirs. I won't believe them until you retest and confirm whatever they claim.XiZeL - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
nVidia Fail!!!cosmotic - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
Internet meme fail!Arbie - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
I was confused by the fact that there is no feedback after you click on "Post Comment" - you just get routed to a search page.I also realize that I was following a discussion that had gone way off-topic into SSDs.
Arbie - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
I notice that there is very little discussion of LIFETIME of these devices. This has the appearance of an unpleasant truth that no one wants to get into. Sort of like the fact that the new low energy "long-lifetime" compact flourescent bulbs actually burn out very quickly in normal use, where they're switched on and off.And I recently saw an OCZ post in their forum on the care and feeding of SSDs. It turns out these things are really touchy, with all kinds of arcane issues you never think of with HDDs.
So, while I too would love to see all those moving parts replaced with solid state, I would be very, very careful about getting in now. It may be years before you can buy a robust SSD that's price-competitive with HDD and faster in all regards.
crimson117 - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Care to link, or are you content to just spread FUD?
mindless1 - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
It's not FUD just because you're too lazy to find it yourself. The post was correct, some OCZ SSD with JMicron controllers need a few tweaks to get rid of long lags or pauses in use.Here's their forum if you were having trouble finding it, there are multiple threads on this topic.
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/forumdispl...">http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/forumdispl...
crimson117 - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
I took issue with the blanket statement "It turns out these things are really touchy, with all kinds of arcane issues you never think of with HDDs."But taken in context with the rest of the post, I agree it's not so much FUD as just lacking in detail.
Arbie - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
I notice that there is very little discussion of LIFETIME of these devices. This has the appearance of an unpleasant truth that no one wants to get into. Sort of like the fact that the new low energy "long-lifetime" compact flourescent bulbs actually burn out very quickly in normal use, where they're switched on and off.And I recently saw an OCZ post in their forum on the care and feeding of SSDs. It turns out these things are really touchy, with all kinds of arcane issues you never think of with HDDs.
So, while I too would love to see all those moving parts replaced with solid state, I would be very, very careful about getting in now. It may be years before you can buy a robust SSD that's price-competitive with HDD and faster in all regards.
garydale - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
I have to disagree on this one. While there is a lot of variability in SSD performance, I want one now. I'm not going to replace my 1TB RAID5 array with SSDs anytime soon, but I can see them as very useful for containing the system files that get read a lot more than they are written.On Linux or other Unix-type OSs, I'd put everything except /home, /tmp and /var on a relatively small SSD. Because I'm mostly concerned with read performance and power usage, I have a lot of choice.
So why haven't I done this yet? There are a few reasons.
1) SSDs are advancing rapidly in performance while prices are dropping rapidly. I want, but don't need, the performance increase I can get from the SSD so I'm willing to wait.
2) In my current systems, I've used up all the onboard SATA connectors for the RAID drives. Adding in a SATA card would increase the cost and power usage.
3) The amount of disk space it actually takes to hold the OS and all the program files is minor compared to the total disk space available on the RAID arrays, so space on the RAID array is essentially free. The space needed for OS and program files isn't a consideration when sizing the RAID arrays.
4) My notebook computer also could really benefit from a good SSD with reasonable write performance. However, it only has a PATA HD interface, so I'm out of luck there.
In short, my reasons for not currently using an SSD have nothing to do with any supposed problems with the devices. If I was getting a new workstation or notebook, I'd look very seriously at SSDs.
sprockkets - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
That depends, those CFLs. I have the original ones that came out, ones from Phillips that are the straight kind and the large spiral or helix ones from Lights of America. They last for 7 years plus, and I still have a few going now. They costed $12-17 each when they came out. You can still find on the internet those Phillips bulbs, and they still command those high prices.Nowadays, they are all made in China and last on average 2-3 years, if that, brands like Feit, GE, Home Depot Brand, and others. All they are interested in is bulk and cheapness, not quality. It give's CFLs a bad reputation.
Good LED bulbs are $50. And I'm sure once they become popular, they also will go down in quality once the Chinese start making them.
Don't get me wrong, they can make good quality stuff if you want them to, but most of the time they are used for cheapness, and the companies employing them will try to extract every cent out of them.
mindless1 - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
First, how much discussion of lifetime is there with mechanical hard drives? To focus on this now, when an SSD is expected to last longer than a mechanical HDD, wouldn't make much sense.The OCZ drives have quirks because of the poor controller they use. Benchmarks will help us determine which makes and models of drive do have these issues and which do not, though keeping a small database of the controllers used could be a good predictor in the future.
