PNY Professional 120GB SSD review

PNY isn’t known for its SSDs, so it’s no surprise that the firm has stuck to the tried-and-tested recipe for the production of its 120GB Professional SSD: a SandForce SF-2281 controller and a bevy of 25nm NAND chips.

That typical specification results in a poor set of benchmark results. The tone was set by our large-file write test. The PNY Professional SSD’s 189MB/s speed is low, and it pales in comparison to the 423MB/s speed of the OCZ Vertex 4. The situation didn’t improve in our large-file read test, with the PNY’s 351MB/s result falling behind all but four of its rivals.

The situation didn’t improve when the PNY was tasked with small files. Its small-file write result of 82MB/s is average in comparison to a lot of the solid-state disks we’ve tested, and its 61MB/s small-file is a little above average.

Sadly, the PNY professional SSD doesn’t come with accessories, such as a 2.5in to 3.5in adaptor, and its three-year warranty period is typical of a lot of SSDs.

The PNY does, at least, have value on its side. It costs just £80 for 120GB of space, and that translates to a great value 66p per gigabyte. That makes it cheaper per gigabyte than the Crucial M4 SSD 128GB, which costs 68p per gigabyte, but the Crucial M4 is consistently quicker. If you want a great value solid-state disk, consider the Crucial M4 first rather than the PNY Professional SSD.