Micron RealSSD P400e 6Gbps 200GB Enterprise SSD Review

The 128K Random Write results are in line with expected values for a SSD that is designed for the read-centric usage models that the P400e is.

SERVER PROFILES

The FOB, Steady State, and over provisioned performance testing continues across 4 profiles that are constructed to simulate different types of server access during real life usage.

The File Server profile emulates usage in a file server environment with a vast range of file sizes being accessed simultaneously. These types of file access are 80% read and 20% write. The performance does vary from Steady State and Overprovisioned, showing that with the proper tuning these drives can be used in heavier write environments.

The Email profile is an emulation of a mail server, with a 50% Read and 50% Write mixed workload with very small 8KB files. This can be a very stressful test for even the best of drives. This type of heavy write workload is not conducive to the best performance from the P400e, as it was clearly not designed for such write heavy activity. Mixing in a hefty amount of reads while the device is already writing a large percentage of random data also constrains the performance quite a bit.

The Micron P400e excels at the Web Server simulation, as it is Read-only through a various spate of file sizes. Here we can see a type of file access that this drive is tailored for and the performance that can be expected. With speeds pushing 186MB/s @QD32 this drive would serve very well in this type of environment.

The Database/OLTP (On-Line Transaction Processing) profile is another heavy-usage type of access that can bring many drives, even those with superior write performance, to their knees given Steady State conditions. With small 8K random data being read at 66% and written simultaneously at 33%, the P400e struggles with the load. This is clearly not a good deployment of this device, considering its design parameters.