Testing Methodology
Test Bench |
| CPU |
Intel Core i7-4770K (4.4GHz, 8MB cache, quad-core) |
| Motherboard |
Asus Z97-A |
| Memory |
16GB Corsair Vengeance Pro (2x8GB) DDR3 @ 1,866MHz |
| Storage Controllers |
Intel Z97 PCH (SATA 6Gbps, AHCI) |
| Graphics |
Integrated HD 4600 Graphics |
| Power Supply |
Corsair AX760i |
| Operating System |
Windows 8.1 (64-bit) |
Comparison Drive Configurations |
| |
Total Capacity |
Controller |
Firmware |
Interface |
| SK hynix SC300 |
256GB |
LM878100AA |
2001P00 |
SATA 6Gbps |
| OCZ Arc 100 |
240GB |
OCZ 3 Barefoot M10 |
1.01 |
SATA 6Gbps |
| Crucial MX200 |
512GB |
Marvell 88SS9189 |
1.0 |
SATA 6Gbps |
| Crucial BX100 |
500GB |
SM SM2246EN |
1.0 |
SATA 6Gbps |
Benchmarks |
| ATTO Disk Benchmark |
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 |
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. |
| Iometer |
Iometer is an I/O subsystem measurement tool originally developed by Intel. To measure a drive's I/O performance, after preconditioning, we set the benchmark to run specific sequential and random read and write tests |
PCMark 8 |
PCMark 8's storage test is a collection of workloads that isolate the performance of the PC's storage system. |
Notes
We've included two larger-capacity drives for references purposes. The real comparison is between the SK hynix Canvas SC300 drive and OCZ Arc 100 - two SSDs with similar capacities and near-identical pricing.
