PCMark 8 Advanced Workload
To learn how we test advanced workload performance, please click here.
Throughput Tests
Under heavier workloads, the MX200 ends up just under Samsung's 850 Pro and SanDisk's Extreme Pro, the two fastest consumer SSDs available. Crucial's 1TB MX200 doesn't use the lower-capacity model's dynamic SLC cache layer, and that really hurts performance during the recovery phase.
Latency Tests
The other day I was at a four-way stop sign with several cars waiting to proceed. The time it took for one car to pass through the intersection and for the next to start made me thing about latency and how we react to it. One car waiting a second or two longer than necessary is enough to get me upset. A second here, a second there. The inefficiency is enough to drive you crazy.
The few seconds I spent at that intersection didn't have anything to do with how long it took me to get home. Stop lights, filling up the tank and grabbing a cup of coffee took much more time. But you don't remember those events; you remember waiting for other drivers to find their gas pedals.
We often read that modern 6Gb/s SSDs perform the same, and that you can't really tell one from the others. In daily use that is often true. But when you move beyond the normal tasks, some products simply do better than others. Updating Windows or installing a game after it downloads are great examples of workloads that let one drive stand out from another. The third chart above represents the four-way intersection.
