Benchmark Results: AS SSD
We installed a fresh copy of Windows on Western Digital's Raptor X, Seagate's Momentus XT, and the Samsung 830. After applying all of the available operating system updates, we started our testing with AS SSD.
This is a benchmark written specifically for SSDs, providing a quick and easy way to determine maximum sequential speeds, 4 KiB random performance, and 4 KiB queue depth scalability.
The responsiveness of an operating system and the applications running under it are highly dependent on the time it takes to access small blocks at low queue depths, whilst sequential speeds measure the ability to rapidly transfer large block sizes, which are typically associated with video files, music files, and so on.
When it comes to comparing AS SSD benchmark results, the Momentus XT and Raptor X are an order of magnitude slower than Samsung’s 830, based on access time and 4 KiB performance results. Access time for the Raptor X, in comparison to the Momentus XT, is around 48% less for reads and 77% for writes, although sequential read and write speeds are slower.
However, we only ran AS SSD once on the Momentus XT. Consequently, it was not possible for read requests to be serviced by the on-board NAND. If read requests are made repeatedly, the Momentus XT can put that information in its flash memory so that future read requests don't have to be addressed by the slower mechanical platter.