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Benchmark Results: 128 KB Sequential Performance

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Sequential Read Performance

Examples include file copying, transcoding, game level loading, some gameplay, watching video, and editing video

All of the SandForce-based SSDs perform similarly in sequential read testing at high queue depths. The Marvell controller-based Crucial m4 keeps pace, while Samsung's 830 falls slightly behind.

However, at a queue depth of one, we do see some differentiation between drives. The SSD 520 starts out at 360 MB/s, while the rest of the SandForce-based SSDs achieve close to 400 MB/s. Clearly, the SSD 330 isn't being handicapped in sequential read speed.

Sequential Write Performance

Examples include Application Installation, Document Backup

The SandForce-based SSDs deliver similar performance at higher queue depths, except for the 60 GB SSD 520, the 60 GB SSD 330, and OCZ's 60 GB Agility 3.

At a queue depth of one, Intel's SSD 330 falls about 10 MB/s behind the Agility 3 at each capacity point. Intel's 60 and 240 GB SSD 520 perform about 25 MB/s slower than the SSD 330 and Agility 3 in sequential writes. But that gap evaporates quickly as the drives see more outstanding I/Os. 

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Au_equus 05/16/2012 5:08 AM
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I bought this samsung 830 256gb ssd for $390 five-six months ago
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820147164
now its $275 or $1.074/GB. Better price/stability/performance than those listed above.

phamhlam 05/16/2012 6:16 AM
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au_equus :
I bought this samsung 830 256gb ssd for $390 five-six months agohttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820147164now its $275 or $1.074/GB. Better price/stability/performance than those listed above.



Crucial m4 128GB from Newegg and Amazon @ 124.99. That is less than $1/GB.

anonymous 05/16/2012 6:45 AM
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One question, which didn't explained: what Intel SSD is better for SATA 3Gb/sec 320 or 330 series?

blazorthon 05/16/2012 7:09 AM
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Intel should have used non-SandForce controllers. The Vertex 4 (with the new firmware) shows what Sandforce alternatives are capable of, I hope that Intel's next flagship series does something similarly spectacular without Sandforce. I think that Intel could have used the 330s as a stepping stone to get a controller (such as a Marvell controller) up to Vertex 4-like performance (or better) in more universal workloads than Sandforce for their next flagship series.

On that note, why weren't the Vertex 4s included in this review with the other drives?

blazorthon 05/16/2012 8:04 AM
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Eovein :
One question, which didn't explained: what Intel SSD is better for SATA 3Gb/sec 320 or 330 series?



I don't think that it makes much difference at SATA 3Gb/s, but the 330s are faster drives, so they might be marginally better.

chimera201 05/16/2012 8:14 AM
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When will the price of SSD come down to HDD level? That would be news.

blazorthon 05/16/2012 8:16 AM
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chimera201 :
When will the price of SSD come down to HDD level? That would be news.



Probably at least not until a cheaper memory than Flash is used in SSDs, so maybe ten to twenty years, if we're lucky.

EDVINASM 05/16/2012 8:42 AM
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Am not a mad scientist or anything so I have missed something but to me Intel SSD is as good as any others on the market. I wouldn't see any difference in real world scenario between 330 and 520 or Samsung 830 or even M4. Who cares? I don't anyway. Just get the drive that you trust and that has reasonable warranty (3 years +) and good support. Done.

blazorthon 05/16/2012 8:51 AM
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edvinasm :
Am not a mad scientist or anything so I have missed something but to me Intel SSD is as good as any others on the market. I wouldn't see any difference in real world scenario between 330 and 520 or Samsung 830 or even M4. Who cares? I don't anyway. Just get the drive that you trust and that has reasonable warranty (3 years +) and good support. Done.



Whether or not a part that is faster for your workloads than others and is faster enough to make a difference depends on what you are doing. If I was doing a lot of storage heavy stuff, like constantly downloading and decompressing large archives, then an SSD that can deal with in-compressible data very well would provide very noticeable gains over any SandForce drive or any lower end non-Sandforce drives.

