[MickMcGeough]

Originally Posted by Old Yeller

Mick, can you shed some light on what you mean by synthetic benchmarks and this sandstorm controller?

Sorry, it's sandforce controller.

By synthetic benchmarks I mean that the majority of benchmarks done on these drives are meant to determine theoretical performance limits and don't necessarily represent a perceived performance increase. For example, random 4K writes is an area that all SSDs are tested in, but many of the good consumer level SSDs have already hit the point of diminishing returns here: the average user will never be able to push their drives enough to make use of this performance. At least, not without using synthetic benchmark software.

It's also pretty common for hardware manufacturers to tune their products specifically for the most popular benchmarking suites, because it helps so much in generating positive, unbiased reviews. This is especially prevalent in performance-enthusiast hardware like high end graphics cards and SSD drives.

Real-world tests are testing performance on things you'll actually do; application startup time, file copies, drive searching, bootup time, etc. They're much less accurate so a tester has to perform the tests several times and take averages, which is why they're not as common on review sites.

The Sandforce controller is used on a few SSD drives but apparently OCZ's Vertex 2 has some special firmware that gives it an edge. It happens to clobber all competition in sequential writes, which would be important if you are regularly writing large files to your small SSD... Seriously though, the Vertex 2 is easily the fastest consumer-level SSD out there, but it's spendy.

Here's a good review of the Vertex 2 100GB with plenty of synthetic and real world tests. Note that it inexplicably compares the Vertex 2 against the X25-M G1 which was replaced by the G2 quite awhile ago. The G2 has improved writing performance.
http://www.myce.com/review/ocz-verte...-review-30021/

I chose the X25-M G2 because I got memory express to price match it at $219. Newegg had the 100GB Vertex 2 at $340. I needed super fast bootup and application start times primarily, and the Vertex 2 didn't have enough of an advantage there to justify the extra $220.

Just checked newegg and they've got the Vertex 2 60GB at $184. If 60GB is enough for your OS and apps, that's a steal. Check out some 60GB-specific reviews though, some manufacturers use totally different NAND chips on different sized drives and that can have a huge impact on performance.