Legit Mods and Ends Reviews

SilverStone HDDBOOST Review

Manufacturer: SilverStone
Product: SST-HDDBOOST
Date: Fri, Jul 30, 2010 - 12:00 AM
Written By: Austin Hamann -
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Test Settings


SilverStone HDDBOOST With Kingston SSDNow V series SSD 

The SSD used for testing is my Kingston SSDNow V-Series 30GB with read/write speeds rated at 180MB/s and 45MB/s, respectively. You may say 45MB/s is a significant drop even compared to a mechanical drive, but you only install once every so often, then it's all read. Also note this drive on its own can boot a stripped copy of XP to desktop in around 4 seconds in the Phenom II X6 system. 


Teracopy v2.1

Teracopy is used here to copy & transfer several different types of files from my desktop to a folder with a couple of additional sub-folders and it records the time and average transfer rate while doing so. The files copied via teracopy:
  • .mp3 (shown above, 605 files, 2.29GB)
  • Folder (Adobe CS5 Installer, 471 files, 113 sub-folders, 1.66GB)
  • .exe (Futuremark PCMark Vantage installer, 1 file, 665MB)
  • .zip (Adobe CS5 installer folder compressed, 1 file, 1.60GB)
  • .raw (8MP image converted to 32,640 x 24,480px, 1 file, 2.23GB)
  • .avi (edited 1440x900 in-game recordings, 1 file, 2.13GB)
All synthetic benchmarks were run at default settings with the SSD's individual scores shown below:

ATTO Disk Benchmark Results: SSD 

In Atto disk benchmark the Kingston SSDNow lives up to its specifications and more, at 56MB/s write and 195MB/s read. 195MB/s will be a pretty nice speed boost from booting Windows with any HDD, that's for sure.

CrystalDiskMark Results: SSD 

Sequential read speed again up at 195MB/s with write just under 50MB/s in this benchmark.

HDTune Random Access Results: SSD 

The best reason for an SSD, random access is very impressive when compared to any mechanical drive.

HDTach Results: SSD

HD Tach is the only test I expect to see a significant gain. In the FAQ section of the manual for the SST-HDDBOOST:
  • Q: Why is there no performance increase when I use benchmark software after installing the HDDBOOST?
  • A: Some benchmark software tests with temporary files so the SSD is not utilized. They read data from system hard drive only as a result of testing with temporary files
So, only the sequential read speeds polling the entire drive will show a gain from using the HDDBOOST (using HD Tach and the HD Tune Benchmark). Good to know going into testing but what kind of article would this be without those other performance results? I will include them.

Next Page - Seagate Momentus XT Results


Review Index
Page 1 - The SilverStone HDDBOOST
Page 2 - Retail Box & Bundle
Page 3 - Test Settings
Page 4 - Seagate Momentus XT Results
Page 5 - Western Digital SATA 150 Results
Page 6 - Final Thoughts & Conclusions