Tom's Hardware's Summer Guide: 17 SSDs Rounded Up
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.
Test Setup
In this roundup, we look at the 10 new SSDs discussed in the previous pages, but we also add some competing, important products for a more rounded comparison. Please note that we didn't have a Samsung SSD for this roundup, owing to the company preparing for its next product generation.
All drives are tested for performance, power consumption, and efficiency. We cycle our performance testing to stress the drives with varying workloads. The results of the last test run can be found in the charts marked as "used." In this case, you’re looking at the performance level with write amplification and wear leveling algorithms having kicked in.
| System Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Hardware | Details |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-920 (45 nm, 2.66 GHz, 8 MB Shared L3 Cache) |
| Motherboard (LGA 1366) | Supermicro X8SAX, Revision: 1.0, Chipset Intel X58 + ICH10R, BIOS: 1.0B |
| RAM | 3 x 1 GB DDR3-1333 Corsair CM3X1024-1333C9DHX |
| HDD | Seagate NL35 400 GB, ST3400832NS, 7200 RPM, SATA 1.5Gb/s, 8 MB Cache |
| Power Supply | OCZ EliteXstream 800W, OCZ800EXS-EU |
| Benchmarks | |
| Performance Measurements | h2benchw 3.13PCMark Vantage 1.0.2.0 |
| I/O Performance | IOMeter 2008.08.18File server-BenchmarkWeb server-BenchmarkDatabase-BenchmarkWorkstation-BenchmarkStreaming ReadsStreaming Writes4k Random Reads4k Random Writes |
| System Software & Drivers | |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Ultimate 6.1.7600 |
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