Testing and Results

I used four benchmark programs to test this drive:

• ATTO Disk Benchmark.
• AS SSD Benchmark.
• CrystalDiskMark x64.
• PCMark05's XP Startup Test.

The PCMark05 test is just for the benchers out there, it bears little resemblance to overall drive performance, but is crucial if you're competing in that benchmark.

The test system is a solid one, it consists of the following core components:

• Intel Core i7 2600k CPU.
• Gigabyte P67a-UD4-B3 motherboard.
• MSI HD6970 GPU.
• Thermaltake Toughpower XT 1275w 80+ Platinum PSU.
• OCZ Agility 3 120GB SSD used as an OS drive for the empty tests.

I first ran each benchmark with the drive completely empty.  I then installed Windows 7 Premium x64 and GPU drivers, then booted off of it and ran each test (excluding PC05) again.  In all photos the pink border is the empty drive result and the blue border is the result with Windows 7 on the drive.

ATTO Disk Benchmark

Pyro SE:  Empty.  Win7 Installed
Crucial M4:  Empty.  Win7 Installed

Both empty and full the drive beat its 550MB/s read rating. Empty it peaked at 468MB/s write, while with Windows 7 installed it "only" managed 437MB/s.  In neither case did it hit the rated 500MB/s, but 437 with windows installed is quite impressive in my book.

With an empty drive it beat the M4 by a nose in read and by quite a bit in write.  The Pyro SE is a much closer fight, with the Vertex 3 MaxIOPS winning in read and loosing in write.

With Windows 7 installed the story is almost identical, with none of the drives dropping much in peak speeds, though the MaxIOPS extends it's lead over the M4 by a bit in read.

I feel that it is worth noting at this point that 557MEGABYTES per second is really fast.  That's the entire contents of my first hard drive in less than a second.

AS SSD Benchmark

Pyro SE:  Empty.  Win7 Installed
Crucial M4:  Empty.  Win7 Installed

In AS SSD Benchmark things don't look as good in a few of the tests.  That said the MaxIOPS wins handily in the combined score both empty and full, mostly due to far lower read latency than the Pyro SE and brutally fast 4K-64Thrd scores.  The MaxIOPS gets the win here.

CrystalDiskMark x64

Pyro SE:  Empty.  Win7 Installed
Crucial M4:  Empty.  Win7 Installed

In both tests the MaxIOPS stomps all comers in 4K QD32, and adds 512K read to the domination list once windows is installed.  In other tests the results aren't as rosy, with the MaxIOPS loosing in the larger file size write tests by a fair margin.  4k read is a very close battle indeed, while 4k write gets chalked up as a loss.

PCMark05 XP Startup

Crucial M4 (empty)

241MB/s is fast enough to be illegally high on HWBot, which is a very good sign.  It's comfortably faster than the M4, unfortunately the Pyro SE was not tested with this benchmark.

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