The SSD Anthology: Understanding SSDs and New Drives from OCZ
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 18, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Sequential Read/Write Performance
To measure sequential read and write performance I created an iometer test script to read and write 2MB files to the drives. The writes are 100% sequential and are performed on an unpartitioned drive for 3 minutes.
Performance is reported in MB/s, higher numbers are better.
The sequential read performance of the latest generation of SSDs is nothing short of amazing. The OCZ Vertex pulls through with 250MB/s, over twice the speed of the VelociRaptor and 2.5x the speed of the Samsung SLC drive that OCZ used to sell for $1000.
Looking at write performance we see things change a bit. The OCZ Summit and Intel X25-E are the only two drives that can outperform the VelociRaptor, and they do so handsomely. The rest of the drives fall below even the 7200 RPM Caviar SE16. They are by no means slow, they just don't destroy the fastest hard drives as they do in other tests.
While the X25-E should perform the way it does, the OCZ Summit uses MLC flash yet it performs like an SLC drive. This is a very important benchmark as it shows the sort of performance Samsung has optimized for with its controller. This drive is designed to shatter bandwidth barriers, but what about latency?
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Luddite - Friday, March 20, 2009 - link
So even with the TRIM command, when working with large files, say, in photoshop and saving multiple layers, the performance will stil drop off?proviewIT - Thursday, March 19, 2009 - link
I bought a Vertex 120GB and it is NOT working on my Nvidia chipsets motherboard. Anyone met the same problem? I tried intel chipsets motherboard and seems ok.I used HDtach to test the read/write performance 4 days ago, wow, it was amazing. 160MB/s in write. But today I felt it slower and used HDtach to test again, it downs to single digit MB per second. Can I recover it or I need to return it?
kmmatney - Thursday, March 19, 2009 - link
Based on the results and price, I would say that the OCZ Vertex deserves a Editor's choice of some sort (Gold, Silver)...Tattered87 - Thursday, March 19, 2009 - link
While I must admit I skipped over some of the more technical bits where SSD was explained in detail, I read the summaries and I've gotta admit this article was extremely helpful. I've been wanting to get one of these for a long time now but they've seemed too infantile in technological terms to put such a hefty investment in, until now.After reading about OCZ's response to you and how they've stepped it up and are willing to cut unimportant statistics in favor of lower latencies, I actually decided to purchase one myself. Figured I might as well show my appreciation to OCZ by grabbing up a 60GB SSD, not to mention it looks like it's by far the best purchase I can make SSD-wise for $200.
Thanks for the awesome article, was a fun read, that's for sure.
bsoft16384 - Thursday, March 19, 2009 - link
Anand, I don't want to sound too negative in my comments. While I wouldn't call them unusable, there's no doubt that the random write performance of the JMicron SSDs sucks. I'm glad that you're actually running random I/O tests when so many other websites just run HDTune and call it a day.That X25-M for $340 is looking mighty tempting, though.
MrSpadge - Thursday, March 19, 2009 - link
Hi,first: great article, thanks to Anand and OCZ!
Something crossed my mind when I saw the firmware-based trade-off between random writes and sequential transfer rates: couldn't that be adjusted dynamically to get the best of both worlds? Default to the current behaviour but switch into something resembling te old one when extensive sequential transfers are detected?
Of course this neccesiates that the processor would be able to handle additional load and that the firmware changes don't involve permanent changes in the organization of the data.
Maybe the OCZ-Team already thought about this and maybe nobody's going to read this post, buried deep within the comments..
MrS
Per Hansson - Thursday, March 19, 2009 - link
Great work on the review AnandI really enjoyed reading it and learning from it
Will there be any tests of the old timers like Mtron etc?
tomoyo - Thursday, March 19, 2009 - link
That was kind of strange to me too. But I assume Anand really means the desktop market, not the server storage/business market. Since it's highly doubtful that the general consumer will spend many times as much money for 15k SAS drives.Gary Key - Thursday, March 19, 2009 - link
The intent was based it being the fastest for a consumer based desktop drive, the text has been updated to reflect that fact.tomoyo - Thursday, March 19, 2009 - link
I've always been someone who wants real clarify and truth to the information on the internet. That's a problem because probably 90% of things are not. But Anand is one man I feel a lot of trust for because of great and complete articles such as this. This is truly the first time that I feel like I really understand what goes into ssd performance and why it can be good or bad. Thank you so much for being the most inciteful voice in the hardware community. And keep fighting those damn manufacturers who are scared of the facts getting in the way of their 200MB/s marketing bs.