G.Skill MLC SSD
EDITORS NOTE: Please read Solid State Drive (SSD) Benchmark Performance Testing to understand how the benchmarks used in this article should be interpreted.
Back in November 2007, after experiencing the SuperComputing Conference SC07, finding Solid State Drives on sale anywhere was a real challenge. One year later, and online stores are offering dozens of SSD models at reasonable prices. Solid State Drives are rapidly changing the computing landscape, and many enthusiasts are using SSD technology in their primary systems to help boost performance. Benchmark Reviews has tested nearly all of the products available to the retail market in this sector, and several do well while others fall flat. It used to be that performance was the largest hurdle for SSD's, followed by stability, and later price. In this article, we benchmark test bandwidth performance on the G.Skill FM-25S2S-64GB SATA-II MLC mass storage NAND Solid State Drive and compare it against the top competition.
Since first making a commercial public debut at the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show, Solid State Drives (SSD's) have been a topic of hot discussion among performance enthusiasts. With virtually no access time delay, these nonvolatile flash memory-based drives were quick to promise a more reliable storage device with greater performance while operating at a fraction of the power level. Moving further into 2008 they have become a reality for many performance-minded power users. I suppose it's been a slow ramp-up for consumers to accept Solid State Drive technology, similar to the struggle DDR3 SDRAM has seen.
Perhaps Benchmark Reviews likes to ride the edge of technology just a little too close, since we've tested more DDR3 and SSD's than almost everyone else on the web. The bleeding edge is where most enthusiasts like to live, but seldom enjoy the price tag. Because I am in a position where cutting edge technology are within my reach (if only for a few weeks of testing), my experience is valuable to the small niche of consumers that might actually want these premier products. Benchmark Reviews has been hard at work trying to ride the wave of innovation into the next big technology. It only took a few years of development, but Solid State Drives can now offer superior speed over Hard Disk Drives; but they are still extremely expensive.
According to a Q1 2008 report by the semiconductor market research firm iSuppli, the SSD market will grow at an annualized average of 124 percent during the four-year period from 2008 until 2012. iSuppli now projects SSD sales to increase by an additional 35 percent in 2009 over what it projected last year, 51 percent more in 2010, and 89 percent more in 2011, and continue to show dramatic increases in subsequent years.
G.Skill offers the ultra-performance SATA II 2.5" Solid State Drives (SSDs) with 64GB and 128GB capacities. With NAND MLC flash storage medium, G.SKILL SATA II 2.5" Solid State Drives (SSDs) provide cost effective, ultra reliable and power-efficient performance hard drives for general consumers who want to improve mobile products.
Covered with a strong metal alloy housing, G.SKILL SSDs protect valuable data from any mishaps that should happen during travel, and the highly power efficient nature means a boost to battery life allowing longer on the go. Ensuring ultimate reliability, G.SKILL SSDs have impressive 1.5 million hour mean time before failure (MTBF) and with 2 Years Warranty and ever ready technical back-up, G.Skill SSDs are the total storage solution.
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Available in 32GB, 64GB and 128GB capacities
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Interface: SATA I/II
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Dimensions: 99.88 x 69.63x 9.30 mm
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Weight: 90g
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Sequential Read: up to 155MB/s
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Sequential Write: up to 90MB/s
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Shock Resistant: 1500G/0.5ms
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Vibration Resistant: 20G/10~2000Hz with 3 Axis
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Operating Voltage: DC 5V
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Power Consumption: 280mA~330mA
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Operating Temperature: -40°~85°
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Storage Temperature: -55°~125°
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MTBF: >1,500,000 Hours
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Data Retention: > 5 years at 25°
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Data Reliability: Built in BCH 15-bit ECC
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O/S Support: Windows 2000/XP/Vista Linux, and Mac OSX
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Certification: FCC/CE/RoHS
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2 Year Warranty
About the company: G.Skill International Enterprise
Established in 1989 by enthusiasts, is a leading memory manufacturer based in Taipei, Taiwan. The company's top priority is Quality and all of our products go through a series of the most rigorous tests and strict quality control processes. In addition to a committed, qualified IC testing house to examine its products, all G.Skill products are 100% tested to ensure the highest yield, reliability and quality.
Mission Statement
We are here to provide superior memory products and satisfactory services in order to keep pace with our customers' growing needs, and help our customers in adding value to their products. And we pledge we will continue to do so and enable both sides to obtain significant competitive advantages in the market segments.
