Acoustics and Thermals

Our acoustic tests measure the decibel levels while the system is at idle and under load while running the Hard Disk test suite within PCMark Vantage. We take measurements at a distance of 5mm from the rear and front of the drive in a separate enclosure and report the highest reading. The test room has a base acoustical level of 20dB(A).

Since there are not any moving parts, the Solid State Drives are virtually silent and so we will bypass the results charts for this particular test.

Our thermal tests utilize sensor readings via the S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) capability of the drives as reported by utilizing the Active SMART 2.6 utility. We also utilize thermal sensors and infrared measurement devices to verify our utility results. We test our drives in an enclosed case environment. Our base temperature level in the room at the time of testing is 25C.

Drive
Operating Temperatures - Celsius

Drive
Operating Temperatures - Celsius

By way of its greatly reduced power dissipation, the Samsung/OCZ 64GB SSD leads our test group in both idle and load thermals thanks to the lack of mechanical parts.

Hook me up... Much Improved Performance
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  • Dobs - Saturday, May 17, 2008 - link

    I like the sound of that.. a Hybrid with built in Raid (or equiv).

    So.... I'll have the Samsung F1 SSD3 500GB Hybrid thanks!
    That's the one that includes 1 308GB platter and 3 64GB SSD's (in Raid0 equiv)
  • mechBgon - Friday, May 16, 2008 - link

    "We waivered about presenting either drive an award."

    I think you meant "wavered."
  • Baked - Friday, May 16, 2008 - link

    I know you guys get all the freebies you want, do a RAID-5 w/ these drives now!
  • Juddog - Friday, May 16, 2008 - link

    The main advantage here IMHO is the power required, heat dissipation, noise level and MTBF. Perfect for notebooks. Working as a tech I see notebook drive failures all the time. I see plenty of executive level people with notebooks that would gladly pay a few hundred extra to get a much greater extended battery time from lower power usage, and greater data protection from the MTBF, not to mention the shock levels that these drives typically have is much greater than that of a hard drive.

    This is excellent for people who travel around a lot and carry expensive data on their laptops. Top it off with data encryption technologies that more companies are moving into, and the access time plays an even greater roll.
  • strikeback03 - Friday, May 16, 2008 - link

    IIRC, the tests in the Macbook Air at least showed little to no advantage in battery life from the SSD. The durability though would be nice. I personally wouldn't consider one until we can get drives upwards of 100GB for under $500.
  • JarredWalton - Saturday, May 17, 2008 - link

    MacBook Air SSD testing was actually http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=3226&a...">quite good. I think you're probably remembering the more recent http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=328...">128GB SSD follow-up where the extra performance and size of the SSD made power requirements about equal to a standard HDD.
  • Ender17 - Friday, May 16, 2008 - link

    Any results on the snapiness with these drives as seen here?
    http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=328...">http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=328...
  • tshen83 - Friday, May 16, 2008 - link

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

    Too bad it is out of stock. I hope STT makes more of it. 299 for 30GB of 120MB/read speed.
  • JarredWalton - Friday, May 16, 2008 - link

    But only 40MB/s writes.
  • semisonic9 - Friday, May 16, 2008 - link

    ...over it's competition? What's up with that? Would have expected 7200.11 drives, or 1tb drives, to be faster.

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