Fantastic sequential read and write performance is a trademark of modern SSDs. To measure it, we use incompressible data over a 16 GB LBA space, and then test at queue depths from one to 16. We're reporting these numbers in binary (where 1 KB equals 1024) instead of decimal numbers (where 1 KB is 1000 bytes). When necessary, we also limit the scale of the chart to enhance readability.
128 KB Sequential Read
We're pitting the SSD340 against a select group of 256 GB-class offerings. All four use 16 KB page sizes, and all four employ 128 Gb dies.
Right out of the gate, there aren't many meaningful observations to make. The dip we've seen from other 128 Gb L85A-equipped SSDs with a single outstanding 128 KB read command affects Transcend's drive as well. Only Adata's SP920 stands out from the group.
128 KB Sequential Write
These results are somewhat disappointing, at least compared to the pricier drives in our comparison. The Adata sells for $150, Transcend's SSD340 is $115, and Crucial's slightly quicker M500 is also priced at $115. But Transcend can't catch the comparably-priced Crucial drive in our sequential write speed benchmark, and that was already one of the slower drives we've tested recently.
Meanwhile, Plextor's four-channel M6S hangs the rest of the field out to dry with its complement of 128 Gb Toshiba A19 Toggle-mode flash. That's a $145 offering.
Here's a breakdown of the maximum observed 128 KB sequential read and write performance with Iometer:
- Transcend And JMicron Pair Up For The SSD340
- How We Tested Transcend's SSD340
- Results: Sequential Performance
- Results: Random Performance
- Results: Latency And Performance Consistency
- Results: Tom's Hardware Storage Bench v1.0
- Results: Tom's Hardware Storage Bench v1.0, Continued
- Results: PCMark 8 Storage Consistency Testing
- Results: TRIM Testing With DriveMaster 2012
- Power Consumption: Now With DevSlp Testing
- SSD340: An Attractive Price, But Not Differentiated



In the conclusion you put:
That would be two features!
There is a good chance you won’t notice the difference between a “fast” SSD and a hard disk in the day to day life of a PC.
There is a good chance you won’t notice the difference between a “fast” SSD and a hard disk in the day to day life of a PC.
I don't think that's accurate. I have two otherwise-identical laptops, one with an SSD for its boot drive and one with a HDD. The one with the SSD is hands down faster in program launches, file opening, and other read/write tasks.
I've also compared fresh installs of multiple OSs (Windows 7, Linux Mint 16, Ubuntu 14.04) between hard drive and SSD, as well as comparing them to my old Windows 7 install on a relatively slow SSD, and none of the fresh installs on hard drives even came close in speed to the old and bloated install on the SSD.
I'm sorry that you haven't experienced the difference between a SSD and a HDD, I do truly believe it is the single most important upgrade one can make to their PC.
There is a good chance you won’t notice the difference between a “fast” SSD and a hard disk in the day to day life of a PC.
I don't think that's accurate. I have two otherwise-identical laptops, one with an SSD for its boot drive and one with a HDD. The one with the SSD is hands down faster in program launches, file opening, and other read/write tasks.
I've also compared fresh installs of multiple OSs (Windows 7, Linux Mint 16, Ubuntu 14.04) between hard drive and SSD, as well as comparing them to my old Windows 7 install on a relatively slow SSD, and none of the fresh installs on hard drives even came close in speed to the old and bloated install on the SSD.
I'm sorry that you haven't experienced the difference between a SSD and a HDD, I do truly believe it is the single most important upgrade one can make to their PC.
Lots of upgrades can be important depending where you are at with each component. If you have a slow low power 2.5” hard disk in your laptop then an SSD can help. But I’m looking at all other things being equal and SSDs just don’t help that much when you have a fast 3.5” HD. When I compare the same tasks on my old PC with a HD that has a good 150MB+ read write speed and other than benchmarking the Windows boot time and a few large apps starting up it just not a big deal. Even then you have to clock it and see that it took 30 seconds and not 38. In my day to day work I just don’t notice. You have to set there and clock the Windows startup time. Are my work VMware sessions any faster, do my games start any faster? No, not really. I have even played around with a 50GB RAM drive with 3000MB+ read/write speeds and my games and VMware sessions are just about the same. Windows and the apps are waiting on other things and the bottleneck is just moved elsewhere. All my games are on my supper fast 400MB+ SSD and when my friend comes over he plays on my poor old HD base PC with slower RAM and slower CPU and a slower GPU and all the different games we play together I load the games maybe a few seconds before he does and with some games there is no difference.
Your almost never going to be doing sequential write/read for 150MB+ on a HDD and that random read/write will just kill that speed.