Random Performance – Iometer (IOPS/latency), YAPT (random)
We are trying something different here. Folks tend to not like to click through pages and pages of benchmarks, so I'm going to weed out those that show little to no delta across different units (PCMark). I'm also going to group results performance trait tested. Here are the random access results:
Iometer:
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. Intel later discontinued work on Iometer and passed it onto the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL). In November 2001, code was dropped on SourceForge.net. 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.
Iometer – IOPS
The Vector 180 turns in mostly good performance except where we have a 30% write workload, which takes place in our Database test. The QD=16 point happens to take place at a 20 second interval through that ramp. The 20 second interval issue is covered later in this article, but for now I will just say that the Vector 180 stalls sustained writes every 20 seconds, and as evidenced in the chart above, that stall has a more significant impact at increased capacities.
Iometer – Average Transaction Time
For SSD reviews, HDD results are removed here as they throw the scale too far to tell any meaningful difference in the results. Queue depth has been reduced to 8 to further clarify the results (especially as typical consumer workloads rarely exceed QD=8). Some notes for interpreting results:
- Times measured at QD=1 can double as a value of seek time (in HDD terms, that is).
- A 'flatter' line means that drive will scale better and ramp up its IOPS when hit with multiple requests simultaneously, especially if that line falls lower than competing units.
No surprises in transaction times at QD=8 and below.
YAPT (random)
YAPT (yet another performance test) is a benchmark recommended by a pair of drive manufacturers and was incredibly difficult to locate as it hasn't been updated or used in quite some time. That doesn't make it irrelevant by any means though, as the benchmark is quite useful. It creates a test file of about 100 MB in size and runs both random and sequential read and write tests with it while changing the data I/O size in the process. The misaligned nature of this test exposes the read-modify-write performance of SSDs and Advanced Format HDDs.
This test has no regard for 4k alignemnt, and it brings many SSDs to their knees rather quickly. The Vector 180 handles this workload well, save a few hiccups that are explained on the next page.
Man, Allyn, you really
Man, Allyn, you really reestablished my faith in you. Historically, you have been very easy on OCZ SSD’s, often giving them the benefit of the doubt with respect to problems with them at review time that you assumed would be fixed eventually by firmware updates and lower pricing. Just saying, with the conclusions you reached, this is a drive I will definitely be steering clear of.
thanks
As the saying goes: “Fool me
As the saying goes: "Fool me once…"
“There’s an old saying in
“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”
There’s some genuine
There’s some genuine investigative reporting going on there in the fifth page of this review and it’s very refreshing. Nicely done Mr. Malventano.
In my view page 5 basically blows the lid off of OCZ and the reliability of their Barefoot controller. Despite reporting from most outlets, for years now drives based off of this technology have suffered massive failure rates due to sudden power loss. Here we have definitive evidence of those flaws and the lengths OCZ is going to in order to work around them (note, i didn’t say ‘fix’ them).
The fact that they were willing to go to the extra cost of adding the power loss module in addition to crippling the sustained performance of their flagship drive in order to flush the cache out of DRAM speaks VOLUMES about how bad their reliability was before. You don’t go to such extreme – potentially kiss of death measures – without a good boot up your ass pushing you headlong toward them. In this case said boot was constructed purely out of OCZ’s fear that releasing yet ANOTHER poorly constructed drive would finally put their reputation out of it’s misery for good and kill any chance a future sales.
OCZ has cornered themselves in a no win scenario:
1) They don’t bother making the drive reliable and in doing so save the cost of the power loss module and keep the sustained speed of the Vector 180 high. The drive reviews well with no craters in performance and the few customers OCZ has left buy another doomed Barefoot SSD that’s practically guaranteed to brick on them within a few months. As a result they loose those customers for good along with their company.
or
2) The go to the cost of adding the power loss module and cripple the drives performance to ensure that the drive is reliable. The drive reviews horribly and no one buys it.
This is their position. Kiss of death indeed.
Ultimately, i think it speaks to how complicated controller development is and that if you don’t have a huge company with millions of R&D funds at your disposal it’s probably best if you don’t throw your hat into that ring. It’s a shame but it seems to be the way high tech works. (Global oligopoly, here we come.)
All things considered, it’s nice that this is finally all out in the open. Thanks Allyn.
Somehow I’m not suprised.
Somehow I’m not suprised.
You tested the Vector 180
You tested the Vector 180 with the new 1.01 firmware, but was the Radeon R7 also updated to 1.01, as OCZ recommends? Does it show the same write hitching?
The R7 results in this piece
The R7 results in this piece were based on the initial firmware. We're going to take a closer look at all other M00 based drives (with updates applied) now that we've uncovered this behavior.
beta testing on consumers.
beta testing on consumers. fail products fail company fail fail fail! all computer parts should handle power fails the same way: not requiring a 2-3 week rma. ocz should not exist anymore.
>Blah-blah-blah
>Blah-blah-blah walloftextsomethingsomething blah-blah-somethingwalloftext-blah-somethingsomethingwalloftext >aaand…it’s crap.
You should have said so right away, d00ds.
“Write hitching”. I first saw
“Write hitching”. I first saw that and all I could think of was the the old stuttering jmicron controllers….on older OCZ drives no less. Bad memories.
Now you show compelling evidence on why you might want to flat out avoid drives with Barefoot controllers.
Love these in-depth articles. Awesome job as usual.
Even though JMicron was
Even though JMicron was always slow as hell (and still is even these days), AT LEAST IT DIDN’T FAIL RIGHT OUT OF IT’S ASS, like that SandForce trash does all the time. JMicron’s stuff slow, true, but also one of the more reliable controllers out there.
As a data point, no JMicron
As a data point, no JMicron controller we ever tested halted all writes for more than one second, and it certainly didn't do so every 20 seconds.
How long is it going to take
How long is it going to take to forget-
“Friends DON’T let friends OCZ”
Unless you’re buying their
Unless you’re buying their “extremely-rare-now-since-they’re-not-doing-them-anymore” PSUs, that is.