IOMeter – IOps
Iometer is an I/O subsystem measurement and characterization tool for single and clustered systems. It was originally developed by the Intel Corporation and announced at the Intel Developers Forum (IDF) on February 17, 1998 – since then it got wide spread within the industry.
Meanwhile Intel has discontinued to work on Iometer and it was given to the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL). In November 2001, a project was registered at SourceForge.net and an initial drop was provided. Since the relaunch in February 2003, the project is driven by an international group of individuals who are continuesly improving, porting and extend the product.
We are running new version of IOMeter, but with a similar configuration as compared with prior versions (i.e. compressibility of data, etc), as to maintain consistency across the test data pool.
Light desktop usage sees QD figures between 1 and 4. Heavy / power user loads run at 8 and higher. Most SSD's are not capable of effectively handling anything higher than QD=32, which explains the plateaus.
Regarding why we use this test as opposed to single-tasker tests like 4KB random reads or 4KB random writes, well, computers are just not single taskers. Writes take place at the same time as reads. We call this mixed-mode testing, and while a given SSD comes with side-of-box specs that boast what it can do while being a uni-tasker, the tests above tend to paint a very different picture.
The SP920 turns in some surprising results in this punishing test. The Intel SSD 730 does clean up here, but the top two capacities of the SP920 are nipping at its toes. Performance drops off proportionally as we get into the 256 and 128GB capacities due to reduced die count. The older SX900's SandForce controller is plainly dusted in this test.
Great to see a new entry in
Great to see a new entry in the 512GB/1TB market. I would argue that now the major data-destroying bugs have been worked out of the SSD controllers, the major factor in the consumer market is price/GB. I’m hoping this new entry helps to force prices down further.
we are ever so close to the
we are ever so close to the ssd sweet spot, which i think is about $0.30-$0.35. $300-$350 1TB , or more importantly $175-$200 for 500GB is the point where fast silent ssd technology will be viable in every mainstream system, leaving the spinning drives for ultra budget systems and those of us who need crazy TBs of storage.
It’s good to finally see a
It’s good to finally see a competitor for the Samsungs and that there is actually a trend to give a price break to go larger. However, the main thing I worry about is reliability with these things. Only time tells the truth there. Glad you led off with the controller.
The 512GB version would be
The 512GB version would be fantastic in my new SFF build but it is a bit overkill considering I have a 2TB WD Black in there. These seem very promising.
I’ll take two 256 GB ones
I’ll take two 256 GB ones (instead of 1 512 GB one) please. #IfYouKnowWhatIMean
Despite the slightly slower
Despite the slightly slower writes at that capacity, it's still a better way to go if you can go RAID-0.