Upgrading the SSD in Chromebook & MyDigitalSSD Super Boot Drive M.2 2242 SSD Review
by Kristian Vättö on October 21, 2014 8:00 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.
Surprisingly the 16GB Kingston M.2 drive has excellent random read performance. I suspect that having such little NAND helps with random read performance because you are practically hitting the same LBAs, so some IOs may be cached and there is less tracking overhead as well. The MyDigitalSSD drive, on the other hand, does not fare that well, although random read performance has never been the biggest strength of Phison controllers in my experience.
Both the MyDigitalSSD and Kingston drives have rather poor random write performance. Since neither of the drives have a DRAM cache, the host IOs along with the NAND mapping table need to be cached in the internal cache of the controller (or alternatively in NAND), which adds limitations since the internal SRAM caches are typically only a few megabytes in size and NAND is much slower than DRAM.
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 is also better on the 16GB Kingston drive, so it seems that the additional NAND adds quite a lot of overhead when there is no DRAM for caching purposes. In write speed the MyDigitalSSD drive is considerably faster, although 2.5" 256GB drives are also substantially faster still.
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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sligett - Wednesday, October 22, 2014 - link
But one might instead say --I have zero clue why Windows laptops are so popular. I tried one and it was laughably complex compared to Chromebooks that are now pretty much priced the same. This might be ok, but for its complexity, Windows doesn't really run any faster than its Chrome OS counterparts, nor does it get much better battery life at all. I just see no reason unless you just absolutely detest ChromeOS.
BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, October 28, 2014 - link
I think one of the root causes for Chrome OS drawing ire is Google's invasive data mining activities associated with the device, storage of information on their servers, and the linking of that data with web browsing habits (including sites that use Google Ad Services -- of which there are many), GPS and cellular triangulation information (if you also happen to be using Android), mail, app use, time spent in each app, and so forth. Google being behind Chrome is one of the biggest problems with uptake of the platform. Since most of Google's services are offered free of charge, you can be assured that they're generating profit by "farming" their users in the same way social networking does, by monitoring and analysing everything at all times on as many platforms as possible.patel21 - Wednesday, October 22, 2014 - link
If we can create a recovery media, then can we install it on normal PC's ?Bob Todd - Wednesday, October 22, 2014 - link
If you just want to play around and test it, you can just grab a Chromium OS build from various places.daddacool - Wednesday, October 22, 2014 - link
"While the whole netbook boom kind of died with the introduction of tablets"I remember the actual reason for the demise of netbooks being feature creep, obviously coupled with the associated price creep. Netbooks we're orginally known as SCCs; Small Cheap Computers. Once the price began edging up into budget laptop price, the case for them became much less compelling.
waldojim42 - Thursday, October 23, 2014 - link
Yep, I thought this too. I remember netbooks reaching into the $400~$500 range while still running crap Atom processors. I don't know who they expected would be in the market for them, but it sure wasn't me.a1exh - Wednesday, October 22, 2014 - link
How well does the "chrome://imageburner" upgrade method work? If your internal 16/32GB drive is almost full (of non-compressible data) presumably you need a 16/32GB SDHC or USB stick?extide - Friday, October 24, 2014 - link
It doesnt back up your daownloaded data, just the OS.abianand - Thursday, October 23, 2014 - link
Does this SSD upgrade keep the cost of this Chromebook at $200 or increase it?Suo.Eno - Thursday, October 23, 2014 - link
Here you go brohttp://www.anandtech.com/show/8543/upgrading-the-s...