Internals, Testing Methodology and System Setup
Internals:
Comparing to P3700:
After noting that the PCB / layout of the P3520 was virtually identical to the compared P3700, I opted to not risk damage disassembling this one. Instead, here is the disassembled pic of the P3700:
Alright, so the only real differences here are some more DRAM to support the higher capacity and NAND packages containing IMFT 3D NAND operating in MLC mode. Same 18-channel controller with only minor firmware tweaks to support and optimize for the new type of flash.
Testing Methodology
This is our first review using a purpose-built enterprise testing suite. We will cover the methodology further into the review and welcome your feedback on our process and presentation.
Test System Setup
We have several storage testbeds, but for this piece we used the same setup used in our 5-way SSD 750 RAID testing. It is not server-class hardware, but it is a reasonable equivalent that allows us to push the CPU to higher clock speeds than server hardware would normally be capable of. This helps shift the burden / bottlenecks to the NVMe PCIe SSDs under test.
PC Perspective would like to thank Intel, ASUS, Corsair, Kingston, and EVGA for supplying some of the components of our test rigs.
| Hard Drive Test System Setup | |
| CPU | Intel Core i7 5960 @ 4.5 GHz |
| Motherboard | ASUS X99 Deluxe |
| Memory | 16GB Micron DDR4 @ 3333 |
| Hard Drive | G.Skill 32GB SLC SSD |
| Sound Card | N/A |
| Video Card | GeForce 210 |
| Video Drivers | GeForce |
| Power Supply | Corsair CMPSU-650TX |
| DirectX Version | N/A |
| Operating System | Windows 8.1 Pro X64 (update) |
- PCPer Enterprise Storage Test Suite 0.95 (beta)
- PACED Latency/IO Percentile and QoS
$0.50/GB is considered good?
$0.50/GB is considered good? Was this article written in 2005?
For pci-e ssds, that is
For pci-e ssds, that is considered good.
Yeah, for SATA SSDs anything
Yeah, for SATA SSDs anything <0.25/GB is pretty good, this is about twice that but you're also getting around twice the speeds.
Too expensive for me personally, but not unreasonable IMO.
Intel enterprise SSDs didn’t
Intel enterprise SSDs didn't launch until 2008, and did so at >$10/GB (>20x the cost).
That’s good progress, so they
That’s good progress, so they should begin to be viable around 2024
SSD market share has doubled
SSD market share has doubled for the past two years. It's expected to surpass HDD a lot sooner than 2024.
in 2005 SSDs would be more
in 2005 SSDs would be more like $50/GB 🙂
For that terrible 0.7 DWPD/5
For that terrible 0.7 DWPD/5 years, I would take 750 over this thing any day, performance wise it’s not even close to P3700/750.
Performance is no comparison,
Performance is no comparison, obviously. The point of this drive is cost, which is a fraction of all parts you mentioned.
Allyn, thank you, I really
Allyn, thank you, I really like the depth of your reviews, I’m actually learning stuff!
I do not find any mention of
I do not find any mention of capacitor for power loss writes. It’s a feature on which I place great importance.
Intel has among the highest,
Intel has among the highest, if not *the* highest power loss testing / qualification / reliability in the industry. It wasn't mentioned specifically because at this point it's just a given for their products. Here's a blurb from one of their product briefings:
They also bombard their drives with radiation (from an accelerator) until they hang, restart them, and ensure no data was corrupted. Their testing is pretty crazy, and that's why their products typically run higher in cost compared to others, but you get what you pay for.
Many think inflight data
Many think inflight data protection only as a safety issue, but it is also a significant performance issue. Without inflight data protection, use of inflight data must be turned off in the OS (it may be called something like write cache) to avoid data corruption in case of power failure, which in turn significantly lowers write speed.
So the point of inflight data protection or the lack of it should be hammered home in every review until it gets the warranted attention.
There are lots of layers of
There are lots of layers of what would/could be considered 'in-flight'. Even with all caching disabled, the mere fact that writes are queued could be considered so, as they are technically buffered by the kernel. To strip all the way down to zero buffering would reduce the performance of *most* SSDs to painful levels, as you'd have to limit to QD=1 and disable all OS buffers.
This protection, as defined by SSD makers, is a guarantee that the data that has been received by the controller at the point of power loss will be retained and available at next power up. Host / OS-side buffers will naturally not be included here.
Very excited about P3520
Very excited about P3520 especially in U.2 2.5″ format. This kind of pricing should really increase the viability (economically speaking) of big top-of-rack all flash arrays.
Not sure if you mentioned in the review but has Intel made any mention of dual-port U.2 version?
No mention of dual port for
No mention of dual port for this one, but I'd guess once 3D rolls out to other models in their lineup, it will include dual port.
So, let me make sure I
So, let me make sure I understand. This SSD is not tested against any other product, yet receives an editors choice. I smell something.
What you smell is no other
What you smell is no other products competing at this low of a cost/GB. Other companies are welcome to sample us their competing products (we ask them often).
It was pretty well-explained
It was pretty well-explained why…
what about raid 0 on 4 of
what about raid 0 on 4 of these
We are thinking of using the
We are thinking of using the P3520 or P3500 in Supermicro 48 bay nvme server. P3500 might be quicker but probably these will already move the bottleneck to the interface… Will have a look if you benchmarked the p3500 before…
Going to try out three of the
Going to try out three of the 1.2TB P3520’s for the hot tier in a three node hyperconverged environment. It’d be interesting to know what sort of benchmark would be relevant for comparison purposes on that kind of platform, since the workload mix could look like practically anything.
Yes it would, trying to set
Yes it would, trying to set up benchmarks simulating that kind of environment is not simple. Let us know how it goes as it could be very interesting.