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Gigabyte Z68 with 20GB of Intel SSD

DeepEmissions

DeepEmissions

Member
As I was Looking for a Crossfire ready board I came across a board by Gigabyte, the Z68XP-UD3-iSSD, that has on board 20GB of Intel SSD... I didn't read too much into it because I choked on the price but, does that mean they can store the OS on the 20GB SSD and use your HDD as just storage space??? What would happen with program files that feel the need to add information to your C: drive?
 
Aye, 20 GB seems a bit tight for a C drive -- And I cant really imagine why I would want a drive integrated to a Mobo anyways.

I've thought the thing with internal storage is that the cables and bus and mobo and whatnot have far exceeded the read/write/throughput of the drives. So when it come time to speed up a system, swapping a drive can help a lot. Especially with SATA II and III.
 
20GB is tight, BUT if you could find a way to just install your OS on the 20GB drive and use your normal HDD for apps, games, etc... you would have a PC that goes from cold boot to desktop in about 6 seconds.
 
A clean Win7 Home Premium 64bit fully patched and all but the last system recovery deleted takes about 18GB... I'd go for a different mainboard as there are many to choose from.
 
Yeah I dont see any advantage to attaching it to the mainboard other than lock in. Current SSDs are all slower than SATA II/III cables and I think slower than any bus/bridge/whatever to the processor. So if a year or two from now you found a nicer SSD, how would you replace it?
 
Well... I wouldn't say they are slower, for instance, a friend bought an SSD that uses PCIe... that means it is x16 speed, it is pretty fast considering his setup, he scores a 7.4 on his Hard Disk Windows Experience Index, highest score possible is 7.9
 
ah I got my bits and byte confused....again....doh

I was thinking SATA was 1.5GBps but it's Gbps

according to the all knowing wiki-of-the-pedia:


SATA III provides peak throughput of about 600 MB/s (Megabytes per second) including the protocol overhead (10b/8b coding with 8 bits to one byte). Solid-state drives have already saturated SATA 3 Gbit/s with 285/275 MB/s max read/write speed and 250 MB/s sustained with the Sandforce 1200 and 1500 controller. SandForce SSD controllers released in 2011 have delivered 500 MB/s read/write rates,[12] and ten channels of fast flash can reach well over 500 MB/s with ONFI drives
Click to expand...
I guess it could make sense then if the drive is a really fast SSD
 
Interesting.

I have an Intel X-25M G2 SSD as my system drive, running Windows 7 Ultimate x64 on a Core i7 965EE / eVGA x58 Classified 3 combo with 12 GB of RAM. The SSD is actually plugged into a SATA 6 Gbps connector (2 on board with this mobo, along with 2 USB 3.0) even though it is only capable of SATA 3Gbps, and I'm getting a 7.7 on my HD.

WEI.JPG

In fact, my Pair of GTX 260s SLi'd plus the GTS 250 are my bottleneck - they're giving me a 7.3 for Graphics lol (because the Windows WEI mechanism only tests the primary video card - so, even though I can play ES: Skyrim at full ultra on my computer and break 30 fps easily, Windows thinks my Graphics card is sub-par lol.

Back when I got it over a year ago the X-25M G2 was the hottest thing since sliced bread when it came to SSds - now, it's dwarfed in terms of performance. Just look at Charts, benchmarks SSD Charts 2011, AS-SSD Overall Total Score

Still, though, it's a beast....
 
Actually, no, look at the link I put in my post and scroll down....

Micron is at the top blowing everyone away - but it's only 100 GB (good enough for an OS) and it's SATA 6Gbps. Plus, it's an Enterprise rated drive - so, that will be more than my entire new build cost me to put together lol...

But, the top 10 drives are all SATA 3 (aka SATA 6 Gbps) drives.

Only one other drive that is SATA 2 (3.0 Gbps) out performs mine in THG's guides. that would be a Samsung SS1605.

I'm now cross checking with AnandTech b/c that does not seem right at all.
 
That's more like it - yeah, OCZ seems to be reigning supreme for sure.

AnandTech - Bench - SSD

FWIW, though, the drive I have is a beast, and after OS and apps, I still have well over 30 GB free. And it can be had for under $100....

I don't install Games to the SSD, though, and in addition to all the settings I have for running the SSD, I also have moved all my user tree folders to a separate, slower, but more reliable, mechanical HD (and off the SSD - no temp directories, no user files, no settings directories, etc...) - all that is off the SSD - that is probably attributing to my SSDs performance as well.

