Tom's Hardware > All Reviews > Storage > Internal Storage > Tom's Hardware's Summer Guide: 17 SSDs Rounded Up

Tom's Hardware's Summer Guide: 17 SSDs Rounded Up

2:00 AM - August 31, 2010 by Patrick Schmid and Achim Roos

1. Tom’s Hardware Mainstream SSD Shootout
2. The SSD Landscape
3. Asax Leopard Hunt II (TS25M64, 128 GB)
4. Asax Server One 120 (200 GB)
5. Crucial RealSSD C300 (64 GB)
6. G.Skill Phoenix FM25S2S (100 GB)
7. G.Skill Phoenix Pro (120 GB)
8. Intel X25-V (40 GB)
9. OCZ Vertex 2 (VTX100G, 100 GB)
10. OCZ Vertex 2 (E series, VTX2E120G, 120 GB)
11. OWC Mercury Extreme SSD (100 GB)

12. RunCore Kylin II SSD (100 GB)
13. Test Setup
14. Benchmark Results: Access Time
15. Benchmark Results: I/O Performance
16. Benchmark Results: Read/Write Throughput
17. Benchmark Results: 4K Random Reads/Writes And Interface Bandwidth
18. Benchmark Results: PCMark Vantage
19. Benchmark Results: Power Consumption
20. Benchmark Results: Power Efficiency
21. Performance Indexes
22. Conclusion
23. Comparison Table

Which SSD should you buy today? Seventeen flash-based drives battle across a benchmark suite that include throughput, I/O performance, consistency, power consumption, efficiency, and the best overall bang for the buck. The time is right to upgrade.

Ten new products and a total of 17 drives make this the most comprehensive SSD roundup in Tom’s Hardware history. We provide a check list of what you need to know for your SSD purchase and look at all the test candidates before making recommendations. Despite the fact that Intel's recently-leaked roadmap indicates 25 nm MLC flash drives as large as 600 GB arriving in Q4, now is still as good a time as any for an SSD upgrade, given the strong offerings currently available.

Pros and Cons

An SSD is a storage product that serves the function of a hard drive, but it doesn't use magnetized rotating platters to store data. Instead, SSDs utilize NAND flash memory, which introduces a plethora of advantages, together with a few potential caveats.

SSDs have no moving parts. Dropping an SSD shouldn't harm any stored data as long as the solder points survive the impact and the drive doesn’t suffer other physical damage. Additionally, SSDs are less susceptible to extreme temperatures, and recent product generations are much lower on power consumption than conventional hard drives. However, performance is still the top reason to pick an SSD device, and we’re glad to say that all SSDs in this review are considerably faster than hard drives.

Due to the nature of flash memory, it's not possible to erase individual bits. Flash cannot write in the same way as DRAM. Instead, only larger blocks are erased and programmed, which takes much more time than read operations. Also, flash memory cells have a limited number of write cycles, and this requires intelligent wear-leveling algorithms in the controller to prevent premature failure. Modern flash SSD products take advantage of several tweaks in order to avoid write performance bottlenecks and the performance-depleting effect known as write amplification, which causes the drive to write more bits than the data requires. All current SSDs use intelligent controllers that access multiple flash memory channels and work with a cache buffer to optimize writes. If you pick one of the latest drives and use a modern operating system, such as Windows 7, you’ll enjoy all the SSD benefits with no risks of running into real issues.

Pros	Cons
Very high read throughput Very quick access Mechanically-robust Temperature-resistant 2.5” form factor suitable for laptops and desktops	Sometimes limited write throughput Limited write access time TRIM support on the drive and in the operating system highly recommended Significantly higher price per gigabyte versus hard drives

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Onyx2291 08/31/2010 8:16 AM

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Good, before I saw this my decision on getting an Intel would have been fine.

M3God 08/31/2010 8:19 AM

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El_Capitan 08/31/2010 8:35 AM

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You can get the Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB for $240. Only problem is the sketchy firmware (read about at anandtech) and poor performance in RAID.

SSD's I have (I always look for deals and buy when I think it's the lowest):
1. (2) Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB ($240) - Fast, great price, used for video editing and programming.
2. Intel x-25m 160GB ($380) - Fast, expensive, used on my server.
3. (2) Corsair P128 ($260, $290)- Decently fast, very low power consumption, decent price but now expensive, used for my HTPC and laptop.
4. Kingston SSDNow V-series 64GB ($110) - Fast enough, somewhat cheap, used for my gf's computer.

