In the test 15 years ago: Corsairs Nova SSDs won over 5 reviews across the board
SSD performance 15 years ago was primarily determined by flash memory and the controller. With the Corsair Nova, Intel’s X25-V, and two different UltraDrive GX2 Super Talents (test), four SSDs with Indilinx or Intel controllers and different flash memory competed.
Corsair, Super Talent, and Intel in the exchange of blows
The Corsair Nova competed in the 128 GB V128 version. The manufacturer specified sequential read and write rates of 270 Mbyte/s or 195 Mbyte/s. Inside the V128 was an Indilinx Barefoot controller named IDX110M01-LC. Additionally, a 64 MB Elpida chip (S51321DBH-6DTS) was installed, which, according to the manufacturer, had a clock speed of 166 MHz and a CAS latency of 3 clock cycles or 18 ns. Intel’s 34 nm-millimeter chips, designated 29F64G08CAMDB, were used as NAND Flash.
Nova8 Image 1 of 6
The Intel X25-V was the second SSD in the test. It was very inexpensive at just under 100 euros, but also offered only 40 GB of capacity. Intel stated maximum transfer rates of 170 MByte/s for reading and 35 MByte/s for writing. Inside was an Intel controller, which was paired with Intel NAND Flash. Super Talent offered an SSD with an Indilinx controller and the Ultradrive GX2, which was available with Micron and Toshiba Flash. In the test, both variants were in the 128GB version. Speeds in the 128GB model were quantified by the Super Talent at a maximum of 220 MB/s for reading and 180 MB/s for writing. Like the Corsair Nova, the SSD had a large 64 MB DRAM cache.
Nova at the top
In the ATTO benchmark, which measures sequential transfer rates, the Corsair Nova managed to achieve a good performance, reaching up to 268 MByte/s and 200 MByte/s for writes. The Intel x25-V achieved significantly lower values of 197 MByte/s or 45 MByte/s. An interesting picture emerged with the GX2 Ultradrive, which was significantly slower in read performance with Toshiba Flash than with Micron Flash. In write performance, the opposite was true, but the difference was considerably smaller with smaller file sizes, as Micron Flash was also at the forefront.
In the other benchmarks, there were nuances. For example, the Intel X25-V couldn’t keep up with the models with Indilinx controllers, but it did offer the best access times and achieved a huge lead in write performance. As expected, the Indilinx SSDs were ahead thanks to their high sequential transfer rates. The differences between the Indilinx models were small in practice, with the Nova and the GX2 with Micron memory generally being slightly faster than the GX2 with Toshiba Nand. Furthermore, the Toshiba Nand resulted in a greater speed loss when the SSD was fully loaded than with the other models.
Conclusion
It was difficult to draw a conclusion about the GX2 Ultradrive. While the model with Micron memory delivered very good performance, the variant with Toshiba Flash suffered some setbacks despite its good performance. This made it much easier for Corsair to deal with the Nova, which delivered very good performance in all benchmarks without slipping. The Intel X25-V, on the other hand, was not recommended for general everyday use when it came to the competition.
In the “In the Test 15 Years Ago” category, the editorial team has been taking a look at the test archive every Saturday since July 2017. We list the last 20 articles published in this series below:
Six cores for everyone with the AMD II X6 1090T phenomenon. Beforce Gforce GTX 470 was the best fractal designs, the first successful work defines R2. NVIDIA’s GeForce Gforce GEFX 480 was the Föhn 2.0LMX super-cooler with liquid metal instead of hydracooler. CPU with six kernels. Sparkling Pentium G6950 and Core i3-530. 270 Euros. Advantage of SSDs over HDDs in the Orochi. Alltagrazers for mobile gaming fun via Bluetooth. BlackBerry’s Bold 9700 was a smartphone with Super Mario Bros. The GeForce GT 240 was the ultimate CPU air cooler for the Teuenoctuas NH-D14.
Even more content like this, along with many other reports and anecdotes, can be found in the Retro Corner of the TechAstuce forum.
Topics: Corsair Flash Memory Intel Retro SSD Storage Super Talent
Alice guides you through the best storage solutions, from ultra-fast SSDs to secure cloud options.
