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For testing, the drives are all wiped and reset to factory settings by HDDerase V4 which you can get yourself over here. We try to use free programs and some real world testing so you can compare our findings against your own system.
This is a good way to measure potential upgrade benefits.
We tested the Intel drives in both single mode and in Raid 0. There is a good chance that people buying one of these drives might in future add another for an inexpensive performance boost. We also like to test Raid 0 when we get a chance!
As we mentioned earlier in the article it is important to ensure that your motherboard is capable of delivering full SATA 6Gbps or this drive is going to be limited to slower speeds. Rather than swapping out the long term SSD testing rig we are using a Highpoint RocketRAID 620 SATA controller that provides both SATA 6Gbps (rev 3.0) transfer speeds as well as Raid 0, 1,5, 10, JBOD support. We also have found that many onboard Sata 6Gbps ports are not delivering optimium performance levels.
Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB
Comparison Drives:
OCZ Vertex 2 100GB
Buffalo 128GB Microstation
Intel X25-V 40GB (+Raid 0)
Kingston SSDNow V+ Series 128GB SSD
OCZ Vertex 128GB
Intel X-25M 160GB SSD
Corsair P128 SSD
CPU: Intel Core i7 875k
Cooler: Noctua NH 14D
Motherboard: Intel DP55WG
Hard Drive: Western Digital 1TB
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Tracer 1600mhz (4gb)
Sata Interface: Highpoint RocketRAID 620 SATA Controller
PSU: Enermax 1250w Revolution
Graphics: Zotac GTX465
Chassis: Silverstone Raven 2
Operating System: Windows 7 64 bit Ultimate
Monitor: LaCie 730 30 inch LED screen
All our results were achieved by running each test five times with every configuration. Median averages were extrapolated from the results – this ensures that any glitches are removed from the results. Trim is confirmed as running by typing fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify into the command line. A response of disabledeletenotify =0 confirms TRIM is active.
thats a hell of a drive, shame the 128GB version is significantly slower with write speeds.
550 quid is just too much money for me, but if you had money to spend on this, its a good choice. nice size too,. Interesting info about onboard controllers not being up to the grade either, didnt know that.
Yah, other sites mentioned onboard controllers not being up to the 6 GBps grade either.
It really is such a confusing market, so many controllers out there, indilinx etc. and it seems every new one is that much faster. has to stop soon, we are now in a situation when the onboard controller chips, even on new 6GBps boards arent up to the task!
I went into this review with trepidation, thinking it might suck and thankfully it rocks 🙂 I ordered one a few days ago. I hate ordering stuff before I read reviews about it (well i did on another site but they suck).
Can we have a review of the 128GB version please? the 256gb is too much for me and i want to know if the write speed of the 128GB causes it to be vastly inferior.
Well this is rather sexual 🙂 £550 is a bit much for me, my missus would have my family jewels mounted to a pole if she saw this coming out of our bank account.
Id go for the 128gb model, shame it wasnt reviewed.
There has to be some serious performance for £550, and I think this delivers. Is it worth it? thats another point. for me personally yes it is, and I just ordered one from Crucial direct. ordered from them before and they use special delivery which is quick and reliable 🙂
My Dog died last month and I need cheering up. ordered this for my new intel system. ill regret it later when my credit card bill appears, but right now I dont care. thanks for the review.
Well I just ordered this from crucial and am now going to scan to buy the controller. I cashed in some shares. cant wait 🙂
256GB ? SSD? 350MB/s second? too fast for onboard controllers? ekkkkk. I need one now, but I also need a new car. maybe I could walk to work for a few months? :p
Christ almighty, I take a 2 week holiday and dont have net connection, I come back and ive to read around 20 reviews ! this site kicks some serious ass ! you guys filter all the crap hardware out and review the sweetness !
That performance is stunning. I too would have liked to see the 128GB version reviewed also, as I can’t afford £550
Wow this is incredible. performance is higher than I thought. I wish I could afford this, 128GB model review soon please !
Great review KitGuru, now to sell my wife to make up the money, might get £50 for a start at least.
ah come on man, 256GB, I know this is KitGuru and we love high end hardware, but why not review the 128GB model as well ! its at least in the grasp of some of us. I think 🙂
Great to see some real world testing, I couldnt give a rats ass about some of the synthetic benchmarks sites use,. so while you use them also, a few things like boot time are handy as a quick compare. gives a more rounded overview of the whole thing. Very impressive design from crucial and their teams. I think one of these will be my next purchase whenever I get the opportunity to do so.
Thanks for the writeup, very helpful
The performance is quite staggering really when you see the need for a dedicated controller board to maximise throughput. The only downside obviously is the cost, but in a way this is helping mechanical drive sales as ive seen 2TB hard drives in the UK now for under £100.
Well I think sandforce has just had its ass handed to it 🙂
I have read about the Mobo onboard controller problems so I use the SATA 3GB/s ports and have 2 in RAID 0. This still gives very fast performance loading Win7 in about 18 seconds.
Needless to say that this article went live and the poor guys at YOYOTech sold out almost immediately.
As of Sunday evening:-
– Novatech is showing 3 in stock at £496 – ready for shipment
– Amazon is showing 5 in stock at £508 – but suspiciously they can’t be delivered for 2-4 weeks (well dodgy)
– Misco have loads – probably because they are at the astronomical price of £649
Never tried buying anything from Misco, but if they throw is a couple of return flights to Paris – then maybe they are worth the extar £150 over Novatech 😉
I have 2 C300 64gb drives in RAID 0, and I get 755MB/s read speeds in Sandra!