IOMeter – Average Transaction Time (rev 1)
Back with the Kingston SSDNow V Series 40GB review, I revised the layout of these graphs to better show SSD latency and access time. First, I have removed HDD results as they throw the scale too far to tell any meaningful difference in the SSD’s you are trying to focus on. Second, I have reduced the queue depth scale down to 4. In practical terms of a running OS, queue depth is how many commands are ‘stacked up’ on the SSD at that time. An SSD is so fast at servicing requests that typical use will rarely see it increasing past 4. In the cases where it does, there is so much going on that you are more concerned with IOPS and throughput at that point than transaction time. The below charts are meant to show how nimble a given SSD is. Think of it as how well a car handles as opposed to how fast it can go.
Some notes for interpreting results:
- Times measured at QD=1 can serve as a more ‘real’ value of seek time.
- A ‘flatter’ line means that drive will scale better and ramp up its IOPS when hit with multiple requests simultaneously.
It’s just simple (inverse) math at this point. Drives that perform at lower IOPS will have latencies at the higher ends of these scales. These charts demonstrate that the Marvell controller in the now superceded 510 Series had the worst latency of the pack at QD=1.
They command a 20% Price
They command a 20% Price premium vs competitor’s products. not a good buy in my opinion. I just upgraded my system with a 64GB OCZ synapse cache drive. And I am happy and set. BF3 level load fast!
Is it worth upgrading from my
Is it worth upgrading from my 160GB X-25M?
hmm, i dunno. IMO, a SSD
hmm, i dunno. IMO, a SSD upgrade from an SSD is kind of a hard sell 😛 If you have the money and don’t know what else to spend it on, sure it’ll be faster but won’t be as large of a jump in performance as the jump from a hard drive to that X-25M was.
There is a fatal flaw in
There is a fatal flaw in these drives.
If the ATA password is lost there is NO way to reset the drive and it is bricked with no hope!
Unlike other FDE drives, you CANNOT secure erase or reset the password or drive to the factory null state. Worse yet, if you do try to secure erase these drives, the ATA password will be lost and again the drive is dead.
Nobody knows why Intel made this fatal mistake, but they did.