Random performance is another issue entirely. We already know that throughput ceilings aren't as much of a concern when it comes to moving around lots of small chunks of data. In fact SATA 6Gb/s is typically sufficient for heavy random workloads.
The Samsung XP941 employs AHCI, which has some inherent overhead that chokes the potential of solid-state storage. NVMe was designed to address this. However, Intel's NVMe driver isn't expected until the end of 2014. As a result, we have to accept that a PCIe-based SSD utilizing AHCI is probably going to demonstrate modest advantages, at best. How does the XP941 stack up in the two different connectors exposed by ASRock's Z97 Extreme6?
Random Read Performance
Given what we saw on the previous page, it'd be easy to assume that Samsung's XP941 is capable of massive transactional performance working with small random transfers. The truth is a matter of relativity.

Yes, 120,000 IOPS is an impressive result. But that number doesn't reflect the potential of Samsung's hardware the same way sequential transfers do. And yes, the four-lane Ultra M.2 slot does yield better results. However, the scaling isn't there to indicate that a two-lane interface attached to the PCH was really hamstrung, either.
Even more telling, the two- and four-lane interfaces track alongside the SATA 6Gb/s-based 840 Pro up until a queue depth of 16. Desktop workloads typically don't see that much concurrency, so the XP941 wouldn't confer much benefit.
Random Write Performance
This is mostly what I would have expected based on our previous work with PCIe-based SSDs utilizing AHCI. The SATA-attached 840 Pro takes top honors, even if it isn't the fastest SSD around. Samsung's XP941 falls flat connected to the two-lane M.2 slot. It fares better when we hook up with the four-lane Ultra M.2 interface, though not in any way that'd lead us to favor such a configuration over familiar SATA.
Bottom line: the random performance of a PCIe-based SSD is more pedestrian than the impressive sequential scores, largely due to AHCI. Still, if you stopped here and didn't look at any other benchmark, you might conclude that Samsung's XP941 is the greatest desktop-oriented SSD ever. But our testing in Iometer isn't necessarily indicative of how the drive behaves in the real world. We need to go into more depth.
- 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

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).