How We Test, Arrangement Specs

Along with an array of flash drives, we've included the Western Digital 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM and Western Digital Velociraptor 1TB ten,000RPM hard drives for comparing's sake. Other SSDs tested accept controllers such as the SandForce SF-2281, JMicron JMF616, Intel PC29AS218A, Marvell 88SS9174, Toshiba TC58NCF618GBT and Samsung S3C29MAX01. Our testing suite consists of four synthetic benchmark programs and our own file copying and load time tests.

As yous likely know, while manufacturers claim impressive peak I/O performance out of the box, this performance tin can diminish over time. Unlike a conventional hard drive, any write performance made to an SSD is a two-step process: a data block must be erased and so written to. Evidently if the drive is new and unused in that location will be nothing to erase and therefore the get-go step tin can be bypassed, but this merely happens one time unless the drive is trimmed.

Considering this, nosotros'll exam how much functioning y'all tin expect to lose from each SSD over fourth dimension. We'll examine all drives in their make clean unused state, and then run the HD Tach full benchmark several times to make full the entire drive. This simulates heavy usage and clearly indicates how performance will be affected after normal long-term use.

All drives in this roundup support the Windows vii TRIM function, which is meant to annul these negative effects.

Exam System Specs

  • Intel Core i7-3770K (LGA1155)
  • x2 4GB DDR3-1600 Chiliad.Skill (CAS eight-8-8-20)
  • Asrock Z77 Extreme11 (Intel Z77)
  • OCZ ZX Series (1250w)
  • Western Digital Black 4TB (3Gb/southward)
  • Western Digital Velociraptor 1TB (3Gb/s)
  • OCZ Vector 512GB (6Gb/s)
  • OCZ Vector 256GB (6Gb/s)
  • OCZ Vertex 450 256GB (6Gb/s)
  • OCZ Vertex 4 256GB (6Gb/southward)
  • OCZ Agility 4 256GB (6Gb/s)
  • OCZ Octane 512GB (6Gb/due south)
  • Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB (6Gb/s)
  • Kingston SSDNow Five+200 240GB (6Gb/s)
  • Crucial m4 256GB (6Gb/south)
  • Crucial v4 256GB (3Gb/southward)
  • Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB (6Gb/s)
  • Intel SSD 510 Serial 120GB (6Gb/s)
  • Intel SSD 320 Serial 300GB (3Gb/south)
  • Samsung SSD 840 Pro 512GB (6Gb/due south)
  • Samsung SSD 830 512GB (6Gb/s)
  • Asus GeForce GTX 680 (3072MB)

Software

  • Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 (64-chip)
  • Nvidia Forceware 320.14