Benchmarks: CrystalDiskMark 3.0

The CrystalDiskMark sequential read numbers heavily favored the Kingston SNV425-S2 64GB and ADATA S596 Turbo 32GB drives, both of which provided a throughput greater than 240MB/s. The SNV425-S2 64GB lead the pack with an impressive 256MB/s while the third fastest SSD was the Intel X25-V 40GB topping out at 190MB/s.

Both the OCZ Agility 2 and Vertex 2 40GB drives were quite slow in this test with a throughput of just 150MB/s. This made them only slightly faster than the OCZ Onyx 32/64GB drives which were limited to ~130MB/s.

The sequential write performance trends are quite different and here we see that the conventional Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB hard drive performs very well. In fact the Kingston SNV425-S2 64GB was the only SSD to beat the Samsung HDD and it did so convincingly providing 50% more performance. The Seagate Momentus XT 500GB was just a fraction slower than the Samsung HDD making it the third fastest drive tested.

This time the OCZ Agility 2 and Vertex 2 40GB drives were able to defeat the ADATA S596 Turbo 32GB and Intel X25-V 40GB SSDs with a throughput of 74MB/s. The ADATA S596 Turbo 32GB and OCZ Onyx 32/64GB drives all delivered roughly the same performance in this test with a throughput of 56-58MB/s. The Intel X25-V 40GB was the slowest drive tested as we found it unable to deliver more than 42MB/s in this test.

The random 512K test shows quite different performance to that of the sequential read/write tests. The ADATA S596 Turbo 32GB does very well in the read test with a throughput of 205MB/s. The Intel X25-V 40GB and Kingston SNV425-S2 64GB both delivered around 157-158MB/s making them slightly faster than the OCZ Agility 2 and Vertex 2 40GB drives which provided a throughput of 146MB/s.

The OCZ Onyx 32/64GB drives were again the slowest SSDs tested delivering just 119MB/s. However at the bottom of the graph we have the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB that was limited to 43MB/s making it noticeably slower than the Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB.

The random 512K test puts the OCZ Agility 2 and Vertex 2 40GB SSDs at the top of the graph as they provided a throughput of 73MB/s. The next fastest drives were the OCZ Onyx 32/64GB SSDs, then followed by the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB and the Samsung Spinpoint F1.

The Intel X25-V 40GB was slightly slower than the Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB desktop hard drive, while the Kingston SNV425-S2 64GB and ADATA S596 Turbo 32GB which performed so well in the read test were the slowest drives in the write test.

Now for the random 4K read results with a queue depth of 32. The Intel X25-V 40GB dominated the read test and this is likely what helped it win our Windows 7 loading test. With a throughput of 135MB/s the Intel X25-V 40GB was 50% faster than the OCZ Agility 2 and Vertex 2 40GB SSDs which claimed second and third place. Again the OCZ Onyx drives outmuscled the ADATA S596 Turbo 32GB and Kingston SNV425-S2 64GB SSDs which were very slow here, particularly the Kingston drive which sustained just 13MB/s.

Traditional hard drives perform even worse as the Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB managed just 1.5MB/s and the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB was the slowest by far.

Although the Intel X25-V 40GB sustains a leading position in the 4K-QD32 write test, the OCZ Agility 2 and Vertex 2 40GB drives strike back with an astonishing 70% lead. This is likely what explains the strong performance seen from these OCZ drives in our game file and program file real-world copy tests.

The Intel X25-V 40GB which provided a throughput of 41MB/s was four times faster than the next quickest SSD, the ADATA S596 Turbo 32GB which managed just 10MB/s. The OCZ Onyx 32/64GB drives were limited to 6MB/s while the Kingston SNV425-S2 64GB provided just 4MB/s. The Seagate Momentus XT 500GB and Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB both produced less than 1MB/s in this test.