EDVINASM 05/16/2012 9:04 AM
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blazorthon :
Whether or not a part that is faster for your workloads than others and is faster enough to make a difference depends on what you are doing. If I was doing a lot of storage heavy stuff, like constantly downloading and decompressing large archives, then an SSD that can deal with in-compressible data very well would provide very noticeable gains over any SandForce drive or any lower end non-Sandforce drives.



Fair point. Mind you, if you do that much and it's that important hardly any of standard (consumer grade) SSDs would interest you. Unless you are talking of downloading software and games from questionable sites, then yes - cheap and fast is cheerful.

blazorthon 05/16/2012 9:12 AM
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edvinasm :
Fair point. Mind you, if you do that much and it's that important hardly any of standard (consumer grade) SSDs would interest you. Unless you are talking of downloading software and games from questionable sites, then yes - cheap and fast is cheerful.



Well, I think that Steam would be a perfectly legal example for this. I also happen to play around with many OSs in VMs, so I'm often downloading each new version of many different Linux distributions and other operating systems (such as React OS and Haiku). I also download and test out a lot of freeware and some of them can get pretty big.

EDVINASM 05/16/2012 9:43 AM
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blazorthon :
Well, I think that Steam would be a perfectly legal example for this. I also happen to play around with many OSs in VMs, so I'm often downloading each new version of many different Linux distributions and other operating systems (such as React OS and Haiku). I also download and test out a lot of freeware and some of them can get pretty big.



Good point. What SSD do you use if you don't mind me asking? And how long have you been using it? Any issues? I had Intel 320 80GB but that was just for few months. Getting SSD 330 120GB now, not sure how it will perform but anything that is faster than RAID 0 HDD and is quiet would be better in my book. Never mind the storage amount.

blazorthon 05/16/2012 9:46 AM
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edvinasm :
Good point. What SSD do you use if you don't mind me asking? And how long have you been using it? Any issues? I had Intel 320 80GB but that was just for few months. Getting SSD 330 120GB now, not sure how it will perform but anything that is faster than RAID 0 HDD and is quiet would be better in my book. Never mind the storage amount.



I have little money to throw around right now. I don't have an SSD yet, by I think I'll grab a Vertex 4 if I can get around to it. For now, RAID 0 hard drives has been the best that I could get. It's not great at all, but it's what I could afford and it could be worse.

dgingeri 05/16/2012 12:25 PM
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What's with all the "raw" benchmarks? We don't use these things "raw". We use them with file systems. These things perform differently with file systems installed.

nekromobo 05/16/2012 12:27 PM
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On amazon crucial m4 was 199$ for atleast 1 weekend.. even at 240$ its a steal. been a happy user for 8 months now and about to get my 2nd M4 :)

beavermml 05/16/2012 12:55 PM
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i currently own 320s for my boot drive just for casual stuff and i notice tremendous performance compared with normal HDD.. if i upgraded to 330s do i get more performance? how many seconds can i shaved more from booting? since using SSD i do not standby my pc anymore..

bartholomew 05/16/2012 1:00 PM
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chimera201 :
When will the price of SSD come down to HDD level? That would be news.



One could only wish. I'm waiting for HDD prices to come down to HDD level!.

blazorthon 05/16/2012 1:42 PM
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beavermml :
i currently own 320s for my boot drive just for casual stuff and i notice tremendous performance compared with normal HDD.. if i upgraded to 330s do i get more performance? how many seconds can i shaved more from booting? since using SSD i do not standby my pc anymore..



It won't be nearly as distinct of a difference. Unless you do work that makes fairly small differences in storage performance very obvious, you probably won't notice any difference. The 330s are considerably faster than the 320s, but even the 320s are orders of magnitude faster than HDDs for random accesses and a few times faster than HDDs for sequential throughput. The difference between the 320s and HDDs is far greater than the difference between the 320s and 330s.

Chainzsaw 05/16/2012 3:42 PM
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IMO Intel's SSD's are overpriced for what they are.

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