Previewing Maxiotek's MK8115 SSD Controller: Can DRAM-less Drives Make The Cut?
by Billy Tallis on May 9, 2017 8:00 AM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - The Destroyer
The Destroyer is an extremely long test replicating the access patterns of very IO-intensive desktop usage. A detailed breakdown can be found in this article. Like real-world usage and unlike our Iometer tests, the drives do get the occasional break that allows for some background garbage collection and flushing caches, but those idle times are limited to 25ms so that it doesn't take all week to run the test.
We quantify performance on this test by reporting the drive's average data throughput, a few data points about its latency, and the total energy used by the drive over the course of the test.
As expected, the MK8115 drives perform relatively poorly overall on The Destroyer. The TLC drive's average data rate is about 20% slower than the next slowest drive in this comparison. The MLC sample actually manages to slightly outperform the earlier JMicron drives, which weren't even handicapped by a lack of external DRAM. However, relative to current MLC drives, the MK8115 MLC drive is about 25% slower overall on this test.
The average service times of the MK8115 drives aren't particularly bad. The TLC drive's average service time is lower than either of the other two SATA drives using the same Micron 3D TLC. The MK8115 sample with MLC is slower than the Samsung 850 PRO and PNY CS2211, but slightly faster than the JMicron drives and the OCZ VX500.
The MK8115 drives do a decent job of keeping latency under control, with the MLC drive in particular having about the same number of outliers above 10ms as the best SATA SSDs. The MK8115 with TLC has some trouble but still has far fewer outliers above 10ms than the ADATA SU800.
However, when looking at the number of extreme latency outliers above 100ms, the MK8115 drives are the worst in the bunch and even the MLC drive scores worse than all the competing TLC solutions.
The power efficiency of the MK8115 drives is decent. Even though these drives take a bit longer to complete the test, the total energy used over the course of the test isn't any higher than most of the competition.
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romrunning - Tuesday, May 9, 2017 - link
Here's an example of performance regression - the Intel 600p versus any other Intel PCIe SSD (like the Intel 750 or P3700). Clear performance drop.Don't confuse it with price differences or target buyer - you only asked for an example of performance regression.
MajGenRelativity - Tuesday, May 9, 2017 - link
The 600p isn't even targeted at the same market segment. That's like saying that every single SSD released since the Intel P4800X is a performance regression because it can't come close to those random IOPS. I'm talking about a performance regression within the same price segment.CheapSushi - Wednesday, May 10, 2017 - link
The Intel 600P is TLC NAND and the Intel 750 is MLC NAND.... maybe you don't know the difference? TLC is inherently slower than MLC; 3 bits per cell vs 2 bits per cell.MajGenRelativity - Thursday, May 11, 2017 - link
A. I know the difference. B. MLC vs TLC isn't even the point. C. My point still stands because the 600p is not targeted at the high end.satai - Tuesday, May 9, 2017 - link
There are some cheap models and there some awesome models (Intel 750 and Intel Enterprise models, Samsung 960s, Optanes...). Pick yourself.MajGenRelativity - Tuesday, May 9, 2017 - link
The Intel Optane enterprise drive certainly is awesome, but I find it's price a bit hard to sell an average consumer on.melgross - Tuesday, May 9, 2017 - link
Well, all new technologies cost the most at first, and much less later. Performance is the opposite. The worst at first, and much better later.Next year, the price of Optane will be half of what it is now, but for a 512GB board, rather than the 375GB board it is now. Still expensive, sure. But you just have to learn to be patient.
WinterCharm - Tuesday, May 9, 2017 - link
On the bright side, Optane should be a lot cheaper to produce in the long run. While it's terrible as an accelerator, it's fantastic as a standalone drive. Prices will come down over time.CheapSushi - Wednesday, May 10, 2017 - link
Is the average consumer one that even reads about these things? The average consumer just goes to Best Buy and a salesman tells them what to get. Anyone who reads AnandTech and/or actually read the reviews about Optane aren't average consumers anyway.MajGenRelativity - Thursday, May 11, 2017 - link
True, but I doubt most of us still have the money for a $1,500 375GB SSD