The SSD Review The Worlds Dedicated SSD Education and Review Resource | 
THE SSD REVIEW TESTING PROTOCOL
At The SSD Review, we test our SSD’s slightly different depending upon the drive’s marketed purpose, that of a consumer or an enterprise focused SSD. For a consumer SSD, our goal is to test in a system that has been optimized with our SSD Optimization Guide, however, CPU C State alteration may or may not have occurred depending on the motherboard and BIOS configurations. Benchmarks for our consumer tests are that of fresh drives, so that we can verify that the manufacturer’s specifications match the SSD. Additionally, we also try to include links to the benchmarks used in our report so that you as the reader can replicate our tests to confirm that your SSD is top-notch.
SYSTEM COMPONENTS
This Test Bench build was the result of some great relationships and purchase; our appreciation goes to the below mentioned manufacturers for their support in our project. All of the components we use for testing and evaluation can be easily purchased at a relatively affordable price. The links provided below can assist in pricing, as well as availability for those of you who may find interest in our equipment.
| PC CHASSIS: | InWin 901 Mini-ITX Chassis |
| MOTHERBOARD: | ASUS P8H77-I Mini-ITX |
| CPU: | Intel i7 2600 CPU |
| CPU COOLER: | Corsair H80 CPU Cooler |
| POWER SUPPLY: | Cooler Master M2 Silent Pro 850W |
| SYSTEM COOLING: | Corsair Chassis Fan |
| MEMORY: | Crucial Ballistix Tactical Tracer 1600 MHz |
| GRAPHICS CARD: | EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti |
BENCHMARK SOFTWARE
The software used for today’s analysis is typical of many of our reviews and consists of ATTO Disk Benchmark, Crystal Disk Info, Crystal DiskMark, AS SSD, and PCMark Vantage. In consumer reports, we prefer to test with easily accessible software that the consumer can obtain, and in many cases, we even provide links. Our selection of software allows each to build on the last and to provide validation to results already obtained.
Crystal Disk Info is a great tool for displaying the characteristics and health of storage devices. It displays everything from temperatures, to the number of hours the device has been powered, and even to the extent of informing you of the firmware of the device.
When taking a look at Crystal Disk Info, we can see that the PNY OPTIMA SSD features the S.M.A.R.T. attribute, which allows for us to monitor the health of the SSD over its lifespean, as well as TRIM.
ATTO Disk Benchmark is a relatively easy-to-use benchmark tool, which happens to be the benchmark of choice for many manufacturers. ATTO uses compressible data rather than random data, which results in higher performance and thus, higher benchmark scores. In our testing, we have selected the transfer size to range from 0.5KB to 8192KB, and have set the total length of the test to be 256MB.
The PNY OPTIMA returns from our first benchmark test with a read speed of up to 563 MB/s and a write speed of up to 305MB/s. Keeping in mind that we are looking at a budget-friendly SSD, these scores are decent and pretty close to what PNY has listed.
According to the PNY Optima specifications page the company uses three different types of NAND for the Optima ssd – Synchronous Mode MLC, SLC or TLC. It is similar to what Kingston did with the SSDNow V300. The major difference is that PNY published the fact while Kingston made no mention of it until problems developed and customers complained.
Hmm, That would optima the second manufactur to use TLC flash..
i wonder how that performs 😉
The problem here is that vendors are still selling 240GB SSDs with Toshiba toggle NAND and SF controllers for the same price. No comparison in terms of performance. Until the old inventories run out this imbalance will remain.
Looks like a decent drive (especially given, that it uses 128Gbit flash), although i wonder how this controler performs consistency wise…
The Kingmax SME XValue launched October 2013 uses the same silicon motion controller.
Review: https://goughlui.com/?p=7294
In the store a saleman attempted to upsell me on crucial, but could not give a rational much better than name recognition. He did state speed, but had no evidence. With this drive at $90 (including rebate $110-20) is this a better deal than the crucial with the same listed stats, but with a $130 ticket and no rebate?
The Marvell controller of the rucial is a bit more preferable….better performance.
How much better is the performance? The answer to that question is the big deal.
The performance is totally dependant on your use of this drive. If you are using it for just surfing the net, e-mails etc…you won’t every see the difference between this and any drive. If you are a professional manipulating media…that is an entirely different story.
Are there any comparative standards or is all information regarding SSDs anecdotal and based on opinion?
From the review:
“BENCHMARK SOFTWARE
The software used for today’s analysis is typical of many of our reviews and consists of ATTO Disk Benchmark, Crystal Disk Info, Crystal DiskMark, AS SSD, and PCMark Vantage. In consumer reports, we prefer to test with easily accessible software that the consumer can obtain, and in many cases, we even provide links. Our selection of software allows each to build on the last and to provide validation to results already obtained.”
So they used five different non-anendotal tools to test the drive. Read the review on the Crucial model you are considering. Compare.
Being a novice in understanding SSD stats, it’s unclear to me how this is a poor option for gaming. Also, the text isn’t clear to me whether it’s talking about this drive being the “wrong” choice compared to just other SSDs or also in even replacing an HDD for gaming.
It is a poor option in comparison to other SSDs that handle compressible writes much better. It is still a huge step up from a hard drive. In gaming, the only real benefit is transition timing through the loading of scenes.
Did anyone figure out how to enable the encryption that is advertised? I didn’t find any software on the PNY website.
I just had a virus on my laptop a while back so I went in with geek squad. When I picked up my laptop and got home I was surprised to find one of these. I had no idea what it was. I am not a tecky person. So what exactly is it, how do I install it and basically just a memory or a drive?
You picked up your laptop from the geek squad and when you got home you found an SSD? Was it in the bag or installed in your laptop? Why would you want to know how to install something you just paid someone to install unless it was not installed, and if so, why?
PS It replaces your hard drive, but it’s not soft! It’s not a floppy, it’s a Solid State Drive – no moving parts, so it’s fast, and cool! Enjoy!
A local shop has the 480GB version on sale for only €117. Is it worth buying? For that price I can barely get a 250GB 850 evo
Bought this disk recently for £55 and it says 3 year warranty on the box. Where is the catch?