Mach Xtreme DS Turbo 120GB SSD review - Introduction

After a bit of a rough start with firmware issues the new SandForce SATA3 based SSD products seem to have stabilized and slowly but steadily we see more manufacturers pushing new products based on the SandForce 2281 controller.

Mach Xtreme jumps on the SATA3 SSD bandwagon with their all new Mach MX DS Turbo SSD. The most popular volume size is 120GB which will cost you 229 US$ / 199 EUR at the moment of writing this article.

We had a peek at OCZ's Vertex SATA3 series, the Corsair series, Patriot and a few others. So yeah we spotted lots and lots of SATA3/6G SSDs, predominantly with a SandForce 2200 series controller with cheaper 25nm NAND flash memory, which offers the best value versus performance.

Today we look at an offering from Mach Technology (MX technology), they added no less than four new SATA 3 (SATA 3 6Gs) SSDs in their MX DS Turbo lineup, in 120GB, 180, 240GB and even 480MB capacities, all SATA 3 of course.

The SSD drives come with that already prominent SandForce SF-2281 controller to deliver up to 555 MBps read and 510 MBps write speeds (when peaking). After a rough launch with firmware plagued issues with this controller, things have now stabilized, the product as tested today under SKU codename MXSSD3MDST-120G comes with the latest Firmware.

MX Technology even dares to rate the drive we test today at 85k IOPS (4k aligned), but unfortunately they use a substandard measurement to reach that number, not representative to compare with the numbers of say OCZ, as our tests will show you.

So yeah .. we'll test the 120GB MX-DS TURBO SSD.

Anyway, that's enough info for an introduction, let's move onwards and head into the actual review. Next page please.