4-Way SSD Round-Up, OCZ, Corsair, Kingston, ST

Name: 4-Way SSD Round-Up, OCZ, Corsair, Kingston, ST - Page 9
Brand: 4-Way

by Marco Chiappetta — Friday, May 15, 2009, 12:30 PM EDT

Our next series of Vantage tests will stress the current weakness of most SSDs, that being write performance. Applications like video editing, streaming and recording are not what we would call a strong suit for the average SSD, due to their high mix of random write transactions. We should also note that it's not so much a weakness of the memory itself, but rather the interface and control algorithms that deal with inherent erase block latency of MLC NAND flash. SSD manufacturers are getting better at this, but still today, especially with consumer grade SSDs, spinning drives have the edge with respect to some write intensive applications over MLC-based Flash drives, but not as much over SLC-type SSDs.

Or so it would seem if you look at the current offerings from other manufacturers. However, it appears Intel has found a way around this bottleneck.

Futuremark's PCMark Vantage

http://www.futuremark.com

The rest of our PCMark Vantage results are somewhat mixed. Once gain, the Corsair P256 drive takes the pole position, folowed by the Kingston and OCZ drives which trade placed for the second position depending on the particular test.

Tags: SSD, Kingston, OCZ, Corsair, Storage, Super Talent

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com