Internals, Testing Methodology and System Setup
Internals:
Testing Methods
Our tests are a good mix of synthetic and real-world benchmarks. PCMark, IOMeter, HDTach, HDTune, Yapt and our custom File Copy test round out the selection to cover just about all bases. If you have any questions about our tests just drop into the Storage Forum and we’ll help you out!
Test System Setup
We have switched our testbed over to a more dedicated, forward thinking machine. We made some changes to help minimize test data scatter with higher bandwidth devices. Sound is flat out disabled, with no additional card installed. Video was *intentionally* shifted to a PCI unit to free up both PCIe-16 slots for testing tandem pairs of PCI Express cards (like ioDrives, DDRDrives, and high end RAID cards). Spot checks against the previous rig showed a negligible change in test output.
PC Perspective would like to thank ASUS, Corsair, and BFG for supplying some of the components of our test rig.
Opening this SSD was uneventful, save for the thermal pad meant to help cool the controller.
We noted this pad is helpful as the case does get warm during heavy use.
We noted this pad is helpful as the case does get warm during heavy use.
Front and rear of the SSD mainboard.
Winbond 64MB DDR2-800 SDRAM sits next to the lightly etched Toshiba controller.
If you squint you can make out ‘618’ as part of its model number.
If you squint you can make out ‘618’ as part of its model number.
16 8GB Toshiba 43nm parts make up the available 128GB of storage.
Finally a gut shot of the external enclosure, shown with the SSD installed for scale.
The enclosure is padded and did a good job of performing its duties.
The enclosure is padded and did a good job of performing its duties.
Testing Methods
Our tests are a good mix of synthetic and real-world benchmarks. PCMark, IOMeter, HDTach, HDTune, Yapt and our custom File Copy test round out the selection to cover just about all bases. If you have any questions about our tests just drop into the Storage Forum and we’ll help you out!
Test System Setup
We have switched our testbed over to a more dedicated, forward thinking machine. We made some changes to help minimize test data scatter with higher bandwidth devices. Sound is flat out disabled, with no additional card installed. Video was *intentionally* shifted to a PCI unit to free up both PCIe-16 slots for testing tandem pairs of PCI Express cards (like ioDrives, DDRDrives, and high end RAID cards). Spot checks against the previous rig showed a negligible change in test output.
PC Perspective would like to thank ASUS, Corsair, and BFG for supplying some of the components of our test rig.
| Hard Drive Test System Setup | |
| CPU | Intel Core i7 920 @ 4 GHZ (HT disabled) |
| Motherboard | Asus P6T |
| Memory | Corsair Dominator 6GB DDR3-1600 |
| Hard Drive | G.Skill 32GB SLC SSD |
| Sound Card | N/A |
| Video Card | BFG Geforce 8400 GS 512MB PCI |
| Video Drivers | Geforce 181.22 |
| Power Supply | Corsair CMPSU-650TX |
| DirectX Version | DX9.0c |
| Operating System | Windows XP X64 SP2
|
- PCMark05
- Yapt
- IOMeter
- HDTach
- HDTune
- PCPer File Copy Test
