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.
The Intel 335 series solid state drive offered very good performance in the PCMark 7 secondary storage benchmark, but it trailed overall versus some of the competing drives we tested. The deltas separating the higher-performing drives in this benchmark are quite small, however, especially when you tunnel down and look at the individual test results.
