Viliv S5 3G Confusion: When Is an SSD Slower Than HDD?
The Viliv S5 3G model has been in my hands for just under a day, and I have been trying to work through a couple of things that are not making sense to me. This has delayed my ability to provide impressions of the new UMPC and to offer comparisons of this model with the SSD with the original S5 with the standard HDD. I am trying to work through these issues, and I suspect I will require Viliv’s assistance, as something is not making sense at this point.
One thing can be stated with certainty: A solid-state drive (SSD) should be faster than a typical hard disk drive (HDD). How much faster will depend on the specs of the SSD used, but it should be faster due to no moving parts like the spinning disk equivalent. I have run a lot of benchmarks on the two models in my possession, and while the HDD benchmark results are not surprising (SSD around 3 times faster than HDD) I have been confused as to why the S5 3G device has been performing so much slower than the original model. I have been impressed with the performance of the original S5 Premium from day one, hence my purchase of it, but this S5 3G model is much slower.
I am seeing unexplained lags in executing simple tasks, and things like opening Firefox seem to take forever on the 3G model. This shouldn’t be the case, so I have run many iterations of CrystalMark benchmarks to compare. Here are examples of typical results from those benchmark runs:
L-R: 3G model iter; 3G model iter. 2; S5 Premium (original model)
I included two iterations from the new 3G model (on the left) to show how they are very consistent. They each compare with the benchmark on the far right, which is from the original S5 Premium model with the HDD. As expected, the HDD benchmark is much quicker on the SSD model, but the ALU, FPU and MEM benchmarks don’t make sense, as they show the 3G model is much slower than the original model. This is not consistent with what I expect, and Viliv is trying to figure out why this is. Until we can get an explanation, I’m going to set the 3G model aside for a bit.
The second issue has been resolved, Viliv changed the way the soft keyboard is invoked, which prevented me from turning it off. This prevented me from using the uBoard keyboard I prefer. They worked with me and found a way for me to turn off their own keyboard, and I am happily uBoarding once again.
“One thing can be stated with certainty, a solid-state drive (SSD) should be faster than a typical hard disk drive (HDD). How much faster will depend on the specs of the SSD used but it should be faster due to no moving parts than the spinning disk equivalent. ”
The controller / interface has just as much to do with the throughput. And we’ve seen plenty of SSDs that are slower than traditional hard drives… remember my original Acer Aspire One?
“…a solid-state drive (SSD) should be faster than a typical hard disk drive (HDD).”
Not to be a “mee too” kind of guy, but what Kevin Tofel said is dead on. The controller is as, if not more, important than just the fact that it is an SSD. Hit up annandtech or tomshardware for any of their recent SSD articles for more details. Also, even the decent SSD’s will have fairly slow write speeds and you’d be surprised by how much you are actually writing to your disk with every day normal tasks like browsing the web.
The stops, starts, and stutters you describe are endemic of many of the lesser SDD controllers out there on the market.
I agree with both of you but look at the benchmarks, the SSD is 3 times faster than the HDD so the controller is not an issue here.
My statement said that an SSD “should be faster” which I think is an accurate statement. If someone puts a controller with an SSD that alters then that’s a big mistake. 
Based on my observations of the heat produced by the 3G card in my Vaio P my guess would be the S5 3G is under clocked on the CPU/chipset to save heat for the 3G card so it doesn’t cook in it’s own juices when connected to the ‘net.
These were all run on battery power so that is a possibility. I don’t see any obvious way that a power mode is under-clocking though and since the device is handheld it is basically always used on battery power.
Can you tell us what Viliv said about turning off their soft keyboard? I installed the latest Manager and soft keyboard, but I can’t turn it off too. It seems like the only way is to stop running the Manager software.
Here’s what worked for me (quoted from Viliv):
There are two steps in order to use a third party softkeyboad.
First, delete the vilivsoftkeyboard software.
1. Close the vilivsoftkeyboard. If there is “v” icon at the right bottom of task bar, click the right button of mouse and click “exit”.
2. Delete the folder of C:\Program Files\vilivSoftKeyboard.
Second, register and link the third party softkeyboad to the user key on S5.
1. Close the viliv manager. You can see the icon of it at the right bottom of task bar.
2. Install the your softkeyboard s/w and make the direct-icon at desktop.
And then, Property -> Short-Cut-key option -> Register
3. Delete the icon of vilivsoftkeyboard. Pls, erase the short-cut-key option of vilivsoftkeyboard not to preempt this short-cut key before deleting the icon of vilivsoftkeyboard.
James, it definitely looks like the CPU is being under clocked – is there some form of power saving mode enabled?
Or as Scotty says, maybe Viliv turned down the clock to save power/heat.
James, do you know the manufacturer/model of the SSD? With that and a part number, we can look up the details, including the controller.
No and I just don’t have time to troubleshoot this for Viliv. They are going to check on it on their end. Besides, I have to play with the X70 that just showed up.
Video up shortly.
Guess you’re beta testing for them, does seem odd given the benchmark figures!
BTW, currently typing this out in a Paris hotel bar on my S5, stowaway BT keyboard while nursing a very nice red wine. I loved how light my hand luggage was on the flight over! Read an ebook and watched a movie on the flight.
Shame I have to work tomorrow, just a flying visit. Damn it’s expensive here but the pretty french girls make up for it, lol.
You lucky dog. I used to visit Paris at least 5 times a year when I worked for a French company. Very nice place.
SSD memory is notorious for having slow write time. There are algorithms for improving SSD write speed mainly dealing with flash block alignment and free space defragmentation. We have published a detailed article on the subject on our site:
http://www.wizcode.com/articles/flash_memory_fragmentation_myths_and_facts
Will be happy to follow up in a discussion about the topic.
Any further information? One question is whether new S5 model with SSD but not 3G shows the same issue, which might provide some clue as to the cause. The benchmarks indicate no problem with the SSD per se, but simply tossing an SSD into a system designed and optimized for a HDD sometimes creates subtle timing interactions which can destroy much of the benefit. Generally solvable, but a lot of work and expertise can be required. See the OCZ forum the last several months.
I was looking to buy the 32GB SSD S5 model without the 3G, so I am very interested in this topic. Has the issue been resolved? Was the processor underclocked? Have you heard anything from Viliv? Thanks.
Yes same here, I’m interested in the SSD S5 model as well, and this article should concern anyone wanting to buy until we learn more.
Both Viliv and Dynamism should be concerned about this article and find answers, since this will affect their sales.
He was running it on power save mode. Both Steve and I tested it. There is nothing wrong on 3G/SSD versions.
Thanks JKK,
Is the power save mode talking about the one from within Bios?
C-State Tech [Enables]
Maximum C-STATE [C4] values available C1,C2,C3C4
Enhanced C-States [Enabled]
Cause I cant find anything from within windows to control power saving like the Eee PC.
hey, so wait…regarding the performance. i am about to pull the trigger here… so do i get the 32 3G one or the 60gb? please JKK or anyone. i read this whole article… seems like the 2nd to last post is nixing the whole article.
I would also like to have some clarification on this, just ordered SSD 3G model and am concerned now about its performance. Also how do you turn of power-saver mode to get the full performance out of it? Thank you.
i received this from JK, the author of this article:
The 32GB version is just fine, the SSD settings were not correct and it runs fine now. That said, the 60 GB version is just as fast.
James Kendrick
Disclaimer: it is not my intention to act/speak on behalf of JK or this website. I respect the work he has done and hope that i am not stepping on any toes or doing anything inappropriate by posting his comments. This is merely to help others. Thanks again JK for all of your help/work.
it seams that the option of SSD on Viliv S5 was not meant for better performance but was used to have more space to install the 3G module as the SSD is smaller than the HDD and that was the only option available to have enough space to install the 3G. but given the price of the SSD Viliv I wonder why they did not chose to have faster SSD!!!
I got my S5 128GB SSD 3G for a lot of money $1300 and I am not happy with the performance. It is Slow!
But just for those who don’t know, the 128GB 3G Viliv S5 comes with Vista! Believe it or not!
It is too Slow and unusable! It even got much slower when I automatically updated windows!
why they installed vista on the 128GB ? In my opinion not for the fun of it but just to give us the free Windows 7 license .. so I will hold on Vista till windows 7 is officially there and install it .. Wont even bother to downgrade to XP now!
Now regarding the 128GB SSD! I dont think it is super fast but for sure should not be slower than the S5 HDD .. the idea was to make room for the 3G module not to have super-fast SSD which should not have been the case considering the high price we paid!
I am not happy!
Just FYI. You can get the X70 with a 128GB SS but with XP instead of Vista. Just don’t get the Win7 Home upgrade SKU. That’s what I did, because I was concerned Vista would be a dog on the X70 (only 1GB of RAM) and I needed the Business rather than Home version of Win7.