The Intel SSD 710 (200GB) Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 30, 2011 8:53 PM EST- Posted in
- Storage
- SSDs
- Intel
- Intel SSD 710
Random Read/Write Speed
The four corners of SSD performance are as follows: random read, random write, sequential read and sequential write speed. Random accesses are generally small in size, while sequential accesses tend to be larger and thus we have the four Iometer tests we use in all of our reviews.
Our first test writes 4KB in a completely random pattern over an 8GB space of the drive to simulate the sort of random access that you'd see on an OS drive (even this is more stressful than a normal desktop user would see). I perform three concurrent IOs and run the test for 3 minutes. The results reported are in average MB/s over the entire time. We use both standard pseudo randomly generated data for each write as well as fully random data to show you both the maximum and minimum performance offered by SandForce based drives in these tests. The average performance of SF drives will likely be somewhere in between the two values for each drive you see in the graphs. For an understanding of why this matters, read our original SandForce article.
Random read performance is actually a bit behind the SSD 320 and old X25-M G2, but still within the same ballpark and comparable to the X25-E. Note that random read performance has always been a strong suite of Intel's, which is very important to many database workloads.
Random write performance is in the same ballpark as the other Intel MLC SSDs, however the X25-E is noticeably faster. SLC NAND is always easier to write to, and we see that advantage clearly here. Although the 710 does ok here, newer controllers from SandForce have raised the bar for highly compressible random write performance by a significant margin.
At high queue depths the X25-E is still significantly faster. Given the random nature of many enterprise server workloads, the 710 could end up slower than the X25-E.
Sequential Read/Write Speed
To measure sequential performance I ran a 1 minute long 128KB sequential test over the entire span of the drive at a queue depth of 1. The results reported are in average MB/s over the entire test length. These results are going to be the best indicator of large file copy performance.
Sequential speed is also quite similar to other Intel drives. Note the slight drop in performance compared to the SSD 320. With the type of workloads the 710 is aimed at, I don't expect large file sequential performance to be a limiting factor. Once again we see that newer 6Gbps controllers from Marvell and SandForce offer much better performance here.
Sequential write performance is up quite a bit over the previous generation drives. The additional spare area is part of the story here, though the 6Gbps controllers still maintain their lead.
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Stas - Sunday, October 2, 2011 - link
Makes you wonder: how did Anandtech survive in the olden days?Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, September 30, 2011 - link
I didn't preview Bulldozer because it would've been a disservice to the community. The performance levels of chips we had access to prior to going under NDA with AMD just wasn't representative of anything.Don't worry, you'll get to hear about Bulldozer soon enough :) AMD said shipping in Q4...
Take care,
Anand
Voidman - Friday, September 30, 2011 - link
I actually would have agreed with this comment a lot more a year ago, or even 6 months ago. I am starting to see a few actual PC builder related reviews in recent months, and am happy about it. (Of course consumer SSD's are of interest to home builders, but that was about the only thing here that was). I was pleasntly surprised to see several reviews on cases/enclosures, something I have not seen here for a long time. And a PSU and monitor review here and there also. All of this came too late for my last build, but it is nice to see anyway.It does seem that there was a decision a couple of years ago to concentrate on smart phones and tablets and home theater gear, with SSD and enterprise IT articles filling in the gaps. I hope the recent trend of more PC builder related articles and reviews continues.
kevith - Saturday, October 1, 2011 - link
Apples products are interesting because they show the way. Tablets, phones and OS, they have the best. (And most expensive and hyped and with a congregation that's gross). But when Apple launches a product, EVERYONE else will try to copy it within months, whether you like it or not. Thats why its interesting reading.Enterprise hardware is interesting to read about because it shows what a new piece of hardware are ACTUALLY capable of. In this case it shows, that if you want a real reliable SSD, the "nickels and dimes", that a consumer-SSD costs is simply not enough.
THizzle7XU - Saturday, October 1, 2011 - link
"Apples products are interesting because they show the way."I actually feel like the media at this point puts Apple in a position to create a self fulfilling prophecy in this regard. The iPad is the greatest example of this. Before the iPad came out there were rumors for years, pretty much since the iPhone debut, that Apple was working on a tablet and how it would be the greatest thing ever. I feel like after the rumors went on for a while, Apple was like, "Ya, this thing sounds cool! Maybe we should build a tablet!". And then all the other manufactures sat on their hands while the obvious was happening waiting for Apple to release the design template when the blueprint was crystal clear for tablets (i.e. just their phone OS on a bigger screen with slight modifications to the apps to take advantage of the screen res).
It's like Apple pays its competitors not to compete with its ideas until they have released their product. And they everyone else becomes a copy cat of ideas that were so painfully obvious in the first place because they inexplicably waited until Apple released their version.
Stas - Sunday, October 2, 2011 - link
How dare you?! Steve Jobs created the universe. zOMG I'm getting wet dreaming about iPhone 5 !!!11!11!111inplainview - Sunday, October 2, 2011 - link
I must suck being you....Hulk - Friday, September 30, 2011 - link
I've been here from day one and Anand keeps getting better. In my opinion he has always been the best tech writer on the internet and now I see his thoughts are as clear an organized when doing a video review. Bravo!Kudos to all of the guys on the Anandtech site. The flavor of all of the reviews flows down to everyone here. Anand is still the best but luckily he is rubbing off on all his guys.
wxrkny - Friday, September 30, 2011 - link
"Anand is still the best but luckily he is rubbing off on all his guys."I hope not, that's gross
sorry I had to
TommyAU - Friday, September 30, 2011 - link
Haha