How We Test, System Specs

The Intel SSD 510 Series 120GB, Crucial m4, OCZ Vertex 3, Crucial RealSSD C300 and others characteristic SATA 6Gb/s connectivity, requiring us to test using the Sandy Bridge (LGA1155) platform. All other 3Gb/s drives were tested on our older LGA1366 platform, merely this shouldn't affect the results. A few select SATA 3Gb/s drives were tested on our LGA1155 system to cheque for accuracy, both synthetic and existent-earth performance were much the same.

In addition to our featured wink devices, the Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM hard drive has been included for comparison'south sake. Our testing suite consists of four synthetic benchmark programs and our own file copying and load fourth dimension tests.

Every bit y'all probable know, while manufacturers claim impressive peak I/O performance out of the box, this performance can diminish over time. Unlike a conventional hard bulldoze, any write operation made to an SSD is a 2-footstep procedure: a data cake must be erased so written to. Obviously if the drive is new and unused there will be nil to erase and therefore the commencement pace can be bypassed, only this only happens once unless the drive is trimmed.

Considering this, we'll test how much performance yous can expect to lose over fourth dimension. Nosotros'll examine all drives in their make clean, unused state, and then run the HD Tach full criterion several times to fill the unabridged drive. This simulates heavy usage and clearly indicates of how performance volition be affected after normal long-term use. All the drives in this roundup support the Windows vii TRIM function, which is meant to annul these negative effects.

Examination System Specs
- Intel Core i7-2600K (LGA1155)
- x2 4GB DDR3-1600 G.Skill (CAS 8-eight-eight-twenty)
- Asus P8P67 Deluxe (Intel P67)
- OCZ ZX Series (1250w)
- Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB
- Kingston SSDNow V+ 100 256GB
- Patriot Torqx two 128GB Patriot Pyro 120GB (6Gb/s)
- Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (6Gb/s)
- Samsung 470 Serial 256GB
- Intel SSD 320 Series 300GB
- Intel SSD 510 Series 120GB (6Gb/s)
- Crucial m4 256GB (6Gb/s)
- Kingston HyperX 240GB (6Gb/southward)
- Samsung 830 Series 512GB (6Gb/south)
- OCZ Vertex 3 240GB (6Gb/due south)
- OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS 240GB (6Gb/s)
- Asus GeForce GTX 580 (1536MB)

Software
- Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 (64-bit)
- Nvidia Forceware 280.26