AMD Radeon R7 SSD (240GB) Review
by Kristian Vättö on August 28, 2014 6:00 AM ESTRandom 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). We perform three concurrent IOs and run the test for 3 minutes. The results reported are in average MB/s over the entire time.
Random performance remains similar to other Barefoot 3 SSDs. Peak performance has never been Barefoot 3's strength, which is why especially random read performance seems slow for a modern drive, but the lack of peak performance is compensated by sustained consistency.
Sequential Read/Write Speed
To measure sequential performance we run 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.
Sequential read performance receives a nice upgrade from the Vector 150 and Vertex 460, although that comes at the cost of sequential write speed. It is quite common that an increasing in one benchmark leads to a decrese in another as in the end firmware design is about finding the right balance for IO priorization.
AS-SSD Incompressible Sequential Read/Write Performance
The AS-SSD sequential benchmark uses incompressible data for all of its transfers. The result is a pretty big reduction in sequential write speed on SandForce based controllers, but most other controllers are unaffected.
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formulav8 - Thursday, August 28, 2014 - link
Was that not mainly their Sandforce drives?haukionkannel - Thursday, August 28, 2014 - link
OCZ Vertex was better than for example Samsun 840 evo in the last test that I read about (the Extreme II was the winner though...) But in any way OCZ quality has gone up big steps!Samus - Thursday, August 28, 2014 - link
You won't find somebody that's had worse luck than myself with OCZ SSD's (having purchased many of their first SSD products including the RevoDrive in 2010) but although most of their older products failed on me (some in days, some in years) the second RevoDrive I'm on has been reliable for 3 years and amazingly my Agility 2 still hasn't failed (quite an anomaly when you Google the results of this drives inherent unreliability across the internet.)However, my personal Vector 150 and Vertex 460 haven't done anything weird at all, and I've been so happy with them from a price/performance standpoint I've begun, for the first time even, putting OCZ products (with the exception of PC Power & Cooling PSU's) in corporate PC's for clients and at work. No failures so far. The Vertex 460, cheaper than most Samsung SSD's - my usual go-to performance SSD's, is noticeably more responsive.
Still if you're looking for a cheap reliable SSD based on facts, a used Intel SSD320 on eBay or a Crucial MX100 are sure bets. But for performance Barefoot is very, very good, while still appearing to be very reliable.
AnnihilatorX - Thursday, August 28, 2014 - link
I thought OCZ is now owned by Toshiba, you can't imagine Toshiba would keep the bad quality control in OCZ uncheckedsnuuggles - Thursday, August 28, 2014 - link
Really? Triple negative? :)mapesdhs - Saturday, August 30, 2014 - link
Stop posting FUD that's thoroughly outdated by later tech.I have more than 40 OCZ SSDs, never had a problem with any of them, everything
from lots of V2Es/V3s to V4, Vector and Vector 150. I also have various Samsung,
Crucial, Corsair and other models.
OCZ's later products were really good, especially the Vertex4 and Vector range.
Their mistake was allowing the 1st gen Vertex, Octane and Solid models to be
just too much on the budget side. Ditto the old Agility, though the Agility3 and
especially the Agility4 are ok (I have a few).
Ian.
kyuu - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
Your opinion of OCZ is a few years out of date.Laststop311 - Thursday, August 28, 2014 - link
You are leaving out the best ssd put there. Samsung has 100% vertical integration on the ssd. From the nand, to the controller, to the firmware, to the dram, Samsung makes it all. Why do you think samsung was first to market with TLC and 3d nand? All their teams can work together and get new products to market super fast.errorr - Friday, August 29, 2014 - link
Well the process tech is a completely separate issue from their integration. If you look at Toshiba's new fabs and tech their shrink will allow them to hit similar price points with much better nand dies that are faster and last longer.willis936 - Thursday, August 28, 2014 - link
Good to see honest journalism. Things like an amd button on the front page had me nervous.