Luckily none have gone bad on me, and would buy them again. Glad to see other SSD's in the mix, though. More reviews and benchmarks never hurt, and THG's always used when I need more information to make a decision.

WarraWarra 08/31/2010 8:46 AM

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Nice piece very informative.

G-Skill Phoenix 100GB looks like a good all rounder.
OWC a good 2nd choice for me.
Western digital would have been my 1st choice but seems to lack a lot.

The rest is too all over the place with it's performances for me.

The greater Good 08/31/2010 8:57 AM

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I just used 2 120 GB Phoenix Pros in RAID 0 for a friend's build. It's freakin FAST! I got one for my parents as their HDD just crashed. They love it.

heretocrave 08/31/2010 9:02 AM

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"reads and whites" is that supposed to be some sort of play on words? Just kidding. Good article, much appreciated.

blackmancer 08/31/2010 9:19 AM

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I got 2 intel 80 G2s in RAID0 and they haul. sure under heavy 4K scenarios they do fall behind, but for most use its no problem. you can also purchase 2 intel 160G drives for slightly more than a C300 and you'll get far better results per dollar per GB in a RAID0 setup.

I get 525MB reads and 175MB writes. For an OS drive that doesn't do a whole lot of writing I'm ok with the performance.

JonnyDough 08/31/2010 9:48 AM

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For my dollar I'll do a smaller OCZ Vertex 2 for a boot drive...they have great performance and come in under $150.

jgv115 08/31/2010 10:11 AM

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I'm still rocking a Intel X25-M G1, no probs at all. I see no point to change.

Anonymous 08/31/2010 10:34 AM

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I just picked up the kingston SSDNow-now SNV-425, Im happy with it but am thinking about picking up another for raid 0. Does anybody have this setup?Im curious to know your read/write numbers as I cant find anybody with this setup on the net. Please Post.

jsowoc 08/31/2010 10:35 AM

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Two corrections to the graph titles (other SSD articles have the same problems):

- it says "[t in ms]" (should be "t in us")

- it says "including rotational latency"; which parts of the SSD are rotating and have latency? ;-)

ruffopurititiwang 08/31/2010 11:31 AM

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I like how you did the price/performance index. People don't usually buy SSD's for storage but for performance so it makes much more sense to show the performance vs dollar metric than gigabyte vs dollar. This way, people can pick what capacity will suffice for them then decide which drive will give them the most performance for the money. Kudos!

Travis Beane 08/31/2010 11:32 AM

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Interesting.
Guess I'm still waiting for the Gen3 Intel drives.
I have been saying that for a while now...

Though I will avoid RAID for a boot drive, and RAID 1/5 only for storage.
I've had enough headaches from RAID.

avatar_raq 08/31/2010 2:14 PM

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I just ordered an OCZ vertex 2 60GB for ~155 USD, excluding shipping and other costs, if the performance is close to the 120GB version then I'm in good shape, but I highly doubt that. Any one got a good comparison between the 2 drives?

reynod 08/31/2010 2:24 PM

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andune 08/31/2010 2:50 PM

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Maybe I missed this in the tables, but was the Crucial drive tested on a 6 Gb/s interface only? For those of us with only 3Gb/s boards, it'd be interesting to see how the performance compares. I seem to recall from Anand's review that throughput was somewhat less than saturated.

sstym 08/31/2010 3:28 PM

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Patrick and Achim, great to see you included price in your performance ratios! The previous articles focused on power consumption, which is less relevant for SSD (a 1W difference when your laptop CPU consumes anywhere between 13 and 35W, and your GPU anywhere between 7 and 50W?)
128GB C300 SSD's are already barely above $2 per GB. I can't wait for the next generation of intel SSD and the widely predicted price drops at the end of the year.

zaixionito 08/31/2010 4:17 PM

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cknobman 08/31/2010 4:21 PM

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Western Digital should hang their head in shame. Pathetic SSD offering and I cant see anyone actually buying one.

sublifer 08/31/2010 4:22 PM

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I'm kind of surprised seeing the aggregate performance chart with the intel V series outperforming the indilinx drives. Seems fishy to me.

Not surprised with WD as I've noticed the same thing myself. If you look at the lower capacity WD drives though you'll find the price competes with the intel (and Kingston) V series but performance is closer to the indilinx and M series (I can only assume as I'm not sure I've ever seen the smaller cap versions benched). A much better buy in my opinion.

That said, I really want a Vertex2 (or larger cap C300) but I'm waiting for a reasonable capacity under $200. I think that threshold is shared by many and the first mfg to make it there is going to make a killing.