Two more SSDs recently landed in our lab. We cover the "Postville Refresh" Intel SSD 320 and Crucial’s new m4, and stack them up against Intel's SSD 510 and OCZ’s Vertex 3. If you're shopping for an SSD, read this comparison before you make your choice.
Intel's most recent SSD introduction left us with mixed feelings. Rather than behaving like a well-rounded drive, Intel's SSD 510 clearly emphasized sequential transfers, sacrificing random I/O in the process. As a result, it delivers its strongest performance in applications like video editing, and would be far less suited for duties inside of a Web or database server.
Most people are looking for a balanced SSD. That's what made the first-gen X25-M so attractive back when it first emerged. It proved to be a compelling solution for everyone, from enthusiasts to SMB-oriented customers. Between then and now, we’ve seen the performance crown bounce around. Most recently, OCZ's Vertex 3 and Vertex 3 Pro drew our attention with consistently high SATA 6Gb/s performance.
As we suggested in the SSD 510 piece, more flash-based drives were expected...and soon. Well, they've finally shown up. Last year, Crucial shook up the performance tree by introducing the first SATA 6Gb/s drive, its RealSSD C300. As a follow up, Crucial's m4 seeks to improve upon that drive's performance. Why call it the m4? Crucial and Micron are trying to differentiate their respective markets. Crucial's m4 is the drive for business and consumer customers; Micron’s RealSSD C400 is for OEMs. From here on out, Crucial is dropping the "RealSSD" name from its consumer products. It will only be used by Micron.
Meanwhile, Intel is announcing its third-gen X25-M, dubbed the SSD 320. This is substantially different from the SSD 510. While the 6Gb/s 510 series is intended for enthusiasts based on a Marvell controller, the SSD 320 is a refresh of what we've already seen from the X25-M and the X25-M G2, based on Intel's proprietary controller.
- The Other 2011 Competitors
- Meet Intel's SSD 320, The Postville Refresh
- Meet Crucial's m4, Micron's RealSSD C400
- Cost Of More Space, m4's Over-Provisioning
- Test Setup And Benchmarks
- Benchmark Results: I/O Performance
- Benchmark Results: Iometer Streaming
- Benchmark Results: CrystalDiskMark Streaming Performance
- Benchmark Results: 4 KB And 512 KB Random Reads
- Benchmark Results: 4 KB And 512 KB Random Writes
- Benchmark Results: PCMark Vantage Storage Test
- Final Words

If you can actually use hardware FDE on that drive (rather than just secure erase), that's a winner for me.
(yes, it was intentional)
IOW, the testing protocol in reverse would have been more interesting to see typical Vantage scores from an unthrottled controller. I know for fact through personal beta-testing of the V3 that they would have been much higher.
Or even better yet would be too take into account the special Durawrite throttling which the Sandforce drives STILL have built into the firmware(though not nearly as aggressive as the V2). Would surely give a nice little boost to SF through secure erase cleansing. If done at the 50% point it would show the potential in certain portions of the test suite that most WOULD see when not hitting thier drives with benchmark after benchmark in some sort of "hammer em' till the dust settles" protocol.
Decent enough writeup though and all the review sites will eventually get it figured out, I guess.
How did you work that one out,
10^24 bytes is a 1 yobibyte = 2^80 bytes = 1208925819614629174706176 bytes = 1,024 zebibytes
1 zebibyte = 270 bytes = 1180591620717411303424 bytes = 1,024 exbibytes
1 exbibyte = 260 bytes = 1152921504606846976 bytes = 1,024 pebibytes
All of the data in the world on every hard drive is estimated at around 500 exbibytes.
even in bits you are in order of several magnitude off
IOW, the testing protocol in reverse would have been more interesting to see typical Vantage scores from an unthrottled controller. I know for fact through personal beta-testing of the V3 that they would have been much higher.
Or even better yet would be too take into account the special Durawrite throttling which the Sandforce drives STILL have built into the firmware(though not nearly as aggressive as the V2). Would surely give a nice little boost to SF through secure erase cleansing. If done at the 50% point it would show the potential in certain portions of the test suite that most WOULD see when not hitting thier drives with benchmark after benchmark in some sort of "hammer em' till the dust settles" protocol.
Decent enough writeup though and all the review sites will eventually get it figured out, I guess.
Hi groberts101,
The test are actually run backwards. We just have help in a different order in the review.
Cheers,
Andrew
TomsHardware
I think there is a legend in the lower right hand corner. One is using the 6Gb/s port and one is using the 3Gb/s port.
Which ones are you referencing?
In my opinion, Intel has a point with their new products and pricing, enable bigger capacities at lower capacities.