For more information, please visit the G.Skill website.
First Look: G.Skill MLC SSD
For the entire 2007 year and part of 2008, Benchmark Reviews had anxiously awaited the fabled Solid State Drive that could replace our current list of preferred Hard Disk Drives. Making this wait seem even longer was the fact that HDD manufacturers were constantly improving there product and adding new enhancements to the technology. First there was perpendicular storage technology, then came fluid bearings, and finally there was the increase in cache buffer DRAM to speed-up the burst data transfer. Performance has been the hurdle that SSD's have had a tough time clearing, with read and write bandwidth creating the largest obstacles. Response time and reduced power consumption has long become the key arguments for owning an SSD, but without the bandwidth throughput to measure up against HDD's they became an expensive niche item.
That time has come to pass, and our collection of SSD reviews is proof. Back in March (2008) we tested the lightning-fast MemoRight GT SSD which finally put the Western Digital Raptor in its place... to the tune of almost $2000. But since that time Benchmark Reviews has tested several SSDs which outperform HDDs. The struggle to finally replace the Hard Disk as the primary drive is getting much closer to victory.
When it comes to the appearance of notebook drives, it must be understood that the product you're looking at will be hidden away from plain view once installed. Keeping in mind that this product is solid state, and therefore offers no amount of noticeable physical activity, it takes some special attention to presentation in order to help keep the consumer feeling comfortable with their premium purchase.
Like everything else with a price tag, perception is reality. So it was a little surprising when I discovered how well the G.Skill SSD came packaged using an over-needed amount of protection. Back at the start of 2008 I witnessed a Crucial/Lexar demonstration of a SSD fastened to a paint-mixer and being shaken while a video game was being played be a CES convention-goer. Unlike the Hard Disk Drive (HDD), SSD's are practically impervious to impact damage and do not require extra-special packing precautions.
Nevertheless, G.Skill has safely nestled the FM-25S2S-64GB in a hallowed-foam enclosure with the care a flight data recorder might receive - and perhaps that is the reason for all of the extra attention. Solid State Drives are very popular items in military and aerospace technology, primarily because of their ability to withstand shock in excess of 1500 G's. The Solid State Drive offers the same rugged longevity (actually, SSD's offer better durability than a flight data recorder), which amounts to safer data even after the worst disasters.
Standard 2.5" drive bay mounting points are pre-drilled and threaded in the SATA-II SSD, which allows for quick upgrade or addition to any existing notebook or desktop system. The mounting positions matched up to the drive bracket on my Dell Inspiron laptop, and without any trouble at all I was quickly loading the Windows XP SP-3 Operating System image on this 64GB SATA Solid State Drive.
The underside of the G.Skill FM-25S2S-64GB reveals standard SATA power and data interface connections, with the addition of a Full-Speed USB 2.0 Mini-B connection beside them. This USB port allows the FM-25S2S series SSD to be connected as an external storage device without the need for additional power or data connections, and I must admit it works quite well!
Unlike desktop computers which utilize a SATA cable system to connect drive to motherboard, nearly all notebooks allow the 2.5" drive to simply slide directly into a connection bay within the system. In addition to notebooks and desktop computer usage, this G.Skill SATA Solid State Drive can be utilized for mission-critical backups or high-abuse data systems.
The G.Skill FM-25S2S-64GB SATA-II MLC SSD is encased in an metal half shell, which fastens from the underside with counter-sunk screws. In the next section Benchmark Reviews begins the performance testing on this Solid State Drive, and we determine just how well the G.Skill SSD compares to the best-performing competition.
SSD Testing Methodology
EDITORS NOTE: Please read Solid State Drive (SSD) Benchmark Performance Testing to understand how the benchmarks used in this article should be interpreted.
Solid State Drives have traveled a long winding course to finally get where they are today. Up to this point in technology, there have been several key differences separating Solid State Drives from magnetic rotational Hard Disk Drives. While the DRAM-based buffer size on desktop HDD's has recently reached 32 MB and is ever-increasing, there is still a hefty delay in the initial response time. This is one key area in which flash-based Solid State Drives continually dominates because they lack moving parts to "get up to speed".
However the benefits inherent to SSD's have traditionally fallen off once the throughput begins, even though data reads or writes are executed at a high constant rate whereas the HDD tapers off in performance. This makes the average transaction speed of a SSD comparable to the data burst rate mentioned in HDD tests, albeit usually lower than the HDD's speed.
