Concluding Thoughts

Having looked at real-earth performance measurements, information technology is clear to us that for less than $150 all the tested SSDs have something pretty special to offer PC users. As kicking drives they can halve Windows 7 load times when compared to a typical 7200-RPM desktop hard drive. Furthermore, gamers can enjoy much quicker level load times and those that utilise high-cease productivity software such as Adobe Photoshop will also benefit from the speed affordable solid land drives offer.

The reward these affordable SSDs have over traditional hard drives was displayed at its best when measuring load times of multiple applications simultaneously. So for less than $150 purchasing a small-scale SSD to be used as a kick drive seems like a smart move for those looking to add a lot more grunt to their system.

The question then becomes which of the eight drives tested, including the hybrid Momentus XT 500GB should you purchase? Despite all our testing this is not an like shooting fish in a barrel question to answer.

Let'south first with the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB which costs a mere 27c per gigabyte and offers almost 8x more than storage than the biggest SSD featured in this round-upwardly. The Momentus XT 500GB fared quite well in our real-world testing and although it took 27% longer to load Windows 7 when compared to the slowest SSD it was yet 36% faster than a 7200-RPM desktop difficult drive.

The single application launch performance was also very impressive matching the SSDs, probably a more mutual scenario than launching multiple applications at in one case which literally killed the operation of this Seagate hybrid drive. Similarly, we saw mixed results when testing applications showing impressive speed when loading Photoshop just struggling and falling behind the desktop hard drive with StarCraft 2.

Overall the performance of the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB appears to be somewhat inconsistent, however for its intended purpose nosotros are sold on the concept. Retrieve this is yet a ii.v" spinning hard bulldoze at its cadre which traditionally ways lagging performance. For this reason we experience the Momentus XT 500GB is the perfect solution for laptop users that are express to a single 2.5" drive bay. At times it offers SSD-like performance while providing plenty of storage at a reasonable price.

For desktop users an SSD is still the best option as these affordable models tin be fitted as boot drives while a secondary larger hard bulldoze tin can exist used for storing information. In total we looked at seven SSD models which covered five different controllers. Despite this diversity the existent-globe performance figures were very similar between them and in some tests just a 2d separated the fastest drives from the slowest.

None of the SSDs really stood out as being peculiarly weak in our real-earth tests. The Intel X25-V 40GB for example loaded Windows seven the fastest, while information technology was 1 of the slowest drives when tested with StarCraft II. The OCZ Agility 2 and Vertex 2 40GB SSDs did perform consistently well, though they are also the most expensive drives featured in this circular-upwardly.

We did find some weaknesses in sure models when running synthetic benchmark applications, even so we were not able to replicate this in real-world scenarios. For example we establish that random small writes provided a challenge for the Kingston SNV425-S2 64GB and OCZ Onyx 32/64GB drives.

Looking at price per gigabyte, the nigh expensive SSDs were the OCZ Agility two and Vertex 2 40GB drives costing $3.37 and $3.10 per gigabyte, respectively. The OCZ Onyx 32GB was more than expensive than its larger counterpart at $two.68 per gigabyte while the 64GB version was just $2.00 per gigabyte making it one of the cheapest drives tested. The ADATA S596 Turbo 32GB was modestly priced at $2.56 per gigabyte while the Intel X25-V 40GB fetches $2.50 per gigabyte. The Kingston drive which was the largest capacity drive featured in this circular-up offered the best cost per gigabyte ratio at just $1.95.

The ADATA S596 Turbo 32GB is an interesting SSD and while it did produce some impressive results, we found that overall the numbers were too inconsistent. The OCZ Onyx 32GB suffers a similar fate and at $85 we experience that the Intel X25-Five 40GB is a amend option. The bigger 64GB version of the OCZ Onyx nosotros felt was bettered by the Kingston SNV425-S2 64GB, which provided higher transfer rates at a slightly lower toll. Still in terms of operation these 2 products were extremely close and really we do non feel you lot could become incorrect either way.

Outstanding products: Kingston SNV425-S2 64GB, OCZ Vertex 2 40GB and Intel X25-V 40GB

This leaves the states with the OCZ Vertex 2 40GB, Intel X25-V 40GB and Kingston SNV425-S2 64GB. In terms of performance the OCZ Vertex ii 40GB is top dog though at $3.10 per gigabyte information technology is too expensive. The Vertex 2 40GB does appear to perform better than the Intel bulldoze as measured in synthetic tests merely this was not made evident in our real-world testing.

The ultimate value SSD is definitely the Kingston SNV425-S2 64GB which provides 60% more storage than the Vertex ii 40GB for the same cost. Once more similar the X25-Five 40GB, the SNV425-S2 64GB provided very potent real-world performance but its strongest attribute is its price.

Finally, while these smaller SSDs do not offer the kind of raw performance nosotros have become accustomed to when testing the larger 128GB versions, they practise provide users with blistering fast admission times that can only be delivered by an SSD, and they practice so for a fraction of the toll. For a trivial over $100, these are extremely fast boot drives that nosotros maintain are the single most important upgrade that can be made to a modernistic computer today.