OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS & Patriot Wildfire SSDs Reviewed
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 23, 2011 4:35 AM ESTA Note on Real World Performance
The majority of our SSD test suite is focused on I/O bound tests. These are benchmarks that intentionally shift the bottleneck to the SSD and away from the CPU/GPU/memory subsystem in order to give us the best idea of which drives are the fastest. Unfortunately, as many of you correctly point out, these numbers don't always give you a good idea of how tangible the performance improvement is in the real world.
Some of them do. Our 128KB sequential read/write tests as well as the ATTO and AS-SSD results give you a good indication of large file copy performance. Our small file random read/write tests tell a portion of the story for things like web browser cache accesses, but those are difficult to directly relate to experiences in the real world.
So why not exclusively use real world performance tests? It turns out that although the move from a hard drive to a decent SSD is tremendous, finding differences between individual SSDs is harder to quantify in a single real world metric. Take application launch time for example. I stopped including that data in our reviews because the graphs ended up looking like this:
All of the SSDs performed the same. It's not just application launch times though. Here is data from our Chrome Build test timing how long it takes to compile the Chromium project:
Even going back two generations of SSDs, at the same capacity nearly all of these drives perform within a couple of percent of one another. Note that the Vertex 3 is even a 6Gbps drive and doesn't even outperform its predecessor.
So do all SSDs perform the same then? The answer there is a little more complicated. As I mentioned at the start of this review, I do long term evaluation of all drives I recommend in my own personal system. If a drive is particularly well recommended I'll actually hand out drives for use in the systems of other AnandTech editors. For example, back when I wanted to measure actual write amplification on SandForce drives I sent three Vertex 2s to three different AnandTech editors. I had them use the drives normally for two - three months and then looked at the resulting wear on the NAND.
In doing these real world use tests I get a good feel for when a drive is actually faster or slower than another. My experiences typically track with the benchmark results but it's always important to feel it first hand. What I've noticed is that although single tasks perform very similarly on all SSDs, it's during periods of heavy I/O activity that you can feel the difference between drives. Unfortunately these periods of heavy I/O activity aren't easily measured, at least in a repeatable fashion. Getting file copies, compiles, web browsing, application launches, IM log updates and searches to all start at the same time while properly measuring overall performance is near impossible without some sort of automated tool. Unfortunately most system-wide benchmarks are more geared towards CPU or GPU performance and as a result try to minimize the impact of I/O.
The best we can offer is our Storage Bench suite. In those tests we are actually playing back the I/O requests captured of me using a PC over a long period of time. While all other bottlenecks are excluded from the performance measurement, the source of the workload is real world in nature.
What you have to keep in mind is that a performance advantage in our Storage Bench suite isn't going to translate linearly into the same overall performance impact on your system. Remember these are I/O bound tests, so a 20% increase in your Heavy 2011 score is going to mean that the drive you're looking at will be 20% faster in that particular type of heavy I/O bound workload. Most desktop PCs aren't under that sort of load constantly, so that 20% advantage may only be seen 20% of the time. The rest of the time your drive may be no quicker than a model from last year.
The point of our benchmarks isn't to tell you that only the newest SSDs are fast, but rather to show you the best performing drive at a given price point. The best values in SSDs are going to be last year's models without a doubt. I'd say that the 6Gbps drives are interesting mostly for the folks that do a lot of large file copies, but for most general use you're fine with an older drive. Almost any SSD is better than a hard drive (almost) and as long as you choose a good one you won't regret the jump.
I like the SF-2281 series because, despite things like the BSOD issues, SandForce has put a lot more development and validation time into this controller than its predecessor. Even Intel's SSD 320 is supposed to be more reliable than the X25-M G2 that came before it. Improvements do happen from one generation to the next but they're evolutionary - they just aren't going to be as dramatic as the jump from a hard drive to an SSD.
So use these numbers for what they tell you (which drive is the fastest) but keep in mind that a 20% advantage in an I/O bound scenario isn't going to mean that your system is 20% faster in all cases.
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lyeoh - Thursday, June 23, 2011 - link
Because the main reasons why so very many SSD drives fail does not appear to be due to the "nm" of the NANDs.As far as I know, the larger "nm" SSDs also have been failing a lot.
Movieman420 - Thursday, June 23, 2011 - link
Can't wait until you guys get your hands on the hard to find/unavailable 240gb MaxIOP drive. It will obviously be the king once it hits the channel. Farther down the road, I dare say that the MaxIOP will be bested. How? you ask? The answer...the soon to be available Samsung 27nm DDR toggle nand said to out run the 32nm SDR toggle by 40-60 percent as well as match the durability (p/e cycles) of 34nm nand! Now the big question is...Does the SF2281 have enuff uuumph left to utilize the much faster DDR nand? I'm hoping that the lower cost of the 27nm process nand will offset the 'fastest nand' price premium that will surely be levied. Also, the new 27nm DDR will be available in both 32Gb and 64Gb dies which will allow there to be a higher performance 60GB SF2281 drive...atm the only Ocz 60gb SF2281s are the Agility 3 and Solid 3 which are almost beaten by the Vertex 2 34nm equivalent...that's why they didn't earn the Vertex 3 name tag. A higher performing small drive is just the thing that raid fanatics like me like to use. You can have a fast array without spending $300-$500 per drive for real sata III performance. This is why a 60gb Vertex 3 drive would sell like wild fire. Don't get me wrong, my current 4 x 34nm Vertex 2 60gb array is plenty fast but don't have near the compressed write resilience (aka less nand throttling) of the SF2281 drives. I look forward to spending ~$300 for 2 V3 60's that will totally blow away a single $300 120gb/$500 240gb V3.L. - Thursday, June 23, 2011 - link
I don't quite get what you are trying to say.But basically, DDR = RAID0 2 elements .
