Corsair Nova 32GB SSD vs RAID-0 Samsung F3 1TB (Benchmarks & Pics)

Introduction
I just got my first SSD, the Corsair Nova 32GB (CSSD-V32GB2-BRKT). Before I got this drive I had two Samsung F3 1TB drives in RAID-0. I thought you guys might like to see the difference in benchmarks and boot-up/shutdown times.





Test Setup
Phenom II X6 1055T 2.8GHz stock (CrystalDiskMark & HD Tune) and 3.6GHz 1.4v OC (Boot/Shutdown)
Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler
Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H 890GX/SB850 AM3 Motherboard
OCZ Platinum 2GB DDR3-1333 Single Stick
Corsair Nova 32GB SSD (29.7GB partition, SATA AHCI) and 2x Samsung F3 1TB (200GB partition, RAID-0)
Asus HD4850 512MB w/ Zalman VF900-Cu
OCZ ModXStream 600W
AZZA Solano 1000 Case

2x Samsung F3 1TB Drives in RAID-0 Installed


Corsair Nova 32GB SSD Installed (There's also a single 1TB F3 that I use for storage but it wasn't tested)




Testing Procedure
Boot-Up and Shutdown Times
The boot-up time was taken from when the power button was pushed to when I could see the desktop wallpaper. The 1055T was at 3.6GHz 1.4v and the RAM was at 1600MHz 8-8-7-15 1T 1.59v for both drives.

CrystalDiskMark 3.0 and HD Tune 2.55
The shutdown time was taken from when the shutdown button was clicked to when the monitor went blank. I ran each bench one time, I don't have the patience for multiple runs. The 1055T was at 2.8GHz stock and the RAM was at 1070MHz 8-8-7-15 1T 1.5v for both drives (I didn't tweak it much since the processor isn't very important for these tests).



Boot-Up and Shutdown Times

Settings


Chart





CrysalDiskMark 3.0

Corsair Nova 32GB SSD Screen Shot


2x Samsung F3 1TB Drives in RAID-0 Screen Shot


Charts










HD Tune 2.55

Corsair Nova 32GB SSD Screen Shot


2x Samsung F3 1TB Drives in RAID-0 Screen Shot


Charts






Conclusion
As my first SSD I am very pleased with it. It's nice that it includes a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter in the box. Along with the OS, I also have Firefox, Microsoft Office 2010, and iTunes installed on it so far. Those programs open much quicker, pretty much instantly, now that they are installed on the SSD. I did some tweaks to free up space like disabling hibernate and moving the virtual memory to my storage drive. I still have about 17.5GB of free space left. Overall this SSD was well worth the upgrade, even from RAID-0 F3s. The boot-up time speaks for itself.
Edited by Ben the OCer - 6/12/10 at 3:10pm

I know, Duckie, but I needed a repeatable point to stop, that is the easiest one. Otherwise it get's a little too complicated. It's close enough, anyway I did it the same way for both so those numbers are comparable.

Yep, the perfect combination right now is an SSD for the OS and a mechanical hard drive for data storage. You get the best of both worlds that way. Yes the CrystalDiskMark scores are correct. Though there is always a small percentage of error, especially with these hard drive benching programs. What part didn't seem right to you?

Well there is always a margin of error. Though the Samsung F3 1TB does consistently get around the same MB/s sequential read and write speeds. My SSD is kind of low end so it doesn't have the greatest sequential write speeds. It's rated for around 70MB/s so a real would speed of 57MB/s is plausible.