Synthetic Benchmarks - ATTO and CrystalDiskMark

SATA SSDs behind a USB 3.1 Gen 2 bridge claim speeds of around 550 MBps. Crucial claims 540 MBps, and the ATTO benchmarks for the X6 back up those claims. Unfortunately, these access traces are not very common in real-life scenarios.

SATA-Class External Drives Performance Benchmarks - ATTO

The reads approach the SATA bandwidth limits, but the writes are held back by the DRAM-less nature of the SSD controller and the QLC flash - ATTO maxes out around 370 MBps for those types of transfers. The HP P600 fares much better, but the X6 is better than the ADATA SC680 (it must be kept in mind that we are comparing different capacity points).

CrystalDiskMark, despite being a canned benchmark, provides a better estimate of the performance range with a selected set of numbers. As evident from the screenshot below, the performance can dip to as low as 11MBps for low-queue depth random writes.

SATA-Class External Drives Performance Benchmarks - CrystalDiskMark

Most USB 3.1 Gen 2 drives with NVMe SSDs claim speeds of around 1000 MBps, as does the Crucial Portable SSD X8.

NVMe-Class External Drives Performance Benchmarks - ATTO

Here, we see typical USB 3.1 Gen 2 external SSD speeds - upwards of 900 MBps for writes, and close to 1GBps for reads. CrystalDiskMark provides a better estimate of the performance range with a selected set of numbers. As evident from the screenshot below, the performance can dip to as low as 31MBps for low-queue depth random reads.

NVMe-Class External Drives Performance Benchmarks - CrystalDiskMark

We see slightly better overall performance in the 2TB version compared to the 1TB one for these workloads. Compared to the SanDisk Extreme PRO v2 connected to a USB 3.2 Gen 2 port (the other recent 2TB SSD we have reviewed), the X8 falls slightly behind on the sequential workloads, though random reads are better. Most DAS workloads are of the former type.

Device Features and Characteristics AnandTech DAS Suite - Benchmarking for Performance Consistency
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  • Duncan Macdonald - Thursday, October 22, 2020 - link

    This is QLC flash - most QLC will not reach beyond 1000 cycles - some will only reach a few hundred - the rated TBW IS important. Also the write speed on QLC often degrades as the cycle count increases.
  • zepi - Thursday, October 22, 2020 - link

    I don't care slightest about write endurance - I have hard time envisioning a use case where this kind of drive is written to death. Even few hundred P/E cycles is a lot for a normal person. If you are not a "normal person" and your workload is heavy, then go and buy something else.

    However, what I'd be very afraid is the data retention. QLC - drive being unplugged for reasonably long periods of time etc.

    It is completely normal for people to take backups, transfer bunch of files etc. and expect them to be readable in half a year from writing after storing the drive in the glove compartment of their car or whatever crazy people do.

    Is the data readable after such period? No idea.
  • AMDSuperFan - Thursday, October 22, 2020 - link

    Ganesh - looking at the boxes in your picture they look pretty much banged up. Were these new or used drives that you tested here? I think you are an excellent writer.
  • Oxford Guy - Monday, October 26, 2020 - link

    "The emergence of 3D NAND with TLC and QLC has brought down the cost of such drives."

    You meant:

    The emergence of 3D NAND with TLC has brought down the cost of such drives. QLC, meanwhile, is about increasing margin for drive makers and decreasing quality for consumers."
  • Oxford Guy - Monday, October 26, 2020 - link

    "I don't care slightest about write endurance - I have hard time envisioning a use case where this kind of drive is written to death. Even few hundred P/E cycles is a lot for a normal person. If you are not a "normal person" and your workload is heavy, then go and buy something else. However, what I'd be very afraid is the data retention. QLC - drive being unplugged for reasonably long periods of time etc."

    Drive death in the consumer realm has always been mainly about firmware/controller bugs (or, possibly defective NAND), not the NAND wearing out through use. The most extreme examples I can think of are the Sandforce 2 controllers from OCZ that bricked drives when OCZ switched to 64-bit planar MLC (without telling anyone) and Intel's G2 drive that had a data corruption problem due to bad firmware.

    (The Sandforce problem was never solved by a plethora of firmware patches. OCZ pretended that it solved the issue by letting people return the drives but the people who spent the most money (on the highest capacity drives, the 240 GB ones) were not allowed to return them! I have three bricked 240 GB OCZ drives. Two of them are drives OCZ sent when the first ones bricked.)

    The differences between things like planar MLC and planar TLC have been about other problems. Planar TLC from Samsung didn't result in drive death (the red herring everyone talks about). Instead, it was voltage drift that caused the data to have to be constantly rewritten as a kludge "solution" to very poor performance. That much more frequent writing slows performance, makes one question the safety of storing the drive powered off for long periods, and can lead to the NAND wearing out I suppose.

    Drive death from worn-out NAND has been a red herring for the most part, while other serious drawbacks to increasing the number of voltage states (by adding layers) have been whitewashed. Well, it looks like QLC brings back the drive death from worn-out NAND problem back a bit while having all of the drawbacks of there being so many more voltage states (which increases the problem of drift drastically).

    The only things going for it is that it's 3D instead of planar and that capacities have increased which helps to mask the issue for most consumer workloads. Regardless, I consider QLC to be an unsatisfactory solution to a problem consumers didn't face: how to increase margin for the companies selling drives beyond what 3D TLC offers. That's the real driving force being QLC. It is not giving consumers a much better capacity deal for their money. The economy of scale factor, instead, works against consumer value by increasing the price of 3D TLC. Companies use that as an excuse to keep prices of QLC too high. Neat trick, for as long as they can make it last. By winding down TLC capacity, they can do it for as long as they like, so long as no one decides to fight the current and keep high volume TLC production going and reasonable pricing for it (in defiance of the scarcity dynamic).
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