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BENCHMARKS
Here are a few benchmarks from the OCZ Vertex 3 we reviewed this morning, containing the SF-2281 Processor. These benchmarks are of a prototype and unreleased drive where there is a great deal more fine tuning to be done before release.
Personally, I don’t believe the high sequential read and write access is nearly as surprising as the 4kb random write speeds. Very rarely will a typical person use high sequential disk access whereas the 4kb random access is in use for over 50% of a users activity.
This access method also plays the largest role in your systems visible performance upgrade. A 4kb random write score of 100MB/s just about doubles that of which we are seeing in the top SSDs today which is a very welcome characteristic. It wouldn’t be fair to speak so highly of PCMark Vantage without throwing in the transfer speeds of each simulated activity so we thought we might compare it to the the OCZ RevoDrive as it is a RAID 0 configuration and brings in similar results in synthetic testing:
CLOSING THOUGHTS
There are many other enhancements such as increased flash compatibility, flash life performance throttling, power performance throttling, 256 bit AES encryption as well as the definite improvements in DuraClass technology, but at the consumer level, reliability is as big of a factor as performance benefits.
Looking back to 2007, I remember the argument that mlc didn’t have a chance because it only had 1/10th of an expected life span of slc flash. And then there was an article where someone poked fun at the name of a new company called SandForce followed last year by echos that we would never see mlc flash in server and enterprise use. Even today, many dig through article after article on the net trying to figure out just how long their SSD will last.
SandForce has sold 1 million processors last year and has openly stated that they expect “multiples” of that with the new SF-2000 series release. They have established a steady client base of 27 oems involved in their ‘SandForce Driven’ program and several other manufacturers who have yet to be made public. Not only have they found the key to SSD success in their DuraClass technology but they were smart enough to protect it.
I had suggested in the OCZ Vertex article that this release should have been ‘Codename Goliath’, Goliath being defined as “of colossol power or achievement’. The processor and that OCZ drive have the power and I dont think there is any question as to SandForces achievement.