Here is our testbed:

• Motherboard: Foxconn Quantum Force Rattler P67 vP04 BIOS
  
• Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K
• Case: Open Air testbed
• Power Supply Unit: Club 3D CSP-X1000CB 1000 Watt
• Graphics card: Club3D Radeon HD 6790 CoolStream Edition
• Memory: OCZ Gold PC3-10600 4x2GB 1333@CL9
• HDD: WD 500GB 7200RPM
• Monitor: LG L246WH-BH 24"
• Windows 7 x64 SP1 with latest updates installed

For the tests, we used the following software:

• HDTachRW v3.0.1.0
• HD Tune v4.50 Pro
• Crystal DiskMark v3
• ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.46
• ASS SSD Benchmark 1.5xxx
• IOMeter v2006.07.27 with Xtreme Benchmark template
• PCMark Professional edition v1.04
• Anvil Storage Utilities 1.0.34. Beta 11

We start the tests with the HDTachRW software. It shows the potential read speed which you are likely to experience with the SSD. The software measures the sequential read speed, the random access speed and sequential write speed.

HDTachRW reported an average sequential writing speed of 228.5 MB/s and an average sequential reading of 222.2MB/s. The performance is much lower than we expected but this should be attributed to the was the specific software operates:

We move on to the HD Tune Pro software, another utility we used to measure the drive's reading and writing performances. Although not necessarily representative of real-world workloads, HD Tune's targeted tests give us a glimpse of each drive's raw capabilities.

The sequential reading test showed a 285.3 MB/s average speed - still way below OCZ's quoted performance figures:

In the corresponding sequential writing test the drive wrote the data at 202.1 MB/s (average). The writing speed kept lowering after the 64GBGB mark, as illustrated below:

We are concerned with the average speed with single threaded compressible reads and writes. Obviously, HD Tune isn't multi-threaded when it requests data so this sequential test does not take advantage of the Vertex 4's ability to read multiple steams quickly.

Here is another sequential file test. The SSD's average performance for write was 380.384 MB/s and 454.717 MB/s for read , closer to the performance numbers quoted by OCZ. For this test we used the "Zero" data pattern.

Selecting the "Random" data pattern had no serious impact to drive's sequential read and write performance. This time we got 394.704 MB/s average write and 450.880 MB/s read:

The results with a "mixed" data pattern were somewhere in the middle of the two previous testing modes; 434.426 MB/s for sequential reading and 385.305 MB/s for writing. Notice that the drive slowed down reading after the 340MB mark:

The HD Tune Pro also allows random read tests:

Here are some more results with the software to randomly seeks files of different sizes. The random read performance is was higher with file transfers of 1MB (421.536 MB/s average) , as well as with randomly selected file sizes: