** SSD MEGA TEST ** Want to know whats best for you? Look inside!! UPDATE 14/02/2012

[Andrew Moore]

AS SSD Read/Write Test


Force 3

HyperX

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[/FONT]


M4

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Vertex 3

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ADATA S510

ADATA S511

[/FONT]Kingston V+ 200 120GB

Intel 520series 120GB

Corsair Performance Pro 128GB

Samsung 830 series 256GB

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AS SSD IOPS Test

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Force 3

[/FONT]


HyperX

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M4

[/FONT][FONT=&quot]

Vertex 3

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ADATA S510

ADATA S511

Kingston V+ 200 120GB

[/FONT]

Intel 520series 120GB

Corsair Performance Pro 128GB

Samsung 830 series 256GB

[FONT=&quot]

ATTO


Force 3

[/FONT][FONT=&quot]

HyperX

[/FONT][FONT=&quot]

M4

[/FONT][FONT=&quot]

Vertex 3

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[/FONT]


ADATA S510

ADATA S511

Kingston V+ 200 120GB

Intel 520series 120GB

Corsair Performance Pro 128GB

Samsung 830 series 256GB

CrystalDiskMark


Force 3

[FONT=&quot]

HyperX

[/FONT][FONT=&quot]

M4

[/FONT][FONT=&quot]

Vertex 3

[/FONT]


ADATA S510

ADATA S511

Kingston V+ 200 120GB

Intel 520series 120GB

Corsair Performance Pro 128GB

Samsung 830 series 256GB

Conclusion

So what SSD is best for you?

Are you a soul gamer or do you like to take a moment with some photo or video editing as well?


Heres the OcUK "What to buy" based on budget and what you get for your money!


True Gamer!

Budget: Kingston V+ 200 or Force 3 (Agility 3, Adata S510 also fit this level)
Better: Adata S511, M4, Performance Pro
Best: Vertex 3, HyperX, Intel 520series


Multi tasker!

Budget: Adata S510, V+200, Force 3
Better: Vertex 3, Intel 520 Series, Adata S511
Best: Performance Pro, M4


Gamer and Multi tasker!

Budget: V+200
Better: Vertex 3, Intel 520 Series
Best: M4, Performance Pro




Overall

True Gamer: Intel 520 Series
Multi Tasker: Performance Pro
Gamer and Multi Tasker: M4

 

[Andrew Moore]

No Samsung?

There will be later

It performs in a similar way to the M4 (slightly slower) but has much faster write speeds and IOPs perfomance where the M4 lacks. A very good drive but I think Intels 520 series, the M4 and the Performance Pro have the edge.. *just*

 

[Andrew Moore]

What's the difference between the Performance Pro and the M4? Both Marvell controllers but the Corsair drive's write speeds are a big improvement.

They have sacrificed some performance on certain levels of how the drive can read and gained in areas on the writes. The IOPs performance is a smidge better on the M4 too so if you looking at DATA already on the drive the M4 is quicker (good OS drive). The Performance Pro is a little more of an all round drive and certainly an excellent alternative!

Intel 520 series is the one to look out for though! IOPs performance near the M4, reads above, writes destroying it! AS SSD may not score quite as high but the Intel is certainly the drive of choice for a Gamer!

 

[Andrew Moore]

I see the read speeds are slightly slower in some areas, yes, interesting how much that's gained on the writes. IOPS seems to be higher on the Corsair than the Crucial in almost every case. The Intel does well in some benchmarks, absolutely decimates the other drives in CDM sequential and 5k writes! Shame it's so expensive and you don't stock any Intel drives

Intel isnt released for a week or so yet

The higher IOPs are on the Crystaldiskmark test not AS SSD however showing IOPs via a screen shot isnt possible as you have to hover your mouse to do so...

Ill get IOmeter done on them so this can be seen but itll have to wait for another day I am affraid.

 

[Andrew Moore]

what about reliability which is the most reliable is it the M4 as it seems a good all rounder.

M4s are pretty much bullet proof! I would hope the Performance Pro is too as its marvel but I cant be sure quite yet.

The Intel drive should also be very reliable too from all of the testing they have done but we dont have our own figures to go by yet so I cannot be sure.

A 5 year warranty however does say a lot for how reliable this drive could potentially be as Intel are certainly confident with it

 

[Andrew Moore]

Oops, I thought it was the Intel 510 you were testing, you typo'd the model number in your reply heh.
What happened to the other Intel drives though, the 320 series? Being refreshed also, or just no longer carrying them?
I'll take your word for it re the higher IOPS in CDM as I know you can't screenshot them, be interesting to see the IOmeter results when you do them though

Aye typo lol!