Test System
Disk Hardware
Since the Gigabyte GA-EX58-EXTREME motherboard we used for testing is equipped with a JMicron JMB322 SATA controller with four additional SATA-II ports, all tests were conducted on this HBC drive controller.
Test Tools
Comparing a Solid State Disk to a standard Hard Disk Drives is always relative; even if you're comparing the fastest rotational spindle speeds. One is going to be many times faster in response (SSD's), while the other is usually going to have higher throughput bandwidth (HDD's). Additionally, there are certain factors which can effect the results of a test which we do our best to avoid.
Nevertheless there will be some tests which will not be completely representative of the individual product tested, but a combination of the product and supporting system hardware. An excellent example of such a test is the write-to bandwidth benchmarks, which rely on other system components to force data onto the drive along with the bus bandwidth to support it. This dependency on system hardware is why you will see Benchmark Reviews place an emphasis on read bandwidth over write tests.
System Speed Test Benchmarks
EDITORS NOTE: Please read Solid State Drive (SSD) Benchmark Performance Testing to understand how the benchmarks used in this article should be interpreted.
It's show time! All claims to performance are either made real or proven false in our testing, and although SSD's clearly offer some advantages it sometimes takes seeing a product compared to the performance of others to prove the point. Not very long ago I decided to take action and get System Speed Test v4.78 back in our test rotation. This software is solid, and the results are more accurate than any others available that I have used.
I doubt that when DOS was put to rest, Vladimir Afanasiev ever thought he would see his System Speed Test software used again in professional reviews. This program offers comprehensive system information, but it also has a powerful benchmarking tool for memory, processor, and disks. In terms of disk performance, it measures interface and physical transfer rates, seek and access times at the hardware level, and it does so without delay or interference from Operating System software or running processes. This is why Benchmark Reviews will continue to use this test: it polls its results directly from the hardware without the need for Windows!
To detect the Random Access Time of each device, we ran full test routines on all products a total of five times. The highest and lowest scores were ignored, and the remainder was averaged. This would be pointless however, because in every single access time benchmark the test results were identical. In the bandwidth tests the results were extremely close to the others, and therefore required averaging.
To my complete surprise, System Speed Test access time benchmarks places the Mtron Pro 7500 SSD at the very top of our results. With a lightning-fast 0.08 ms access time, every other SSD is forced to live in the shadow that the MSP-SATA7525 has just created. The sub-0.1ms group of top performers also includes the MemoRight GT, Mtron Pro 7000, Mtron MOBI 3500, and Mtron MOBI 3000. Clearly, Mtron knows a little something about keeping random access time to a bare minimum in their Solid State Drives. The OCZ SATA-II OCZSSD2-1S64G, Samsung MCCOE64G5MPP, Silicon Power SATA-II SP032GBSSD750S25, G.Skill FM-25S2S-64GB, Patriot Warp PE128GS25SSDR and original OCZ OCZSSD64GB maintain the midrange level or random access times between 0.14ms and 0.23ms.
At the slower end of our SSD response time chart is the original SATA Silicon Power SP064GBSSD25SV10, OCZ Core Series, Crucial's CT32GBFAB0, and the Super Talent MasterDrive MX finishing out the list. In reality you couldn't begin to perceive these subtle differences, but technology should get better with time and not the other way around. It's also worth keeping in mind that our Hard Disk Drive alternatives are a much slower to react: Western Digital's Raptor took 8.53ms to respond, followed by 12.99ms for the Seagate 7200.11, and 15.39ms for the 7200 RPM (most are 4800 RPM) Hitachi Travelstar 7K100 notebook drive.
Bandwidth is a whole other consideration once you record the results. In our tests, both the Western Digital Raptor and Seagate 7200.11 Hard Disk Drives showed strength as only a select few SSD's could meet or exceed their buffered read performance. A larger 32MB buffer in the 7200.11 makes a 7200 RPM HDD difficult to keep pace with, and the 10,000 RPM spindle speed offer enough of an advantage to keep the Raptor on top. Close on the Raptors' tail was the OCZ OCZSSD2-1S32G and OCZSSD2-1S64G, which is based off of the Samsung MCCOE64G5MPP-0VA SSD which performed the same. The Seagate 7200.11 HDD was nearly matched in buffered read bandwidth by the Super Talent FTM60GK25H and Patriot Warp v2 SSD, with the Mtron Pro 7500 a short distance behind marking the end our our high-bandwidth finishers.
