New Technology Reviews!.: state

<img src="http://cdn.mos.techradar.com//Review%20images/PC%20Format/PCF%20242/PCF242.w_group.supertest-200-200.jpg"> To find out, we've gathered 12 of the best solid state drives known to man. More importantly, our so-solid dozen includes examples of every one of the key SSD drive controllers currently on the market. But first, a bit of history. SSD flash drives were supposed to be the final piece of the solid state puzzle. The last significant component to make the shift from moving parts to solid silicon. We could kiss goodbye to silly spinning platters and say hello to the kind of storage performance that was on a par with the rest of the PC platform. Unfortunately, it didn't happen that way. The early days of solid state drives were a sad story of suckage. When the first vaguely affordable drives rocked up a couple of years ago, they seemed slick enough out of the box – but they had problems in the way they read and wrote data. It was a bit of a downer, especially as they cost the earth. Since then, things have gradually improved. Thanks to new technologies, such as the TRIM command in Windows 7, the long-term performance of most drives is definitely on the up. What's more, capacities have been growing and prices falling. All of which begs the obvious question: are SSDs now fit for mainstream consumption? Make no mistake, it's the controller chipset more than any other component in an SSD that defines its performance and longevity. In that context, the identity of the drive manufacturer is less critical. As you'd expect, we have established controller favourites from the likes of Intel, Samsung and Indilinx. We also take our first look at the much-hyped Sandforce SF-1200 controller, a chip that promises massive sequential performance, speedy random access and long legs. But can it really deliver on all three counts? And that's not all. Courtesy of Crucial's C300 drive, we can add a new Marvell chip to the mix. Not all that much is known about Marvell's latest in terms of detailed specifications. However, in a way, the number of channels, the cache quantities and all that jazz don't matter. What does count is how well the thing actually performs. Roll on the benchmarks… 1. Kingston SSDNow V Series 30GB Judging the performance and reliability of SSDs is tricky at the best of times. However, if you want even more punishment, may we suggest you add RAID to the mix? It adds yet another layer of complexity. For the record, and despite a recent Intel motherboard update, our best information is that the TRIM command is not supported for SSDs in RAID arrays. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. <a href="http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/pc-components/storage/hard-disk-drives-hdd-/kingston-ssdnow-v-series-30gb-687710/review">Read the full Kingston SSDNow V Series review </A> 2. OCZ Onyx 32GB When it comes to affordable SSDs, the latest fashion is towards the tiny. In that context, OCZ's new Onyx 32GB drive is as trendy as they come. But is it so small that you'd have to be a style victim to buy it? Very probably, yes. Fully formatted, you're left with 29.7GB of storage. That sounds like a reasonable result for a 32GB drive. At least, it does until you observe how much remains after a full install of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. <a href="http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/pc-components/storage/hard-disk-drives-hdd-/ocz-onyx-32gb-706229/review">Read the full OCZ Onyx 32GB review </A> 3. Intel X25-V 40GB Fancy Intel's second generation SSD tech at a third the price of its flagship 160GB? Yes please. After all, Intel's current controller chipset technology is one of the few proven to maintain decent performance over time. In fact, our test X25-V drive has been knocking about PCF towers for some time. But, courtesy of support for the Windows 7 TRIM command, not to mention a quick buff-and-format treatment prior to testing, it's not far off box-fresh performance. <a href="http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/pc-components/storage/hard-disk-drives-hdd-/ocz-x25-v-40gb-706237/review">Read the full Intel X25-V 40GB review </A> 4. Corsair Nova V64 64GB What are your minimum requirements for an SSD? We know what ours are. First, we'd like a controller chipset that not only delivers good performance but keeps doing so for longer than a few weeks. Next, we want enough space for our operating system of choice and our favourite apps. We definitely don't want to shunt application installs onto a secondary drive. Finally, we'd rather not flog Granny to the glue factory to pay for it. At first glance, Corsair's latest budget-orientated drive nails the lot. <a href="http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/pc-components/storage/hard-disk-drives-hdd-/corsair-memory-nova-v64-64gb-706250/review">Read the full Corsair Nova review</A> 5. Kingston SSDNow V+ SERIES 128GB As Admiral Adama once said to Colonel Tigh, context matters. Shortly after that, the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series