SATA-2 SSD - Super Talent MasterDrive MX

SSD IS COMING OF AGE it seems - the performance is more balanced on both the read and write side; the controllers are smarter and handling write wear levelling better (even though there's no simple solution to that in the long term). And, the prices are getting better too.

Super Talent, the Valley-based high-end memory and peripherals house, has recently launched its MasterDrive MX series of MLC-based affordable SSD units at up to 120 GB capacities. We had a look at the 60 GB drive, the current price/performance sweet spot.

The shiny black 2.5-inch unit attaches to the standard SATA-2 connector. Unlike some other vendors, these guys state the real capacity after formatting rather than total flash size beforehand.

SuperTalent claims pretty decent performance for this baby: 120 MB/s peak read and 40 MB/s peak write speed. The first one overshadows any SATA HDD, while the other one at least should keep pace with platter hard drives.

As Vista is rumoured not to install well on MLC-based flash drives, in this test I simply added the SSD as the second drive in the Skulltrail Vista 64 test configuration, to run a couple of benchmarks. The first drive is a 250 GB WD 7,200 rpm unit. Since new SSD drive read speeds are known to be vastly superior to most hard disks, it would be interesting to see how much of it Vista may take away, if any.

Take a look at the Sandra XII read performance bench: 14 ms avg read on the HDD vs 2 ms on the SSD is expected. Also, the higher overall SSD read speed de spite the vista MLC dislike. Note the high spikes in SSD read performance at some points, saturating the 3 Gb/s SATA-2 bandwidth in a couple of points.

Passmark's advanced drive test shows a different picture, with a 50-50 read-write spread on a very conservative random instantaneous speed check: the SSD performance is now far more consistent, while the HDD suffers.

I'll be checking this drive also in some application scenarios, as well as Linux setup, which should not be MLC cell unfriendly like Vista is rumoured to be. HD Tach 3.4 unfortunately refused to run on Vista, so probably it, plus this whole benchmark shebang, will be rerun on the old XP.

Talking about the operating systems, Super Talent is throwing free Ubuntu Desktop Edition and OpenOffice with the drives. OK, it isn't hard to simply download the stuff, but then again, why not save yourself some time and CD burning anyway.

Overall, in raw tests like these - even in Vista - the drive shows its benefits. On top of it, it's lightweight, and can literally operate freely hanging off the cables in the air - something you can never do with hard disks. µ

Good: performance, lightweight
Bad: Vista seems to be the worst case SSD testbed, will try other stuff
Ugly: the warranty stickers peel off too easily

Barman's Verdict