Leading the midrange portion of our SSD group was the SATA-II Silicon Power SP032GBSSD750S25 and then Mtron's latest Mtron MOBI 3500. The Crucial/Lexar CT32GBFAB0 trailed close behind, while the OCZ's CORE SSD performed at the same level as the Crucial/Lexar SATA-II SSD, while the OCZ Core Series SSD, Mtron Pro 700, and Mtron MOBI 3000 complete the midrange list. The low-end portion of our drive performance chart is occupied by the original OCZ SSD, which lasted mere minutes on the market after being released early 2008.
Looked at a different way, and ignoring the dominant buffered read speed results trend set by the Hard Disk Drives, the top SSD's actually did well to hold ground against the Raptor and 7200.11, which are at the very top-end of HDD performance.
Disk Hardware Tested:
Crucial / Lexar 32GB 2.5" SATA-2 SSD CT32GBFAB0
Hitachi Travelstar 7K100 2.5" 60GB SATA 7,200 RPM HDD HTS721060G9SA00
Samsung 64GB 2.5" SATA-2 SSD MCCOE64G5MPP-0VA
Seagate 7200.11 500GB 3.5" ST3500320AS 7,200 RPM SATA-II Hard Disk Drive (32MB Cache Buffer)
Western Digital Raptor 74GB 3.5" WD740ADFD 10,000 RPM SATA Hard Disk Drive (16MB Cache Buffer)
Although Benchmark Reviews completely endorses the test results of System Speed Test for our benchmarking, it's always good to have other sources. We decided to then test our collection of SSD products using the HD Tach RW and ATTO Disk Benchmark tool in the following sections. Please continue to see if our results were a fluke or not.
HD Tach RW Benchmark Results
EDITORS NOTE: Please read Solid State Drive (SSD) Benchmark Performance Testing to understand how the benchmarks used in this article should be interpreted.
HD Tach is a software program for Microsoft Windows that tests the sequential read, random access and interface burst speeds of the attached storage device. For the record. every single product tested was brand new and never used. HD Tach allows write-bandwidth tests only if no partition is present. Additionally, each and every product was tested five times with the highest and lowest results removed before having the average result displayed here. The graphical user interface (GUI) of the Windows-based benchmark tool HD Tach is very convenient. and allows the test product to be compared against others collected on your system or those registered into the Simpli Software database.
In the tests below, Benchmark Reviews utilizes the HD TachRW tool to compare the fastest collection of desktop drives and competing SSD's we can get our hands on. Using the JMB322 SATA controller on the Gigabyte GA-EX58-EXTREME, HD Tach was used to benchmark the test SSD five times with the best results displayed below. It's important to note that HD Tach's Burst Speed result should be ignored for Solid State Drives due to the cache methods inherent to each memory controller architecture. There are times where this number will be extremely high, which is a result of the optimized cache used for SSD's.
The important numbers used for comparison are the sustained read and write bandwidth speeds, which indicate the true performance level of the product. Our featured test item, the G.Skill FM-25S2S-64GB SATA-II MLC SSD, performed at an impressive 123.2 MBps sustained read bandwidth and 79.8 MBps sustained write bandwidth. Compared against G.Skill's stated specification of 155/90, our results appread within range but still fall short of their optimistic maximum speeds.
The chart below illustrates the collected benchmark results for HD Tach RW on the JMicron JMB322 SATA controller, with the read and write bandwidth results added together to determine placement. Without much argument, the MemoRight GT MR25.2-064S SSD still enjoys a substantial lead over the entire field of storage products with an impressive 117.9 MBps read-from and 122.8 MBps write-to bandwidth speed (240.7 MBps collectively). In second place with a collective total of 233.0 MBps is the Mtron Pro 7500, which produced results only 3% behind the leader. After these two products, the collective bandwidth falls off slightly.
Unlike the System Speed Test benchmark that placed the G.Skill SATA-II SSD directly at the middle of that chart, HD Tach positions the G.Skill FM-25S2S-64GB in third place within our test results, nearly matched by the Patriot Warp v2 SSD in fourth place. Even still, the 123.2 MBps read and 79.8 MBps write bandwidth of the G.Skill SSD only trails behind the top-position leader by 15%. It's worth mentioning that the JMB322 SATA controller on our X58 motherboard actually received slightly lower performance results than the X48 motherboard using the JMicron JMB636 controller from previous tests.
