We really like PCMark 7's Secondary Storage benchmark module for its pseudo real-world application measurement approach to testing. PCMark 7 offers a trace-based measurement of system response times under various scripted workloads of traditional client / desktop system operation. From simple application start-up performance, to data streaming from a drive in a game engine, and video editing with Windows Movie Maker, we feel more comfortable that these tests reasonably illustrate the performance profile of SSDs in an end-user / consumer PC usage model, more so than a purely synthetic transfer test.
Once again, the Corsair Force GT 240GB SSD offers some of the best performance we have seen from a SATA SSD. The Crucial M4 also showed better performance virtually across the board when using the newer v009 firmware, although the SandForce-based drives are still fastest overall.