SSD are already more robust, price is the only thing left as once the flash chip prices are low enough and density high enough, you'll also see rising capacity.
strikeback03 - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
I've had CFL lights in a bedroom last years of daily use. And the OCZ guidelines are ways to get around the craptastic JMicron controller, I'm doubting users with Intel SSDs have to bother aligning boundaries and disabling cache writes. The rated lifetime is very long for the SSDs, but obviously few have actually been around all that long in consumer hands.someonesomewhere - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
I have had at least nine CFLs die within one or two weeks of use (most of them Wal-Mart brand). Some of the bulbs from the same box work and others died quickly.FITCamaro - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Yeah that's why I'm not willing to jump on the SSD band wagon yet. Not to mention the fact that I get way less space for the same or more money.Personally I'd be interested in the Ion platform as a carputer.
iwod - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
I think it is probably due to USB taking too much CPU resources.someonesomewhere - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
...which is something that deserves to be known about.If the Ion platform can't handle Blu-Ray via a USB-2 drive, that's news-worthy.
pmonti80 - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Anand should have left the article online with an update indicating that Nvidia is studying the issue. Enough of always being so nice to the big four.Natfly - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Yeah, that would have been nice.VaultDweller - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
The original article also had some criticism in the comments from AT users regarding the test setup, so I think it's understandable.The0ne - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Still, unless the article itself is really really bad it should have remain active until proven otherwise. Pulling because someone or a company thinks it's inaccurate is not the right decision. Heck, I don't even erase what I write but instead place a strikethrough mark over it.mindless1 - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Agreed, it could've been edited to clarify that these results are only preliminary indicators of the performance using a USB2 connected drive (which is also useful to know), that addt'l testing will be needed to determine if Atom can handle the load with drives using other busses.DigitalFreak - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Definitely should not have been pulled just because Nvidia didn't like the results. Will be interesting to see what kind of spin they (Nvidia) try and put on it.pmonti80 - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Just to know, What was the criticism?VaultDweller - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Anand's review utilized a USB BluRay drive (and possibly also a USB HDD, not sure). At least a few posters felt that the high CPU utilization associated with USB unfairly handicapped the Atom, which made the article's conclusion that Atom CPUs are inadequate for BluRay playback questionable.crimson117 - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
In a realistic usage scenario, atom PC's are in netbooks, and they never have internal optical drives.So testing blu-ray on a netbook requires the use of an external optical drive. Unless a netbook comes with an eSATA port, you're stuck with USB 2.0.
mindless1 - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
If a netbook has all the same attributes of other netbooks but a 12" screen and enough room for an optical drive, is it still a netbook? It will be good to know if Atom can handle Blu-Ray, even if it seems unlikely that a system with a low-cost Atom would have a high-cost Blu-Ray drive.Also remember, many might want to stream video instead of directly reading off a disc. I don't carry discs around when there's a lan or sufficient internal HDD storage for a rip, and more and more people are feeling the same way.
overzealot - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Network activity also has a CPU overhead, it would be a neat addition to the article to test that.VaultDweller - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
The article wasn't about netbooks, though, it was about possible HTPC applications for the Ion platform, which is what NVIDIA has been hyping.BluRay on netbooks is already pointless, slow processor or not. 1080p video on a 7-10" low resolution screen? Why would you?
RubberJohnny - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
"BluRay on netbooks is already pointless, slow processor or not. 1080p video on a 7-10" low resolution screen? Why would you?"So you can take it to a friends/family members house and show them how good their large 1080p screen can look with the right source material? Netbooks do have a video out feature...
nycromes - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Please see the pictures here http://www.anandtech.com/GalleryImage.aspx?id=4813">http://www.anandtech.com/GalleryImage.aspx?id=4813Regardless of whether this is about netbooks or the ion, there is no built in drive. To use a Blue-ray drive with the Ion platform, you would have to use USB or an e-sata drive. Trying to find a pre-built Blue-ray drive with an e-sata interface is quite difficult at best. The test was done with currently available hardware and what at least 90% of the people using this device for Blue-ray playback would probably use to play their movies.
