Hard Drive Vs SSD – The space inbetween
Luke Hill / 13 years ago
Test SetupAs always with our testing procedures, we try to remain as clear and concise as possible to give the fairest results on every bit of hardware we review. Hard drives and SSD’s are no different, hence we use the same system hardware and software benchmarks for all tests. This allows us to show exactly how a certain piece of hardware performs.
It also gives us the ability to show a broad spectrum of hardware for comparison purposes which aids in making purchasing decisions.
Considering we were testing more mainstream’ drives today, we decided to use a mainstream test system. An enthusiast with a very high end motherboard featuring super fast connections is likely to pay a lot more for a blisteringly fast SSD. These 3 drives are mainstream orientated, so we want to see how they perform in our mainstream test system and if any of the drives are too fast for the components they are coupled with.
Test System
- AMD Athlon II x2 215 @ 2.7GHz
- HP M2N68-LA (Narra6) AM3 Motherboard
- 4GB Samsung DDR3 @ 1066MHz
- Sapphire Radeon HD 5670 Ultimate 1GB
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB (OS Drive)
- FSP Saga II 400w
- Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
This test system will deliver real world performance achievable on a budget computer meaning that anybody looking to upgrade an older system can directly compare results. It will also identify any bottlenecks that are likely caused by the mainstream components and what we recommend due to these ‘inconveniences’.
