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Mach Extreme are a name which may be unknown to many, but a handful of their executives have a strong history in the memory sector. This Mach Xtreme MX-DS Turbo 120GB Solid State Drive is based around the class leading Sandforce SF2281 controller with full support for the SATA 3 interface.
The company were established in 2010, and they focus primarily on Solid State, memory and USB flash drives. The drive we are looking at today is sold in 60GB, 120GB, 240GB and 480GB capacities.
Specifications
| Model Name | MXSSD3MDST-60G |
| NAND Flash | MLC |
| Capacity | 60GB |
| Interface Type | SATA III |
| Form Factor | 2.5″ |
| Dimension | 99.8 x 69.63 x 9.3 mm (LxWxH) |
| Lightweight | 80g |
| Max. Read Performance | Up to 540MB/s* |
| Max. Write Performance | Up to 490MB/s* |
| IOPS | up to 80,000 |
| Seek Time | <0.1ms |
| RAID Support | 0 |
| TRIM | Support |
| Hot Plug / Removal | Support |
| Low Power Consumption | DC 5V / Stand-by: 1.6W Active: up to 2.8W |
| Shock Resistant | 1,500G |
| MTBF | +2,000,000 Hours |
| Vibration | 20G |
| Altitude | 80,000ft |
| Operating Temp. | 0℃ ~ +70℃ |
| Storage Temp. | -45℃ ~ +85℃℃ |
| Data Reliability | Built-in EDC/ECC function |
| OS Support | Windows 7 / Windows Vista / Windows XP / WinCE / Mac OS X / Linux series: Fedora, Ubuntu, Solaris, etc. / DOS |
| Certifications | RoHS / FCC / CE / Windows 7 / Mac OS |
| Other features | SandForce DuraClass™ / DuraWrite™ / RAISE™ / Garbage Collection technologies support / MacBook Pro MC723LL/A 15”(Rev. 8.2) support |
| Lifetime | 5 Years + |
| Warranty | 3 Years |
The drive arrives in a box featuring the product name and capacity on the front, with a little artwork in the top right corner.
Inside are some screws, a 2.5″ to 3.5″ adapter with a ‘hand tested' sticker.
The drive casing is metal, and feels very strong. There are stickers on both the front and back of the chassis.
Mach Xtreme are using 16 Micron branded flash chips with 8GB capacity each (29F64G08CBAAB), paired up with the SF2281VB1-SDC controller. These are produced on the 25 nm engineering process.
The Sandforce 2281 controller can access eight separate NAND channels, and two NAND modules are placed on each channel. The drive uses the DuraWrite algorithm which delivers on the fly compression for improved overall performance. Mach Xtreme rate this particular 120GB drive capable of delivering sequential transfer speeds of 540MB/s read | 490MB/s Write.
On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source.
For testing, the drives are all wiped and reset to factory settings by HDDerase V4. We try to use free or easily available programs and some real world testing so you can compare our findings against your own system.
This is a good way to measure potential upgrade benefits.
Main system:
CPU: Intel Core i7 2600k
Cooler: Thermaltake Frio OCK
Motherboard: Asus P8P67 Deluxe
Memory: ADATA DDR3 2000mhz 9-11-9-24
PSU: ADATA 1200W
Graphics: Sapphire HD6950 Flex Edition
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10 GT
Operating System: Windows 7 64 bit Enterprise
Monitor: Dell U2410
Other Drives (used in Core i7 2600k system above):
Corsair Performance Pro 256GB
Samsung 830 Series 512GB
Patriot Pyro SE 240GB
Patriot Wildfire 240GB
MemoRight FTM Plus 240GB SSD
Patriot Pyro 120GB SSD
OCZ RevoDrive 3 x2 480GB
Patriot Wildfire 120GB SSD OCZ Agility 3 240GB
OCZ Vertex 3 240GB
OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS 240GB
ADATA S511 240GB
Intel 510 120GB
Corsair F100 100GB
OCZ Vertex 2 120GB
Crucial Real SSD C300 64GB
MemoRight FTM.25 115GB SSD
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB
PCIe drives test system:
OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid 1TB HDD/SSD &
OCZ RevoDrive 3 x2 480GB Test System:
CPU: Intel Core i7 990x @ 4.8ghz
Cooler: Corsair H100 Performance Liquid Cooler
Motherboard: Asus Rampage III Black Edition
Memory: 12GB Kingston DDR3 @ 1600mhz 9-9-9-24
PSU: ADATA 1200W
Graphics: Nvidia GTX580
Chassis: Lian Li X2000F
Operating System: Windows 7 64 bit Enterprise
Monitor: Dell U2410
Software:
Atto Disk Benchmark
CrystalMark
AS SSD
PCMark 7
IOMeter
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call Of Pripyat
All our results were achieved by running each test five times with every configuration this ensures that any glitches are removed from the results. Trim is confirmed as running by typing fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify into the command line. A response of disabledeletenotify =0 confirms TRIM is active.
