Introduction
Today we test new offerings from OCZ, PhotoFast, Corsair and Crucial, pitting them against the Intel X25-M G2. We will explore the performance differences seen when using modern controllers from Indilinx and Samsung, including units with smaller storage capacities. Think of it as an SSD Celebrity Deathmatch – but with more smoke.
Over the past few weeks we have seen an influx of companies getting into the SSD game. Most have been memory makers like Patriot and Crucial. One can see their motivation, since a memory maker without a line of Solid State Drives seems out of place. Most of these companies have opted to go the easy route, adopting and rebranding technology from Samsung, Indilinx and JMicron. We obtained a few samples from these newcomers to help fill some gaps in our performance figures, the biggest of which being the fact that smaller capacity SSDs from Samsung and Indilinx are rated at lower speeds than larger capacities based on the same controller.
The contenders:
Samsung:
The Samsung controller prefers 8 hard-wired channels.
Indilinx:
PhotoFast G-Monster V4S 32 (SLC) provided by DVNation
Crucial CT64M225 provided by Crucial
OCZ Vertex Turbo 120 provided by OCZ
Crucial CT64M225 provided by Crucial
OCZ Vertex Turbo 120 provided by OCZ
The Indilinx Barefoot controller: 4 physical channels, each of which can address 16 ‘virtual’ channels.
We also included an OCZ Vertex, Intel X25-M, and VelociRaptor 300 as reference benchmarks for our testing.
Read on for the goods!