someonesomewhere - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
The only way pulling the article would be justified if Ion can't handle Blu-Ray via USB-2 is if all USB-2 Blu-Ray players were to ship to big stickers on the front that say "not for use with the Atom processor", and even then it would be worthwhile to put up an article showing why those stickers exist.aguilpa1 - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
SSD are the way of the future but give me a 500GB SSD thats only at around a $50 premium to an equal size HD, than I'll buy one and herald the age of SSD, until then..., an interesting expensive toy.Rob94hawk - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Yes! SSD's are much more exciting! HDD's are slowly going the way of AGP. The only thing HDD's have going for them is that they are cheaper per Gigabyte. SSD's already destroy HDD's in speed, now I'm waiting for SSD's to go down in price and increased capacity.Martimus - Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - link
They have been saying that for at least 15 years, and probably longer than that. It only now looks like it may actually happen. Even so, rotating media could still come up with a few tricks up its sleeve, just like it has done for years now. Either way, I am happy that the biggest bottleneck in the system is really getting much better.saiga6360 - Monday, March 16, 2009 - link
My porn collection says no.kilkennycat - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Ever seen a storage-cell data-retention-time vs number of write-cycles chart for any SSD? If you have, please post the URL. And have you ever seen a SSD warranty for 5 years?For a high-tech website, I am highly disappointed in the "follow the crowd" drooling by Anandtech over SSDs. Time for Anand to dig deep into the storage technology of high-density SSD flash-memory with a thorough TECHNICAL analysis of where SSDs can safely be used LONG-TERM and where they should be avoided and hard-disks given preference.
Two essential key components of this analysis will be:-
(a) the extraction of the CELL data-retention-time vs number-of-write-cycles profile from the manufacturers of the flash-storage components in any SSD. Best of luck !!!
(b) the attributes of the wear-leveling algorithms used and how they
match the intended applications and prior storage profile of the SSD. Plus their impact on access times. (For example, imagine a SSD >85% full of 'static data', the remaining <15% handling rapidly changing data (c.f: Windows virtual memory) and where the "static data" still has to be shuffled to even out the "wear". Moving around that static data every time the dynamic data changes accelerates the overall wear-out... ).
Failing the acquisition of such data, I suggest to Anand the following crude test:- Take a SSD and fill it, say, to 95% with static data. Bang on the remaining 5% with AT LEAST 10 million write-cycles of changing data. That should give the wear leveling algorithms a good workout. At the end of the test, image all the data and store elsewhere. Now leave the SSD statically-powered and check the data-integrity against the stored record every day for at least 3 months. Do not write to the SSD at all at any time during this integrity test. Im sure that the Anandtech crew can come up with a far more vicious test than I. At least, maybe I have prodded the Anandtech elephant to sit up and take notice of the fact that there has not been any technically-critical analysis of data-retention capabilities of the storage elements of SSDs.
Remember, that a SSD with flaky storage due to a single cell with wear-related cell-leakage will have exactly the same symptoms in a PC as flaky memory. And unlike a hard-disk, there is no way to verify sector integrity by a read-write test. (When a hard-disk fails it is generally a one-way street, either a permament sector error or a spin-failure.) A write to the SSD will immediately hide a flaky cell in the wear-leveling process and the SSD will again look perfect, plus depending on the leakage it may take anything between a few days and few weeks for the cell to fail again.... if that cell is not written again in the meantime. Of course, the more times a cell is written, the worse its read-integrity becomes....
Annirak - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
[quote]Ever seen a storage-cell data-retention-time vs number of write-cycles chart for any SSD? If you have, please post the URL. And have you ever seen a SSD warranty for 5 years? [/quote]You have a reasonably good point. Most SSD's do have a nasty write tolerance issue. Of course, most flash has a nasty write tolerance issue, which is where wear-leveling comes from.
[quote]Remember, that a SSD with flaky storage due to a single cell with wear-related cell-leakage will have exactly the same symptoms in a PC as flaky memory. And unlike a hard-disk, there is no way to verify sector integrity by a read-write test. (When a hard-disk fails it is generally a one-way street, either a permament sector error or a spin-failure.) A write to the SSD will immediately hide a flaky cell in the wear-leveling process and the SSD will again look perfect, plus depending on the leakage it may take anything between a few days and few weeks for the cell to fail again.... if that cell is not written again in the meantime. Of course, the more times a cell is written, the worse its read-integrity becomes.... [/quote]
You're assuming that the drive has no error checking built in. I don't think that's a good assumption. It's reasonably straightforward to embed CRC on a per-sector basis into a drive like this. That would immediately show up if there were a failure.
