Six New SSDs: Can Intel Be Dethroned?
Table of contents
- 1. SSDs for 2009: They’re New, But Are They Better?
- 2. Chaintech Apogee SSD, 64 GB
- 3. Memory Corp F4 MLC SSD, 32 GB
- 4. Memory Corp F4 SLC SSD, 32 GB
- 5. Silicon Power 64 GB SLC
- 6. Soliware SSD S100 64 GB
- 7. Super Talent SATA 2.5” SSD, MasterDrive OX
Hard drives based on flash memory are still a few years away from becoming mainstream products, because flash memory drives are still much more expensive per gigabyte than conventional hard drives—and even if they were cost-competitive, flash-based solid state drives (SSDs) cannot satisfy worldwide demand. However, there are more and more flash SSD products that are serious hard drives alternatives—at least for enthusiasts.
We looked at six new drives from Chaintech, Memory Corp, Silicon Power, Soliware, and Super Talent.
Good SSDs, Bad SSDs
Even if the supply right now seems to be large, flash SSDs still are a curiosity found at the very low end (think of entry-level notepads with 8 to 32 GB of low-cost storage) or at the high end. Enthusiast notebooks such as Lenovo’s X300 ultra portable utilize 1.8” Samsung SLC flash SSDs. Apart from that, the volumes being sold are still rather pathetic; after all, how many people are willing to spend several hundred dollars on a 32-64 GB drive?
In addition to the substantial price points for flash SSDs, hard drives have gotten really cheap. Terabyte hard drives are well below $150, and you can get 500 GB drives for as little as $75. And there are additional advantages for the good old hard drives. They have proven to be more reliable than many flash SSD products. Customers, such as Fujitsu-Siemens Computers (FSC), have been trying to validate flash SSDs for enterprise applications by looping hardcore I/O loads, and they all failed with write errors after only a few months.
But there are also very positive examples in the desktop and mobile space, as Intel and Samsung were able to show us last year. Although the current products are even more expensive than the majority of flash SSD products on the market, they are worth the money if you’re out for maximum performance and efficiency.
Many Brands, Few Winners
We received six new flash SSD products that all store either 32 or 64 GB. Some of the brands—such as Memory Corp or Soliware—might be new to many users. Silicon Power and Chaintech have been around for a while; Super Talent is probably the best known vendor out of these five. Most of these drives show excellent characteristics, but we found that this isn’t the case across all tests. Let’s have a look.
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Any perticular reason you didn't include an OCZ Vertex or a Supertalent Ultradrive? I'm really interested to know if these can match the Intel drives.
Actually a dedicated random write benchmark would have been useful too since this is known to be a serious weakness of most MLC drives.
Pointless review if its not using the latest ssd's available to comparte against intel
Hmm..scratching my head here, wondering where all the buzz went about these devices being streets ahead of conventional hard drive storage.
Perhaps the technology is being held back somewhat?
This test was a complete waste of time, as shawkie said the real test would have been to put the intel x25 up against the OCZ Vertex & Ultradrive as these are the drives people are considering to use as a upgrade.
Come on > chiantech,memory corp,silion,soliware, what was the point in including these in the test, I would never use these with there low read & write performances, and then theres the price, to much for very little performance in my opinion,
This was like a fixed boxing match where Toms hardware is the promoter of Intel X25, and making sure it avoided been knocked out by a better SSD out there.
Source: Tom's Hardware UK
Prices: USD
WTF!
Also, as others have said this review was biased towards Intel (again). If your going to do a job, do it right. If your not going to do the job right, shut up shop.
Nuff said really.
I thought that 0.1 milliseconds was 100 microseconds and 0.1 microseconds was 100 nanoseconds (pico, femto, atto etc).
It's always good to see a good hard drive in the test just to compare so you don't have to go searching another table to compare.