Intel SSD 520 240 gb vs OCZ Vertex 3MAXIOPS 240 gb Benchmark

Today Solid State Disk (SSD) become more popular, due the speed reason. SSD drives are all the rage among techies. The drives did not use magnetic platter but use non-volatile NAND flash memory, meaning there are no moving parts. Because there is no actuator arm (head) and read/write head that must seek out data on a platter like on a hard disk drive (HDD),SSD are faster in reading and writing data.

Theoretically SSD 8-10 times faster that traditional hard drive (HDD). HDD data transfer rate about 50-80 mbps and SSD 500-550 mbps.  But the main performance boost is it’s incredible increase in IOP performance. . But the main performance boost is it’s incredible increase in IOPS (input – Output operation per Second) performance. Because there are literally no seeking time, loading  many smaller files gets big performance boost. On my test on the same machine with HDD loading my Windows home premium about 62 second, when I use SSD it much faster than I though It’s only take 13 second.  But traditional HDD is also worth to buy because the capacity reason and price reason. Biggest HDD on the market right now is 3 gb but the biggest SSD on the market is 512 gb. It still need more time for SSD to take HDD completely down. And SSD is 5 times more expensive than traditional HDD. Then the bridge between them is Hybrid Disk, it’s use old platter and flash memory at the same disk. It’s claim 3 times faster than traditional HDD with more huge capacity than SSD.   Other option is use both of them on the same machine, Put your operating system, application and some small data that often to use on your SSD, and put other data on the HDD. With it you will get both speed and capacity. So it’s about an option.

In this Article I will compare 2 popular SSD on the market OCZ Vertex 3MAXIOPS 240 gb and Intel SSD 520 Series 240 gb. I used some benchmarking software to make it fair. Honestly both of this SSD almost similar, size, speed controller and others. But I don’t get data about flash memory chips on both SSD, I guest it’s different because it’s provide different characteristic on the test result.

Specification details :

Our Test Bed

Benchmarking result :

CrystalDiskMark 3.0

ATTO Disk Benchmark

Anvil’s  Storage Utilities Pro

Conclusion :  the test show us that 2 SSD performance almost equal, but OCZ Vertex 3MAXIOPS  and Intel SSD 520 Series have their own characteristic and advantage. For small file about 4 kb  Intel SSD 520 Series faster than OCZ Vertex 3MAXIOPS. And OCZ Vertex 3MAXIOPS faster when random read test (random file and size OCZ also excel on handling (read and write) big file. But the different is not in significant number. Without software it wont feel the different. The other things is price, other SSD brand (exept Intel) already cut the price for 240 gb around $380 but  Intel SSD 520 240 gb you have to spend more than $500 to get it, maybe it will fall soon. (all price check when written this article). Overall both SSD is good and fast for people who need speed. You will feel big different with it compare to traditional HDD on the same system. But, to avoid bottleneck make sure your motherboard/laptop is SATA3 ready.