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PCMark 8 Advanced Workload Performance
To learn how we test advanced workload performance, please click here.
Throughput Tests
We disregard the degrade states for all but the most extreme workloads found in enterprise environments. For most desktop users, the steady state performance is also out of reach; those heavy workloads aren't encountered outside of professional environments with several tasks running concurrently.
Under heavy duress, the Vector 180 keeps pace with Samsung's 850 Pro 1TB, but can't quite achieve the same performance as SanDisk's Extreme Pro.
In tests more representative of everyday use, the Vector 180 960GB delivers good performance. The Extreme Pro and 850 Pro swap places, and the Vector 180 performs nearly as well as the Extreme Pro 960GB. Unfortunately for OCZ, other products with SLC cache layers also recover well and manage to excel in the same light use environment.
Latency Tests
Looking across the chart, OCZ's Vector 180 960GB takes less time to complete tasks than Samsung's 850 Pro 1TB under heavy use.
OCZ manages to reel in the Extreme Pro as well. We've always thought of the Vector 150 as comparable to the Extreme Pro and 850 Pro. However, that drive rarely managed to outperform its competition in any one task. Also, the Vector 150 never scaled to this capacity, so we weren't able to compare terabyte-class performance between all three products. The Vector 180's heavy workload performance remains consistent throughout the benchmarks, though we can't help but wonder what performance would look like without the buffer flush penalty.
Under calmer client conditions, the Vector 180 still keeps pace with its most notable competition. However, other products are able to catch up by virtue of the emulated SLC cache in front of their MLC (and even TLC) foundations.