While I admit that a lot of the SSD's out there aren't as great as people think, there is one line that appears to be worthwhile. Which is why they cost so much. Anand recognizes the issues with SSDs. Have a look through this page:
[url=http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc...">http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc...]Intel X25-M Review[/url]
kilkennycat - Monday, March 16, 2009 - link
The Anand article in your reference just swallows Intel's data and extrapolates from that. I expect far more from Anandtech !! When Anandtech takes a SERIOUS look at SSDs and comes up with a suite of INDEPENDENT black-box tests that truly stress the devices in the worst possible way, with the same test patterns being submitted to a reference set of hard-disks, then I might become a believer. The tests would obviously require inclusion of data-latency evaluation under worst-case conditions - for SSDs this would require being at the maximum spec temperature and with power applied, but zero write-data activity --- so the full battery of tests might only be completed after 2-3 months.Nacho - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
What is the point of such a test? You are asking for a test that no normal system will ever reproduce.All systems write constantly. Even when you are reading a file the system updates the "last access" date, writing the disk.
I don't care if a cell loses it's data in 2 weeks, as long as the wear level algorithm knows this and rewrites the data before that time.
mindless1 - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
What would be the point of all that? It's already established that SSD are less failure prone than HDD. It would make more sense to exhaustively test HDD today. If data loss is such a concern, as always a redundant backup is prudent no matter what medium you're storing the primary copy on.The0ne - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
If you're looking for a real technical article, 99% of the tech websites can't give it to you. I don't think many of them are trained or experienced enough to write a technical document properly. Therefore, you can either live with what they are providing in their service or go somewhere else...that 1% in nowhere land.Seriously, as an engineer, if I wanted tech specs I go get the datasheet and specification documents. If I don't trust what I'm reading I'll review articles on websites such as these or do the tests myself if I have the tools available.
Just my 2cents.
someonesomewhere - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
"Do it yourself" is a lame response to someone. If you think more technical specificity is unnecessary, make that case. But, telling someone to become their own review site is rather silly.mindless1 - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Not so lame, you can't cater anything to everyone, if someone insists they alone need to know something, then they should do the work. If they don't care enough to do it themselves it wasn't really very important was it?alphadog - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
There's a difference between extremes "catering to everyone" and having superficial benchmarks that drive people to erroneously buy SSDs when they shouldn't. Simply putting out exciting benchmarks on R/Ws to empty SSDs is the blind leading the blind."If they don't care enough to do it themselves it wasn't really very important was it? "
Or, they don't have the budget, network, and technical access to vendors do properly bench and report on multiple SSDs?
The OP had a very valid point. The bashing just seems like website fanboyism. Some people can't even take constructive criticism...
TA152H - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
You're clueless, really.HDDs have a lot of advantages, some of them in speed. They did an article on another website involving short-stroking hard disks, and the speed improvement was dramatic, and in many benchmarks left the SSDs in the dust. Yes, even in speed. A lot depends on the application, and what speed you're talking about. Access times will always favor the SSDs, or should, but that's only part of the equation.
Rob94hawk - Thursday, March 12, 2009 - link
I'm clueless? Time to keep up with current events. HDD's are YESTERDAYS technology:http://i.gizmodo.com/5168424/fusion+io-iodrive-duo...">http://i.gizmodo.com/5168424/fusion+io-iodrive-duo...
StormyParis - Sunday, March 15, 2009 - link
HDD are Sooooo yesterday, but SSDs are, like, Soooo fashion victim.For 80 euros, I can either get a 1 To HDD or a 30 Go SSD. Not much to hesitate about for me.
Both have advantages and drawbacks. I for one don't care about speed or power requirements (and on both counts, it seems there is no clear answer on which is better, HDDs are "good enough" for me, and any difference is minimal anyway), but care a lot about price, capacity, and reliability.
ssj4Gogeta - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
[Quote]\They did an article on another website involving short-stroking hard disks, and the speed improvement was dramatic, and in many benchmarks left the SSDs in the dust.[/quote]If I remember correctly, Anand did a similar article to investigate the pauses that sometimes occur with SSD's. All the SSD's were slower than traditional HDD's in that particular case, except for Intel's, which didn't seem to be affected at all.
ssj4Gogeta - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
arghhhhhhhhhhhow do I use the quote tags?? the quote button and the other editing buttons don't work.