The midrange SSD products appear to include Silicon Power SP032GBSSD750S25 in fifth place, trailed by the new Mtron MOBI 3500, OCZ Core SSD in seventh, and followed by the Seagate 7200.11 and Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD 10,000RPM SATA hard drives finishing out the section.
Based on our test results, the lower-end drives are nowhere near the performance of the upper-performance section primarily because these are past-generation products. This section starts with the Mtron MOBI 3000, with the OCZSSD2-1S64G behind it, then the Crucial CT32GBFAB0, and finally the Super Talent MasterDrive MX SSD pulling up the rear.
Disk Hardware
In the next section, ATTO Disk Benchmark compares our range of drives and offers a different perspective from a unique test tool.
ATTO Disk Benchmark Results
EDITORS NOTE: Please read Solid State Drive (SSD) Benchmark Performance Testing to understand how the benchmarks used in this article should be interpreted.
The ATTO Disk Benchmark program is free, and offers a comprehensive set of test variables to work with. In terms of disk performance, it measures interface transfer rates at several different user-specified intervals and reports read and write speeds. The drives seek and access times are not statistics made available in this application, which makes this a considerably basic tool, although the adjustable test settings allow for a large range of differing results. Manufacturers seems to like this tool because it offers them the ability to reduce the test length load size to produce high benchmark results. Conversely, Benchmark Reviews uses this tool with the largest (32 MB) test chuck used to produce our test results.
Bandwidth results from our tests are illustrated as the transfer rate in the images below, showing the performance curve for the G.Skill FM-25S2S-64GB from 512 Bytes up to 1 MB test chunks. G.Skill International Enterprises specifies bandwidth expectations as 170 MBps read and 100 MBps write for their MLC solid state drive, and so far our own bandwidth test results indicate that these are optimistic figures.
Testing with the JMB322 SATA controller, our results are shown in the first chart pictured below. Read performance for the G.Skill SSD begins to plateau from 128.0 KB to 1024 KB and generates a 123.7 MBps bandwidth around 1024 KB, indicating a high performance throughput for most file size chunks. The same is true for the write bandwidth, which sustains a 88.5 MBps bandwidth beginning at the 32 KB test chunk range. The ATTO Disk Benchmark tool reports bandwidth results close enough to G.Skill's 155/90 MBps rated maximum to believe there's a possibility under 'perfect' test conditions.
Since ATTO Disk Benchmark offers test settings for each transfer file size from .5 KB to 1 MB, Benchmark Reviews decided on using the largest (1 MB) statistic to build the chart shown below. In this illustration, I have organized the products using the sum of their read and write bandwidth speeds to determine position rank.
Once again, the MemoRight GT SSD demonstrates that an optimized generation 1.0a SATA controller can outperform even the latest generation 2.0 SATA controllers (if you care to pay the high price tag). The Mtron Pro 7500 MSP-SATA7525 trails behind, with the Patriot Warp v2 SSD just ahead of the Seagate 7200.11 hard drive and G.Skill FM-25S2S-64GB to finish out the top-level performance section. The Silicon Power SATA-II SSD, OCZ CORE Series SSD, and Mtron MOBI 3500 SSD all lead the upper-mid performance section.
The mid-range of performance in our chart is filled by the OCZ 64GB SATA-II SSD, Mtron MOBI 3000 SSD, and Western Digital Raptor HDD, which aren't really all that far off from the products positioned above them. On the other hand, the low-end of performance is a noticeable distance away. The Crucial / Lexar CT32GBFAB0 SATA-II SSD takes a major dip in write-bandwidth performance, which is mirrored by the Super Talent MasterDrive MX SSD. I'm not entirely clear on the technology each of these lower-end SSD's contain, but considering that two of them are SATA-II and match the performance of our slowest SATA-I SSD's I would contend that a design improvement is in order.
Originally I hadn't planned on including the ATTO Disk Benchmark results in this article. While the software is decent enough to mention, it was merely included because almost all SSD manufacturers test with it... and for very good reason I have learned. After several tests had been completed, I began to see why they decided on this particular software for benchmarks. What I like least about ATTO Disk Benchmark is how you can manipulate the settings to produce extremely wide range results from the same product.
As an example, if you reduce the total test length size from 32 MB (used in our testing configuration) to one of the smaller sizes the benchmark results are more than 30% different (as in higher bandwidth). This reason alone is enough for manufacturers to tweak their own test configurations for self-benefit. Nevertheless, in regard to our ATTO tests the entire range of SSD products is very well represented with our configuration. It should be noted that with cache buffers growing larger and larger, perhaps there's a reasonable middle ground that will provide the best of both worlds. I suspect that hybrid drives could play an important role in this argument very soon.
