Strontium Hawk (240GB) Review
by Kristian Vättö on June 25, 2013 8:00 AM ESTRandom Read/Write Speed
The four corners of SSD performance are as follows: random read, random write, sequential read and sequential write speed. Random accesses are generally small in size, while sequential accesses tend to be larger and thus we have the four Iometer tests we use in all of our reviews.
Our first test writes 4KB in a completely random pattern over an 8GB space of the drive to simulate the sort of random access that you'd see on an OS drive (even this is more stressful than a normal desktop user would see). I perform three concurrent IOs and run the test for 3 minutes. The results reported are in average MB/s over the entire time. We use both standard pseudo randomly generated data for each write as well as fully random data to show you both the maximum and minimum performance offered by SandForce based drives in these tests. The average performance of SF drives will likely be somewhere in between the two values for each drive you see in the graphs. For an understanding of why this matters, read our original SandForce article.
As I mentioned earlier, random performance is not Hawk's biggest strength.
Sequential Read/Write Speed
To measure sequential performance I ran a 1 minute long 128KB sequential test over the entire span of the drive at a queue depth of 1. The results reported are in average MB/s over the entire test length.
AS-SSD Incompressible Sequential Read/Write Performance
The AS-SSD sequential benchmark uses incompressible data for all of its transfers. The result is a pretty big reduction in sequential write speed on SandForce based controllers.
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Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
That's different. Apple doesn't hide the fact that they've updated the iPad, the least they do is release a press release. I agree that calling third-gen iPad the "iPad 3" and then going back to just "iPad" wasn't the best move from Apple, but it was understandable as the naming would quickly get stupid (imagine e.g. iPad 11). Apple has always been doing that with the MacBook Pros for instance.Strontium did nothing to let the public know that they've changed suppliers, hence the suspicion. No press release, no mention in the product page, nothing. Like I said in the article, we are the first to report about this - I even thought I'm reviewing a SandForce drive until I took the drive apart.
gamoniac - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Great review. Not a bad drive at all. Unfortunately it is overshadowed by the GB vs GiB and Hawk vs Python issues. I don't mind owning one if reliability is their focus. Now the other deciding factors are warranty and customer service. If they can build up a good reputation, they will have a good following.toytanks - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
I just purchased a the Samsung 840 Pro 256GB. Does anyone know how much of a difference it would make to use this instead, in terms of battery life?LB-ID - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
Absolutely not, and you're a fool soon parted from your money if you do.zjozjom - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
for all you thinking samsung 840 pro the best drive, getting brain washed only to see the destroyer benchmark owns it =(yeahhh look at the inconsistent write for sandisk extreme II under hd tach yet it destroys samsung 840 pro due to ncache LOL gj sandisk, samsung stop brain wash people thanks, people stop being retards thanks yeah
hemlock44 - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Should they ever plan to sell in Italy, I strongly suggest a name change, because "Strontium" recalls a scatological term here :-)