Intel X25-M Mainstream Flash SSD (80 GB)
Throughput Testing
Remember the test procedure: the first three runs consist of throughput testing, followed by I/O testing (you'll find the I/O results below), while the last three runs were only about throughput. Clearly, the minimum read throughput crashed from 224.9 MB/s to as little as 42.8 MB/s when we executed the IOMeter benchmark on the X25-M.
On the third cycle, the performance dropped even more, and it took until the 6th cycle for throughput to recover. Clearly the X25-M with the initial 8160 firmware takes quite a performance hit. Throughput may still reach the maximum, but it crashed to only 33.9 MB/s minimum during a h2benchw throughput test.
While read performance was still okay due to constant high maximum and average results, the sequential write performance results were really horrible. When we only execute one full IOMeter cycle, the sequential write throughput drops from 65-80 MB/s to only 3.1-3.8 MB/s. Although the maximum write throughput recovers a bit, the minimum numbers remain at an extremely low level of only 2.0-3.8 MB/s, which is far less than a conventional hard drive can provide as minimum. Even the average results are disappointing.
At this point we have to mention Intel’s 8820 firmware update, which introduces a significant performance over these results.
I/O Testing
While the throughput numbers suffer significantly with every I/O benchmark cycle, the I/O performance remains at a rather high level in the case of the database benchmark. Still, there is a noticeable drop that recovers a bit in the third run.
The results are different for the fileserver benchmark pattern, which reads and writes much larger blocks than the database benchmark. Here, I/O performance increases from 605 to 1,763 I/O operations per second after the first run, and reaches 915 I/O operations per second in the third run. Clearly, the intensive throughput benchmarking seems to have a positive effect on this I/O benchmark pattern. Still, a performance increase of 2.9x followed by a 50% drop isn’t really what you would consider ideal.
Web server performance doesn’t suffer much from our torture test cycles, as it is based 100% on reading small random blocks, which flash SSDs can handle very well at all times. Still, I/O performance decreases from 11,154 to 9,000 I/O operations per second, which represents a 20% drop.
Workstation performance also decreases, but not dramatically. Let’s look at the results with Intel’s new 8820 firmware now.
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Props to you guys for this review.
I really wish we were able to Thumb up or Thumb down articles. This one would get a large thumbs up from me.
Thumbs up on this one too from me. Although if anyone desires more in depth understanding of the problem i found the PC Perspective articles better in that aspect.
Intel Firmware change
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=691
OCZ Indilinx Chip
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=670
Thumbs up on this one too from me. Although if anyone desires more in depth understanding of the problem i found the PC Perspective articles better in that aspect.
Intel Firmware change
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=691
OCZ Indilinx Chip
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=670
Thumbs up on this one too from me. Although if anyone desires more in depth understanding of the problem i found the PC Perspective articles better in that aspect.
Intel Firmware change
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=691
OCZ Indilinx Chip
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=670
why don't show the HDD read / write data here together with SDD?
this will not matter at all to servers until the price gooes down. the speed does not make sence in the 4+ bucks a gig. normal hd are safer just in the fact that you can put 7 hd and put it in a raid one fails o well. plus 800 bucks for 64gb o my god
this will not matter at all to servers until the price gooes down. the speed does not make sence in the 4+ bucks a gig. normal hd are safer just in the fact that you can put 7 hd and put it in a raid one fails o well. plus 800 bucks for 64gb o my god
Servers are actually where these drives makes the most sense, and you can RAID SSDs just like you RAID HDs... and about being "safe" well I would put my money on the technology with no moving parts!
I keep waiting for a reviews of new monitors.it seems we keep getting almost the same kind of topic every week lately.
I have to agree with most people on this one...a flashback to the really good reviews Tom's did in the past. A very relevant review for most people with some good data and testing steps.
Well it like it was written specially for me. Grate job! One of the best articles i encounter in long time.
I posted a question on storage configuration just few day ago, with no reply btw, with exactly the same thing on my mind. Hope we can go deeper with that, and talk how we can take an advantage of what we learned here in different situations with diffident storage/system configuration's, combining SSD with regular drives, raid configurations, moving tmp/swap some programs etc.. to different drives etc...
Well it like it was written specially for me. Grate job! One of the best articles i encounter in long time.
I posted a question on storage configuration just few day ago, with no reply btw, with exactly the same thing on my mind. Hope we can go deeper with that, and talk how we can take an advantage of what we learned here in different situations with diffident storage/system configuration's, combining SSD with regular drives, raid configurations, moving tmp/swap some programs etc.. to different drives etc...
Nice review. So will you guys be reviewing the 1TB PCI-Express OCZ SSD? :-)
So if your SSD starts to slow down, does a reformat get rid of that issue?
You guys had any problems with that Power Supply?
I bought an OCZ Elite Extreme 800W PSU last year an dhad 3 of them die in 6 months....The RMA process was long and slow, but they eventually made it right by upgrading me to a PC Power and cooling PSU.
this will not matter at all to servers until the price gooes down. the speed does not make sence in the 4+ bucks a gig. normal hd are safer just in the fact that you can put 7 hd and put it in a raid one fails o well. plus 800 bucks for 64gb o my god
You need to have a better understanding of the problem before you make statements like this...
1. The number of HD required to get the same IOPS will put the total price to be higher than SSD's
2. The power requirement is much higher for the number of HD that you need to get the same performance as a single Intel SLC SSD. This can drop the power consumption of a server significantly down from regular HD, and increase it’s performance.
3. Remember that in many servers it’s not the capacity that matters, It’s the performance that is more important.
4. Since SSD's can do a very nice job of simultaneous read, and write running multiple jobs is not derogated by the SSD's as it is with regular HD's.
5. SMART command in SSD’s can give you a predictive failure analysis, something that you cannot do with HD’s, HD’s can only show you if the Drive is good or bad. This is very important since data can be copied before the drive goes bad.
6. MTBF of SSD’s (at lease Intel’s) are much higher than HD’s. 2M hrs. vs 1.2M hrs on HD’s
wheres the OCZ vertex ?????
this will not matter at all to servers until the price gooes down. the speed does not make sence in the 4+ bucks a gig. normal hd are safer just in the fact that you can put 7 hd and put it in a raid one fails o well. plus 800 bucks for 64gb o my god
have you seen how much SAS drives are??
Good to see more review sites doing articles on these performance degradations, helps us make a better informed decision when purchasing new hardware.
Here's another great article which gives you a good in depth look at it
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/s [...] i=3531&p=4
a must read if you are thinking of upgrading to some of those new shiny ssds