Performance Test Platform

The hardware chosen was picked to reflect that of a relatively modern computer system that an enthusiast may own. The configuration of the system is as follows:

• Intel Core i7 2700k
• ASRock Z68 Extreme3 motherboard
• G.Skill Sniper 2x4GB DDR3-1600 memory kit
• PowerColor Radeon HD 7850 2GB video card
• Western Digital Black 640GB SATA hard drive
• Liteon iHAS124B SATA DVD-writer

Solid State Drive Firmware Versions

• Crucial Adrenaline: FW309
• Crucial m4: FW009
• Kingston HyperX: 332
• OCZ Synapse: 2.15
• OCZ Vertex 3: 2.15 (including Max IOPS)
• Other World Computing Mercury Electra 6G: 332

Testing Configuration and Software

• AS SSD Benchmark 1.6.4237.30508
• CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64
• Futuremark PCMark 7 1.0.4

A base Windows 7 Professional 64-bit install is used for the operating system.  Non-essential services including Fex, Windows Defender, Windows Search, Windows Update were disabled, as they can affect testing results.

All tests were performed 5 times each, and the average of all test runs were used as the results.  Between each test run, each SSD had the ATA Secure Erase command executed on it using Parted Magic to restore performance.

The SSDs were connected to the SATA 6G connectors on the test bed's Z68 based motherboard.  The Intel Rapid Storage Technology RAID driver was used.

Performance Testing Results

AS SSD performs different types of read and write tests using data that isn't easily compressible.  For read speeds, I didn't expect the Adrenaline to be one of the fastest SSDs we tested.  With 4K reads of both a queue depth of 1 and 64, it was super fast... especially compared to the 256GB m4.  Write speeds for the Adrenaline solution are a lot slower than the standalone SSDs.  But most importantly, the Adrenaline solution was significantly faster than the hard drive on its own.  Specifically with 4K reads, the most common operation for users, the hard drive on its own isn't even close in to the performance offered when it's paired with the Adrenaline drive.

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