Test Setup
We are using an Intel E6600 dual core CPU to ensure we are not CPU limited in our testing. We've used a 2GB memory configuration for these tests, but will soon be updating our test beds to a consistent 4GB platform due to current DDR2-800 pricing and upcoming game and application requirements. Our choice of budget level OCZ Reaper HPC PC2-6400 memory offers a very wide range of memory settings with timings of 4-4-3-10 used for our storage benchmark results.
The MSI 8800GTX video card in our system ensures that our 1280x1024 resolutions are not GPU bound for our test results. Our video tests are run at 1280x1024 resolutions for this article at High Quality settings. All of our tests are run in an enclosed case with a dual optical/hard drive setup to reflect a moderately loaded system platform. The OS is fully updated and we load a clean drive image for each platform to keep driver conflicts to a minimum.
The test drive is formatted before each test run and five tests are completed on each drive in order to ensure consistency in the benchmark results. The high and low scores are removed with the remaining score representing our reported result. The Windows XP swap file is set to a static 2048MB and we clean the pre-fetch folder after each benchmark.
| Desktop Test Bed | |
| Processor | Intel E6600 - 2.4GHz 4MB Dual-Core |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 |
| RAM | 2 x 1GB OCZ Reaper HPC PC2-6400 Settings: DDR2-800 @ 4-4-3-10 |
| OS Hard Drive | 1 x Western Digital WD1500 Raptor - 150GB |
| System Platform Drivers | Intel 8.3.0.1013 Intel Matrix RAID 7.6.0.1011 |
| Video Card | 1 x MSI 8800GTX |
| Video Drivers | NVIDIA ForceWare 162.18 |
| Optical Drive | Plextor PX-760A, Plextor PX-B900A |
| Cooling | Tuniq 120 |
| Power Supply | Corsair HX620W |
| Case | Cooler Master CM Stacker 830 |
| Operating System | Windows XP SP2 |
We are using an Intel E6600 dual core CPU to ensure we are not CPU limited in our testing. We've used a 2GB memory configuration for these tests, but will soon be updating our test beds to a consistent 4GB platform due to current DDR2-800 pricing and upcoming game and application requirements. Our choice of budget level OCZ Reaper HPC PC2-6400 memory offers a very wide range of memory settings with timings of 4-4-3-10 used for our storage benchmark results.
The MSI 8800GTX video card in our system ensures that our 1280x1024 resolutions are not GPU bound for our test results. Our video tests are run at 1280x1024 resolutions for this article at High Quality settings. All of our tests are run in an enclosed case with a dual optical/hard drive setup to reflect a moderately loaded system platform. The OS is fully updated and we load a clean drive image for each platform to keep driver conflicts to a minimum.
The test drive is formatted before each test run and five tests are completed on each drive in order to ensure consistency in the benchmark results. The high and low scores are removed with the remaining score representing our reported result. The Windows XP swap file is set to a static 2048MB and we clean the pre-fetch folder after each benchmark.
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robojocks - Tuesday, April 22, 2008 - link
I bought one of these things. After $AU230 it was useless. I used as USB external hard drive. It had really fast reading. But the writing to it was killing me. I spent two days installing windows xp on it lol. Yes on a laptop. I was thinking after i installed the drivers it would be ok. Then i put my 5400rpm laptop drive back and noticed how fast it was compared to the SSD. Its faster. Ok when i read the SSD its instantenous, but when i write to it the computer hangs itself and waits around. With the 5400 rpm drive its ok. But the SSD is a joke.thomaspurves - Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - link
Notebooks people. thin and light notebooks are where these are going to be used. When was the last time you saw a WDRAPTOR in a 3 lb ultraportable?
Please Anand, how do these compare to 7200rpm and 5400rpm notebook drives?
JarredWalton - Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - link
That's what the Seagate Momentus is meant to represent.StickyC - Wednesday, December 19, 2007 - link
Except the Seagate Momentus is a screaming fast SATA notebook drive. The Transcend is not SATA which makes the comparison about as meaningful as adding the desktop drive.Why not compare it to something it's actually likely to replace, such as the very popular Samsung Spinpoint, Momentus 5400.3, or WD Scorpio series?
memphist0 - Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - link
It's amazing that people have come up with a product that makes a Raptor look affordable and spacious.yyrkoon - Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - link
http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_read...">http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_read...Buy a fast UDMA4 capable CF card, and go to town . . .
rfle500 - Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - link
An interesting article, but I would just like to point out that data on a hard disk is only meant to last around 10 years, similar to SSD. This is due to gradual natural degradation of the magnetisation of a data bit over time. Hence I always re-write old data from time to time :o).bupkus - Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - link
I suppose we will continue to read about these SSDs that few if any can afford.I currently support a small business program that allows a "clock-in" station networked to a server. I built it using a mini-itx board and a laptop hdd but it seems a good fit for an SSD with XP Embedded. Both, however, are just too darn expensive. Once the price drops on an SSD that will hold XP then I will buy it. XP Embedded? Yah, when pigs fly.
AssBall - Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - link
You should definately put a 32gbx2 raid 0 SSD in that rig, and one of those 1200W PSUs. Clearly....AnnihilatorX - Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - link
Tomshardware did have a guide, albeit very poor one; of testing 1 setup where a PCI IDE RAID card is coupled with 3 8GB Trancend Compact Flash cards in RAID 0. But it had the implications.The result was quite astonishing because of the fact that the performance of 3 such CF card RAIDed, although could not match MTRON's SSD drive in terms of transfer rate; could at least match 75MB/s transfer rate of a HDD.
3 CF cards and with RAID capable motherboard w/ ICD-CF or SATA-CF adaptors comes round to be about 300 USD. This is much more affordable than buying 1 SSD which would result in much poorer performance.
I personally think if an operating system and not critical data is stored on such a setup on a home enviornment, I don't mind losing realibility in form of RAID 0 as Windows/other OS can be reinstalled pretty quickly itself or with Ghost or Acronis True Image.