The results using CrystalDiskMark:
And the results from the PCMark 7 tests:
Overall, using the SSD on a SATA 6Gb/s connection gives some very good results, especially on write speeds.
Performance Testing – SATA 3G/bs
If you don’t have SATA 6 then you can still connect to SATA 3 – here are our test results.
Using HD Tune Pro, the average Read speed was 157.5 MB/s.
The average Write speed was 129.5 MB/s.
The results using CrystalDiskMark:
So as you can see the speed drops when connected to a SATA 3 connector so if you can connect to SATA 6, if not it’s still faster than a lot of other drives out there.
Final Thoughts
The first thing I noticed when running the performance tests was that I just couldn’t get the speeds that Intel claimed. I was getting some really good speeds, but HD Tune Pro wasn’t giving me those numbers. CrystalDiskMark was giving me higher numbers though, and running just normal copy and move type tests certainly showed it to be fast!
Bottom line is this is still a very fast drive!
It is also reasonably priced and comes with a 3 year warranty although some other manufacturers like Samsung and Plextor are offering 5 year warranties.
The inclusion of data migrations software to clone your existing drive was a good move and makes it very easy for those people who want to do just that.
The drive itself works great and I had no problems using it as a data drive, or installing Windows 7 on it as my primary OS drive.
Including a bracket in the pack was a really good idea as there is nothing worse that spending all that money on an SSD only to find you need to buy a bracket to fit it into your desktop!
One thing I did find a little strange was the sizing of the drives – 60, 120 and 180GB.
The 330 Series range is available now. Pricing is as follows (all approximate based on a quick search as prices change all the time):
60GB – £70.00
120GB – £100.00
180GB – £135.00
If you are in the market for a fast SSD with a great warranty then you really should take a close look at this one!
