MaximumPC 2008 11

46 |MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC|NOV 08 |www.maximumpc.com

While Memoright’s spec pages attribute

this 64GB SSD with a SATA interface, that’s

not accurate. This isn’t a SATA drive, per

se; rather, the drive uses a SATA bridge

connected to an ATA-133 interface.

Ultimately, however, this doesn’t impact

the drive’s overall speed. Memoright’s SSD

shoots past the competition in the majority

of our benchmarks.

This device outperforms the next-

fastest SSD by 14 percent in our average

sequential read rate test and 8.5 percent in

its average sequential writes. Its random-

access read and write scores are the

fastest of all the SSDs we’ve tested. Better

still, we were able to write a 40GB uncom-

pressed AVI fi le to the Memoright SSD in a

mere 6:51 (min:sec). That’s 1:26 faster than

the second-place fi nisher in that test, the

Mtron 7500, and just 28 seconds slower

than a Western Digital Velociraptor drive.

We expected a better showing from

the Memoright in our PCMark Vantage test,

given the SSD’s other benchmark master-

ies. But even though it came in 1.2 percent

slower than the fastest SSD in this test, the

Memoright’s overall domination of our

benchmarks makes it the best-performing

SSD here. And it had better be when you

consider its astronomical price.

Memoright

MR25.2-032/64S

GT Series

The name is fi tting, as this SSD

does little wrong

VERDICT

$1,520 street, http://www.memoright.com^8

MEMORIGHT MR25.2-032/64S GT SERIES

The speedy SLC-based Memoright SSD comes

close to fi lling the pipe of its ATA-133 interface.

Samsung’s 2.5-inch SSD packs 64 gigabytes

of storage into an above-average pack-

age. Granted, the SLC-based drive delivers

sustained read transfer rates that are slower

than those of nearly all the SSDs reviewed

here. But the drive makes up for this inad-

equacy by posting write speeds that match

those of the fastest SLC-based drives in this

roundup.

Our real-world experience with the

drive followed suit. The Samsung SSD

turned in a Premiere time of 8:43, nearly

2 minutes slower than Memoright’s

GT-series 64GB SSD, but a mere 10 to 20

seconds behind the rest of the non-MLC

drives we tested. The Samsung’s PCMark

Vantage scores were within 4 percent

of Memoright’s SSD, even though the

latter crushes the Samsung by nearly 6

milliseconds in its random access write

measurement.

While there are certainly some high

points in the Samsung’s benchmark

scores, the drive’s overall performance

was just slightly better than average. But

given that most other SSDs we’ve tested

offer less than a 10 percent performance

improvement yet cost $500 more than

Samsung’s SSD, we tip our hat to this

drive’s excellent cost-to-speed ratio.

Samsung 64GB

For its price, Samsung’s SSD

delivers punishing performance

VERDICT

$790 street, http://www.samsungssd.com^7

SAMSUNG 64GB

Samsung’s SSD runs on a strict SATA 3Gb/s

interface, unlike some SSDs we’ve tested.

OCZ uses rebadged Samsung SSD drives

for its SSD storage off erings. While we’re

confi dent that OCZ hasn’t done any internal

tweaking to the drives, it’s nevertheless

interesting to see that a slight performance

diff erence exists between the twins.

In our tests, the Samsung and OCZ

drives ran neck and neck in our sustained

transfer read and write benchmarks, but

the Samsung edged out the OCZ by 1MB/s

to 2MB/s in both scenarios. The two drives

posted similar results in random access

tests, with the Samsung again taking the

upper hand in random access write tests.

We saw a larger diff erence emerge

when we ran our Premiere Pro test. It took

17 additional seconds to write the uncom-

pressed AVI fi le to the OCZ drive than to the

Samsung—a diff erence of 3 percent. Our

PCMark Vantage measurement revealed

a larger performance gap. The OCZ drive

outpaced the Samsung by 5 percent while

handily beating the rest of the fi eld.

The showdown between these drives is

really more a battle of price than perfor-

mance, as the street price for each fl ip-fl ops

among retailers. While the Samsung SSD

off ers marginally better overall speeds, we

wouldn’t pay more for it. We’re satisfi ed

with either SSD.

OCZ Sata II

Samsung’s SSD with a twist

VERDICT

$850 MSRP, http://www.ocztechnology.com^7

OCZ SATA II

You would have no idea, based on the manu-

facturer’s specs, that OCZ’s SSD is actually

Samsung’s SSD in disguise.

flashflood