AnandTech Storage Bench 2013

Our Storage Bench 2013 focuses on worst-case multitasking and IO consistency. Similar to our earlier Storage Benches, the test is still application trace based – we record all IO requests made to a test system and play them back on the drive we are testing and run statistical analysis on the drive's responses. There are 49.8 million IO operations in total with 1583.0GB of reads and 875.6GB of writes. I'm not including the full description of the test for better readability, so make sure to read our Storage Bench 2013 introduction for the full details.

AnandTech Storage Bench 2013 - The Destroyer
Workload Description Applications Used
Photo Sync/Editing Import images, edit, export Adobe Photoshop CS6, Adobe Lightroom 4, Dropbox
Gaming Download/install games, play games Steam, Deus Ex, Skyrim, Starcraft 2, BioShock Infinite
Virtualization Run/manage VM, use general apps inside VM VirtualBox
General Productivity Browse the web, manage local email, copy files, encrypt/decrypt files, backup system, download content, virus/malware scan Chrome, IE10, Outlook, Windows 8, AxCrypt, uTorrent, AdAware
Video Playback Copy and watch movies Windows 8
Application Development Compile projects, check out code, download code samples Visual Studio 2012

We are reporting two primary metrics with the Destroyer: average data rate in MB/s and average service time in microseconds. The former gives you an idea of the throughput of the drive during the time that it was running the test workload. This can be a very good indication of overall performance. What average data rate doesn't do a good job of is taking into account response time of very bursty (read: high queue depth) IO. By reporting average service time we heavily weigh latency for queued IOs. You'll note that this is a metric we have been reporting in our enterprise benchmarks for a while now. With the client tests maturing, the time was right for a little convergence.

Storage Bench 2013 - The Destroyer (Data Rate)

The Reactor does very well in our 2013 Storage Bench and is only beaten by the more expensive SanDisk and Samsung. Among the more value-oriented 1TB SSDs, the Reactor seems to be taking the lead.

Storage Bench 2013 - The Destroyer (Service Time)

Performance Consistency & TRIM Validation AnandTech Storage Bench 2011
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  • Andy Chow - Tuesday, February 10, 2015 - link

    I just checked, my Vertex 4, 256 GB, has 72 TB of Writes from host (Raw value 36277402795) after a little more than 2 years (18461 hours) of use. I kind of expect it to die around the 350 TB mark, so I'm not that concerned. But with this drive I would be. I guess it's based on personal use.
  • Mark_gb - Monday, February 9, 2015 - link

    It is still Feb 9, 2015, and the price comparision chart shows this new Mushkin and a Samsung 850 EVO both at $390. Mushkin used to be a great memory OEM, but you don't hear much from them anymore. If the Mushkin was $60 cheaper, I would definately buy it. But with the two both at the same price, I would go with Samsung again. Never lost a bit, and it comes with the Samsung Magician toolbox.
  • Powerlurker - Tuesday, February 10, 2015 - link

    They still make memory. The problem is that there's much less justification to buy premium RAM nowadays.
  • KAlmquist - Saturday, February 14, 2015 - link

    The prices are only the same if you buy from Amazon. Newegg prices (including shipping) are $361 for the Mushkin drive and $404 for the Samsung 850 EVO.
  • djvita - Monday, February 9, 2015 - link

    Speaking of SSD reviews, now I want to see this one!

    Crucial MX200 1TB SATA 2.5 Inch Internal Solid State Drive - CT1000MX200SSD1
    Sequential reads/writes up to 555 / 500 MB/s on all file types
    Random reads/writes up to 100k / 87k IOPS on all file types Up to 5x more endurance and over 2x more energy efficient than a typical client SSD
    **Dynamic Write Acceleration delivers faster saves and file transfers** (might help in destroyer benchmark)
    Includes spacer for 9.5mm applications
    $446

    Just released on Amazon.
  • Kristian Vättö - Monday, February 9, 2015 - link

    I will be getting my MX200 samples this week, so the review will come in the next few weeks.
  • rahuldesai1987 - Monday, February 9, 2015 - link

    Great! Keep coming up with the reviews.
  • fastasleep - Tuesday, March 24, 2015 - link

    I just ordered this one to put in my 2011 MacBook Pro optical drive bay, alongside an M550 boot drive. Any reason I might want to switch them and put the Mushkin drive as the main boot drive? I'm going to move my iTunes library and video editing scratch disk to the secondary drive and thought the power saving features of the Mushkin would make sense for a secondary drive that's not accessed as often, and the M550 looks like it has higher IOPS and slightly faster sequential read, but slower sequential write (so, a wash there?). Is there a clear choice here for a primary and secondary drive? (and yes the optibay is sata3 - I believe some models that year were still sata2)
  • gcb - Saturday, May 2, 2015 - link

    The only drive in the same price range is the Crucial M500 960GB for $300, and it wasn't included in the comparisson?!!?

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