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Ten 60 GB SandForce-Based Boot Drives, Rounded-Up

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What makes one SandForce-based SSD different from the others that appear to be just like it? We round up 10 models with 60 GB of capacity to explore the effects of NAND interfaces. We also stumble across some interesting data related to full drives.

Test Setup And Firmware Notes

In a departure from what we've done in the past, we're adding out-of-box performance back into test suite today. So long as TRIM and garbage collection do their job, the performance of a desktop-oriented SSD should stay close to that level. We'll also cover the other end of the spectrum, though, conveying the performance during reads and writes to a dirty drive. Performance will always fall between those two extremes.

Firmware notes:

Because this story was already in progress when Micron released its 0309 firmware update, we wanted to note that the patch primarily resolves a BSOD error related to a power-on SMART counter. According to Crucial's change log, there should be no effect on performance.

Test Hardware
ProcessorIntel Core i5-2400 (Sandy Bridge), 32 nm, 3.1 GHz, LGA 1155, 6 MB Shared L3, Turbo Boost Enabled
MotherboardGigabyte GA-Z68X-UD7-B3
MemoryKingston Hyper-X 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR3-1333 @ DDR3-1333, 1.5 V
System DriveOCZ Vertex 3 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s
Tested DrivesAdata S511 60 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 3.3.2
Adata S511 60 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 3.3.2
Corsair Force GT 3 60 GB SATA 6Gb/s Firmware: 1.3.3
Corsair Force 3 60 GB SATA 6Gb/s Firmware: 1.3.3
Crucial m4 64 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 0009
Kingston SSDNow V200+ 60 GB, Firmware: 3.3.2
Intel SSD 520 60 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: -
OCZ Agility 3 60 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 2.15
OCZ Vertex 3 60 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 2.15
OWC Mercury Electra 6G SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 3.3.2
Patriot Pyro SE SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 3.3.2
RunCore Pro V 60 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 3.3.2
Samsung 830 64 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware CXM0
GraphicsPalit GeForce GTX 460 1 GB
Power SupplySeasonic 760 W, 80 PLUS Gold
System Software and Drivers
Operating SystemWindows 7 x64 Ultimate
DirectXDirectX 11
DriverGraphics: Nvidia 270.61 RST: 10.6.0.1002 Virtu: 1.1.101
Benchmarks
Iometer 1.1.0# Workers = 1, 4 KB Random: LBA=16 GB, varying QDs, 128 KB Sequential
PCMark 7Storage Suite
HD Tune Prov5.0, LBA= Full Span
36 Comments Comment from the forums
  • mayankleoboy1 01 March 2012 12:08
    As these drives are basically boot drives, i would have liked a test where you measure the total time taken to install a fresh wi7-sp1 on it and install updates and install a few softwares like

    Ms-Office
    Adobe pdf reader
    a web browser, a photo manipulating program
    a music/video player.
    Install a game from a ISO.
    An antivirus

    And all these apps should be installed from the SSD itself (meaning their setups should be on the SSD).Then you should test the startup and shutdown times.

    All these synthetic benchies dont make much sense, IMHO.
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1 01 March 2012 12:12
    I have found that when working with SSD's, single core CPU performance becomes a big bottleneck in some tasks.
    A lot of operations use only a single core and the SSD cant use its true potential. That is, the CPU cant process data as fast as the SSD can provide.
    This is just reverse of what happens in case of mechanical HDD's.
    Reply
  • acku 01 March 2012 12:14
    http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-520-sandforce-review-benchmark,3124-14.html

    You're not going to see a major difference.
    Reply
  • phamhlam 01 March 2012 12:38
    mayankleoboy1I have found that when working with SSD's, single core CPU performance becomes a big bottleneck in some tasks.A lot of operations use only a single core and the SSD cant use its true potential. That is, the CPU cant process data as fast as the SSD can provide.This is just reverse of what happens in case of mechanical HDD's.
    Well, it is pointless though since everything you are doing is so fast that it doesn't matter anymore. I however see your point since I can be loading a program and my SSD is not even at max speed my CPU frequency is maxed out. The only way to get more speed is to just overclock as much as you can.
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1 01 March 2012 13:05
    ackuhttp://www.tomshardware.com/review 24-14.htmlYou're not going to see a major difference.

    that is the point of buying a cheaper SSD based on a chepaer NAND.
    Reply
  • compton 01 March 2012 14:00
    Considering the conclusion that performance is defined by flash, I find it interesting that the one SF2281 with Toggle NAND at 60GB is not in the roundup (in North America anyway). The Mushkin Chronos Deluxe 60 is substantially cheaper now at $99. It's performance characteristics are much more profound than the 25nm ONFI sync/async models. They're often out of stock at Newegg, and for good reason.

    Reply
  • clownbaby 01 March 2012 14:08
    Is there a benchmark to compare virtual memory performance? My current workstation has 24gb of memory, which means Windows eats up 36gb of my boot drive for virtual memory. (yes, I know I can change/disable it, but some programs act wonky when it's screwed with). A dedicated virtual memory drive would free up space on my primary ssd, as well as keep the writes down.

    I'd also like to see small drives benchmarked as swap drives in video editing machines. Currently I'm using a raid 0 array of 1tb samsung drives that keeps up well enough, but I'd be interested to see if there are tangible productivity differences.
    Reply
  • 01 March 2012 19:07
    fwiw...intel uses its own premium binned 25nm sych...that why 4k read were so good.
    Reply
  • JackNaylorPE 01 March 2012 20:49
    With a final page heading "Performance Is Defined By Flash" I would have like to see that difference looked at more closely. For example, the Mushkin Chronos Deluxe uses premium 3Xnm Toshiba Toggle Mode Flash (as does Patriot Wildfire, Vertex 3 Max IOPS and OWC Mercury Extreme Pro) and I would love to see for example how just changing the Flashin in an SSD from the same manufacturer and line (i.e Chronos standard versus Deluxe, Vertex 3 versus Vertex 3 Max IOPS). With that info, a user can decide whether it's makes sense to invest in say the premium Toshiba stuff as compared to the "same SSD w/o the premium Flash. That was what I expected to see when I read the referenced page heading.
    Reply
  • jsowoc 01 March 2012 20:51
    I'm wondering why Toms' own trace-based benchmark didn't make it into this round-up? Does it take much longer to run than the other tests? While comparing synthetics is important to determine why a certain drive behaves a certain way, trace-based benchmarks (PCMark 7 could be considered trace-based) is what makes the final purchasing decision. In this case, PCMark was the one with the most clear-cut differences, ones that would likely be mirrored in a trace-based benchmark.

    For a future SSD review/roundup could you take, for example, 10 real-life traces from 10 different editor's machines (the more variation in workload, the better), and then compare the %change in execution time vs. a reference drive?
    Reply