Performance - Part One
Comparison Drive Configurations |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capacity | Spin Speed | Controller | Firmware | Interface | Approx. Price | Cost per GB | |
| Crucial m4 SSD | 128GB | N/A | Marvell 88SS9174 | 0309 | SATA 6Gbps | £70 | £0.55 |
| Crucial M500 SSD | 240GB | N/A | Marvell 88SS9187 | MU02 | SATA 6Gbps | £150 | £0.63 |
| Samsung 830 SSD | 256GB | N/A | Samsung MCX | CXM03B1Q | SATA 6Gbps | £130 | £0.51 |
| Seagate Laptop Thin SSHD | 500GB | 5,400RPM | LSI 869002V0 | SM11 | SATA 6Gbps | £60 | £0.12 |
| Toshiba MQ01ABD050 HDD | 500GB | 5,400RPM | N/A | 5.05 | SATA 3Gbps | £40 | £0.08 |
| Samsung 840 EVO SSD | 750GB | N/A | Samsung MEX | EXT0AB0Q | SATA 6Gbps | £415 | £0.55 |
| Samsung HD103SJ HDD | 1TB | 7,200RPM | N/A | 1AJ100E4 | SATA 3Gbps | £60 | £0.06 |
Seagate claims the Laptop Thin SSHD is up to five times faster than a traditional 5,400RPM hard disk. To put the theory to the test, we're comparing the hybrid drive to a 500GB Toshiba MQ01ABD050 hard disk that operates at the aforementioned speed and costs £40 at retail. Putting NAND performance into perspective, we've also included benchmark results from a couple of mixed-capacity SSDs.
The popular and widely used ATTO Disk Benchmark does a good job of highlighting the foibles of cached storage solutions. Seagate's Adaptive Memory Technology chooses not to accelerate this benchmark, even after multiple runs, so what we're effectively seeing here is the performance of the underlying 5,400RPM hard disk.
It's an important point to make: when the cache isn't used, the Laptop Thin SSHD's sequential read and write performance is similar to that of a basic hard disk.
Relying on caching algorithms is always a concern, but Seagate's drive clearly isn't designed to run traditional benchmarks and understandably doesn't prioritise such data. Let's see what happens when you simulate real-world scenarios.