240 GB SATA-600 Solid State Drive Round-Up

Conclusions

So, which is the fastest 240 GB solid state drive? Well, there was no clear overall winner, as each drive had strengths and weaknesses in different tests.

In the sequential read tests, the OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS performed best, beating the other drives by a clear margin in CrystakDiskMark and AS SSD. But, in the sequential write tests, the Intel 510 Series drive came out on top. In both the sequential read and write tests, the Crucial M4 showed the worst performance and was outperformed by a large margin.

Moving on to the random tests using 512 KB blocks, the OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS drive came out on top in both the read and write tests. In the random tests using 4 KB blocks, however, the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G was the overall winner, coming out on top in three out of the four tests. In the CrystalDiskMark random write test using 4 KB, the OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS beat the OWC drive by a small margin.

In HD Tune, the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G achieved the highest average transfer rate and the joint highest burst transfer rate with the other two SandForce based drives.

So which one of these drives should you buy? Well, if you’re looking for the best possible performance, either the OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS or OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G would be our choice. The two drives exhibited strengths and weaknesses in different areas with the OWC drive coming out on top in seven tests and the OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS in five. The two drives are very similarly priced, and both are a great option.

Although the Crucial M4 SSD was the worst overall performer, we must consider that it costs around USD 130 less than the other drives on test. This makes it a great option for people who don’t mind sacrificing a little performance for better value for the money. It also has a slightly larger capacity, as Crucial hasn’t used any over-provisioning.

We believe the Intel 510 Series drive is a little overpriced, but we wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to users if it were to come down a little to somewhere in between the Crucial M4 and the SandForce based drives. So if you can pick it up on sale somewhere, you won’t be disappointed! The Mushkin Chronos drive exhibited very good performance in our tests but ended up coming in slightly behind the OCZ Vertex 3, coming out on top in four of the tests. While it is still a fast drive, we would like to see it come down in price by USD 15 before we would purchase it over the two better performing SandForce based drives.