In most of the stories we write, it doesn't matter where Windows is installed. Storage testing is a bit different though, particularly when we need to turn off the PCH's SATA ports. Thus, utilizing Windows to Go makes a lot of sense. A fully-functioning image can be ported from one machine to another over USB 3.0. It's just as quick as an installation to a SATA-attached SSD, and it enables testing methodologies otherwise considered impractical.
Note also that we're using Intel's new Rapid Storage Technology 13-series driver. It doesn't have much bearing on today's story; the fancier features will get rolled into a version of the RST software later this year. But it was time to upgrade, and so I have.
| Test Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Core i5-4670K (Haswell), 22 nm, 3.3 GHz, LGA 1150, 6 MB Shared L3, Turbo Boost Enabled |
| Motherboard | ASRock Z97 Extreme6 |
| Memory | G.Skill Ripjaws 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR3-1866 @ DDR3-1333, 1.5 V |
| System Drive | Muskin Ventura Ultra 240 GB USB 3.0 UASP |
| Drive(s) Under Test | Samsung MZHPU512HCGL-00000 512 GB M.2 Gen 2 x4 PCIe, AHCI |
| Power Supply | Seasonic X400 FL2, 80+ Platinum |
| Chassis | Lian Li A01-NB ATX |
| HSF | Noctua NH-L9i |
| Graphics | Intel HD Graphics 4600 |
| OS | Windows 8.1 Enterprise, Windows to Go |
| Drivers | STORAHCI.SYS (Generic AHCI), Intel RST 13.1 (SATA) |
| Comparison Drives | Plextor M6e 256 GB M.2 PCIe x2, Firmware: 1.00 |
| Plextor M6S 256 GB SATA 6 Gb/s, Firmware: 1.00 | |
| Plextor M6M 256 GB mSATA 6 Gb/s, Firmware: 1.00 | |
| Adata SP920 256 GB SATA 6 Gb/s, Firmware: MU01 | |
| Crucial M550 512 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: MU01 | |
| Intel SSD 730 480 GB SATA 6 Gb/s, Firmware: L2010400 | |
| SanDisk X210 512 GB, Firmware X210400 | |
| Crucial M500 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: MU02 | |
| Samsung 840 EVO 250 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: EXT0AB0Q | |
| Samsung 840 Pro 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware DXM04B0Q | |
| Seagate 600 SSD 240 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: B660 | |
| OCZ Vector 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 2.0 | |
| Plextor M5 Pro 256 GB SATA 6Gb/s Firmware: 1.02 | |
| Benchmarks | |
|---|---|
| ULINK DriveMaster 2012 | DM2012 v980, JEDEC 218A-based TRIM Test, Protocol Test Suite |
| Test Specific Hardware | SAS/SATA Power Hub, DevSlp Platform, PCIe SSD Power Adapter |
| Tom's Hardware Storage Bench v1.0 | Intel iPeak Storage Toolkit 5.2.1, Tom's Storage Bench 1.0 Trace Recording |
| Iometer 1.1.0 | # Workers = 1, 4 KB Random: LBA=16 GB, varying QDs, 128 KB Sequential, 16 GB LBA Precondition, Exponential QD Scaling |
| PCMark 8 | PCMark 8 2.0.228, Storage Consistency Test |
Previous
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Summary
- High-Performance Storage On ASRock's Z97 Extreme6
- M.2 And SATA Express, Discussed
- Z97 Express: The Same Old Bandwidth Limitations
- Testing Samsung's XP941 On Z97 Express
- Results: A PCIe SSD's Sequential Performance
- Results: A PCIe SSD's Random Performance
- Results: Tom's Hardware Storage Bench v.1.0
- Results: PCMark 8 Storage Consistency Test
- ASRock's Z97 Extreme6: Only Satisfied By Samsung's XP941
Ask a Category Expert
That said, I feel like X99, NVMe, and and M.2 products will coincide nicely with their respective releases dates. Another interesting piece to the puzzle will be DDR4. Will the new storage technology and next-generation CPUs utilize it's speed, or like DD3, will it take several generations for other technologies to catch up to RAM speeds? This is quite an interesting time
Way to turn things around ASRock! Cheap as chips and rock steady!
PCI-e 3.0 x8 has enough bandwidth for any single card. The only downside to using PCI-e lanes on the SSD applies only to people who want to use multiple GPUs.
Still, though, this is just the mid-range platform anyway. People looking for lots of expansion end up buying the X chipsets rather than the Z chipsets because of the greater expandability. I feel like the complaint is really misplaced for Z chipsets, since they only have 16 PCI-e lanes to begin with.
Well, it'll definitely negate some GPU configurations, same as any PCIe add-in over the CPU's lanes. With so few lanes to work with on Intel's mainstream platforms, butting heads is inevitable.
Regards,
Christopher Ryan
Awww, shucks!
Regards,
Christopher Ryan
SATA3 has a theoretical max of 6Gbps (750MBps). However, the practical max is more around 600MBps.
Assuming you are running your Intel 730's in RAID-0 and achieving the max practical throughput, you'd still only come up with ~1200MBps which is slower than what Tom's saw at 1400MBps ON A SINGLE DRIVE.
SATA3 has a theoretical max of 6Gbps (750MBps). However, the practical max is more around 600MBps.
Assuming you are running your Intel 730's in RAID-0 and achieving the max practical throughput, you'd still only come up with ~1200MBps which is slower than what Tom's saw at 1400MBps ON A SINGLE DRIVE.
SATA3 has a theoretical max of 6Gbps (750MBps). However, the practical max is more around 600MBps.
Assuming you are running your Intel 730's in RAID-0 and achieving the max practical throughput, you'd still only come up with ~1200MBps which is slower than what Tom's saw at 1400MBps ON A SINGLE DRIVE.
SATA3 has a theoretical max of 6Gbps (750MBps). However, the practical max is more around 600MBps.
Assuming you are running your Intel 730's in RAID-0 and achieving the max practical throughput, you'd still only come up with ~1200MBps which is slower than what Tom's saw at 1400MBps ON A SINGLE DRIVE.
SATA3 has a theoretical max of 6Gbps (750MBps). However, the practical max is more around 600MBps.
Assuming you are running your Intel 730's in RAID-0 and achieving the max practical throughput, you'd still only come up with ~1200MBps which is slower than what Tom's saw at 1400MBps ON A SINGLE DRIVE.
Actually, the 4 KB writes are really an artifact of the AHCI controller/API. If you took the same flash and controller on the Sammy, but rigged it to use NVMe, I think you'd see a big bump in random 4 KB performance. I've said over and over that desktop users, for now, are better off by using a couple SATA drives in RAID. More than just adding bandwidth, which isn't always important (strictly speaking), it lowers service times significantly. Plus, it's great to just keep adding cheap drives and getting more performance and capacity (when striped). See the Plextor M6e PCIe review for my thoughts on this.
It's all academic anyway, since you can only buy the XP941 from a few random places, and it's $750. If I had a laptop which could use it, maybe I go that route, but even there SATA is just more power efficient. Give me a 1 TB EVO or M550 instead..... at least for the time being.
PS: Is this Jon C??
Regards,
Christopher Ryan
Totally agree! For now.
I also added the 750 EVO in there because (I believe) the only difference between the 1TB and the 750GB is capacity, unlike the smaller drives, which actually have less performance (i.e. 120, 250, & 500 GB).