Permanent link to the chart as I set it up - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/...0.131.134.148.129.153.150.132.155.329.154.182
 
I've always trusted AnandTech way more than toms heh -- no idea why. gut feeling. Both great sites though


And considering my C drive has about 500GB on it currently...
 
Reliability-wise Intel is the was to go and they are still very fast. My Intel 320 series gets 7.5 on WEI ...the stock 5400rpm drive gets 5.9 ...more comprehensive HDD benchmarks show a different story :)
 
alostpacket said:
I've always trusted AnandTech way more than toms heh -- no idea why. gut feeling. Both great sites though


And considering my C drive has about 500GB on it currently...
Click to expand...

Yeah, it gets hefty with having the Documents and Settings aka Users tree on it.

Back on XP I used nLite to create a custom XP install that moved Program Files and Documents an Settings to a separate physical drive while installing - it was great. It became not so easy to do with Vista, and nearly impossible OOB with Windwos 7 - until I found a utility to do it via a trick.

Software by Joseph Cox

This worked like a champ for me, and it is how I have moved the entire \Users tree off my System drive, so all the little files like temp files, settings for programs etc. that get saved in there are on my mechanical HD, saving my SSD for only regular Programs and the OS itself.

andruoid said:
Reliability-wise Intel is the was to go and they are still very fast. My Intel 320 series gets 7.5 on WEI ...the stock 5400rpm drive gets 5.9 ...more comprehensive HDD benchmarks show a different story :)
Click to expand...

Yes, they do. Intel is awesome - when my drives were fried a few months back, I opened a ticket with Intel about having the drive replaced - I cannot guarantee that they sent me the same drive, i never actually verified the Serial number, bu they had a working drive back to me in less than a week, no questions asked. Since it was an electrical failure on the controller board, I'm guessing that they swapped out boards verified functionality and returned it to me. This is the drive that is giving me that 7.7 WEI score.

Like I said, even for being a technically slower drive, it's a beast.
 
johnlgalt said:
That's more like it - yeah, OCZ seems to be reigning supreme for sure.

AnandTech - Bench - SSD

FWIW, though, the drive I have is a beast, and after OS and apps, I still have well over 30 GB free. And it can be had for under $100....

I don't install Games to the SSD, though, and in addition to all the settings I have for running the SSD, I also have moved all my user tree folders to a separate, slower, but more reliable, mechanical HD (and off the SSD - no temp directories, no user files, no settings directories, etc...) - all that is off the SSD - that is probably attributing to my SSDs performance as well.
Click to expand...

What SSD is that? OCZ -----
 
Yeah but for me half the point of getting an SSD is to have programs and games and save games load quickly, so those folders would remain on C: for me.

I don't actually keep any of my personal files there though.
 
Lol thanks, bud. I designed this system to give me fast without breaking my bank. All told, though, the upgrades alone cost me almost $1200 as it is....

And yeah, and SSD will definitely fix that storage WEI score. As for the RAM - hmmm - is that hte max speed RAM supported by your Mobo?

I was in Best Buy today and they have an eVGA 550Ti SSC for $200 - seriously thinking about it 0 I'd free up two PCIe slots on my mobo and have much better gaming performance than the SLId 260s, seeing as they don't support DX11....

Decisions, decisions,... lol
 
johnlgalt said:
As for the RAM - hmmm - is that hte max speed RAM supported by your Mobo?
Click to expand...

The RAM is Patriot Sector 5 1600MHZ 4GB
the MoBo supports up to 1333, so... no I would need a new MoBo and RAM to increase my WEI on the RAM.

Then I need to make sure the MoBo supports 1156 Processors, othewise I will need to buy a Processor as well.

SSD is in my future, definitely am looking into PCIe x16 so it is as fast as possible.

All in all... another upgrade, lol but then I could take my components I have now and make a wicked server! Well except the 5770 graphics card.

EDIT: with Sandy Bridge Coming out soon... I may wait until the 2nd wave of Sandy Bridge Processors roll out before I upgrade. That way all the bugs are worked out and I have plenty of MoBo's to choose from
 
Lol - that's what I'm doing with my old components - I need a new PSU, and the two old 500 GB Barracudas are going into the new WHS I'm building over Christmas.
 
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