Windows 7 HD and SSD Performance Analyzed

Windows Vista vs. Windows 7 - Solid State Disk

Intel X25-M 160 GB (MLC Solid State, SATA-II)

Our second test features performance numbers between Windows Vista and Windows 7 with something a little faster, a new solid state hard drive from Intel. The solid state hard drive which we're looking at here is Intel's "consumer-level" X25-M drive, which features 160 GB capacity and read speeds of over 200 MB/s. This is roughly two to three times the bandwidth of a traditional SATA based hard disk today, so it will be a good showcase of if Windows 7's SSD support is improved.

As you can see, Windows 7 is much more efficient when it comes to making use of a solid state drive's speed. While under Windows Vista, our X25-M SSD averaged between 171 MB/s to 206 MB's, whereas under Windows 7, that jumps to 223 MB/s to 234 MB/s. Simply swapping out Vista to Windows 7 allows for a sizable performance increase in read performance. Write performance does not showcase a large jump, although write burst transfer rates do show an improvement under Windows 7 as well. Impressive indeed, but this isn't all Windows 7 has to show in the SSD department, there is also an additional variable called TRIM, which you might want to know more about.