Marvell-Based SSDs From Corsair, Crucial, OCZ, And Plextor: Tested

Test Setup And Firmware Notes

We are using the same testing protocol outlined in our earlier 60 GB SandForce round-up, which focuses on out-of-box performance. If TRIM and garbage collection are working, the performance of a desktop-oriented SSD should remain fairly consistent. We will also cover the other end of the spectrum, and measure the performance during reads and from a “dirty” drive. Performance will always fall between those two extremes.

Firmware Notes:

Since we updated our m4 SSDs to the latest 0309 firmware, we noticed a small benchmark change. Performance in 4K random reads tends to be a little slower at low queue depths. Otherwise, everything is the same as before. This validates Crucial's change log, which suggests that moving from 0009 would have little effect on performance.