2010 Value SSD (~$100) Roundup: Kingston and OCZ take on Intel
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 3, 2010 12:01 AM ESTTRIM Performance
All three of these value drives support TRIM. To gain some insight into how the individual controllers implement TRIM and how they behave in a highly fragmented state I filled the drive with garbage data and then peppered it with random data on top of that for 20 minutes. I then ran HD Tach on the drives and generated the graphs below.
Intel X25-V after Torture
The Intel drive loses a lot of its performance in this highly fragmented case, it does try to restore performance though. The controller is constantly fighting to reorganize fragmented data and restore itself to full performance. TRIMing the garbage data brings performance back to new:
Intel X25-V after Torture and TRIM
Kingston's drive is surprisingly resilient after our little torture session:
Kingston SSDNow V Series Boot Drive New Performance
Kingston SSDNow V Series Boot Drive after Torture
Average read performance drops a bit but average write performance is largely unaffected. A TRIM pass restores read performance to nearly new:
Kingston SSDNow V Series Boot Drive after Torture and TRIM
It's not a full restoration however. Kingston doesn't appear to TRIM as aggressively as Intel or most other manufacturers. Thankfully with write performance largely unaffected this doesn't really matter.
OCZ Onyx after Torture
The Onyx's performance after torture looks bad. If you don't have TRIM support in your OS, the Onyx isn't a good choice.
OCZ Onyx after Torture and TRIM
A quick TRIM pass and performance is as good as new on the Onyx.
The best pick here if you don't have TRIM support appears to be Kingston's SSDNow V Series Boot Drive.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
49 Comments
View All Comments
cknobman - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
Your reviews always show a breakdown of how a drive performs before and after TRIM. How are you issuing the TRIM command? I thought by default Windows 7 always issued the TRIM command on every operation as long as your drive supported it.gaspard - Sunday, June 6, 2010 - link
well you can disable it via Windows' fsutil command: fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify NO TRIM: fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 1 TRIM ON: fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0GullLars - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
I've been waiting for an article like this for a few months now, and you did a good job Anand, as always ;)I have a couple of questions:
Why not include OCZ Agility 30GB? ($119 @ newegg)
Why only test random write and not read at QD 32?
There is little difference in random writes, but random reads double for the x25-V, and i'd guess increase a bit for the Onyx too.
A full Barefoot drive can do 60MB/s random read @ QD 5.
x25-V can do about 70MB/s @ QD 4, and about 100MB/s @ QD 8 for random reads.
Why not include PCmark Vantage HDD subscores?
They are made to showcase the strong and weak points of storage performance, and are relevant to what drive to pick. The total HDD score can be the same for two drives with completely different strenghts.
Dylock - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
The OCZ Agility 60GB is on sale at Amazon.com for 144$, as of today. That's $2.4 per GB.An Indilix controller to boot. The lower grade memory comes into play for performance , but not by much.
Movieman420 - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
Currently a 30gb Vertex is $109 ($99 after rebate)! Instead the Onyx was used which uses 'half' of an Idilinx controller (Indilinx Amigo). I know you had an Onyx handy cuz of recent testing but really. Even tho the Vertex is 'old gear', it woulda blew the doors off the other drives in your testing.u.of.ipod - Thursday, June 3, 2010 - link
I want a SSD for my HTPC. Hopefully it can be shutdown and booted up more quickly, be more responsive in Windows Media Center 7 and finally to provide space for a second 3.5" storage drive. Is one of these value drives for me? Should I just choose a 2.5" mechanical drive instead?kmmatney - Friday, June 4, 2010 - link
The Intel 40 GB SSD works fine on Windows XP without TRIM. Just install the Intel SSD Toolbox, and it will perform a "TRIM" or garbage collection routine automatically, once a week.kmmatney - Friday, June 4, 2010 - link
Whoops - was supposed to be a new comment, and not a "reply"...gaspard - Sunday, June 6, 2010 - link
whichever one you like, and NO... those are the answers respectivelymrmike_49 - Saturday, June 5, 2010 - link
I'd like to see tests of loading times for various games, start-up as well as level loads. Games are an ideal use for SSDs, many many Reads, very few Writes. A $100 SSD that could triple my load speed (or more) would be nice.How about redoing this review, concentrating on actual load start-up times and level loads of popular games??!!