Let us continue with the benchmark results. SATA2 drives are currently tested with an ASRock M3A790GXH/128M motherboard and SATA3 drives are currently tested with an ASRock 890GX Extreme3 motherboard. At present, Microsoft Windows 7 RC Ultimate Edition is used as the operating system.
The SSD drive speed was examined and compared with the following benchmark software:
AS SSD Benchmark 1.4.3704.27281 – Download
ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.46 – Download
CrystalDiskMark 3.00 – Download
HD Tach 3.040 – Download
SiSoftware Sandra 2010c – Download
The SSD benchmark values offers a very good reference point of the maximal possible reading and writing performance, the speed with smaller files and the respective access time. The 256GB Crucial drive achieved above all an amazing high sequential read and write rate. With approximately 322 MB/s, the maximum transfer rate of the Serial ATA 2.0 interface was exceeded, so that a SATA3 interface is really the best choice for this SSD. The write performance was approximately 211 MB/s and the total core reached thereby 290 points! To compare it with the OCZ Agility 120GB SATA2 SSD, it reached only 138 points.
Here is a Snipping screenshot of the AS SSD benchmark results (SATA3):
On a SATA2 port the read result was 239 MB/s, which is clearly below the SATA3 values of 322 MB/s and also the write performance was on a SATA2 port with approx. 196 MB/s lower than the SATA3 port with 211 MB/s.
Here is a Snipping screenshot of the AS SSD benchmark results (SATA2):
Here is a Snipping screenshot of the AS SSD iops results to measure the input/output speed (SATA3):
And here is a Snipping screenshot of the AS SSD iops results to measure the input/output speed (on SATA2):
The comparison of the AS SSD benchmark results is extended with each new HDD/SSD test. Here we see the OCZ Agility 128GB SATA2 SSD in comparison to the Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB SATA3 SSD on a SATA-3 controller and on a SATA-2 controller, whereby the diagram is updated shortly with new SSDs.
Here is a comparison of the AS SSD benchmark values, which are getting updated with soon coming drives:
The ATTO disk benchmark values gives a very good overview about the write and read rate on different file sizes. More than 230 MB/s write speed with larger transfer sizes are incredible high and the result of the reading speed is with 333 MB/s starting from 64 KB transfer size also enormously high. Very small transfer sizes below approx. 8KB could be a little bit faster regarding the reading speed, but they are well above the currently tested SSD and HDDs.
Here is a Snipping screenshot of the ATTO Disk benchmark values (SATA3):
Compared to the operation of the very fast SATA3 SSD on a SATA2 interface one recognize very good, how the maximum read performance is limited by the SATA2 interface.
Here is a Snipping screenshot of the ATTO Disk benchmark values (on SATA2):
The ATTO disk of benchmark values are compared with a small transfer size of 32KB and a large transfer size of 8192KB. The bar chart already shows a first comparison to the Hitachi 1TB hard disk drive and the OCZ Agility 120GB SSD, whereby also here the best result is reached by Crucial’s 256GB C300 RealSSD.
Here is a comparison of the ATTO disk benchmark values, which are getting updated with soon coming drives:
With CrystalDiskMark one receives a balanced measurement of the performance with different transfer sizes.
Here is a Snipping screenshot of the CrystalDiskMark values (SATA3):
Here is a Snipping screenshot of the CrystalDiskMark values (on SATA2):
The following diagram shows the CrystalDiskMark results once again compared with other SSDs and platter drives, which are extended step by step. In the CrystalDiskMark comparison one can already see the big differences to the previously tested OCZ Agility SSD and an usual disk drive, since the reading and writing performance is clearly faster in all results.
Here is a comparison of the CrystalDiskMark values, which are getting updated with soon coming drives:
With the HD Tach benchmark values one can recognize the gradient of the performance. The Crucial RealSSD 256GB SSD shows with the 0001 Firmware at the beginning a performance break-down, which did not appear with the latest 0002 firmware. Crucial’s RealSSD C300 has from the beginning to the end a constant speed and extremely low access times as usual with SSDs. To compare these results with SATA2 values, you can move the cursor over this Crucial RealSSD 256GB SSD on SATA2 link. To compare these results with the previous tested SSD, you can move the cursor over this OCZ Agility 128GB SSD link. To compare these results with a Hitachi 7K1000.C 1TB HDD, you can hold the cursor over this Hitachi 7K1000.C 1TB HDD link.
Here is a Snipping screenhot of the HD Tach benchmark values:
The comparison of the HD Tach benchmark results shows already very impressive, how fast the reading speed and the average access time of the Crucial RealSSD 256GB is against other Solid State Drives and hard disk drives.
Here is a comparison of the HD Tach benchmark values, which are getting updated with soon coming drives:
SiSoftware Sandra benchmark result
Of course, SiSoftware Sandra benchmark should not be missing in this test series. SiSoftware offers with their SiSoft Sandra program a very comprehensive tool for some years, which contains a lot of tools to get very reliable test results of all hardware components. The average access time of the Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB SSD was in SiSoftware Sandra with 10us also extremely low and the drive index of 318,1 MB/s underscores once again the previous tests.
Here is a Snipping screenshot of the SiSoftware Sandra benchmark values (SATA3):
Here is a Snipping screenshot of the SiSoftware Sandra benchmark values (on SATA2):
Here is a comparison of the SiSoftware Sandra benchmark values, which are getting updated with soon coming drives:
