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TSSDR TEST BENCH AND PROTOCOL
SSD Testing at TSSDR differs slightly, depending on whether we are looking at consumer or enterprise SSDs. For consumer SSDs, our goal is to test in a system that has been optimized with our SSD Optimization Guide. To see the best performance possible the CPU C states have been disabled, C1E support has been disabled, Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology (EIST) has been disabled. Benchmarks for consumer testing are also benchmarks with a fresh drive so, not only can we verify that manufacturer specifications are in line but also, so the consumer can replicate our tests to confirm that they have an SSD that is top-notch. We even provide links to most of the benchmarks used in the report.
This is an updated test bench and, as such, we would love to thank those who jumped in specifically to help the cause. Key contributors to this build are our friends at ASRock for the motherboard and CPU and be quiet! for the PSU and cooling fans. Also, a big thank you to Thermaltake for the case and Kingston for the RAM. We have detailed all components in the table below and they are all linked should you wish to make a duplicate of our system as so many seem to do, or check out the price of any single component. As always, we appreciate your support in any purchase through our links!
SYSTEM COMPONENTS
This Test Bench build was the result of some great relationships and purchase; our appreciation goes to the below mentioned manufacturers for their support in our project. All of the components we use for testing and evaluation can be easily purchased at a relatively affordable price. The links provided below can assist in pricing, as well as availability for those of you who may find interest in our equipment.
| PC CHASSIS: | Thermaltake Urban T81 |
| MOTHERBOARD: | ASRock Z97 Extreme6 |
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-4790 |
| CPU COOLER: | Cooler Master Hyper T4 |
| POWER SUPPLY: | be quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 850W |
| SYSTEM COOLING: | be quiet! Silent Wings 2 |
| GRAPHICS CARD: | MSI GTX 660 Ti PE OC |
| MEMORY: | Kingston HyperX Beast 2400Mhz |
| OPERATING SYSTEM: | Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit |
| IRST DRIVER VERSION: | 13.1.0.1058 |
BENCHMARK SOFTWARE
The software we will be using for today’s analysis is typical of many of our reviews and consists of ATTO Disk Benchmark, Crystal Disk Info, Crystal Disk Mark, AS SSD, Anvil’s Storage Utilities, and PCMark Vantage. We prefer to test with easily accessible software that the consumer can obtain, and in many cases, we even provide links. Our selection of software allows each to build on the last and to provide validation to results already obtained.
Crystal Disk Info is a great tool for displaying the characteristics and health of storage devices. It displays everything from temperatures, to the number of hours the device has been powered, and even to the extent of informing you of the firmware of the device.
From Crystal Disk Info we can see that this drive does not support DevSleep, an important feature nowadays for the mobile market. However, it does have the typical NCQ and TRIM support as well as a temperature sensor.
ATTO Disk Benchmark is perhaps one of the oldest benchmarks going and is definitely the main staple for manufacturer performance specifications. ATTO uses RAW or compressible data and, for our benchmarks, we use a set length of 256mb and test both the read and write performance of various transfer sizes ranging from 0.5 to 8192kb. Manufacturers prefer this method of testing as it deals with raw (compressible) data rather than random (includes incompressible data) which, although more realistic, results in lower performance results.
Initial results with ATTO shows read and write speeds of 567MB/s and 152MB/s respectively. As you can tell, the two NAND modules are hindering write performance quite a bit.