256 GB Serial ATA Solid State Hard Drive Manufacturer Part# J246M Dell Part# 341-9999 Price: $479.99
256 GB Encrypted Serial ATA Solid State Hard Drive for Dell Latitude E6400 Laptop Manufacturer Part# VG2N2 Dell Part# 341-8981 Price: $749.99
256 GB Encrypted Serial ATA Solid State Hard Drive for Dell Latitude E6400 Laptop Manufacturer Part# VG2N2 Dell Part# 341-9942 Price: $479.99
Not sure what the difference between the last two, except for the price, but I placed two separate orders for 341-9999 and 341-9942 using NQVX4R5XXSVD0T coupon for $15 off. By my calculations this would make this drive cost less that $400 before taxes. I think it's a pretty decent price for 256GB SSD.
I'm not 100% sure what those drives actually are right now, but according to this post http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=352730 they very well may be the Samsung drives. If anyone knows more about these please post.
UPDATE:
Apperently this Dell drive is actually Samsung MMDOE56G5MXP-0VB (PM800/PB22-J), which according to reviews is faster than Intel X-25M drive.
Hmm. This is a very good point. According to Bing's FAQ: (http://www.bing.com/shopping/pages/faq.aspx#WhatsTheDealWithCouponsOrSpecialsAtTheStore)
What's the deal with coupons or specials at the store? The CashBack program terms and conditions state that coupons could void your CashBack rewards. Some stores may allow purchases made using coupons to earn CashBack. Your best bet is to check with the store before making a purchase. We need to comply with the policies of stores that ask us to cancel a CashBack reward because a coupon was used.
Does anyone know if Dell enforces this policy? How can one even tell if they did?
* Offer applies to purchases on Dell Home & Home Office and Small & Medium Business on this visit only. * Purchases from Dell Outlet, Dell Public or Large Enterprise stores are NOT eligible for this offer. * Dell reserves the right to end or change this offer at any time. * View all Bing.com CashBack terms and conditions.
They can tell if you used Bing and a coupon. Seen plenty of people complaining about getting their Bing CashBack 86ed when they used a coupon as well. No room to complain when you don't play by the rules.
zopa
Member
posted: Sep. 23, 2009 @ 3:50p
Well, true that Dell can enforce the terms, but I can always return the item. So I was trying to find out if you can find out if CashBack got nixed due to a coupon used. I presume if I don't see it as pending in a few days, it's a good sign that it didn't work. I wonder if I should re-order without the $15 coupon, or try to play chicken with Dell and MS later.
Coupons stacking regardless, it still seen to be a decent deal for and SSD drive, even at full price of $480. If only we knew for a fact which drives those actually are, but I guess I'll find out one way or the other when I receive it from Dell.
Anyone know what the actual drive is? Cheap for SSD, but maybe still not worth it if it's a stuttering JMicron controlled drive.
zopa
Member
posted: Sep. 23, 2009 @ 4:09p
According to the discussion at the link in the OP, this may be a Samsung drive, but then Dell could've easily changed the drives since that discussion took place.
zopa
Member
posted: Sep. 23, 2009 @ 4:42p
According to Dell rep I'm chatting with right now the specs are 130 mb/sec read, 90 mb/sec write. Now I would take it with a grain of salt, because the rep was not able to point me to any actual data sheet he got this information from. I was also told that the specs are the same for both drives and that the 341-9999 is the newer batch of drives Dell stocks. (Whatever that means)
sn2004
Member
posted: Sep. 23, 2009 @ 7:16p
These are the specs that a rep provided me: 341-9999/341-9942 (encrypted): 240 MBps read/170 MBps write, 64MB cache - Samsung/Corsair Rebranded? 341-8981: 150 MBps read/150 MBps write, ?? cache
These prices are tempting ... how do they compare to the Intel X25-M G2 drives in terms of 4K Random Read/Write? Do they behave like the OCZ Summit 256GB / OCZ Vertex Turbo as shown here?
lionmilk
Member
posted: Sep. 24, 2009 @ 11:38a
From what I've seen they look like rebranded SanDisk drives.
