AS SSD Benchmark

[imported_deegee]

Why does everyone writing benchmark software always go with 2MB Seq Write and 4kb Random Write? It's almost useless information for real-world comparison.
Unless you are running a small-record heavy-use database server you rarely have a high number of 4kb random writes. Most desktop oriented software and common end-user use is always larger file sizes, and even Windows Page Files write out large 128kb through 1MB blocks.
This misinformed rumour that everything writes out at random 4kb except large file copying is unfounded and misleading.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: deegee
Why does everyone writing benchmark software always go with 2MB Seq Write and 4kb Random Write? It's almost useless information for real-world comparison.
Unless you are running a small-record heavy-use database server you rarely have a high number of 4kb random writes. Most desktop oriented software and common end-user use is always larger file sizes, and even Windows Page Files write out large 128kb through 1MB blocks.

Welcome to the forums.

Feel free to do some background homework and read the homepage articles to better understand the reasoning that the crowd here likes to use 4KB random writes as a proxy for good vs. poor performing SSD's.

Originally posted by: deegee
This misinformed rumour that everything writes out at random 4kb except large file copying is unfounded and misleading.

What rumor?

 

[jimhsu]

I've been wondering though. Since modern consumer filesystems aren't architectured towards SSDs, at what point do improvements in random writes not matter? I mean, there's a drastic difference from 0.5MB/s (hard drives) to 15MB/s (around what a Vertex gets) 4k random write, but do consumer applications really need to 30-60MB/s that an Intel drive can provide? Unless you have a specific workload (i.e. I am designing a database, and I need to process at least 1000 queries a minute from my 100 customers), I think LATENCIES, not THROUGHPUT will be the most noticeable in real life.

Consider this for example (exaggerated of course):
1. SSD1: Does 10000 4k writes a second, but in bursts of 5000 per half second - latency 500 ms
2. SSD2: Does 1000 4k writes a second, and 1 write per millisecond - latency 1 ms
For the consumer, 2 is obviously better, but a db admin might choose to go with 1 to guarantee a certain throughput.

PS I recommend this article for some fairly light reading:
http://www.stuartcheshire.org/rants/Latency.html

 

[Idontcare]

Whatever level of 4kb random writes the vertex generates seems to be above wherever the threshold is...folks don't seem to complain about the performance of vertex any more or less than you hear of complaints about the Intel G1 drives.

Trim seems to be the last big hangup, keeping those sustained read/writes up around 100MB/s where copying large files takes a noticeably different amount of time if you are at 50MB/s versus 150MB/s.

For consumer markets though we are probably just going to be mostly concerning ourselves with the $/GB for the next few years. Performance has already kind of saturated the end-user with the wow factor at this time.

 

[nsa666]

Originally posted by: jimhsu


Consider this for example (exaggerated of course):
1. SSD1: Does 10000 4k writes a second, but in bursts of 5000 per half second - latency 500 ms
2. SSD2: Does 1000 4k writes a second, and 1 write per millisecond - latency 1 ms
For the consumer, 2 is obviously better, but a db admin might choose to go with 1 to guarantee a certain throughput.

PS I recommend this article for some fairly light reading:
http://www.stuartcheshire.org/rants/Latency.html

something like SSD1 is very unusual.

I took 4k tests because of Size of NTFS-cluster. See http://ixbtlabs.com/articles/hddide2k1feb/iometer.html

Combined read/write test could be interesting on particular scenarios but i will not include too much tests in the main-test. It could be added als additional test i will think about it. thank you.

 

[taltamir]

mmm... now I want an intel G2 for OS drive... Colossus for storage and games...

 

[g0dMAn]

I'm going to give this a try. THANKS!

 

[Rubycon]

New version results:

scores

iops

 

[jimhsu]

Originally posted by: Astrallite

Originally posted by: n7
Already running AHCI mode.

I suspect if i want to fix performance in this bench i would need to run HDD erase & reinstall...

