The Intel 330 is just under two years old and sports a Sandforce 2281 controller coupled with Intel's own 25nm MLC NAND. This combination typically produces a performance profile that struggles with incompressible data and favours reading over writing. With peak and average sequential read/write speeds of 514/138 and 414/122 the Intel 330 is unable to compete in today's market and falls over 50% short of the group leaders which manage peak sequential read/write speeds in the 500/300 MB/s region. Small file 4K peak and average speeds are better and clocked in at 32/89 and 24/63 MB/s which is 10% below the group leaders. Overall the 330 has an effective speed of 370 MB/s which makes it one of the slowest 128GB SSDs I have seen to date. [Feb '14SSDrivePro]
The Evo is remarkable in that, like the Sandisk Extreme II, it features a second level cache. For the 250 GB Evo this consists of a 3 GB Turbowrite cache (TWC) which is a block of high speed Flash Memory. When the TWC is exhausted write speeds drop by approximately 50% but that won't often happen under typical consumer workloads. In terms of raw performance, even with its cache, the Evo still isn't the fastest drive. With a real world speed index reading of 439 MB/s the EVO is however, within reach of the two speed leaders (Vector and 850 Pro). At a price point of $130 the Evo is around 30% cheaper making it the best value for money SSDs I have seen in 2014. Comparing the Evo and the Sandisk Ultra Plus shows that the Evo is the winner but the Sandisk may be a viable alternative thanks to its cache-free, and therefore more consistent performance during extended writes. [Aug '14SSDrivePro]
Welcome to our 2.5" and M.2 SSD comparison. We calculate effective speed for both SATA and NVMe drives based on real world performance then adjust by current prices per GB to yield a value for money rating. Our calculated values are checked against thousands of individual user ratings. The customizable table below combines these factors to bring you the definitive list of top SSDs. [SSDrivePro]
Welcome to our PC speed test tool. UserBenchmark will test your PC and compare the results to other users with the same components. You can quickly size up your PC, identify hardware problems and explore the best value for money upgrades.