sprockkets - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
use [quote] then [/quote]see?
smn198 - Thursday, March 12, 2009 - link
[Quote] Use thenSee [/Quote]
Doesn't seem to be working!
sprockkets - Thursday, March 12, 2009 - link
Actually I tried it and I get the stupid WebMaster Error. If I don't put it in, it works.sprockkets - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Well, it should work that way...Never works right in FF in Linux it seems, at least here...
sprockkets - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
wait, use <> instead of []OneArmedScissorB - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Is this "other website" Tom's Hardware, by any chance?In that case, that was a comparison using a RAID array of FOUR hard drives, with a whopping total capacity of 20-40GB, compared to only two outdated 64GB SLC drives.
Just typical TH sensationalist BS, and not even remotely conclusive. All it really said was that, in certain instances, a setup like that might be more cost effective for IT use than an unrealistically expensive SLC drive. NOTHING else can be concluded from their "tests."
The0ne - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
In all fairness he did say "slowly" which I agree. In, hopefuly, a few more years memory would be quicker and the capacity larger so the decision between storage would be easier to make. There's already announcements for terabyte flash cards (SD, Compact, Memorystick, etc.)Looking at the trend however, this will take a few more years to catch up on price/performance/capacity...that is unless someone really wants to be #1 and push/release ahead :)
VaultDweller - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
I for one am more interested in this epic SSD round-up I hear you've been working on, anyway!dkreviews - Thursday, March 12, 2009 - link
Well, this picked my interest and it wasn't hard to find "deleted" article using google and I gotta say the test has been somewhat short and not through, so sounds like reviewer didn't setup something correctly.BikeDude - Sunday, March 15, 2009 - link
I read it too, and I could not put my finger on anything.Besides... This stuff should be fool-proof. If it is hard to engage nVidia's hardware accelerator, then it is worthless IMO.
I believe PureVideo HD is married with Cyberlink's awfully buggy PowerDVD software as far as Blu-ray playback is concerned.
And that my friends, is an intolerable situation. nVidia's decoder should be made freely available to everyone.
Next time I buy a GPU, I will buy the one with a proper decoder freely available. No worries -- I can certainly wait with my upgrade!
TekDemon - Saturday, April 25, 2009 - link
PureVideo HD can be accessed by other players too. I believe WinDVD also accelerates via PureVideo HD now.It is kinda lame that you have to go buy a third party codec but that's because of the licensing involved.
dkreviews - Thursday, March 12, 2009 - link
http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:Mgo9SI-CB3AJ:...">http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:Mg...p;cd=2&a...7Enigma - Thursday, March 12, 2009 - link
Unfortunately it's not. Just the first page of descriptions. There is nothing with the actual benchmarking.Glenn - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
Me too!RadnorHarkonnen - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
I would love too, but...can you do a wittle favor ?You can mix to them if you have the time or......
You can test this all by itself. Imagine this fer a laptop. Ussully 2.5" lappy HDDs are dam slow.
PhotoFast CR-9000
http://www.amazon.com/PHOTOFAST-CR-9000-2-5-SSD-su...">http://www.amazon.com/PHOTOFAST-CR-9000...ctronics...
or the CR-9300 with 8 SD cards. 8 SD Cards in Raid.
GaryJohnson - Saturday, March 14, 2009 - link
That was my idea, I had like 4 years ago. But I would have used microSD cards, cause then you could put like 16+ of 'em in there.aj28 - Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - link
Only problem being that MicroSD cards are going to be, for the most part, slower than SD variants, especially when you're dealing with more larger capacity pieces. The extra slots would be nice for giving you more space, yeah, but the speed would be no better than a WD Black drive, though it would come in at several times the cost and still hold less data.I'd like to see how that adapter would perform with SanDisk Extreme III cards in it. Fairly expensive, yeah, but interesting to see the results, what with the RAID action it's got going on...
bobbozzo - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
You think your 2.5" drive is slow?Try a 1.8" like in my Dell D420... it reboots boots faster than it can hibernate/resume.
kongming - Friday, March 13, 2009 - link
You think your 1.8" drive is slow?Try a 5.25" like in my Commodore 64 Plus4... it boots an order of magnitude faster than it can... um, do pretty much anything. It sounds pretty sweet, though.
afkrotch - Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - link
You think your 5.25" floppy is slow?Try my punch cards when you accidentally drop them on the floor.