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CRYSTAL DISK BENCHMARK VER. 3.0 X64
Crystal Disk Benchmark is used to measure read and write performance through sampling of highly compressible data (oFill/1Fill), or random data which is, for the most part, incompressible. In the Electra MAX, we have displayed testing using highly compressible data on the left, compared to that of incompressible on the right.
Crystal DiskMark results are fairly impressive as well and something becomes apparent that we typically see in all high capacity LSI SandForce controlled SSDs. The low 4k random write performance scores seem to dip a bit.
ANVIL STORAGE UTILITIES PROFESSIONAL (BETA)
You may not see this for long (and its definitely not common) but you get a freebee simply for reading! Over the last little while, we have been assisting with beta testing new benchmark software called Anvil Storage Utilities which is an absolutely amazing SSD benchmarking utility. Not only does it have a preset SSD benchmark, but also, it has included such things as endurance testing and threaded I/O read, write and mixed tests, all of which are very simple to understand and utilize in our benchmark testing.
Transfer speeds are as expected in Anvil Storage Utilities, however, IOPS were significantly lower than we might see in a single PCB form factor SSD where such a RAID controller is not in use.
The SSD Review uses benchmark software called PCMark Vantage x64 HDD Suite to create testing scenarios that might be used in the typical user experience. There are eight tests in all and the tests performed record the speed of data movement in MB/s to which they are then given a numerical score after all of the tests are complete. The simulations are as follows:
- Windows Defender In Use
- Streaming Data from storage in games such as Alan Wake which allows for massive worlds and riveting non-stop action
- Importing digital photos into Windows Photo Gallery
- Starting the Vista Operating System
- Home Video editing with Movie Maker which can be very time consuming
- Media Center which can handle video recording, time shifting and streaming from Windows media center to an extender such as XBox
- Cataloging a music library
- Starting applications
OWC MERCURY ELECTRA MAX 960GB SSD PCMARK SCORING
The OWC Electra MAX completed PCMark Vantage HDD Suite testing with a Total Point Score of 33246 and a high transfer speed of 201MB/s during testing in Media Player. Although we might like to provide a comparable, doing so with any of the SSDs we have tested to date would be unfair as none are of this physical makeup or size.
$1100 based solely it’s size…can’t be performance, it’s sub par at best. I just don’t see this one selling very well. ~$1 a gig for sata2 performance with even slower 4ks…never could I pull that trigger.
Awesome about time some one made a large capacity SSD drive for laptop and ultrabook users. we need capacity NOW! Ill be buying this. sure sata3 would be great but sata 2 is good enough for now. besides who is going to match that capacity and speed for less. not many if any at that price.
OCZ Octane 1TB
I need the space but I am almost getting those speeds with a much cheaper spinner.
Where can I get both speed and capacity besides the OWC Mercury Electra? Not ready for a new laptop at this time. I do heavy video and photo editing. Thank you!
The OWC is still a rarity when it comes to high capacity in a SATA 2 drive. I’ve got an Intel Series 320, which I like, but its maximum capacity is 600GB. Intel has a few SATA 3 800GB drives now, but they’re outside the consumer range and command a higher price/GB.
Don’t like the idea of usind SATA II with SSDs.
I bought this drive about 2 months ago because the hard drive failed in my mid 2009 MacBook with 8G — I had upgraded that when I bought it to a 1TB 5400 drive a few years ago. I figured I would give it a try and spend the $1K on the drive rather than a new MacBook. All I can say is it has made my MBP 3-5 times faster in everything and something that I could certainly use for the next 3 years. It was well worth it to me even if it is not the speediest SSD out there. Hope this helps…
I have experienced a down clocking of the 6G OWC SSD to 1.5G instead of 3G in my MBP 2009, as it does support up to 3G. Do any of you have such an experience with other brands like crucial M550, etc, given that OWC SSD is almost 50-60 euros more expensive? OWC is the only SSD producer in the market that has kept producing 3G SSDs.