Viking Modular 25GB SLC SATADIMM SSD Review – The Test Bench and Testing Protocol

This is the first review we have conducted with the new Test Bench and we were pretty excited to see how things worked out.

This picture shows the Viking Modular SSATADIMM in service and we have bordered it with a red rectangle as it is just that thin that one could easily miss it.

TEST PROTOCOL

  • To ensure consistency in testing, we conduct all tests a minimum of 3 times and, wherever possible, tests are conducted in ‘safe mode’ to reduce any software influence that may prevail.
  • We confirm benchmarks through a variety of software applications and we prefer to post the results as we seem them to avoid any question at all with respect to our results.

BENCH CONFIGURATION

MOTHERBOARD: Gigabyte P67A-UD7 ATX LGA 1155 Intel SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 LINK

CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 1600 SDRAM LINK

GPU: MSI N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II OC Edition 1024MB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 LINK

POWER: Corsair Professional Series AX850 850W ATX12V v2.31 / EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply LINK

CHASSIS: Fractal-Design Define XL ATX Mid Tower Silent Computer Case LINK

CPU COOLER: Corsair H50 High Performance Water CPU Cooler LINK

NETWORK: DiLink Powerline AV Network With D-Link DIR 655 Wifi N Router

DVD: Sony Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 24X DVD Writer

BENCHMARK SOFTWARE

Software used for testing by The SSD Review consists of Crystal Disk Mark, HDTune Pro, ATTO Benchmark, HDTach, along with FutureMark PCMark Vantage.

The first four do a great job of showing us the numbers that we want to see, or dont want to see in some cases, while PCMark Vantage x64 is an excellent program which recreates tests that mimic the average users activity, all the while providing a medium to measure each.

We also like to provide a bit of background to the reader that all SSDs are not created equal and this can have a confusing impression to users that are not aware of the intricacies of testing their SSD.

SandForce SSDs utilize compression techniques in storage whereas many others do not.  This presents  a  false portrayal of their ability when testing a SandForce SSD with software such as Crystal DiskMark-Random Data Mode or AS SSD.  A comparison of a Samsung, Crucial or Intel to the SandForce will result in the SandForce appearing to have inferior performance scores whereas, PC Mark Vantage HDD Suite will show the SandForce to be equal and sometimes better through synthetic testing that represents the users normal daily computing pattern.  This is followed with an accurate measurement for all tests that provides consistently accurate results across all SSD media.  All comparison testing at The SSD Review is through use of this software.

SSD INFORMATION – CRYSTAL DISK INFO

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Pg 1 – Introduction

Pg2 – Test Bench and Protocol

Pg 3 – Benchmarks

Pg4 – HDTune Pro Benchmarks

Pg 5 – PCMark Vantage Results and Final Thoughts

DISCUSS THE REVIEW HERE!!

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