lost the plot. But the great pockmarked one did have a point. Taken out of context, £230 is a lot for any individual item of PC kit. But for a 128GB SSD, it's cheap. It's important to get your expectations calibrated before you consider this one. If you want a drive of this size and the best in solid state performance, you'll need to pay a bit more. <a href="http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/pc-components/storage/hard-disk-drives-hdd-/kingston-ssdnow-v-gen-2-128gb-676514/review">Read the full Kingston SSDNow V+ review</A> 6. Corsair P128 128GB With the snazzy new Force F100 drive and its zippy Sandforce controller slotting in as Corsair's new performance SSD in the 100GB-ish segment, is the end nigh for the 128GB P128? Probably – but until it disappears, the P128 has plenty to offer. For starters, it's conspicuously better value than its in-house cousin and not simply in terms of capacity. <a href="http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/pc-components/storage/hard-disk-drives-hdd-/corsair-memory-p128-128gb-706649/review">Read the full Corsair P128 review </A> 7. Patriot Torqx 128GB For the history of the SSD condensed into a single drive, look no further than Patriot's Torqx 128GB. It's been around for the better part of a year and, like the broader SSD category, it's been a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs. At launch, we had high hopes for the Torqx thanks to its Indilinx Barefoot controller. Various claims were made regarding the power of the Barefoot's ARMbased CPU. <a href="http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/pc-components/storage/hard-disk-drives-hdd-/patriot-memory-torqx-128gb-706745/review">Read the full Patriot Torqx review </A> 8. Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB Along with the two Sandforce-based drives from OCZ and Corsair, Crucial's latest falls into what we'd call the fourth generation SSD category. Benefiting from all the lessons learned during the dodgy early days of SSD engineering, it's literally the latest technology. The fact that Crucial still managed to cock things up early on with the RealSSD C300 just goes to show how difficult it is to knock up a decent solid state drive. <a href="http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/pc-components/storage/hard-disk-drives-hdd-/crucial-realssd-c300-128gb-706784/review">Read the full Crucial RealSSD review </A> 9. Corsair Force F100 100GB At any moment in the history of the solid state drives, there's always been an "it" SSD controller chipset – a controller that turns heads and generally dominates the news. First came the JMicron, famous for all the wrong reasons, then Intel shook the industry with a new controller majoring on maximum I/O ops and random performance. Indilinx followed with the Barefoot controller that was competitive on both price and performance. <a href="http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/pc-components/storage/hard-disk-drives-hdd-/corsair-memory-force-f100-100gb-706831/review">Read the full Corsair Force F100 review </A> 10. OCZ Vertex 2 100GB Does OCZ's Vertex 2 smell familiar? It should do. After all, it boasts the same 100GB capacity as the Corsair Force F100. More importantly, it's the second SSD in our group to pack the impressive new Sandforce SF-1200 controller chipset. But which is better? As Harry Hill would say, there's only one way to find out. Fight! Actually, you need only make a price comparison and then conclude in favour of the Corsair. Right? Not so fast. <a href="http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/pc-components/storage/hard-disk-drives-hdd-/ocz-vertex-2-100gb-709491/review">Read the full OCZ Vertex 2 review </A> 11. Intel X25-M G2 160GB When Intel decides to take on a technological challenge, it doesn't arse about. Nope, it crushes the problem with military force. However, with Intel's might also comes a lumbering clumsiness. On occasion, you can see the massive bureaucracy struggle to change direction in response to events. So it was with Intel's early SSDs, which suffered from rapidly degrading performance. <a href="http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/pc-components/storage/hard-disk-drives-hdd-/intel-x25-m-g2-160gb-709501/review">Read the full Intel X25-M review </A> 12. Western Digital SiliconEdge Blue 128GB Disruptive new technologies tend to make established players look flat-footed. So it was that a small Californian company called Tesla beat mighty and historic brands including Porsche and Ferrari to market with the first pukka electric sports car. It's the same story when it comes to SSDs. A dozen drives from seven manufacturers make up our Supertest this month, but only the SiliconEdge Blue comes from a traditional hard drive maker, namely Western Digital. <a href="http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/pc-components/storage/hard-disk-drives-hdd-/western-digital-siliconedge-blue-128gb-709523/review">Read the full Western Digital SiliconEdge Blue review </A> Testing SSDs is probably the toughest job in tech journalism today. That's partly because although SSDs are solid, they're not completely static. Their performance can and does vary with use. More than other components, the gap between synthetic test results and real-world performance can also be enormous when it comes to these drives. For those reasons, we recommend care when drawing firm conclusions from the results published here. That's not to say the numbers below don't provide a useful insight into what you'll get for your money, rather that focusing on a figure – such as 4k random performance – could put you off what's actually a very effective SSD. So, with all that in mind, here are the numbers. <img alt="Sequential read-write" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/Review%20images/PC%20Format/PCF%20242/Seqreadwrite-420-90.jpg" width="420"></IMG> <img alt="4K read-write" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/Review%20images/PC%20Format/PCF%20242/4kreadwrite-420-90.jpg" width="420"></IMG> <img alt="Burst" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/Review%20images/PC%20Format/PCF%20242/burst-420-90.jpg" width="420"></IMG> <img alt="Level load" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/Review%20images/PC%20Format/PCF%20242/levelload-420-90.jpg" width="420"></IMG> <img alt="App install" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/Review%20images/PC%20Format/PCF%20242/Appinstall-420-90.jpg" width="420"></IMG> <img alt="Zip decompression" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/Review%20images/PC%20Format/PCF%20242/Zip%20decompress-420-90.jpg" width="420"></IMG> Indexing the benches Judging SSD performance is a tricky business, as it's not just all about the individual results for particular tests, but the overall picture. So we created a pair of indexes to help sort the dream drives from the not-so-solid duds. The bang-for-buck index combines a drive's performance in our application installation test with its cost. Of course, capacity also counts, so we've also added the storage size of each drive to the bang-for-buck index to create an overall metric of performance, value and capacity. <img alt="Bang for buck" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/Review%20images/PC%20Format/PCF%20242/bangforbuck-420-90.jpg" width="420"></IMG> <img alt="Overall" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/Review%20images/PC%20Format/PCF%20242/overall-420-90.jpg" width="420"></IMG> And the winner is... First the bad news. SSDs are still too expensive. For that reason, the biggest drive on test clocks in at 160GB. Drives in the 200GB and up category remain irrelevant. We haven't bothered to include them because they cost stupid money. It's that simple. That single, but significant, caveat aside, we're feeling more upbeat about solid state storage than ever. Unlike previous SSD groupies, not one of this month's models exhibited any noticeable lag or stutter. With the possible exception of some of the smaller drives, therefore, they'd all make a great upgrade over that antediluvian magnetic platter humming away inside your PC. On a similar general note, the subjective experience these drives deliver doesn't square precisely with the benchmark results. That's true both in comparison to each other and with our standard hard drive. What the benchies don't capture is the responsiveness and agility of the SSDs. You're never left waiting for a platter to spin up or the read head to change tack. Also, don't forget that the sort of instant and catastrophic failure that occasionally bricks a conventional hard drive is almost unheard of in SSD circles. It's time, then, for the prizes. In the 30GB to 40GB range, we'll give Intel the nod. Not only does the X25-V have a significant advantage in terms of 4k random performance, but the extra seven or eight GB of capacity could make the difference between having just enough space and the tedium of constantly shunting software on and off the drive. Further up the scale, the competition is extremely close. The next drive to grab our attention is Corsair's Nova V64. It's double the price of the smallest drives, but then it's also twice as large and therefore much more realistic as an all-purpose boot drive. The Nova is pretty quick, too, thanks to an Indilinx controller. As for the final honours, it's an incredibly tight contest. You can make a strong case for nearly all the 100GB-plus models tested. The two drives with the new Sandforce controller are certainly screamers, but first prize goes to Kingston's less exotic SSDNow V+ Series. Significantly cheaper than the competition, the V+ comes close enough in our real world app tests that we doubt you'd actually feel the benefit of a more expensive drive. It's the end-user experience, not numbers in a benchmark spreadsheet, that counts.

In Depth: Best SSDs: 12 top solid state drives

To find out, we've gathered 12 of the best solid state drives known to man. More importantly, our so-solid dozen includes examples of ev...

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In Depth: Best SSDs: 12 top solid state drives