Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 (Supplied by Intel) Motherboard: MSI X38 Diamond (Supplied by MSI Computer) Memory: 2x 1GB DDR2-1200 (Supplied by Winchip) Graphics Card: ASUS HD 3870 TOP (Supplied by ASUS) Cooling: GIGABYTE 3D Galaxy II (Supplied by GIGABYTE) Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Drivers: Intel INF 8.3.1.1009, ForceWare 163.21
The above setup is what will be used for all hard disk reviews hereon. Hard disks designed primarily for use in notebooks are also tested in the above system. However, some tests which are for determining the effect on battery life simply cannot be run on a desktop. All battery related tests are performed on a Lenovo T61 with WiFi enabled.
HD Tune is a Hard Disk utility which has the following functions:
- Benchmark: measures the performance - Info: shows detailed information - Health: checks the health status by using SMART - Error Scan: scans the surface for errors - Temperature display
HD Tune Pro gives us accurate read, write and access time results and for the last couple of years has been gaining popularity amongst reviewers. It is now considered a must have application for storage device testing.
Read and Write Tests
Mtron MOBI 64GB SSD Read
Western Digital Raptor 150 GB Read
The Western Digital Raptor is the standard for enthusiasts, but as you can see, the Mtron MOBI is capable of taking it on head-to-head. At the fastest area of the drive, the two drives perform very similar, but as you move away from the sweet spot of the standard hard drive, the power of the SSD really shows its strengths. Since there is no platter in the MOBI SSD, there is not a decrease in transfer speeds. On paper it looks impressive, but in the real world it is absolutely stunning.
Mtron MOBI 64GB SSD Write
Western Digital Raptor 150 GB Write
Write performance mimics what we found on the Read Tests. SSD drives are going to do a very good job in professional applications where transfer speed is important.
Access Times
As stated previously, the access times for SSD drives are beyond anything a standard hard drive is physically capable of. Think about it this way, you are playing a record but instead of playing a song straight through you are trying to arrange a new song from words in different songs. the tone arm needs to move from one location to the next, but once it gets to the correct location the record has to spin to get the correct section to line up with the needle. The time it takes to go from one word to the other is access time.
In the images above, we also see the access time for the MOBI. When reading, it scored .1ms. At writing, .2. In comparison, the Raptor with its 10,000 RPM platters took 9.4ms on the read and write test. One might think that a test measured in milliseconds could not have much of an impact on performance, but you have to remember that a drive has to access data many times a second (remember that IOPS), so if you have to wait when going between one stop to another, it does add up quickly.
