Results: 128 KB Sequential Reads
Fantastic sequential read and write performance is a trademark of modern SSDs. To measure it, we use incompressible data over a 16 GB LBA space, then test at queue depths from one to 16. We're reporting these numbers in binary (where 1 KB equals 1024) instead of decimal numbers (where 1 KB is 1000 bytes). When necessary, we're also limiting the scale of the chart to enhance readability.
128 KB Sequential Read
Even with the Y-axis starting at 300 MB/s, it's pretty obvious that these four M500s are pretty evenly matched in our sequential read performance test. The ramifications of employing 20 nm, 128 Gb dies aren't felt quite yet.
On the other hand, all four knock around at the bottom of our comparison chart when we test with a queue depth of one.
The first thing you might notice if you take a long, hard look at the graph above is the lack of the 840 EVO. Don't worry, you'll be seeing that match-up a bit later on.
So, at lower queue depths, the M500s trail the field in sequential reads. Once you get four commands queued up, though, the '9187-equipped Crucial drives pick up the pace and join the rest of the pack. Intel's SSD 335 240 GB, also based on 20 nm flash, drops under 400 MB/s at a queue depth of one as well. The rest of our comparison hardware groups up tightly between 450 and 500 MB/s.
Here's a break-down of the maximum observed 128 KB sequential read performance during Iometer workload testing.
Although it's true that Crucial's new drives bring up the rear, there's not a ton of difference between the first- and last-place finishers. Frankly, maximum write speed is a more telling metric if we're going to lay out the results like this, bottlenecked by SATA 6Gb/s.
