G.Skill Falcon 128GB SSD Review

Crystal DiskMark

Crystal DiskMark is designed to quickly test the performance of your hard drives. Currently, the program allows to measure sequential and random read/write speeds; and allows you to set the number of tests iterations to run. We left the number of tests at 5. When all 5 tests for a given section were run Crystal DiskMark then averages out all 5 numbers to give a result for that section.

READ


When it comes to ultra small file reads, this drive easily beats the Intel X-25M and in the other two tests comes awfully darn close to tying it. It is obvious that the Barefoot controller w/ firmware 1370 is tweaked for small file transfer speed. This is exactly what you want to see in any OS drive as this is what most of the background reads are going to consist of. Bravo Indilinx for being only the third company to catch the self same clue stick which has been beating JMircon over the head now for a long….long while!

Write


The write speeds are also impressive but they do highlight the different philosophies between Intel and Indilinx. While 11+ MB/s on ultra small files is impressive it appears the Barefoot controller is designed to handle larger files better; where as the Intel is all about the small file speed (even to the detriment of larger chunk write performance). This may just be a result of a relatively early firmware which has not been dialed in, as the larger chunks of data performance are down right impressive. We would not be overly surprised if future firmware toned down the high end but increased the low end performance. As with everything in life, it's all about balance and it certainly will be interesting to see how this particular controller handles real world situations with its curious mix of read and write speeds.