Disk Hardware
PCMark05 Benchmarks
EDITORS NOTE: Please read Solid State Drive (SSD) Benchmark Performance Testing to understand how the benchmarks used in this article should be interpreted.
PCMark is a series of computer benchmark tools developed by Futurmark Corporation. The tools are designed to test the performance of the user's CPU, read/write speeds of RAM and hard drives. For this article, we are concerned with only the HDD Test Suite, which measures the MBps performance of: Windows XP Startup, Application Loading, General Usage, Virus Scan, and File Writing.
As we receive more PCMark05 test results from our collection of drives, the performance will be charted for comparison. This information is provided for comparison purposes only, against tests you may conduct on your own equipment, as PCMark does not calculate true read and write bandwidth performance. In the mean time, it's recommended that you take this particular test with minimal weight since it hasn't been observed long-term.
Our performance results were obtained from the JMicron JMB322 HBC resident on the Gigabyte GA-EX58-EXTREME motherboard. Using this JMB322 controller, we tested the G.Skill FM-25S2S-64GB SATA-II MLC SSD and received the results displayed below.
Disk Hardware
In our next section, the entire collection of SSD products Benchmark Reviews has tested will be timed for a Windows XP startup benchmark. Please continue to see how SSD's effect startup performance.
Windows XP Startup
After several SSD product reviews in which I recorded Windows XP startup time data, I have repeatedly omitted my results from the article for lack of enough comparison data. In all honesty, I cannot make this an interesting subject. Most of you reading this article have already watched the video of a Windows computer starting up in mere seconds when it used a Solid State Drive, so it wouldn't be very exciting to show this again. Instead, I have recorded the length of time it took for my Dell Inspiron 6400 notebook computer to startup with each drive. Here are the specifications on the notebook:
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Dell Inspiron 6400 Notebook
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Intel Core Duo T2300 @ 1.66 GHz
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2GB DDR2 667 MHz System Memory
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Windows XP Professional SP3 (identical image cloned to each drive)
This "test" is going to be useful to laptop computer users only, primarily because I did not test the desktop hard drives. The only hard drive included was the high-performance 7200 RPM Hitachi Travelstar 7K100, which recorded a 28-second load time from the moment I pressed the power button to the moment the Windows Login screen was displayed.
The primary purpose of this test was to demonstrate that a Solid State Drive could in fact cut the Windows load time in half, but there are other factors to consider. It's important to note that this particular Dell notebook consumes almost 11 seconds on the POST routine and BIOS pre-loading prior to actually loading Windows, so it's not realistic to think that my results would match another system identically.
Disk Hardware
In the next section, I begin to summarize my final thoughts on the Mtron Pro 7500 series as well as Solid State Drives in general. Please continue on to see what I think of SSD technology.
Heat Output Results
Solid State Drives are not quite a household technology (yet), and because of this the marketing propaganda has become as high-pressure as any political campaign. Benchmark Reviews has tested SSD products from many manufacturers (to name a few: Crucial, Intel, MemoRight, Mtron, OCZ, Patriot, Samsung, Super Talent, and Silicon Power) and each has taken full advantage of the vast new technology improvements offered by their products. Some manufacturers have made claims that other websites have taken to the mat and wrestled with a topic (such as power consumption), only to later be criticized for improperly testing the hardware. Well, we don't intend on repeating the mistakes of our mega-site affiliates, which is why we plan to approach new methodology in small bites.
There have been television shows made famous on the principal of dispelling rumors and myth. This section is not exactly meant to imitate that concept, although we do separate fact from fiction. The first myth we challenge is the claim that Solid State Drives produce no heat. Nearly every manufacturer selling Solid State products has at some point claimed their SSD products do not produce heat, which is believable on many levels because there are no moving parts. Well, chances are very good that you have already peeked at the illustration below, so I won't delay in explaining what we've found.
Using some spare Styrofoam panels, I constructed a small unit to shield two 2.5" notebook drives from the nearby power supply. Although not pictured, there was also an open-top wall section that surrounded this unit, further insulating it from thermal effects of any nearby environment. Since there was no data connection made, these tests are what I would consider to be 'idle'. The power leads were connected and power was delivered for twenty minutes before temperatures were taken with a non-contact IR thermometer at approximately six inches from surface. The rooms ambient temperature as measured directly at the test site was exactly 19.0°C at the time I recorded the results for the units pictured.
