Final Words & Conclusion
Even before we started testing this Summit SSD we already knew that this product had to be a good. We've been hearing very good things about Samsung's SSD controllers. Combine that hunch with facts like write performance and in the grand scheme of things the Summit is up-close and personal with the delicious OCZ Vertex SSD. To top it off with some additional icing, this controller is toed to that increased cache to 128MB, well it's just a recipe for success.
We had no issues whatsoever with the drive and gosh darn golly ... the little gimp is just fast. Now I must admit that both the Summit and Vertex are fairly close to each other when it comes to overall performance. Word out on the street is that over time (your SSD will get a little slower) the Samsung controllers like the one used in the Summit in the end seem to have the edge in overall performance once that happens.
The Summit as such is one lovely SSD for the really enthusiast performance demanding consumers. Much like a high-end graphics card or processor, this product positions itself in that very same segment. What's the drawback you ask? Well, the Summit does come at a steep price, which might hinder sales. You roughly pay 3 EUR per Gigabyte for the 120GB model and 2.6 EUR per GB for the 250GB model we tested today. And sure, we feel that might be a little too much; but we feel the same way about the Vertex series as well. It's the choice you have to make.
Over the past two years the absolute biggest priority for SSD drive development was to get the price down, closer to HDD price levels. The unfortunate side effect of SSD drives with more whistles and bells is that it drives the overall prices slowly go up again, and that is not exactly a good trend for the continued success of SSD drives.
There's one other thing I like to touch and address in this conclusion as well. The JMicron controller based SSD drivers are MUCH cheaper, but lack these file caches that can deal with small file performance. I really would like to advise that if you plan to run an operating system on the SSD, you should purchase an SSD with at least 32MB cache.
However, here's a word of advise .. say you purchase the dual-channel JMicron controller based product, then just run it as a secondary drive, install your games or applications like Photoshop or whatever on it .. and really .. you can enjoy the horrendous fast performance with such an SSD as well, as the OS will be swapping and writing the small files on the HDD, where you'll benefit from fast performance from the SSD.
So with the expanding range and diversity of SSD drives you get to have options. At the bottom of the SSD range we see the much cheaper JMicron controller based SSDs, but the minute you want a little more just go for a drive like the Vertex (Indilinx controller) or if you want to go for the Summit (Samsung controller)
Looking back at the Summit, we can only conclude that it is a bitching fast drive, it's the gorgeous sporty blonde getting a tan on the beach.
Expensive sure, but with a cache this size and the overall read/write performance at this level you will get one of the meanest and fastest performing SSD drives currently available on the market. It will not disappoint, that's a guarantee.
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