BTW, I emailed Bing today and sure enough they posted all the CashBack due to me. So I have paid $383.28+tax for 256GB 2.5" SSD, which is a great price in my book even if it's the crappiest SSD in the world.
Once I get these drives, I'll to figure out what they really are and post the test results. What is the test tool of choice to quickly test SSD?
I placed an order at 1am PST yesterday and its already shipped. I just checked my Bing CashBack and the $69.xx has already posted. Now if only drive is a rebranded version of Corsair P256 and SATA-II. If not, i'll have to return it or Craigslist it
Well, then this seems like a good deal. MMDOE56G5MXP-0VB is being sold on eBay for $700 and $820 right now.
It also seems to be better than overpriced Intel X-25M according to some reviews. http://www.laptopmag.com/review/storage/samsung-ssd-256GB.aspx
andy318
Member
posted: Sep. 28, 2009 @ 4:06p
I just got it. Its got firmware VBM19D1Q. Manufactured in 9/13/2009. Model is MMDOE56G5MXP-0VBD1. As per this page on Anandtech - http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631&p=19 - you want your drive to have firmware 18C1Q or later since that supports background garbage collection. Maybe this version supports the TRIM command. If so, this is an awesome deal for this SSD drive. Looking around some more. If someone finds something, let me know.
andy318 said: I just got it. Its got firmware VBM19D1Q. Manufactured in 9/13/2009. Model is MMDOE56G5MXP-0VBD1. As per this page on Anandtech - http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631&p=19 - you want your drive to have firmware 18C1Q or later since that supports background garbage collection. Maybe this version supports the TRIM command. If so, this is an awesome deal for this SSD drive. Looking around some more. If someone finds something, let me know.
Thanks. Which 1 of the 3 did you actually order?
andy318
Member
posted: Sep. 29, 2009 @ 1:58p
Item number - 341-9999
andy318
Member
posted: Sep. 29, 2009 @ 2:03p
If anyone else buys the same thing, can you post your CrystalMark benchmark. Curious to see if i need to optimize my machine for better results or not
zopa
Member
posted: Sep. 30, 2009 @ 12:14a
andy318 said: Confirmed (via fsquery command) that this firmware version supports TRIM!
The "fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify" command only tells you whether the filesystem is sending Trim commands to the drive. It doesn't tell you if the drive actually support TRIM or not. See the post by craigbarkhouse here:
khtse said: The "fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify" command only tells you whether the filesystem is sending Trim commands to the drive. It doesn't tell you if the drive actually support TRIM or not. See the post by craigbarkhouse here:
Thanks for this info. So then i guess we dont know for sure if this firmware version supports TRIM or BGC (background garbage collection). Its very likely that it supports BGC because an older version VBM18C1Q has it. Wish there was a way to know for sure. I'll look around.
DVSman
Member
posted: Oct. 2, 2009 @ 11:13a
Thanks OP - was just thinking about this. In for 2 for a RAID 0. Now to decide on whether to put it in my desktop or laptop!
Just received one from Dell. Firmware version is like everybody else, VBM19D1Q.
However, according to CrystalDiskInfo, it seems this firmware does not support TRIM. Here's my CrystalDiskMark result. Environment: Windows 7 Pro x64 on Dell Latitude E6400 with Intel P8400/4GB.
What do you guys use these for? I must be missing something. I have my data in 4 places now and for far less than these. Help inform an uneducated user.
yaijic said: What do you guys use these for? I must be missing something. I have my data in 4 places now and for far less than these. Help inform an uneducated user.
speed and durability (not to be confused with longevity). The standard transfer rates may not look impressive to you in the benchmark screenshots, but access time is what makes these drives significantly faster then standard hard drives. Basicly large file transfers like moving ISO's or big zip files wont be impressive, but booting and using windows, loading programs, stuff like that which loads up many small files at a time in short order will be A LOT faster.
They are still too expensive for the average person that doesnt really care too much about computer stuff, but for the performance/enthusiast crowd, they are getting wide spread and cheap enough to really start catching on.
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