The SSD Relapse: Understanding and Choosing the Best SSD
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 30, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Individual Application Performance
PCMark Vantage does a great job of summarizing system performance, but I thought I'd pick a couple of applications to showcase real world strengths/weaknesses of these drives.
The first test is our Photoshop CS4 benchmark by the Retouch Artists. I made one small change to the way this test is run however. Normally I set the number of history states in Photoshop to 1, this significantly reduces the impact of the HDD/SSD on the test and makes it a better measure of CPU/memory speed. Since this is an SSD article, I've left the setting at its default value of 20. The numbers are now a lot lower and the performance a lot more disk bound.
I didn't run all of the drives through this test, just one from each major controller. The results speak for themselves. The Indilinx drives are actually the fastest MLC drives here. Even the Samsung is faster than the Intel drives in this test. Why? Sequential write speed. Even the VelociRaptor has a higher sequential write speed than the X25-M. So while sequential write speed isn't the most important metric to look at when evaluating an SSD, there are real world situations where it does matter.
Intel's performance here is just embarassing. Sequential write speed is something Intel needs to take more seriously in the future. Throw in any amount of random read/write operations alongside your Photoshop usage and the Intel drives would redeem themselves, but this is a very realistic snapshot of their achilles' heel.
Many of you have been asking for compiler benchmarks so I did just that. I grabbed the latest source for Pidgin (a popular IM application) and followed the developer's instructions on building it in Windows:
Nada. I thought perhaps it wasn't stressful enough so I tried building two instances in parallel:
And...nothing. It seems that building Pidgin is more CPU than IO bound, or at least its IO access isn't random enough to really benefit from an SSD. I'll keep experimenting with other compiler tests but this one appears to be a bust for SSD/HDD performance testing.
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Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link
Intel insists it's not an artificial cap and I tend to believe the source that fed me that information.That being said, if it's not an artificial cap it's either:
1) Designed that way and can't be changed without a new controller
2) A bug and can be fixed with firmware
3) A bug and can't be fixed without a new controller
Or some combination of those items. We'll see :)
Take care,
Anand
Adul - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link
Another fine article anand :). Keep up the good work.CurseTheSky - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link
This is absolutely the best article I've read in a very long time - not just from Anandtech - from anywhere.I've been collecting information and comparing benchmarks / testimonials for over a month, trying to help myself decide between Intel, Indilinx, and Samsung-based drives. While it was easy to see that one of the three trails the pack, it was difficult to decide if the Intel G2 or Indilinx drives were the best bang for the buck.
This article made it all apparent: The Intel G2 drives have better random read / write performance, but worse sequential write performance. Regardless, both drives are perfectly acceptable for every day use, and the real world difference would be hardly noticeable. Now if only the Intel drives would come back in stock, close to MSRP.
Thank you for taking the time to write the article.
deputc26 - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link
been waiting months for this one.therealnickdanger - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link
Ditto! Thanks Anand! Now the big question... Intel G2 or Vertex Turbo? :) It's nice to have options!Hank Scorpion - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link
Anand,YOU ARE A LEGEND!!! go and get some good sleep, thanks for answering and allaying my fears... i appreciate all your hard work!!!!
256GB OCZ Vertex is on the top of my list as soon as a validated Windows 7 TRIM firmware that doesnt need any work by me is organized....
once a firmware is organised then my new machine is born.... MUHAHAHAHAHAHA
AbRASiON - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link
Vertex Turbo is a complete rip off, Anand clearly held back saying it from offending the guy at OCZ.Now the other OCZ models however, could be a different story.
MikeZZZZ - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link
I too love my Vertex. Running these things in RAID0 will blow your mind. I'm just waiting for some affordable enterprise-class drives for our servers.Mike
http://solidstatedrivehome.com">http://solidstatedrivehome.com
JPS - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link
I loved the first draft of the Anthology and this is a great follow-up. I have been running a Vertex in workstation and laptop for months know and continue to be amazed at the difference when I boot up a comparable system still running standard HDDs.gigahertz20 - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link
Another great article from Anand, now where can I get my Intel X-25M G2 :)