Zalman F1-Series 240GB - New star SSD

No, you have not waken up in a parallel and strange universe where people manufacture others’ products. Right, it is Zalman that specializes in manufacturing all attractive CPU cooler devices together with other products.

In fact, this is the first step of Zalman into SSD field. It has already had two drive series before – N series using the first-generation SandForce controller and S series using JMicron chip.

Now, it has a new drive series allowing it to compete with the big mans: F1 series. This new drive uses the SandForce SF-2281 controller and will have been created interesting comparison to the drives that have been in existence since the launch of the newest SandForce controller.

This 240GB drive is at the top of the series, but there are still 60GB and 120GB available, with quoted IOPS for read/write is 30,000.

SandForce

With the fact that people are using the second-generation of the SandForce controller as a base for SSD, which always have a tendency of yawning and talking curtly at once: ‘All right, show us what you have.’ In case of Zalman F1 240GB, this has happened for quite many times. It is successful with impressive performance and is a rival matching with some Sandforce competitors.

While distracting the outside world with attractive and effective cooler devices, some at Korea are keeping their eyes on what is going with SSD market and waiting for a chance before launching this second-generation drive.

It appears that Zalman has taken advantage of this delay since the drive could catch OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS in our tests. It also proves that it has access to the newest firmware changes despite the fact that Zalman drive uses the MLC 25nm flash memory of Intel’s original Vertex 3 instead of 32nm Toggle NAND used by the MAX IOPS version.

Test results are good, but in the real world, what does F1 240GB drive bring? Installing Windows 7 at first just takes 16 minutes from starting going to the screen to input password while the operating system itself just takes 36 seconds from cool start to ready use. Loading to the Windows Office 2010 Pro copy takes 4 minutes 41 seconds.

Our only real problem with Zalman package is lacking the hard copy of Acronis True Image migration app that it recommends. Although it provides full version, you have to download yourself. But it is just a small logistic problem, not a SSD one.

Zalman F-1 240GB is a real success, and about performance, it is really difficult to be criticized. It also does not have a bad price. Right, it is more expensive than some competitors, but the more important thing is that it is cheaper than Vertex 3 MAX IOPS, which in fact it can be compared with in performance.

Specs analysis

To test F-1 240GB in a script that is better if similar to the real world, the drive was installed as a start drive, a full operating system was installed, and a motherboard driver was installed, too. We tested the drive in this state and then loaded full data in and delete them. We had run this process for a few times before tested the drive again to see if there was any big difference in results.

Continuous read/write speed: (compressible)

ATTO	Megabyte/second: the higher, the better
Zalman F1 240GB	554/517
OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS	558/512

Continuous read/write speed: (incompressible)

AS SSD	Megabyte/second: the higher, the better
Zalman F1 240GB	506/282
OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS	506/234

4K Random read/write performance:

AS SSD	Megabyte/second: the higher, the better
Zalman F1 240GB	15/42
OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS	18/42

Verdict

From a heterodox to the leader of SSD series is Zalman’s impressive achievement.

Ratings
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Important statistics Price: $75 Producer: Zalman Web: www.zalman.com SKU: SSD0240F1 Control kit: SandForce SF-2281 Interface: SATA 6Gb/s Form coefficient: 2.5 inches IOPS: 45,000 Quoted continuous read speed: maximum 560MB/s Quoted continuous write speed: maximum 530MB/s