The Verdict
Again we see an impressive SSD product. At first I was a bit weary about testing this drive as another review on the web was a bit negative on the read & write performance. Once I figured out we received the newest revised version straight from the factory and noticed the first performance results, I admittedly was a bit shocked. Certainly the write-speed can be improved, but guys come on .. over 60 MB/sec is just real fast as it is already. The bottleneck remains smaller files. Smaller than 16KB will result in an incremental decrease of write performance. So if you want to run an OS on this drive, it's definitely something you need to consider. It's not the end though, yet in certain situations every now and then that performance will be below par, and that's where for example a WD Raptor would shine.
When I move the topic towards read speed of the drive, then it's flabbergasting. Again below 16KB file-sizes you'll have to forfeit a little. But after 16KB sizes .. my dear gawd .. you'll average in-between 120MB to 160 MB per second. It is truly amazing to see, feel and observe how fast that really is. I love it so much! And this is exactly where the true strength of the SSD revolution is to be found; hardcore performance.
There's not much I can add to it really, the read speed of this SP032GBSSD750S25 SLC based drive is phenomenal.
Next to that, we received the SLC version. Now if I need to make a choice between an MLC or SLC drive then that choice is quickly made. A SLC drive will last at least 10x longer than a MLC based drive. The unfortunate fact however remains, it's also a more expensive technology. The drive as tested today will cost you roughly 349 USD whereas you pay roughly 225 USD for the MLC version. So that's still a bit on the expensive side for sure.
As you guys can probably tell, I'm really excited about the technology. The price is still quite high. But mark my words, that will change the minute the volume sales go up.
It is obvious that there are some things to really like about SSD drives like boot speed, application launch times, and battery life / power consumption. On the down side you have price and slower speeds at really small file-sizes (below 16KB). Ideally you could combine both a HDD and SSD. One as boot / OS drive, the rest as file-storage.
We'll watch things closely though. And sure, it will take some time, but eventually, spinning disk platters will be as good as obsolete.
Silicon Power SSD drives are still a little hard to find, but we hope that the channels will open up their arms and embrace the new technology so that everyone has access to it.
The Silicon Power SATA II 2.5" SSD 32 GB SLC version can be bought for just over $349 USD, the MLC version for roughly 225 USD. As far as the SLC version goes , it comes with a two year warranty and gets two very big thumbs up from yours truly.
Site
Navigation
