Intel SSD 310 80 GB: Little Notebooks Get Big Storage Flexibility

Test Setup

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Test Hardware
ProcessorIntel Core i5-2500K (Sandy Bridge), 3.3 GHz, LGA 1155, 8 MB Shared L3, Power-savings enabled
MotherboardGigabyte GA-H67MA-UD2H
MemoryKingston Hyper-X 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR3-1333 @ DDR3-1333/1066, 1.5 V
Hard DriveIntel X25-M 160 GB SSDSA2M160G2GC, SATA 3Gb/s (System Drive)
Row 4 - Cell 0 Kingston SSDNow 100 V+ 120 GB SVP100S2/128G, SATA 3Gb/s
Row 5 - Cell 0 OCZ Agility 2 120 GB OCZSSD2-2AGTE120G, SATA 3Gb/s
Row 6 - Cell 0 Seagate Momentus 5400.6 500 GB ST9500325AS, SATA 3Gb/s
Row 7 - Cell 0 OCZ Vertex 2 120 GB OCZSSD2-2VTXE120G, SATA 3Gb/s
Row 8 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 310 80 GB SSDMAEMC080G2, SATA 3Gb/s
GraphicsIntel HD Graphics 3000
Power SupplySparkle 1250 W, 80 PLUS
System Software And Drivers
Operating SystemWindows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
DirectXDirectX 11
Graphics DriverIntel Display Driver 8.15.10.2266
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Benchmarks
Performance MeasurementsCrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64, set to read and write random data to drivePCMark Vantage 1.0.2.0
I/O PerformanceIOMeter 2008.08.18, default configuration, not reading/writing random dataFile server Benchmark, Web server Benchmark, Database Benchmark, Workstation BenchmarkStreaming Reads, Streaming Writes4 KB Random Reads, 4 KB Random Writes

While the mSATA can't be natively plugged into a SATA port, we have a interposer card that converts the mSATA interface to the standard seven-pin SATA connector. This does not create any sort of bottleneck, as mSATA still utilizes native SATA signaling.

Update: If you have been paying attention to the news, you already know about the SATA degradation problem in the H67 and P67 chipsets. We want to remind everyone that the problem only affects the 3 Gb/s ports. We're only testing on the 6 Gb/s ports here, so our results are unaffected.