Fixed

But yes, write IOPs and write speeds are better on the Performance Pro but the 4K-64thrd has a nice boost over the Performance pro with the M4 which is why I would recommend the M4 as a drive of choice purely for OS and the Performance Pro or Intel 520series as an all rounder (the latter more game orientated)

 

[Andrew Moore]

The M4 used to be the best Price/Performance SSD, is this still the case?

With the M4 going up in price is was debatable however the M4 is now dropping a little again which is excellent!

The Performance Pro is a little more expensive as will the Intel 520 series so with that in mind I would say that it still has the best bang for buck for 128GB and above.

The best bang for buck on 60GB sizes is probably going to be for the Agility 3 or the Force 3.

Not as fast but £10 cheaper which for 60Gb is a fair amount.

 

[Andrew Moore]

Brought a 128gb M4 yesterday from OCUK and picked saturday delivery. Was £30 or so more than the force 3. Did a firmware upgrade prior to OS install.

Just finished windows updates, drivers etc and did a bench:


Extremely impressed

Thats how the M4 will look with the firmware update I assume?

If so, that makes it even more appealing

 

[Andrew Moore]

Indeed it is. Not that it matters but it also got 7.9 (max score) on windows assessment.

But the bench speaks for it's self, imagine getting two in raid 0

Haha! Thats what I use at home

Cant update FW unless out of raid so not got around to backing up, formatting, updating and reinstalling yet.. takes too long for what will be maybe 5-10% better performance on an already 1GB/s + transfer rate

 

[Andrew Moore]

You don't have to faff around with all that, just switch controller mode to ACHI, flash each drive separately, then switch the controller mode back to RAID.

I'd back up the data first as a precaution, but it does work, people on other forums have done it.

As for the Intel drives, they are Sandforce controllers, but I'm assuming with Intel firmware on them, they should be a fair bit more reliable than the OCZ Sandforce drives.

Thats what I am thinking and masses faster too it would seem

 

[Andrew Moore]

128 Gb M4 or 2x 64Gb M4s?

Is Raiding worth it?

Read speeds would be increased but write speeds would be no better. There's no TRIM support either on the raid so with that in mind the fact the writes will be sub 200MB/s would put me off massively.

Better off with a single 128GB M4, a Performance Pro of perhaps an Intel 520series.

 

[Andrew Moore]

Force GT performs along the same lines as the vertex 3 and the Kingston HyperX

I shall start increasing what is reviewed as time goes by leaving EOL lines for reference to those who are looking to upgrade.

60gb and 240gb drives will be tested over time too.

 

[Andrew Moore]

Any P67, Z68 or X79 with intel sata 6gb/s will perform within a percent or two of those scores.

AMD will be slightly slower as they use a micron controller.

 

[Andrew Moore]

i am confused, why force 3 is the worst of them all? also, other day it did 6.5 secs boot, which is amazing i recon, clean install with main drivers for the rig. After format and installing intel achi drivers it became slower, 9 seconds, well confused about ssds

just wanted to add, when formating surely force 3 comes top of m4? as write speeds are much higher, or am i wrong? i am a bit of a format freak you see

The way the M4 handles files and file types is different due to the controller used. The Marvell is superior in just about every way imaginable over the Sandforce which is why both the M4 and Performance Pro appear around 1.5-2x as fast in most scenarios except for how fast a large file can be written.

 

[Andrew Moore]

What drives would you like to see tested? This is something that I'll be keeping on top of so fire away with suggestions!! (provided its a line we stock of course)

 

[Andrew Moore]

The M4 has a lower failure rate than even the mighty intel 320series so is fantastic! Time will tell with Intels latest drive however sandforce on a whole leaves the force 3 as the higher even over OCZ for us.

 

[Andrew Moore]

All loading here, tried viewing in an alternate web browser?

 

[Andrew Moore]

It certainly will be.

 

[Andrew Moore]

Sorry to bump but does anyone have a idea about the above?

For day to day use you wont notice any difference really. The Adata comes with some useful cloning software too which is a bonus.

Its only when you have many programs open where you will see some real benefits on an M4 over the Adata.

 

[Andrew Moore]

** UPDATE **


Samsung 830 series 256GB now included