Power Consumption, Sound Levels and Conclusions
Because
we are actually taking power numbers at the wall, encompassing the
entire test system and not singling out the hard drive, our power
numbers for in the 100s rather than the single digits. To help
showcase the differences between the hard drives a bit more, I decided
to change the scale slightly and report the “watts over 90” that we
recorded in each instance. So, for example, on the WD VelociRaptor
drive, with wattage listed as 13.6w at idle, that is in fact indicating
total system wattage of 103.6W at idle (90W + 13.6W).
The power usage of the Super Talent MX 60GB SSD seems pretty reasonable in comparison to the other SSDs and 2.5″ drives in general.
Noise Levels
Just like the SSDs we reviewed before, one of the benefits of using flash memory for storage is the lack of moving parts and thus the lack of virtually any noise associated with the storage device.
The power usage of the Super Talent MX 60GB SSD seems pretty reasonable in comparison to the other SSDs and 2.5″ drives in general.
Noise Levels
Just like the SSDs we reviewed before, one of the benefits of using flash memory for storage is the lack of moving parts and thus the lack of virtually any noise associated with the storage device.
Performance
The Super Talent MX 60GB SSD has both high and low points in the realm of pure storage performance. In general the highs focus on the read speeds while the lows are related to the write speed that the drive is capable of. In our series of tests, including HDTach, HDTune and more, the burst speeds and sustained read speeds were impressive – about as fast as those from the OCZ SATA-II SSD but not quite up to the levels of the VelociRaptor 300GB drive from Western Digital.
Where the Super Talent drive faltered was in various forms of writes; this was in file creation, file copy and our Yapt-based performance testing. In terms of real-world tests, PCMark Vantage demonstrated this short coming in the Windows Video Maker test as did PCMark05 in the general file write workload. The impact of these write speed results will impact your buying decision based mostly on how you use your PC – gamer’s won’t really notice the performance deficit as most of their work load is level loading but users that frequently do video editing and creation will likely notice the slow down if coming from another 7200 RPM HDD.
Capacity Limits
Obviously the 60GB capacity of the Super Talent drive tested here is going to be a big factor in any user’s buying decision. 60GB is simply not enough storage for the majority of home computers these days and in fact the 60GB might struggle to make it as a sole boot/application drive. The good news if that Super Talent offers a larger, 120GB capacity version of the MX series of SSDs for a reasonable bump in price.
Potential Usage Models
Obviously the use of a 60GB solid state drive like this isn’t going to be for everyone or even for most situations. Obviously one of the best uses for these drives is in notebook computers were hard drives are usually much slower (ala the Scorpio drive from Western Digital) and run at much lower rotation rates than desktop drives (usually 2.5″ drives will spin at 4200 or 5400 RPM versus the 7200 or 10,000 RPM of desktop drives). The mobile market will benefit the speed increase, the lower power consumption, basically noiseless operation and won’t be hurt as much by the lack of large of amounts of storage that users really NEED on the desktop but may not on their laptop.
For the desktop consumer, the Super Talent MX 60GB SSD is still a hard sell – even though this new revision is just as fast as just about any desktop hard drive currently available. Only having a capacity of 60GB is small even for just an OS drive – I know many people in our Storage Forum have discussed 150GB being all they needed so THEY might be comfortable with a 60GB primary drive but I still need a bit more.
Pricing and Availability
As of this writing, you can find the exact drive tested here, the 60GB model of the Super Talent MX SSD for $335 or as low as $295 after mail-in rebate. That is considerably less than the OCZ SATA-II SSD we reviewed previously that is going for more than $850 at its 64GB capacity. Obviously there is a speed difference between the two drives, especially in write speeds, but for users that don’t care much about that type of performance the price difference certainly gives the Super Talent drive a more reasonable outlook.
Of course, there is also the 120GB version of the Super Talent drive that is currently selling for $495/$465 after mail-in rebate. Again the price puts Super Talent’s product in a great light – you can get twice the storage of the OCZ SSD drive and still save more than $350.
Final Thoughts
The Super Talent MX 60GB solid state drive is the first SSD we have tested that I can nearly call a “value”. Compared to other SSDs on the market the MX line of drives offers more storage for significantly less money – twice the capacity and just more than half the price. There is a caveat however in the write performance of Super Talent’s MX series being somewhat lower – especially in write speed tests – than that of OCZ’s latest SATA-II SSD offering and the WD VelociRaptor 300GB 10k RPM standard hard drive.
Our SSD testing is far from over – look for much more coverage of SSDs and how they’ll affect your PC experience in the near future!!
Be sure to use our pricing engine to find the best prices on hard drives and anything else you might need:
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