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Cost Per GB Analysis
Here, we summarized the lowest price we could find on these drives online (as of 21st August, 2012). The prices for the Intel X25-M G2 SSD is abnormally high because it's a discontinued product and its scarcity drives up the price of the remaining units in the marketplace.
HDD / SSD Model |
Storage |
Price |
Cost Per GB |
Difference |
Useful Links |
|
Intel 520 Series SSD |
240 GB |
US$ 273.89 |
US$ 1.14 |
Baseline |
||
Intel X25-M G2 SSD |
160 GB |
US$ 379.99 |
US$ 2.37 |
+ 107.9% |
||
WD VelociRaptor |
1,000 GB |
US$ 251.53 |
US$ 0.25 |
- 78.1% |
||
WD VelociRaptor |
600 GB |
US$ 185.00 |
US$ 0.31 |
- 72.8% |
||
Looking at things from the cost per GB perspective, solid state drives may be fast but they still have one major disadvantage - a lower storage capacity, and a much higher cost per GB of storage.
The 240 GB Intel 520 Series SSD, for example, costs slightly more than the 1 TB Western Digital VelociRaptor. Yet it provides less than 1/4 of the VelociRaptor's storage capacity. In other words, the 1 TB Western Digital VelociRaptor provides just over 4.5X more storage capacity per US dollar, compared to the Intel 520 Series SSD.
If you prefer the 600 GB Western Digital VelociRaptor, it will still offer you 3.67x more storage capacity per US dollar, than the Intel 520 Series SSD. So if you are concerned about getting the most storage capacity for your buck, the hard disk drives still offer a significant advantage over the SSDs.
Cost-Performance Analysis
Let's take a look at how the results change if we take price into consideration, and ignoring storage capacity.
In this case, we will use the formula of Performance Result / USD (based on the lowest online price as of 21/8/12), and normalize it to the Intel 520 Series SSD :
Tests |
Performance Per USD |
|||
Intel 520 |
Intel X25-M |
1 TB WD |
600 GB WD |
|
Business Disk WinMark 99 |
Baseline |
- 53.2% |
- 58.2% |
- 57.7% |
Average Disk Transfer Rate |
Baseline |
- 42.6% |
- 48.1% |
- 46.0% |
IO Meter 4 KB Read |
Baseline |
- 72.1% |
- 98.8% |
- 98.5% |
IO Meter 4 KB Write |
Baseline |
- 46.8% |
- 99.2% |
- 97.6% |
IO Meter 512 KB Read |
Baseline |
- 61.8% |
- 88.9% |
- 82.5% |
IO Meter 512 KB Write |
Baseline |
- 68.5% |
- 82.1% |
- 58.2% |
Average : |
Baseline |
- 57.5% |
- 79.2% |
- 73.4% |
If we consider only the drive's performance per cost (USD), then the 240 GB Intel 520 Series SSD offers 4.8X more bang for your buck than the 1 TB Western Digital VelociRaptor.
Overall Value Analysis
Finally, let's see how the comparison looks like if we take both price and storage capacity into consideration.
We will use the formula of (Performance Result x Storage Capacity) / USD (based on the lowest online price as of 21/8/12), and normalize it to the Intel 520 Series SSD :
Tests |
Performance-GB Per USD |
|||
Intel 520 |
Intel X25-M |
1 TB WD |
600 GB WD |
|
Business Disk WinMark 99 |
Baseline |
- 68.8% |
+ 74.0% |
+ 5.7% |
Average Disk Transfer Rate |
Baseline |
- 61.8% |
+ 116.4% |
+ 35.1% |
IO Meter 4 KB Read |
Baseline |
- 81.4% |
- 95.0% |
- 96.2% |
IO Meter 4 KB Write |
Baseline |
- 64.5% |
- 96.7% |
- 94.0% |
IO Meter 512 KB Read |
Baseline |
- 74.6% |
- 53.9% |
- 56.3% |
IO Meter 512 KB Write |
Baseline |
- 79.0% |
- 25.5% |
+ 4.6% |
Average : |
Baseline |
- 71.7% |
- 13.5% |
- 33.5% |
But if we take storage capacity into consideration too, then the 240 GB Intel 520 Series SSD only offers 15.6% more value than the 1 TB Western Digital VelociRaptor. This is still a win for the SSDs, although you still need to take into consideration whether their smaller storage capacities are sufficient for your use.
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Topic |
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• VelociRaptors Vs. Solid State Drives |
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2 |
• Testing The HDDs & SSDs |
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3 |
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