Monster Digital OverDrive 3.0 512GB External SSD Review – External SSDs Get Speed, Value, Size and Appeal

TEST BENCH AND PROTOCOL

Our analysis today will be conducted with our Asus Z77 Premium Test Bench. Clicking on any pictures or benchmarks will bring up a more easily viewable high resolution image.

In testing, our main objective is to obtain results as pure and as accurate as possible and we want to ensure that no anomalies slip through. Simply put, we want to provide you with the absolute best results the tested hardware can provide. Repetition in testing is standard and, if necessary, we may conduct specific tests in Windows 7 ‘safe mode’ to ensure the OS has little to no influence on the end result.

In order to validate and confirm our findings, testing is supported by industry accepted benchmark programs. All results are displayed through capture of the actual benchmark for better understanding of the testing process by the reader.

We would like to thank ASUS (P8Z77-V Premium), Intel (Core i7-3770K), Crucial (Ballistix), Corsair (H100) and Be Quiet (PSU/Fans) for supporting the build of our Z77 Premium Test Bench. In addition, we would also like to thank HighPoint for their contribution of the RocketStor 5322, RocketRAID 2711 and their External Mini-SAS to Esata cabling. Through this configuration we are able to benchmark all notebook and mSATA SSDs, whereby achieving identical performance as a direct system connection, yet we simply hot swap from the external storage dock.

BENCHMARK SOFTWARE

The software we will be using for today’s analysis is typical of many of our reviews and consists of ATTO Disk Benchmark, Crystal DiskMark,  Anvil Storage Utilities and HDTune Pro.  Testing of such hardware limits our benchmark programs as performance of low 4K benchmarks is very low, resulting in extremely long testing and failure to test correctly in programs such as AS SSD and PCMark Vantage. Much of the software is free and can be downloaded simply by clicking on the linked title.

THE PHISON PS2251 CONTROLLER

The Phison PS2251 controller was introduced back in 2011 and is described as being a super speed USB 3.0 to flash micro-controller.  It is a SATA 2 controller, has an integrated 32-Bit processor and built-in hardware 60-bit ECC circuit (BCH).

Eight pieces of Toshiba Toggle Mode NAND flash memory are also contained and shown.

ATTO DISK BENCHMARK VER. 2.46

ATTO Disk Benchmark is perhaps one of the oldest benchmarks going and is definitely the main staple for manufacturer performance specifications. ATTO uses RAW or compressible data and, for our benchmarks, we use a set length of 256mb and test both the read and write performance of various transfer sizes ranging from 0.5 to 8192kb. Manufacturers prefer this method of testing as it deals with raw (compressible) data rather than random (includes incompressible data) which, although more realistic, results in lower performance results.

For our testing with ATTO, Crystal DiskMark and ASU, we will publish both results in USB 3.0 (left) and USB 2.0 (right). A simple click will bring up a higher resolution image.

Very evident when placing USB 2.0 and 3.0 results side by side is the incredible performance jump USB 3.0 brought to the table.