TRIM Performance

To ensure TRIM's functionality and understand the SSD's behavior in a highly fragmented state I wrote sequential data across all user addressable LBAs and then wrote random data (4KB, QD=32) for 20 minutes across all LBAs. Finally I used HDTach to give me a simple visualization of write performance across all available LBAs (aka the Malventano Method):

This pattern is what we've come to expect from the C400/m4. TRIMing the drive completely restores performance of course, but if you're running a highly random workload you're going to see a fairly sharp drop off in performance as the C400/m4 were really only designed for client workloads.

Power Consumption

Drive Power Consumption - Idle

Drive Power Consumption - Sequential Write

Drive Power Consumption - Random Write

AnandTech Storage Bench 2011 - Light Workload
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  • UltraTech79 - Sunday, April 15, 2012 - link

    "And in 95% of all I/O operations are random I/O."

    You're either an idiot, a liar or both. I'll take Anands' word and common techy sense over yours.
    http://www.anandtech.com/show/4253/the-crucial-m4-...
    http://www.anandtech.com/show/4253/the-crucial-m4-...
  • QChronoD - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link

    I think it'd be useful if you added a "standard" hard drive to the power graphs, just so people can more easily see whether it consumes less power than an old platter drive.
    Also, have you put any thought to putting up a table that lists the total energy used to complete your benchmarks? I've seen that some of the faster drives draw more power, but wouldn't it sometimes work out that it still uses less energy since it completes the test faster?
  • Demon-Xanth - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link

    I would honestly love to see desktop motherboards have a port for these on board, and have the form become common enough that you could just snap one on and eliminate the cables associated with it. SFF PCs could become single board affairs with cabling only for power and an optional optical drive.
  • dragonfriend0013 - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link

    Now imagine this attached to a modified Rasberry Pi. Ultra small computer, with storage to boot. And all powered by USB. That will be the day. And to push the envelope further, display using the Google's Project Glass. ULTIMATE!!
  • bobsmith1492 - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link

    Power's still a little high to go from USB; USB can deliver 4.5W, while this drive takes up to 4W while writing. That only leaves 0.5W for the rest of the mini-puter.
  • rs2 - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link

    So what exactly does a 36TBW mean, in useful terms?

    As in, if the drive is used for the primary OS install, then how long will it typically take to accumulate 36 TB of writes, and what happens when that number is reached? Compared to other drives of similar capacity, is 36TBW good, middling, or poor? Is there any empirical data showing a correlation between SSD longevity and "Endurance Spec"? If so, what is it?
  • Jambe - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link

    What was the drive hooked up to for this test? I would appreciate more upfront methodology recaps in these reviews.

    I am also curious as to whether the mSATA ports on motherboards (for example the upcoming Gigabyte Z77 ones) are 3 Gbps or 6 Gbps ports...
  • AnnonymousCoward - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link

    Wake me up when you decide to do a real world test. You know, the time it takes to do something, like boot up or load a program. That's more meaningful than any synthetic benchmark.
  • theSeb - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link

    You clearly have not been reading this site for very long and don't understand much about SSD performance.

    Anandtech used to include those exact benchmarks and they became pointless because in those types of tests the performance across SSDs is nearly the same. I suggest educating yourself before opening your mouth and looking like a luddite.
  • AnnonymousCoward - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link

    What a foolish response. You're wrong because I have been reading the site for a long time, including the first SSD articles.

    Your own words validate my point! If *actual* performance is nearly the same, that's what we want to know!! It's stupid to only look at meaningless graphs that show alleged large differences.

    The real performance difference is all that matters. And if that's very small, then we know to buy based on price and reliability!

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