Samsung MMDOE56G5MXP-0VB SSD (256GB)

A year ago, it was difficult, if not impossible, to find a solid state drive with a capacity greater than 100GB. And, if you wanted something that size, you’d have to pay thousands of dollars. This year, models starting at 250GB cost less than $800 and notebook vendors like Dell are offering them as configuration options on high-end notebooks. But when you spend hundreds of dollars on an SSD, you want to know it can provide a significant speed boost over a mechanical hard drive. While Samsung’s 256GB MMDOE56G5MXP-0VB SSD may not seem cheap at $799, it delivers groundbreaking performance at a fairly low cost per gigabyte.

How We Tested

To measure its performance, we put the Samsung MMDOE56G5MXP-0VB through a series of real-world tests and synthetic benchmarks and compared its results to those we got from three other SSDs: the OCZ Vertex (120GB), Intel X25-M (80GB), and Imation M-Class (128GB). We also compared the test results with those we got from the fastest mechanical drive we’ve ever tested, the 7,200-rpm Fujitsu MHZ2320BJ (320GB). All tests were performed on our standard test bed, a Gateway P-7808u FX with 4GB of RAM, a 2-GHz Core 2 Quad Q9000 CPU, Nvidia GeForce 9800M graphics, and 64-bit Windows Vista Home Premium.

Synthetic Benchmarks

To test best-case scenario throughput, we ran Sisoftware Sandra Lite and HD Tach 3.0.4.0, two programs that measure read transfer rates and seek times under ideal conditions. In Sandra Lite, the Samsung SSD lead the pack with a 232.6-MBps transfer rate and 1-millisecond seek time. However, in HD Tach, it was slightly behind the Intel X25-M and OCZ Vertex with a read transfer rate of 176.8 MBps.