"Today we place OCZ's 32GB Solid State Disk against the speedy Western Digital Velociraptor. How will they compare? Read on to find out..."

http://www.overclock3d.net/gfx/artic...200300944s.jpg

OCZ SSD 32GB Solid State Hard Disk

Muahaha been spying on this...

Off to read the conclusion page now

Edit: Very cool.

Nice review Jimbo. Figured it could end up something like that.

Quick question aimed at anyone who can answer.

On a game like Footy Manager, what does it require the most. I know the game reads from a massive database but then it is also continually writing updated info. Obviously the CPU needs to be good for crunching but would a hdd be slowing down performance in a game like that?

Still too expensive as you say. But at least they're getting there.

Great review m8, I wouldn`t stick it in a laptop myself as again it`s too small - perhaps a counterpart but then the price goes up again.

A desktop OS only drive tho, they`d be tremendous.

Price is a big thing for me, and I personally think they`re going to be too high for too long b4 something else comes out to take them out of the market.

Even with platter drives coming down in cost, as if a 2T drive is on the horizon, they`ve got alot of ground to make up for me.

Price ? I don`t think they`ll get much cheaper. Memory chips for the size required for a drive are never that cheap on the market. (just imagine trying to build a similar ssd with a blank pcb and filling it urself... hmmm there`s an idea.. a pcb with 10 ddr & 10 ddr2 slots u can stick in all ur left over memory in..)

Rast.. Ya say that by the time they get to a decent level something else will more than likely have come along. But how long have we been using platter hdds now? They are still in their infancy and memory chip prices are dropping very fast. I remember when a 4GB USB stick would set ya back £80.. Get them for less than a tenner now.

I dunno. I mean it`s one thing to produce on a small scale, but to bring something the likes that will replace harddrive tech on a gig for gig scale, I don`t feel the memory chips are going to get to a cheap enough level.

Manufacturers are also reluctant to produce older memory chip when the tech moves forward. The pricing of the likes of PC100/133 memory aint as cheap as it once was, similarly when DDR3 becomes the main memory brand, DDR2 isn`t going to be as cheap or available as it is now. Then ofc DDR will be in the same situ as PC100/133.

It`s plain that many memory chips get bought on a bulk scale in order to make the likes of usb pen drives. If as many ssd manufacturers turn up as there are usb drive makers, then perhaps the same chip prices could be compared. But from what I see in this review, they`re using new 4G memory chips, which are different to those used in pens afaik.

Ofc time will tell, but I don`t personally see it.

HDD used to be very expensive too though. I remember buying a 20GB HDD for £60 second hand from CEX about 7 years ago or so.

As older memory becomes more expensive and the newer stuff cheaper they will just start using the more up to date memory in the SSDs.

But yeah.. Only time will tell.

80G hard drives still carry a fair price, and they`re in good circulation although they`re due to increase to around 120G as a standard `work` based pc.

If u went to an online webstore to buy a harddrive, u wouldn`t purchase an 80G (if u can find one) cos of it`s comparative price to the higher capacity. More or less because u make a 80G drive with the same foundation as a 120G.

It`s major parts aren`t a commodity too. They`re just platters.

But the platters with lower density and lower capacities are becoming rarer so prices wouldn't be as low as you'd think. Same with what you said about old DDR RAM. As the tech moves on, companies pick up the better newer tech and utilize that. Same should happen with memory chips for SSDs as more and more companies produce them on a larger scale.

Afaik, u can take a standard platter material, of size and fashion it into the density u require.

They`re not like set in stone on creation, more of a blank fabric to etch what u want - on.

Wiki`ll know I spect.

Kind of if I reduce the head size required to read/write, I can double my capacity, but the platter can stay the same *theory*. Material wize.

Yeah I suppose it all depends on what you use your laptop for really. For me, My laptop has XP on it and that's about it. I use it for checking my mail on the train etc but nothing more. If I could eek a bit of extra battery life out of my lappy by switching to SSD and also have almost instant resume from hibernate that might just be worth it.

i think i'll stick with the tried and tested mechanical hard drive

good review though

How about sound/heat production of the two drives? How much more power efficient is the SSD really?

SSD

----

Sound = 0

Heat=0

Velociraptor

------------

Sound= Much much quieter than the RaptorX

Heat = 5-10c above ambient - tops

As for power efficiency, its a hard one to measure with two devices that really don't pull much power in the first place. I think its fair to say the SSD uses significantly less power tho.