Crystalmark is a useful benchmark to measure theoretical performance levels of hard drives and SSD’s. We are using V3.0.1 x64.
Incompressible data performance is weak, especially in regards to write performance. Sequential read performance is just shy of 500 MB/s which is a good result.
As we do with all our SSD reviews, we enable ‘compressible’ data mode, called ’0×00′. The performance gains with this specific drive are very noticeable, particularly with the sequential write performance, which increases from 142 MB/s to over 480 MB/s.
Above, some compares with other leading solid state drives which we have reviewed in the last couple of months.
The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.
Performance is excellent, exceeding the companies baseline figures of 540 MB/s read and 490 MB/s write.
Above, some comparison results from other leading drives currently available on the market today.
AS SSD is a great free tool designed just for benching Solid State Drives. It performs an array of sequential read and write tests, as well as random read and write tests with sequential access times over a portion of the drive. AS SSD includes a sub suite of benchmarks with various file pattern algorithms but this is difficult in trying to judge accurate performance figures.
AS SSD only works with incompressible data which highlights the weakness of this particular drive, affecting the overall score. That said, sequential read performance is excellent, achieving almost 510 MB/s.
Above, we have included some results from other solid state drives we have tested in recent months.
PCMark 7 includes 7 PC tests for Windows 7, combining more than 25 individual workloads covering storage, computation, image and video manipulation, web browsing and gaming. Specifically designed to cover the full range of PC hardware from netbooks and tablets to notebooks and desktops, PCMark 7 offers complete PC performance testing for Windows 7 for home and business use.
PCMark 7 performance is a little lower than the majority of Sandforce drives we have tested in recent months, probably due to the weak incompressible data performance.
IOMeter is another open source synthetic benchmarking tool which is able to simulate the various loads placed on hard drive and solid state drive technology.
We use a custom Kitguru configuration for 4k random write to measure performance.
There are many different ways to measure IOPS performance, but with our own custom script, this particular drive scores 23,840 IOPS, which is significantly lower than many Sandforce 2281 powered drives we have reviewed in recent weeks.
It doesn’t matter how good any of the synthetic suites are, the real meat of the testing has to be under absolute real world conditions. This proves difficult as to record results we have to narrow down fluctuation. Therefore while we would say these are the most useful results to get from this review, there is always going to be a slight margin for error – its not absolutely scientific.
Firstly we installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit Edition onto each of the drives and performed a clean update from Microsoft with all patches and security fixes. We then install a basic suite of software, such as Office, Firefox and Adobe Design, then we install AVG free antivirus. We used a digital watch for this startup and repeated the test five times for each drive – once we had these five results we averaged the results and took that for the final figure.
The drive slots in around the same performance level as the Agility 3 240GB, scoring 23 seconds.
19 seconds is a good result, although it is one second slower than other Sandforce drives we have tested in recent months.
The Mach Xtreme MX-DS Turbo 120 GB is yet another high performance drive based on the Sandforce 2281 controller. As expected, compressible data performance is first class, delivering over 550 MB/s read and 500 MB/s write with some synthetic sequential benchmarks.
This particular drive however is weak when it comes to writing incompressible data, producing a lackluster score with AS SSD and the standard data mode in CrystalDiskMark. Thankfully, in the real world this doesn't dramatically affect overall performance, although we noticed it was sometimes slightly slower than other Sandforce 2281 powered drives which we have tested in recent months.
IOMeter performance is also slightly disappointing (23840 IOPS w/ 4kb random write), especially when compared against the Corsair Performance Pro and Samsung 830 Series drives which we recently reviewed. Other Sandforce 2281 powered drives such as the Pyro SE and Wildfire are significantly faster scoring 63167 IOPS and 56258 IOPS respectively.
This drive is difficult to trace in the UK right now, but we managed to find it at a store called systo.co.uk, and it is priced at £153.77 inc vat. When this is compared against the ADATA S510, which retails at £129.98 inc vat, it is going to be a very tough sell indeed. If we find any more stores in the UK we will update this page, but as it stands, we find it hard to recommend at the top of our list.
You can also buy it direct from Caseking for 159,90€ with a 13,90€ shipping charge to the UK. This works out around £150 inc vat, all in. This makes for a slightly better deal, although we would like to see it priced around £20 less @ £130 inc vat.
Pros:
- Great compressed data performance.
- decent bundle.
Cons:
- weak incompressible data throughput.
- hard to find.
- If it was £130 inc vat, would be better value.
Kitguru says: With so many quality Sandforce 2281 powered drives on the market, this is a tough sell at the end of the year.
Slightly disappointing as the result show. never heard of the company either.
Fair review. I have to admit ive been looking outside the ‘sandforce’ masses of drives currently available as I would prefer to get good performance with both forms of data, rather than just compressible. Samsung new series of drives appeals to me.
Also available at http://www.futurestorage.co.uk – Mach Xtreme are a great company to deal with and is great to see European companies producing drives in these tough financial days.