SSD Showdown: 4 Top Drives Reviewed

Posted 04/18/2011 at 11:04am | by Nathan Edwards

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Crucial m4 256GB

Company debuts second 6Gb/s SSD

At first blush, the Crucial m4 seems virtually indistinguishable from its predecessor, the Crucial RealSSD C300. After all, it’s available in the same capacity with the same Marvell 9174 6Gb/s SATA controller and same amount of DRAM cache—256MB for the 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB versions, and 128MB for the 64GB drive.

What’s the difference between the Crucial m4 and a Micron RealSSD C400? Branding.

That isn’t to say the Crucial m4 is identical to the C300. For one thing, the m4’s firmware has been substantially updated from the sometimes-flaky firmware of the C300. For another, the m4 uses 25nm-process NAND, while the C300 used 34nm NAND. Smaller-process NAND means lower cost per gigabyte (thus, cheaper SSDs), but with a slight durability hit, albeit one probably unnoticeable to the end user.

In our tests, the m4 (and every drive in this roundup) positively smoked our best-of-the-best 3Gb/s SATA drive, the OCZ Vertex 2—sustained- read and -write scores as measured by Crystal-DiskMark and AS SSD were more than twice the Vertex 2’s scores, and the m4 scored higher 4KB random reads and writes across the board, from single-queue depth to QD 32. The 256MB of cache doubtless helped the m4 in PCMark Vantage’s HDD subtest, where it posted the highest score we’ve seen from a non–PCI-E drive. The m4 doesn’t have the fastest sustained speeds, but its random-access speeds are top-notch. And 400MB/s reads and 250MB/s writes would have been unthinkably fast a couple of months ago.

The Crucial m4 represents a great implementation of the Marvell 9174 controller, and a great demonstration of the advantage of native 6Gb/s SATA.

Crucial m4 256GB

SPEED

Great random-access speeds; 400MB/s reads, 250MB/s writes.

SPEED 2

Not the fastest.

$500, www.crucial.com

Intel 510 250GB

Intel’s new SSD, powered by... Marvell?

Nobody panic. Intel is still coming out with its much-delayed third-generation solid-state drive. The 320 Series will use 25nm NAND and Intel’s latest controller, on 3Gb/s SATA, and will focus on what made Intel drives great: high read speeds and random writes, and rock-solid reliability. Intel, recognizing that 250MB/s read speeds ain’t gonna cut it in 2011 (and holy cow, do we love typing that), is also bowing to popular demand and releasing an SSD with 6Gb/s SATA capability, but rather than design its own controller for that, Intel is using a third-party component. Intel wouldn’t officially tell us which controller, but thanks to the mysterious and powerful technol-ogy known as screwdriver, we can say with confidence that it’s Marvell’s 88SS9174-BKK2.

Intel’s 510 SSD isn’t part of the same family as its X25-M drives, but it’s special in its own way.

Intel’s 510 Series SSD uses 34nm Intel NAND chips and 128MB DDR3 DRAM cache—and, of course, the same 6Gb/s Marvell 9174 controller as the Crucial and Plextor drives. The 250GB model that we tested showed the strongest sustained-write speeds of any drive in our roundup—more than 300MB/s—and its sustained reads of more than 480MB/s bested every Marvell-based drive. But its 4KB random-read and -write speeds, at any queue depth, were good by 2009’s standards, but no match for Crucial’s offering or either of the last- or current-gen Vertex drives.

If you go solely by sequential-read and -write speeds, the Intel 510 is one of the fastest drives we’ve ever tested, but its random-read and -write performance lags far behind the front-runners. By splitting its SSD line into two segments (3Gb/s SATA, random-write-centric versus 6Gb/s, sequential-speed-centric), Intel risks having two less-than-compelling options. And in a crowded field, consumers might not go with either one, especially given the jaw-dropping $614 street price of the 250GB 510 Series SSD.