I get these from CrystalDiskMark: http://ense7en.com/pics/Intel%...formance%20enabled.JPG

Did you install Intel Storage Matrix Manager? I found The Intel X25-series pretty quirky performance-wise without that application installed.

The Intel Storage Matrix Manager thing slowed the 64 thread test by nearly 2/3rd. Hm.

 

[AbRASiON]

I think the latest version of this is now 1.2.3517.12763

 

[nsa666]

Update:
1.2.3577.40358
- Changed the sorting of drives in the list

1.2.3556.18595
- Minor changes.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
New version results:

scores

iops

new version of what?
btw, those are some big numbers

 

[aatf510]

I am getting 23.75MB/s on 4k-64Thrd on a X25-M G2 160GB w/ the brand new 02HA firmware.
Screenshot of my results
Therefore giving me a "69" read score.

I don't think I have Intel Matrix Storage Manager installed because the test is done 5 minutes after a fresh Win 7 install. I didn't even bother installation any drivers (e.g. Intel, Nvidia etc.) The only things on the SSD are 1) Fresh Win 7 Pro installation, 2) Intel SSD Toolkit (for running TRIM), 3) AS SSD Benchmark.

Any idea?

 

[nsa666]

You must enable AHCI to get full performance.

 

[aatf510]

Originally posted by: nsa666
You must enable AHCI to get full performance.

Yes, AHCI is definitely enabled. Otherwise, Windows won't boot because I initially installed Windows with AHCI on.

 

[taltamir]

it will boot. if you INSTALLED windows with AHCI enabled you can free enable / disable ahci and windows will work fine...
If you had ahci disabled when windows was installed and decide to enable it, then windows will not boot.

 

[endervalentine]

Total noob here but ouch! I'm getting horrible scores on all categories ... I'm getting 44.45MB/s and 21.53MB/s for seq read and write respectively.
Do I need to run this off a fresh reboot, I just ran on it on my laptop that I've been using to crunch a bunch of numbers on, ie. 12 excel files open, matlab is running, ff, outlook, etc.

This on WinXP on a 80G1. Windows was installed before AHCI was enabled.

Any suggestions?

 

[taltamir]

G1 doesn't get trim...
enabling ahci will help though, but requires you reinstall windows. Also it is probably misaligned, as only vista and win7 align SSDs correctly... either manually align it, or delete all PARTITIONS and install win7 (recommended anyways... win7 has lots of SSD optimizatins)

 

[endervalentine]

thanks, I don't have win7 yet, but guess I can go with the re-install windows route. How do you enable ahci through the winxp installation?

 

[taltamir]

you enable ahci in the bios, then you install windows XP. you need to use F8 and load the AHCI drivers from a floppy disk, because windows XP is an ancient and outdated OS.
If you use a modern OS like vista or windows 7 then you don't need to do any of that stuff. just enable ahci in bios and install

 

[BD231]

SSD's still need about a year or two.

 

[taltamir]

they are already the fastest on the market by far, and the best bang of the buck upgrade for most PC users... what more do you want?

 

[endervalentine]

Originally posted by: taltamir
you enable ahci in the bios, then you install windows XP. you need to use F8 and load the AHCI drivers from a floppy disk, because windows XP is an ancient and outdated OS.
If you use a modern OS like vista or windows 7 then you don't need to do any of that stuff. just enable ahci in bios and install

cool, thanks! any recommendations on other SSD benchmarks aside from this one?

 

[richierich1212]

http://img145.imageshack.us/im...benchsttftm64gx25h.png

Super Talent UltraDrive ME 64GB:

Sequential Read 180.6MB/s Write 89.25MB/s
4K Read 22.68 MB/s Write 8.69MB/s
4K-64Thrd 61.47MB/s Write 8.49MB/s
Acc.time Read 0.170ms Write 0.512 ms

I reinstalled Windows 7 Home Premium using AHCI (was previously using RC) and then had to downgrade the firmware and then upgrade to the latest firmware for TRIM support.
Not too shabby for this SSD that I got for $111 after Bing back in August.

 

[Saga]

Vertex LE's in Raid0.