In the image above there are only two devices pictured of a four-cell test platform. On the left side is the Hitachi Travelstar 7K100 60GB HTS721060G9SA00 7,200 RPM SATA 2.5" Hard Disk Drive, and on the right is one our Solid State Drive test subjects. The Hitachi 7K100 is one of the few 7200 RPM notebook hard drives available to OEM builders, and since these faster spinning disks use more power they also create more heat as a by-product. Although not pictured because of camera direction, my test rig setup compares up to four products at once. The results of other SSD test products are shown in the charts below.
Temperature Readings at 19.0°C
| Device Name |
Ambient |
Drive Temp |
| Mtron Pro 7500 SSD |
19.0°C |
31°C |
| Mtron Pro 7000 SSD |
19.0°C |
29°C |
| OCZ Core Series SSD |
19.0°C |
28°C |
| Hitachi Travelstar 7K100 HDD |
19.0°C |
27°C |
| Samsung MCCOE64G5MPP-0VA SSD |
19.0°C |
27°C |
| Silicon Power SP064GBSSD25SV10 SSD |
19.0°C |
27°C |
| Super Talent FTM60GK25H SSD |
19.0°C |
27°C |
| Mtron MOBI 3000 SSD |
19.0°C |
27°C |
| Silicon Power SP032GBSSD750S25 SSD |
19.0°C |
26°C |
| G.Skill FM-25S2S-64GB SSD |
19.0°C |
26°C |
| Crucial CT32GBFAB0 SSD |
19.0°C |
25°C |
| Patriot Warp SSD |
19.0°C |
25°C |
| OCZ OCZSSD2 SSD |
19.0°C |
21°C |
The message here is simple: Although the heat produced by SSD's under load is usually the same as what the Hard Disk Drive generates at idle, Solid State Drives still produce heat. Don't let marketing hype fool you into believing that Solid State Drives are cold-operating devices just because there are no moving parts. Cooler, yes. Cold, no.
Disk Hardware
SSD Final Thoughts
EDITORS NOTE: Please read Solid State Drive (SSD) Benchmark Performance Testing to understand how the benchmarks used in this article should be interpreted.
New technology always has one major hurdle to face: the consumer. I have long maintained my opinion that DDR3 system memory is every bit an excellent replacement to the aging DDR2 standard, but the argument of high price and limited adoption by manufacturers has hushed my position. Faced with a similar situation, Solid State Drive technology has suffered the same difficult transition towards widespread use. Like most electronics, it wasn't a question of how much of a technology improvement was evident, it was price.
Then at some point, a certain well-respected hardware website published an article that claimed SSDs didn't consume less power after all. Although this report was later recanted on account of testing errors, the foundation was shaken for consumers and led me to wonder what kind of impact my news of higher heat output will cause the adoption process? After all, I like these products, and completely endorse the technology. But the bad publicity, even when it's disproven, still has a lasting effect thanks to the angst a premium price tag creates.
So back in May (2008) when I reviewed the OCZ SATA-II 32GB SSD it seemed like $17 per gigabyte was a relatively good price for SSDs at the time. Consider for a moment that before then, SSD's such the elite-level 32 GB MemoRight GT cost on the level of $33 per gigabyte. Even products like the entry-level 32 GB Mtron MOBI 3000 were still selling for $14 per gigabyte, making the price of admission seem quite high for even the lower-level SKU's. So when OCZ announced a 64GB SSD that would sell for under $259 in July of 2008, I really wasn't sure if the news was believable. It didn't take long to realize these claims were all true, because shortly thereafter NewEgg began listing these SSDs exactly as predicted. This event in itself should have probably started the long-awaited dawn of widespread consumer acceptance for SSD products... but there was a problem.
As it turned out, the first generation OCZ Core Series SSD I touted in my review was prone to data corruption. Making matters worse was that the mail-in rebate nullified consumer ability to return the defective product for a refund. Nothing hurts progress more than an angry customer, and this incident created plenty. Later on, OCZ would issue a version 2 of the CORE series, and even though NewEgg offered this SSD for $199 ($169 after rebate), there will always be the fear of product reliability associated with Solid State Drives.