So between 8 dies on an 8 channel controller and 8 ddr dies on a 4 channel controller you should see absolutely no difference.
Now considering current controllers have 8+ channels and the smallest ddr at the expected time of implementation is a dual die 32gb nand chip .. that's 240GB and abbove.
This is not the world of RAM where you can just stick more chips in parallel (ddr5...), then dual channel controller over that etc.
Of course the same ideas are always applicable, but for those samsung ddr chips to be worth anything you'd need to go to 480GB+ and no they're not faster than anything they're just ddr, and that difference matters a lot.
You will not find two 60GB drives that are better in raid0 than a single 120GB drive, because said 120GB drive is basically those two drives in raid0, with one less controller and the raid on the sandforce controller, better algorithm usage etc.
Again, number of channels, nand packages, etc.
Unless somebody starts making 32 GB DDR5 NAND dies I don't expect much change in there ;)
Gittun - Thursday, June 23, 2011 - link
You do realize the 240GB max iops edition is already in the graphs?The_True - Thursday, June 23, 2011 - link
Well!!i wont say anything bad about anand, but i think anad is putting his hand on fire for OCZ SSD.
i used to like OCZ, but i get tired of RMA and windows Reinstall every other week.
i dont care about 20 or 30 MB/S faster, i care about relaibility, not benchmark the driver every hour to make me feel good.
OCZ driver are not reliable, if you use your computer for work, go Intel is the only SSD out there that is reliable for business.
MAX IOPS?? i called it MAX windows re install!!
after getting two intel 510 250Gb, i been running windows without problems for two months, now i can work without worry.
velis - Thursday, June 23, 2011 - link
I'd hardly call "I have 8 of these and haven't seen the problem so I tend to believe OCZ" putting one's hand into fire. He's just stating his observations.And just so you know:
I started out with OCZ Core 120GB SSD (1st gen crap). Had to replace two of them before support finally figured out that my usage patterns burn out *every* Core SSD in about two months. And I most certainly don't blame OCZ - it was me who was uneducated and bought the wrong disk back then.
So they gave me a Vertex 1 120GB (Indilinx) as a replacement. Been happy with it ever since (sept. 1009).
Additionally I bought 3 Intel X25 80GB G2s. Each and every one of them has given me pain. Not lots of it, but it has. Every once in a while I get a corrupt sector or two, checkdisk runs on it and then I'm fine for the next few weeks. My main computer now needs reinstall because these once-in-a-while events brought the disk (in one year time) into such a state that I had to disable monitor sleep because otherwise the computer won't wake up after it any more. Not to mention other various BSODs and stuff. Luckily I keep my important data on spinning disks and back up to 3 different destinations. Any yes, I know I'm lazy :P
On the other hand, the Vertex never gave me any reason not to like it. In fact - I use it in my work computer and brag about it to all the rest of the company I work for. Luckily for me my bosses don't want to invest into SSDs yet so currently I have the fastest "server" around :D
So, as far as I'm concerned, it's intel who is unreliable, not OCZ...
Jaybus - Friday, June 24, 2011 - link
Why would you say that about the hand in the fire? On almost every one of these reviews, he says something like the following quote from this article.</p><p>"I still believe the Intel SSD 510 is a great balance of performance and reliability. If you want something with an even lower failure rate, there's always the Intel SSD 320 "
Minion4Hire - Thursday, June 23, 2011 - link
I've had a very similar experience to Anand's. Between my own and my immediate family's computer's I am running 2 Intel drives (G2 and 320), 3 OCZ (Agility, Vertex, Agility 2) and Corsair (Force) and have not had the slightest issues with any of them. Of the various computers I have built for other people I have only recently seen a single SSD die, which was an Indilinx Agility from 1.5 years ago. Replaced it with a Vertex 2.People are going to have issues but I, like Anand, don't bother trying to optimize or tweak anything. AHCI enabled, all other drive, BIOS, and OS settings are on their defaults. Everything I've used has worked flawlessly. I'm not saying some people haven't had problems, but is this anger really any different than any other brand rage?
Sandforce is arguably the most popular controller manufacturer atm. Frankly, one of very few options. Obviously some people are going to have problems. And those people are going to be able to find other people who ALSO have those problems. It doesn't mean everyone is having them.....
michal1980 - Thursday, June 23, 2011 - link
Anand is carring water for OCZ.A mystery fat envelop of cash showed up in someones mail box?
So OCZ claims they have a ~1% failure rate, and you just belive them? what manufacture wont lie about that?
P.S. your sample size of 1 or 2, is not good enough to make any claims as to the quality of the product.
The_True - Thursday, June 23, 2011 - link
have you notice that in Anandtech are more Review about OCZ than any other site on the net?lol.... "A mystery fat envelop of cash showed up in someones mail box?
" hahahahah...lol
i mean what is going on Anand??