[Benchmark] SSD remarkable speed during storms HDD prices - Why not?

Referring to upgrade, probably most of us are thinking about the graphics card and processor first, then to other parts such as motherboards, power supplies or heat dissipation ... The hard drive is just storage is just as high as possible. This is not difficult to understand because of the low speed drive affects system performance more than other components.

But "less" does not mean insignificant. A friend of mine once complained a lot about the WD Green drives make i7-2600K system slows his lot: on a long application, game load very slowly, or stick error "not responding" ...

In the context of Thailand floods HDD to very high prices and not so many hours to reduce the same, why do not we try to raise some hard drive in another direction: speed instead of space?

SSD: Pros and Cons

Speed

Readers will find this more intuitive advantages of SSD in the benchmark below.

A clear advantage of SSD speed before the HDD in all aspects: starting the application, loading screens, data replication, the operating system boots in 10 seconds ... While a common speed HDD read-write only about 100 to 150 MB / s is in SSD, this number can be up to 550 MB / s!

Solid Structure

Instead of using the blade disk, SSDs store data in NAND memory chips. In addition to parallel operation between the memory chip (read-write speeds push up), this also helps endurance SSD than HDD, especially in environments where vibration or impact or missed when users type fall hard. Not only that, SSD is absolute silence after a long time, not using a sound of the blade spindles rotating disk filter as the HDD.

Power consumption and temperature

With the mode of operation flash memory, SSD consumes extremely low power and almost no heat. Meanwhile, the HDD needs to 10W (or more) during operation and so need a cooling fan, as recommended by the manufacturer, often operate at high temperatures will kill your HDD!

Weaknesses

- Not many people dare to spend a lot of money to pick on a drive with less capacity, especially when things need more attention as the graphics card, processor, heat sink ... But in the context of HDD high current, this weakness of SSD seems a bit fuzzy.

- In addition to price, SSD is a common weakness is that the problem with the firmware drivers. To achieve best performance and fix bugs, users should regularly check and update the new firmware maker. This is not a nuisance in the HDD.

- Moreover, although ownership rate is quite impressive, but the SSD will slow down over time to use (or more accurately the number of write-erase times). Therefore, users never get the true speed of the drive parameters. However, you can completely restore speeds for their SSDs as when purchased with Erase operation erase all data (not format). But this is clearly not what was expected of any user.

Test performance: SSD over HDD gloves

Test Configuration

Motherboard: ASRock Z68 Pro3
Processor: Intel Core i5 2500K
Memory: 3x 2 GB Gskill 1600 cas 8 RIPJAWS
Graphics Card: MSI GTX 560 OC Ti II Twin Frozc
Source: Seasonic X660
HDD: WD Caviar Blue 320 GB HDD
Mach Xtreme MX-DS SSD Turbo 120 GB

Caviar Blue is a popular line of Western Digital HDD. Products with read-write speed is about 110 MB / s. This version is SATA 3, SATA 3 but in my opinion is not necessary for HDD because they are not yet fully exploited the speed of SATA 2. Caviar Blue 320 GB is worth around U.S. $ 1.8 million - ie more than doubled over the past half year.

Turbo Mach Xtreme MX-DS SSD line has the highest rate today. Using MLC NAND Flash memory chips, read-write speed of Turbo MX-DS can be up to 550 MB / s. Products using SATA 3 interface, ability to be backwards compatible with SATA 2 but greatly reduced speed.

* Thank Ha Noi Computer company has two product support.

Startup time - off

Operating system that I use is Windows 7 Ultimate. Time is calculated from the beginning of boot to the hard drive until the OS booted.

The speed of the boot drive Turbo MX-DS is almost 3 times faster, while fast shutdown is 2 times.

The hard drive speed of the benchmark: Crystal DiskMark - HD Tach - ATTO Disk Benchmark

HD Tach - Caviar Blue

HD Tach - Turbo MX DS

ATTO Disk Benchmark - Caviar Blue

ATTO Disk Benchmark - Turbo MX DS

Read-write speed of Turbo MX-DS clearly faster than the Caviar Blue several times. While the Caviar Blue just fell into about 110 MB / s Turbo MX-DS nearly 5 times faster! This is the speed of the SSD benchmark when just installed operating system, can actually use less.

Copy Time & extracting data

This test is intended for reference, because in fact the price is expensive, SSD only be used to install operating systems and applications but rarely store data. Tests include heavy copy 1.16 GB folder containing 290 JPEG files; heavy mkv file copy 1.86 GB iso file and extract heavy 7.08 GB.

Time to install the game: StarCraft II - Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - Dirt 3

Turbo MX-DS over a period of decent Caviar Blue.

The system allows benchmarking: 3DMark Vantage - 3DMark 11 - PCMark Vantage

Caviar Blue (left) and Turbo MX-DS (right)

Caviar Blue (left) and Turbo MX-DS (right)

Along the assessment software capable of handling graphics, overall results between the Caviar Blue and Turbo MX-DS is not dissimilar. The only test of 3DMark 11 spots for Physics SSD HDD higher score. Caused by this test requires the exchange of large data streams. This means applications with many physical effects will exploit the strengths of the SSD.

Caviar Blue (above) and MX-DS Turbo (less)

PCMark 11 is a comprehensive assessment software the ability to work and entertainment system. Accordingly MX-DS SSD solution proved superior Turbo HDD Caviar Blue is very very much. On all aspects of music, games ... SSD solutions have received higher scores from 1.5 to 4 times!

Boot-time game and load game screen: StarCraft II - Shogun 2: Total War

These are two very serious strategy game with the game screen with complex environments. Long boot time slow and easy to load screen crazy gamers, especially if you just "food issue".

Performance game: StarCraft II - Shogun 2: Total War - Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - Dirt 3

A pity! Not as many people think, whether solid-state hard drive superior speed but almost no better than HDD in paragraph frames / sec in the game.

Conclusion

Referring to the SSD, there are many reasons to "do green grapes" as the cost of expensive, low capacity, see "small little obnoxious" ... but can not negate the speed advantage that brings advantages of its Vietnamese back. Cool, no vibration, absolute silence, durability, energy savings, superior speed, no lag no delay ... Just a short 3 days using Turbo MX-DS, it takes me a week to accommodate applications with speed "slow bubbling" of the Caviar Black is using.

However, despite the ability to exploit applications increased markedly, SSD does not offer any advantages for the frames in the game - something that most gamers interested. In addition to exploiting the advantages of speed, operating systems and applications must be installed on the SSD, so solid drive is almost useless when you are equipped with less than 60 GB capacity.

With the cost of expensive SSD option of course is behind other parts. If, however, felt satisfied with the performance of the system, or moving toward the optimal working environment, SSD is definitely the choice does not make you regret.

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