Intel 510 250GB

415

Fast sequential reads and writes; vaunted Intel longevity.

187

Expensive; noncompetitive 4KB random reads/writes.

$614, www.intel.com

Plextor M2 Series 128GB

Second verse, better than the first!

We’ll say this for the Plextor M2 Series SSD: It’s a huge step up from Plextor’s last SSD. The M1S Series SSD we tested in our June 2010 roundup used Marvell’s “Da-Vinci” 88SS8014-BHP2 controller, which suffered from instability and slow writes. We gave that drive a 5 verdict. To our great relief, the M2 series SSD instead uses Marvell’s newer 6Gb/s SATA controller, the 88SS9174-BLD2—marking the third appearance of a Marvell 9174 controller in this roundup.

With the M2 series, Plextor pairs the Marvell 9174 controller with 128MB of DDR3 DRAM cache, and the result is an undeniable improvement over its previous-gen drive. As reported by Crystal-DiskMark and AS SSD, sustained reads hover near 400MB/s, with sustained writes around half that. That’s around double the read speed of the OCZ Vertex 2, but 25MB/s slower than the Vertex 2’s write speed. 4KB random reads and writes also suffered in comparison to the Vertex 2.

Plextor’s M2 series manages to up the company’s SSD track record from abysmal to middlin’.

The Plextor M2 is much better than Plextor’s last SSD, and in many benchmarks it’s superior to last generation’s top drives—mostly in read speeds. But its write speeds and random-access times lag behind the other 6Gb/s SATA drives in our roundup, and even high-performing drives from last year. The M2, like Plextor’s last drive, comes with a copy of Acronis True Image Home to ease your transition from a smaller or slower drive, which is nice.

If you’re shopping for your first SSD, Plextor’s M2 makes a decent offering. But it’s not the best of what’s available in the 6Gb/s SATA SSD market—or even the best Marvell-controlled drive.

Plextor M2 Series 128GB

FUNKMASTER FLEX

Better than their last drive; includes Acronis imaging software

PLUNKMASTER PLEX

Middling performance can’t match other drives w/ same controller.

$300, www.plextor.com

Today’s Drives, Yesterday’s Motherboards

Even if you’re stuck with 3Gb/s SATA, these drives can be worth it

Are you contemplating buying a brand-new solid-state drive, but worried that your motherboard is draggin’ you down? Even if your motherboard has no 6Gb/s SATA ports (or, like many X58 boards, has a crappy onboard 6Gb/s SATA controller), you can still benefit from running a 6Gb/s SATA drive.

See, most last-gen drives had to deal with the 3Gb/s SATA interface, which tops out in the real world at around 250MB/s, so there was no incentive to push performance. But 6Gb/s drives don’t have that limitation—they’re built to far surpass it. And though you won’t see 400MB/s read speeds on a 3Gb/s SATA port, you can still push closer to the 3Gb/s barrier with a current-gen drive than you can with a last-gen one.

We tested OCZ’s Vertex 3 6Gb/s SATA drive on our test bed’s 3Gb/s SATA controller, and found that it far surpassed the Vertex 2 that was our previous champion, offering sustained-read and -write speeds around 260MB/s and 220MB/s, respectively. Even constrained by the 3Gb/s SATA interface, the Vertex 3 matched or bested the Vertex 2 in nearly every benchmark.
 
The performance difference on 3Gb/s SATA isn’t so great that you should upgrade to a current-gen SSD if you’re already rocking a SandForce 1200, Intel, or Samsung drive and you don’t have 6Gb/s SATA ports available. But if you’re in the market for your first SSD and still rocking a last-gen motherboard, don’t rule out 6Gb/s SATA drives. If your current mobo can’t take advantage of all that speed, your next mobo can. Or you can grab a PCI-E-to-6Gb/s SATA host bus adapter, like HighPoint’s Rocket 600 series, to get 6Gb/s SATA on your current board.