Of course, everything tends to change over time, and Solid State Drive sale prices are much different now. When it comes to computer hardware, generally speaking the newer, faster, and better performing products traditionally cost more than their older predecessors... but this is not the case with SSD's. I recognize that SSD speeds range from abysmal to phenomenal and everywhere in-between, but the prices don't seem to correspond to performance. With the Holiday's right around the corner and SSD's filling store shelves, it could be a fluke occurrence that SSD's now sell for as little as $2.17 per gigabyte, which is getting dangerously close to Western Digital's VelociRaptor at $1.13 per gigabyte of storage.
So why are some Solid State Drives so affordable while others sell at 2-7x the cost? That's a very good question that only a particular group of manufacturers can answer. DRAM Prices have dropped beyond anyone's expectations, which has certainly helped, which should give consumers an advantage heading into 2009.
The last bit of good news comes from Samsung, who is planning to launch 64 GB DRAM IC chips based on a 30 nm fabrication process sometime in 2009. I see this as writing on the wall: get competitive or get out of the business. Samsungs MLC IC's already created the foundation for vastly more affordable SSD products, and now they're about to only get better... especially with the price of DRAW in decline.
FM-25S2S-64GB Conclusion
EDITORS NOTE: Please read Solid State Drive (SSD) Benchmark Performance Testing to understand how the benchmarks used in this article should be interpreted.
Solid State Drives are a lot like Spark Plugs: you see them just long enought to install, and then they're forgotten. So it's impressive that G.Skill takes the packaging seriously, and offer both function (by way of printed specifications) and fashion (with exciting accents). Finding product packaging with printed specifications is challenging, especially considering how much firmware can change the numbers. Nevertheless, consumers will at least have something to help them with a compare products while the decide on a purchase.
Dispite the irrelevance of appearance on an internally installed SSD, the G.Skill FM-25S2S-64GB actually looks top-notch. Most manufacturers, G.Skill included, don't want to waste production costs on milled aluminum enclosures that never see the light of day once installed into a notebook computer. Instead, G.Skill uses an attractive black metal enclosure with red-accented labels to dress up the unit.
Construction is probably the strongest feature credited to the entire SSD product line, and the G.Skill SSD is no exception. Solid State Drives are by nature immune to most abuses, but add to this a hard metal shell and you have to wonder what it would take to make this drive fail. If a G.Skill SSD product does fail during the 2-year warranty period, the end-user must complete an RMA form and wait for a returns authorization number before shipping the item back at their own expense. Unfortunately, there's no toll-free for support or customer service questions.
Based on the collection of benchmark tests we conducted, the G.Skill SATA-II MLC SSD earned a position near the top of our performance charts. As of this writing the value-priced FM-25S2S-64GB model occupies the #3 position behind two of the most expensive Solid State Drives available, but also shares the position with another product. With a maximum read speed of 124 MBps and write at 89 MBps, the bandwidth available is enough to outpace the fastest Hard Disk Drives; but the additional benefit of an immediate response time makes all the difference in performance.
At a very-reasonable cost of $2.17 per gigabyte of SSD storage space (at the time of this writing), this 64GB G.Skill Solid State Drive can be purchased from NewEgg for as little as $139. If 64GB just isn't big enough for your tastes, NewEgg also offers the 128GB version for $255. Bargain shoppers should use our Price Comparison Tool to find the best deals.
In conclusion, the G.Skill FM-25S2S-64GB SATA-II SSD has really impressed me with a rare combination of phenomenal performance and incredibly affordable pricing. This MLC Solid State Drive produced a swift 0.19 ms response time roughly 45x faster than Western Digital's Raptor HDD. The write-to performance was actually about the same, while read-from performance was nearly 60% faster; which means less wait time for impatient super-users like myself. With so many choices available now, shopping for SSD's can be tricky. Don't let it be; my suggestion is to trust the G.Skill FM-25S2S series to impress you.
Pros:
+ Impressive 124 MBps read and 89 write bandwidth
+ USB 2.0 Mini-B data connection
+ Low power consumption may extend battery life
+ Lightweight compact storage solution
+ Resistant to extreme shock impact
+ Up to 128GB of SSD capacity
+ 2-Year G.Skill product warranty
+ Very low 0.19ms random access time
+ Only $2.17 per gigabyte of SSD storage
Cons:
- Metal case is heavier and less durable than plastic
- Less than impressive RMA process
- No customer service or support telephone numbers
Ratings:
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Presentation: 9.00
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Appearance: 9.25
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Construction: 9.75
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Functionality: 9.50
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Value: 9.00
Final Score: 9.3 out of 10.
Excellence Achievement: Benchmark Reviews Golden Tachometer Award.
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