Install Times (Windows/Office 2010)

Installing Windows or Office, chances are that all of us have to do it at one point or another and while it is not essential to have fantastic performance in this area, it is a good test for writing a large amount of data to the drive in a short space of time. This is especially useful due to the fact the variation in file sizes being written is huge.

For the Windows test the time taken is recorded from the moment we begin the install, after partitioning and formatting to when the prompt appears where we choose our username. For Office it is from when we click Install until all the files are written.

On the smaller test, installing Office the 310 series outperforms the mechanical drive by a reasonable amount however when we then move to the Windows 7 installation the gap increases significantly. In this area the 310 is nearly twice as fast as our 5400rpm drive.