The test system used in this review was an HP 8200 Elite. The computer came equipped with an Intel Core i5-2400 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 1333MHz memory, Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3250312AS 250GB SATA 6 Gb/s hard drive, NVIDIA Quadro FX580 512MB PCIe graphics card and an Intel 82579-LM gigabit network card. For the operating system, I installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 Enterprise.
To test the performance of Samsung's 128GB SSD 840 Pro with RAPID enabled, I ran a series of benchmarks using CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1, ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46, Anvil's Storage Utilities and Iometer. For comparison, I've also included test results from the OCZ Vertex 450, Samsung SSD 840 EVO, Seagate SSD 600, SanDisk Extreme II, OCZ Vector, Plextor PX-256M5Pro Xtreme, Samsung SSD 840 Pro, Samsung SSD 840, Kingston Ultra Plus, OCZ Vertex 4, OCZ Agility 4, Kingston SSDNow V300 and Kingston HyperX 3K.
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1:
First, I ran a few quick tests using CrystalDiskMark. This benchmark tool measures the performance of a storage device by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its random read and write speeds using blocks 512K and 4K in size.
 Samsung SSD 840 Pro 128GB |
 Samsung SSD 840 Pro 128GB (RAPID Mode) |
According to Samsung, the 128GB SSD 840 Pro is capable of reading at 530 MB/s and writing at 390 MB/s when connected to a SATA 6 Gb/s port. While the drive performed as expected when writing, it came up a bit short in CrystalDiskMark's sequential read speed test. With RAPID mode enabled, these numbers increased by more than ninefold. Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that the SSD 840 Pro was able to read at 4,648 MB/s and write at a blazing 5,334 MB/s.
ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46:
I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the SSD 840 Pro's sequential read and write speeds. The tests are run using blocks ranging in size from 0.5KB to 8192KB and the total length set to 256MB.
 Samsung SSD 840 Pro 128GB |
 Samsung SSD 840 Pro 128GB (RAPID Mode) |
When tested with ATTO, the 128GB SSD 840 Pro's read speeds topped out at about 535 MB/s and its write speeds at 396 MB/s. With RAPID mode enabled, the read and write speeds were all over the place, but for the most part, it was a considerable improvement.
AS SSD:
AS SSD is a relatively new benchmark designed specifically for solid state drives. The application contains five synthetic tests used to determine the sequential and random read and write performance of a drive.
 Samsung SSD 840 Pro 128GB |
 Samsung SSD 840 Pro 128GB (RAPID Mode) |
AS SSD also includes a copy benchmark. This test copies an ISO (two large files), program (many small files) and game (small and large files), returning the speed and duration of each.
 Samsung SSD 840 Pro 128GB |
 Samsung SSD 840 Pro 128GB (RAPID Mode) |
