14-Way SSD Hard Drive Roundup

Access Time, Interface

Most of the flash SSDs exhibit virtually no access time, with the benchmark returning a 0.1 ms measurement. Some SSDs, though, do have some delay, especially the MLC-based drives by Hama, Silicon Power and Super Talent, which show measurable access times of up to 0.5 ms — five times the speeds of the fastest drives. If you’re looking for server drives you should keep this result in mind, but anyone else can pretty much ignore these and focus on some of the other results.

Interface performance shows the maximum throughput via SATA (or UltraATA/66 in case of the 1.8” Hama drive). This result is not relevant in everyday life, but it allows you to assess the general performance level of a flash SSD. The Samsung and OCZ drives still offer some room for improvement in future product generations.