Shootouts

The Great High-end SSD Shootout (2014 Edition)

By Kenny Yeo - 28 Jan 2014

Test Setup + Timing Tests

Test Setup

The drives will be tested on our recently revamped storage testbed. The main changes are the faster Core i5-2500K processor and an accompanying Z77 motherboard which has native Thunderbolt connectivity.

  • Intel Core i5-2500K (3.3GHz)
  • ASUS P8Z77 Pro Thunderbolt (Intel Z77 chipset)
  • 2 x 2GB DDR3-1600 memory
  • MSI GeForce 8600 GTS
  • Windows 7

We have also revised our benchmarks, ditching older benchmarks such as HD Tune and also including an all new timing test to better evaluate the drive’s real world performance.

The list of benchmarks used are as follows:

  • AS-SSD benchmark 1.7.4739
  • CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1
  • PCMark 7 (Storage suite)
  • Iometer (version 2006.07.27)
  • Timing Tests (Cold start, Reboot, Apps Launching)

The full list of drives tested, in case you have forgotten (note that to keep the playing field level, these drives are all sporting 240 / 250 / 256GB of storage):

  • Corsair Neutron GTX
  • Crucial M500
  • OCZ Vector 150
  • Plextor M5 Pro Extreme
  • Samsung SSD 840 Pro
  • SanDisk Extreme II
  • Seagate 600
  • Toshiba Q-Series

Given that these drives represents the best of the best, we are expecting a close fight. The enthusiast favorites will obviously be the Samsung SSD 840 Pro, OCZ Vector 150 and last year’s winner, the Corsair Neutron GTX. The Plextor M5 Pro Xtreme is a fan favorite and could throw up a few surprises. The Toshiba Q-Series Pro could be a dark horse too, given Toshiba’s reputation and standing in the flash memory industry.

 

Timing Tests

New to our evaluation of SSDs is how they perform in real world everyday situations, namely booting up from a cold start, reboot and launching applications. As for the applications used, we made the drives launch 11 applications from the Adobe CS6 suite of utilities simultaneously, which includes resource intensive applications such as Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Premiere Pro amongst others. As a point of reference, a 7200rpm mechanical hard disk would take over 5 minutes to open all the applications.

In our timing tests, we have found that the difference in performance is very marginal. Even so, if we were to analyze the results closely, we can see that some drives are faster than others. The standout drive is arguably the Samsung SSD 840 Pro as its timings for all three operations were amongst the quickest. Other drives that were as quick were the SanDisk Extreme II , Seagate 600 and the Toshiba Q Series Pro. On the other end of the spectrum, we find the Crucial M500 and, surprisingly, our last year champion the Corsair Neutron GTX, which recorded the longest timings for all three tasks.

Join HWZ's Telegram channel here and catch all the latest tech news!
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.