Introduction
Among all PC components none gives more sense of performance than the SSD.The general snappiness of the system brings a smile and satisfaction to anyone.
Today we have such a component on the test bench.presenting the Phoenix III SSD from the stable of Gskill.
The SSD was on my radar for a long time and finally i got it in my hands to play..so lets see how good it is..
Specifications
On paper the specifications looks pretty good.
| General | |
| Model Name | FM-25S3-240GBP3 |
| Controller | SandForce SF-2281 Series |
| Form Factor | 2.5″ |
| Capacity | 240GB |
| Interface Type | SATA III (6Gbps) |
| Performance Specifications | |
| Read Rate | SATA 6Gbps 550MB/secSATA 3Gbps 280MB/sec |
| Write Rate | SATA 6Gbps 520MB/secSATA 3Gbps 260MB/sec |
| IOPS | 4k random write up to 60,000 IOPS 4k random read up to 85,000 IOPS |
| Environmental Specifications |
|
| Shock (operating and non-operating) |
1500G |
| Read / Write power | 3W |
| Standby power | 0.6W |
| Operating Temp. | 0C ~ +70C |
| Reliability Specifications |
|
| Life expectancy | 1,000,000 Hours (MTBF) |
| Warranty | 3 years |
| Features |
Multimedia Data Transfer (AS-SSD)
Read : Up to 200MB/s Write : Up to 230MB/s BGC (Background Garbage Collection) Native TRIM support (O/S support required) RAID Support Support Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) Accessory:3.5-inch mounting bracket included 7 mm in height |
So all in all we have a capable SSD which fits in net book and comes with a 3.5″ adapter.
Next stop.. Photo Shoot…!
Product Showcase
Who doesn’t like a photo shoot? So, here it goes…
First up the package:
Nothing much to write about the front.. just the basic branding and stuff…
Now, the back has more info to offer
Although its nothing more than the specifications table.
Showcase continues on next page.
Showcase continues
More pics..
The package looks very spartan but even then G skill has managed to ship a 3.5″ adapter.
The SSD is pretty slim… it even fits into my wallet! Enough pics…lets move on to other things..shall we?
Test System
As always am gonna give details about the test system first and then move on to benchmarks.
| Test System | |
|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i5 2500K |
| Motherboard | Asus P8Z68 Deluxe |
| Ram | Kingston 1600Mhz 8GB DDR3 |
| Storage | Western Digital 320GB HDD (WD320AAKX) FM-25S3-240GBP3 |
| Video Card | Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 |
| Cooling | Noctua NH D14 with GT 1850 fans |
| Case | Ghetto made bench table |
| Power supply Unit | Corsair AX 1200W |
ATTO and Crystal Diskmark
Atto Disk Benchmark:
One of the finest tools available to measure storage performance is ATTO. The great thing about ATTO is that we can test with predefined block sizes. So we can test with a 32MB sequence of 4KB files, yet also 32MB in 1MB files. This gives an opportunity to test with various file sizes.
This benchmark is a preferred among manufacturers as ATTO uses RAW or compressible data and, for our benchmarks, we use a set length of 256mb and test both the read and write performance of various transfer sizes ranging from 0.5 to 8192kb with a ques depth of 4.
The SSD clearly shows impressive numbers even reaching 557 MBps read speed. On the other the write speed also impressive clocking in at 530 MBps. The transfer speed is similar to OCZ Agility drive..hmm.Not bad..not bad at all(in a villainous voice).
Crystal Diskmark
Crystal Disk Benchmark is used to measure read and write performance through sampling of highly compressible data (oFill/1Fill), or random data. Crystal DiskMark scores usually drop a bit when comparing to ATTO and this is the result of the testing data now being primarily incompressible representing movies, music and photographs.
IO Meter
IO Meter IOPS performance
With IO meter, results vary per website since everybody configures this test differently.
Iometer is a workload creator, it will literally perform massive I/O operations in order to stress the system.To measure random IO we created a workload consisting of 512B read and write with a que depth of 32 for determining the MAX IOPS. Do Note that this test is for determining the MAX IOPS a storage unit can give.
Max Read IOPS:
Max Write IOPS:
Mixed Workload:
AS SSD and ANVIL STORAGE UTILITIES PROFESSIONAL (BETA)
ANVIL STORAGE UTILITIES PROFESSIONAL (BETA):
Anvil’s Storage Utilities was designed to give you a simple mean to measure the read and write performance of your SSD. The benchmark tool helps you monitor and check the response time of your unit as well as view the system information collected using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).
This benchmark works with incompressible data so expect the score to be low.
AS-SSD:
Added to the benchmark suite is this nice little German application called AS SSD Benchmark. This test gives an extensive result set. The test is popular, so I included it.AS SSD, for the most part, gives us the worst case scenario in SSD transfer speeds because of its use of incompressible data. Results may seem a bit weird…i know…but since i don’t have other SSD i can’t compare and I will leave the interpretation to you.
This concludes the benchmark part!
Conclusion
Coming to the final words.. :
There are a few more SSD’s available with this controller in the market.But as of now i don’t see any in the Indian market.The next 240GB that is available is priced at 16000.
But i will leave that since its outside the scope of this review and concentrate in this one. Lets list out the pro’s and cons..shall we?
PRO’s
1.Good performance.
2.Slim size and bundled accessories give it an edge over the others.No other SSD at this range gives 3.5′ adapter;add to it the 7mm height and u have an SSD which is ready to be installed in a net book or portable device.
CON’s
The drive is priced at around 14900 in Ebay so i am assuming the street price would be a bit lower. But still then it would be better if the drive is priced more aggressively in the Indian market, but thats just me.
Performance wise I have no issues and overall I am happy with the performance.
In the end a big thanks to TIRUPATI Enterprise for supplying me with the sample and being patient with me. Anyone can pick up the drive form their Ebay store.
Signing out…
– Sumon Pathak
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