Intel SSD 750 PCIe SSD Review: NVMe for the Client
by Kristian Vättö on April 2, 2015 12:00 PM ESTATTO - Transfer Size vs Performance
I'm keeping our ATTO test around because it's a tool that can easily be run by anyone and it provides a quick look into performance scaling across multiple transfer sizes. I'm providing the results in a slightly different format because the line graphs didn't work well with multiple drives and creating the graphs was rather painful since the results had to be manually inserted cell be cell as ATTO doesn't provide a 'save as CSV' functionality.
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AS-SSD Incompressible Sequential Performance
I'm also keeping AS-SSD around as it's freeware like ATTO and can be used by our readers to confirm that their drives operate properly. AS-SSD uses incompressible data for all of its transfers, so it's also a valuable tool when testing SandForce based drives that perform worse with incompressible data.
TRIM Validation
The move from Windows 7 to 8.1 introduced some problems with the methodology we have previously used to test TRIM functionality, so I had to come up with a new way to test. I tested a couple of different methods, but ultimately I decided to go with the easiest one that can actually be used by anyone. The software is simply called trimcheck and it was made by a developer that goes by the name CyberShadow in GitHub.
Trimcheck tests TRIM by creating a small, unique file and then deleting it. Next the program will check whether the data is still accessible by reading the raw LBA locations. If the data that is returned by the drive is all zeros, it has received the TRIM command and TRIM is functional.
And as expected TRIM appears to be working.
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mmrezaie - Thursday, April 2, 2015 - link
finally it has started, although I wont budge now. maybe next generation.blanarahul - Thursday, April 2, 2015 - link
Hey Kristian, I read that the 1.2 TB model uses 84 dies. But that's not a multiple of 18. So what gives? Is it running in 14 channel mode or something?blanarahul - Thursday, April 2, 2015 - link
Okay so it has 86 dies. But now it's even more confusing. Aren't they supposed be multiples of number of channels the controller is using?SunLord - Thursday, April 2, 2015 - link
Its likely 18 channels so 4 probably only address 4 dies while the 14 other channels handle 5woggs - Thursday, April 2, 2015 - link
yepTyrDonar - Friday, April 10, 2015 - link
Controllers don't have to operate on a specific multiple of the number of dies. That's just a coincidence as to how we've seen them so far on most SSD's. They can operate with varying priorities and asymmetrically. Further, more than 1 channel can address the same die in different intervals/priorities. As controllers become more and more complex, this kind of assymetrical operation will become more common, unfortunately this is correlated with increasing number of total dies and lower reliability.huaxshin - Thursday, April 2, 2015 - link
Will there be any M2 SSDs from Intel with NVMe? Some notebooks, and desktops, have routed PCIe to M2 slots where its the only place its available.blanarahul - Thursday, April 2, 2015 - link
No.DigitalFreak - Thursday, April 2, 2015 - link
Not with this controller. Maybe down the road.bgelfand - Thursday, April 2, 2015 - link
I suspect this drive is not for the current z97 chip set, but will realize its potential with the Z170 chipset (Sunrise Point) due for release in the second half of this year with Skylake. The Z170 chipset has 20 PCIe 3.0 lanes and DMI 3.0 (8 GB/s) bus interface.It should be a very interesting second half of the year - Skylake CPU, Sunrise Point chipsets, and Windows 10.