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 continuously improving, porting and extending the product.
* We will be discontinuing our File and Web Server tests for client SSD tests after this review, as they employ legacy workloads that are 16 years old (yes, in the year 2000) and are simply no longer representative of modern technology.
Iometer – IOPS
The 2TB EVO had an issue we noted in our original review, and while it's been a year since we communicated additional details to Samsung, the issue remains. Fortunately that same issue is no longer present with the 4TB model (and is now expected to be fixed on the 2TB at some point). The 2TB's issue was specific to IOPS performance not fully recovering after the drive was TRIMmed, for those curious.
Iometer – Average Transaction Time
For SSD reviews, HDD results are removed 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.
The above latencies are average figures. If you want far greater detail on this data, simply flip to the next page!
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.
YAPT is a 'misaligned' test, in that it does not adhere to 4k boundaries. Many modern drives don't agree with it very well at all, as you can see above. Samsung does better than most, and the dip seen in the 2TB model is happily resolved with the 4TB capacity.
I think there is a demand for
I think there is a demand for high capacity SSDs it’s just the price is nowhere near where it needs to be. As the price comes down, demand goes up as we learned in Economics 101 :). Maybe when we see $0.20/GB. Are SSD prices artificially high? Seems like profit-taking at this point.
At the risk of being
At the risk of being pedantic, saying that demand goes up is slightly misleading. Only quantity demanded will increase when price decreases. Demand also depends on other factors other than price (i.e quality of product, price of other competing SSDs)
Why wouldn’t Samsung want to maximise profits if they’re the only ones with consumer SSDs with 4TB capacity?
Thank you. I’m glad I’m not
Thank you. I’m glad I’m not the only one that cringed a little when I read the original comment.
By demand I did mean quantity
By demand I did mean quantity demanded, the demand curve remains the same. My point was the large SSD demand is there just not at this price.
The 2TB 850 EVO is going for
The 2TB 850 EVO is going for $635(Sale Price) at Amazon, so $1270 for 2 drives and 4TB “total”. That’s around $0.32/GB and what is the performance metrics for 2/2TB drives in various raid/other configurations.
So long as you’re on a
So long as you're on a desktop with Intel RST, almost every performance metric doubles when shifting to a pair of SATA devices. If you need 4TB on desktop, a pair of 2TB would be the way to go, but pay attention to the yet-to-be-fixed performance issues we noted with the 2TB model. It's possible that the 48-layer version of the same capacity fixed that issue, but we don't have a sample to test.
We already have $0.20/GB
We already have $0.20/GB prices for SSDs. Simply go to pcpartpicker and sort by price/GB
I have a couple cheap silicon
I have a couple cheap silicon power SSDs and they are meh at best, then again they are the 120gb version not 480.
But not high quality SSDs in
But not high quality SSDs in large capacities. Obviously the 1TB+ SSD market is pretty pricey still. My point is there will be a large demand once the price becomes more reasonable.
TLC is still relatively new
TLC is still relatively new so not sure if it’s “price taking” so much as Samsung trying to get a reasonable ROIC on all the R&D they took to bring TLC to market in the first place.
I grabbed 2 250gb evos on
I grabbed 2 250gb evos on amazon for 78 each or ~$.31 per gig… hopefully they get down there again. Made for a fun raid 0.
300TBW = the flash is rated
300TBW = the flash is rated for 75 write cycles before kaput(warranty)?
I don’t like the idea of
I don’t like the idea of having TLC. I would be willing to pay a bit more and have the pro version with a warranty of more than 300TBW. Allyn, do you know when will Samsung release the pro version?
That’s wonderful, too bad I
That’s wonderful, too bad I won’t be able to afford it. I can’t even afford the 1 TB EVO yet.
So want, such money, can’t
So want, such money, can’t afford.
I bought the muschkin 1tb
I bought the muschkin 1tb when it first came out. It has been solid for my z97 build. What I’ve seen so far, their 4tb is supposed to be a good deal when it comes out. I’ll pair that with my 950 pro 512gig in my laptop I just purchased. Do believe it’ll be a good replacement for the 7200 rpm drive that’s in there. Maybe it’ll even push the price of this samsung drive down, 4tb ssd with rapid mode with magician would be solid also.