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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 storage media. For our Crucial P5 NVMe PCIe 3 SSD testing today, 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, and Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology (EIST) has been disabled.
SYSTEM COMPONENTS
The components of this Test Bench are detailed below. All hardware is linked for purchase and product sales may be reached by a simple click on the individual item. As well, the title is linked back to the individual build article where performance testing can be validated.
TSSDR ASROCK Z370 TAICHI TEST BENCH (link)
| PC CHASSIS: | Corsair Graphite 760T Arctic White Window Chassis |
| MOTHERBOARD: | ASRock Z370 Taichi |
| CPU: | Intel Coffee Lake Core i7-8770K |
| CPU COOLER: | Corsair Hydro Series H110i GTX V.2 |
| POWER SUPPLY: | Corsair RM850x 80Plus |
| GRAPHICS: | MSI Radeon RX570 |
| MEMORY: | Corsair Vengeance RGB 32GB DDR4 3600Mhz C18 |
| STORAGE: | Intel Optane 900P 480GB SSD |
| KEYBOARD: | Corsair Strafe RGB Silent Gaming |
| MOUSE: | Corsair M65 Pro Gaming |
| OS | Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit |
BENCHMARK SOFTWARE
The software in use for today’s analysis is typical of many of our reviews and consists of Crystal Disk Info, ATTO Disk Benchmark, Crystal Disk Mark, AS SSD, Anvil’s Storage Utilities, AJA, PCMark 8 and TxBench. 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, the number of hours the device has been powered, and even to the extent of informing you of the firmware of the device.
Crystal Disk Info validates that our SSD is running in PCIe 3.0 x4 (four lane), and also that NVMe 1.3 protocol is in use.
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.
Listed specifications for the Crucial P5 are 3400MB/s read and 3000MB/s write. These results are pretty much bang on, but just as importantly, there is a very steady speed progression with data size increase.
I installed my new Crucial P5 500GB NVMe M.2 SSD just a few days ago, and I’m delighted with it. I had a bit of a problem with recognition by the free Crucial specific version of the Acronis software, but the Crucial support guy was brilliant, talked me through everything while he identified the cause, then emailed me a software patch to get it working, from which point the rest was a doddle. The Crucial Storage Executive management software which is included to download for free from their website is also a significant pluspoint, and has the potential to enable the drive to exceed its stated speed by quite a margin. It wasn’t the cheapest option, though it wasn’t the dearest either, and I feel like I got good value for my money as it’s an excellent drive.
Crucial support is awesome. That made it for me in my choice. Thanks for posting.
Currently running MSI X99S SLI Plus, i7-5820k, Corsair LPX 4x4GB C14, Samsung 850EVO SATA3 120GB x2 in RAID 1, 2 x WD Scorpio Black 320GB HDD in RAID 1, Radeon RX580, NZXT 850W PSU, Arctic Freezer 11, NZXT case & some very quiet fans. Nice quick system built in 2015, I re-used 2 old WD drives but as they are now very old and (along with EVOs) full, I need more storage, and it needs to be faster too, or I’d consider changing to RAID 0 as I now have external NAS backup. I decided it was time to bite the bullet and buy a fast M.2 NVME PCIE Gen.3 x4 SSD.
So… I have a strict budget of £120 to get the best 1TB stick that I can – Samsung’s EVO Plus and EVO are great, but above my price range, so I narrowed it down to 3 good value fast performers. The Adata SX8200 Pro, Sabrent Rocket and Crucial P5. All are very well reviewed and on various benchmark sites all have been well received, but there’s not a lot of information out about reliability and compatibility with 5 year old motherboards, even though I did get a good one at the time:
Adata: Couldn’t find much info on quality of Customer Service support. Hardware-wise, robust smart package. Couple of years old now so firmware established. Supposed to have compatibility with my m/b.
Sabrent: Again I couldn’t find much info on how good Customer Support was. Hardware-wise, another robust smart package, a bit newer than Adata and I was surprised to find it used Micron 96L cells. Nice. Supposed to have compatibility with my m/b.
Crucial: Customer Support (from experience with them) is great, also Dami confirms this in the review on here, and their online compatibility tool guarantees it will work with my MSI X99S SLI Plus Big plus point. As is Acronis Truimage for free. Only downside I can see is because the controller uses bigger data blocks in the controller which may hinder access slightly, but their controller writes super quickly. I’m not a major gamer so fractions in loading speed are not madly important for me, but I do need it to shift the data in and out quickly once things are going.
The result… I chose the Crucial P5 1TB. Crucial themselves in the UK have got it on offer at about £110 on their own website at the moment which is cheaper than I could find the others.
Should come by Christmas so guess what I’m doing between Christmas and New Year!!!
Can’t wait…