Specification and Test Methodology
| Drive Specification | |
|---|---|
| Model Name | FM-25S2S-40GBP2 |
| Controller |
SandForce SF-1200 Series |
| Form Factor | 2.5"in |
| Capacity | 40GB |
| DRAM Cache | N/A |
| Interface Type | SATA II |
| Performance Specification | |
| Read Rate | 280MB/sec (Max) |
| Write Rate | 270MB/sec (Max) |
| IOPS | Up to 50,000 (disk aligned; 4KB random write; QD=32) |
| Access Time | <0.2ms |
| Environmental Specification | |
| Shock (operating) | 1,500G |
| Vibration (operating) | 15G |
| Altitude (operating) | 60,000ft |
| Operating Temp. | 0°C - 70°C |
| Reliability Specification | |
| MTBF | +2,000,000 Hours |
| Data Reliability | Built-in EDC/ECC function |
| Certifications | RoHS FCC and CE Compliant |
| Warranty | 3 years |
G.Skill's listed specification is practically identical to other 40GB SandForce drives on the market, including Corsair's Force Series F40. Both quote identical maximum read and write speeds, both ship with a standard three-year warranty, and both fetch roughly £80 at retail.
It's the asking price that's interesting in a couple of ways. By bringing the up-front fee down to below £100, it makes SSD more appealing to the mass market, but the price-per-gigabyte remains fixed at £2. And herein lies a snag, as larger models - including many in G.Skill's own range - currently offer a better ratio of capacity-per-pound.
For example, a larger 60GB model of the Phoenix Pro retails for £90 and brings the cost-per-gigabyte down to a far more satisfying £1.50. Right now, the 40GB models don't represent the best value for money. That statistic is backed up by our nine-way comparison below. Of the drive configurations listed, the 40GB G.Skill Phoenix Pro may be one of the cheapest to buy, but it also costs the most per gigabyte.
For the purpose of this review, we'll compare the 40GB drive against 80GB and 120GB SandForce-based alternatives from Corsair and OCZ, as well a standard hard disk. G.Skill was kind enough to provide a second drive for RAID testing, so we'll also throw in numbers for an 80GB Phoenix Pro RAID 0 configuration. Here's a brief overview of the drives being tested and a description of our benchmarks:
Comparison drives |
|||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Storage drive | G.Skill Phoenix Pro | G.Skill Phoenix Pro (x2) | OCZ Vertex 2E | Corsair Force Series F80 | Corsair Force Series F80 (x2) | Crucial Real SSD C300 | Crucial Real SSD C300 | Samsung HD103SJ | Samsung HD103SJ (x2) |
| Total capacity | 40GB | 80GB | 120GB | 80GB | 160GB | 64GB | 64GB | 1TB | 2TB |
| Drive type | SSD | SSD | SSD | SSD | SSD | SSD | SSD | HDD | HDD |
| Drive firmware | 2.1 | 2.1 | 1.11 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 002 | 002 | 1AJ100E4 | 1AJ100E4 |
| Connection method | SATA 3Gbps, AHCI | SATA 3Gbps, AHCI | SATA 3Gbps, AHCI | SATA 3Gbps, AHCI | SATA 3Gbps, AHCI | SATA 3Gbps, AHCI | SATA 6Gbps, AHCI | SATA 3Gbps, AHCI | SATA 3Gbps, AHCI |
| Controller used | Intel ICH10R | Intel ICH10R | Intel ICH10R | Intel ICH10R | Intel ICH10R | Intel ICH10R | Marvell PCIe | Intel ICH10R | Intel ICH10R |
| RAID configuration | - | RAID 0 | - | - | RAID 0 | - | - | - | RAID 0 |
| Approx. price | £80 | £160 | £180 | £145 | £290 | £110 | £110 | £45 | £90 |
| Approx. price per GB | £2 | £2 | £1.5 | £1.8 | £1.8 | £1.7 | £1.7 | £0.05 | £0.05 |
Test bench |
|||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i7 965 Extreme Edition (3.20GHz, 8MB L3 cache, quad-core, LGA1366 - Turbo Boost enabled) | ||||||||
| Motherboard | ASUS P6X58D Premium | ||||||||
| Memory | 6GB Corsair DDR3 | ||||||||
| Host hard drive | Corsair Nova V128 SSD | ||||||||
| Storage controllers | Intel ICH10R controller (SATA 3Gbps) and Marvell PCIe controller (SATA 6Gbps) | ||||||||
| Graphics Card | Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 1GB | ||||||||
| PSU | Corsair HX1000W | ||||||||
| Operating System | Windows 7 Ultimate, 64-bit | ||||||||
Benchmarks |
|
|---|---|
| ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.46 | The freeware ATTO benchmark provides basic sequential speed results for both read and write operations. Using the default queue depth of four, we record read and write speeds during 1MB transfers. |
| CrystalDiskMark v3.0 beta 3 | CrystalDiskMark provides various storage benchmarks, but we're interested in the returned 32-thread 4K performance numbers to see how well the drives fare when tasked with numerous small transfers. |
| AS SSD v1.5.3x | Another freeware benchmark, AS SSD is designed primarily for testing solid-state storage. We run the benchmark and record the drive's overall read and write scores. The final numbers take into account sequential speeds, input/output performance and access time. |
| Iometer v2008.06.18-RC2 | Iometer is an I/O subsystem measurement tool originally developed by Intel. To measure a drive's I/O performance, we set the benchmark to utilise 4KB transfers in a random spread. Read and write distribution is set to 50 per cent, and queue depth at 32. The test is run for two minutes and we record the total I/Os per second. |
| PCMark Vantage v1.0.2.0 | Emulating real-world use, PCMark Vantage spits out a bunch of data on the relative speed of the drives when undertaking common tasks. We record Windows startup, application load time and gaming performance. |
