The SSD Review The Worlds Dedicated SSD Education and Review Resource | 
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, although CPU C States have not been changed at all. 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.
Enterprise testing is significantly different as we explore performance in steady state, drive latency, and do our best to follow SNIA test protocol. AS OCZ has marketed the Vertex 460 with enterprise attributes, we are going to be first testing in our usual consumer benchmarks, followed by steady state and mixed load testing in IOMeter.
SYSTEM COMPONENTS
This new PCIe Test Bench build was the result of some great relationships and purchase; our appreciation goes to be quiet, Corsair, Crucial, Intel, EVGA and InWin for their support in our project. Our choice of components is very narrow, in that, we choose only what we believe to be among the best available and links are provided to each that will assist in hardware pricing and availability, should the reader be interested in purchase.
| PC CHASSIS: | InWin D-Frame Open Air Chassis |
| MOTHERBOARD: | ASUS Maximus VI Z87 MotherBoard |
| CPU: |
Intel Core i7-4770K CPU |
| CPU COOLER: | Corsair H100i CPU Cooler |
| POWER SUPPLY: | be quiet Dark Power Pro 10 1000W PSU |
| SYSTEM COOLING: | be quiet Silent Wings 2 PC Fans |
| GRAPHICS CARD: |
EVGA GTX 770 Superclocked with ACX Cooler |
| MEMORY: | Crucial Ballistix Tactical Tracer 1600Mhz Memory |
| KEYBOARD: | Corsair Vengeance K95 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard |
| MOUSE: | Corsair Vengeance M95 MMO/RTS Laser Mouse |
| ROUTER: | NetGear R6300 AC1750 Dual Band Gigabit WiFi Router |
| HBA | HighPoint RocketU 1144C 4 x USB 3.0 20Gb/s HBA |
.
BENCHMARK SOFTWARE
The software we will be using for today’s analysis is typical of many of our reviews and consists of IOMeter, ATTO Disk Benchmark, Crystal Disk Info, Crystal DiskMark, AS SSD, Anvil Storage Utilities,and PCMark Vantage. In consumer reports, 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, also, to provide validation to results already obtained.
Crystal Disk Info provides some excellent information about the SSD itself to include its health, product information, ‘power on’ information as well as the characteristics of the SSD. We can see that the SSD is capable of TRIM as it is not grayed out as with AAM and APM
As we always get our Crystal Disk Info test done right away, we had some concern with this SSD. It was sent with 4.37TB host reads and 4.58TB host writes already on the SSD. In speaking with OCZ, we learned that these were the first run and, as such, additional validation was typical. They assured us that consumer purchased SSDs will have nowhere near this, however, there would still be host read and writes evident through burn in testing. Quite frankly, this alone speaks to the quality of the solid state drive as, unlike some, the 460 is typically never a fresh out of box (FOB) SSD and not capable of those once in a lifetime performance numbers that we see from many.
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 performance numbers of 551MB/s read and 530MB/s write are always good to see, especially when they exceed listed specifications. Let’s not get comfortable with this just yet though as ATTO is the program most rely on for their performance specifications, simply because it uses highly compressible data. We will see how things pan out once we put the 460 through 12 hours of steady state testing.
Les,
Can you elaborate on that edge connector opposite the SATA one? Doesn’t look like M.2 but is suspiciously close. Testing connector?
Word back from OCZ is that it is a debug connector for their use and is not end user accessible at all.
SSDs have been formatted this way for years already and now these guys want to whine about it. Give me a break, as if you can do something about it.
20GB per day?. Didnt You write about 5TB to the disk during tests? (crystaldiskinfo ). it means You almost used this disk for 8 monts. this is a toy not real SSD disk. medicore ssd need at least 0,5-1 DWPD. Good – professional SSD 5-10 DWPD. this is less than 0,1 DWPD. something is wrong with controller and write amplification, something is wrong with flash memory or OCZ just builds bad SSD
I know I should just ignore it, but it still bugs me when I read things like “we get a look at the drives available capacity after formatting (224GB)”. As if formatting is reducing the size from 240GB to 224GB. When the difference is just between Gigabytes (base 10) and Gibibytes (base 2). Drive manufacturers (not just SSDs) report size in base 10 while Windows reports size in base 2.
There is no as if. The capacity after formatting is just that. We are not responsible for the way you interpret. We keep it simple. Thanks ahead.
I am afraid Billy is correct although there was no need for him to be whiny.
In the article you say that formatting reduces the capacity which is factually incorrect. The difference lies in the way operating systems calculate capacity and the way manufacturers calculate capacity. There have been serveral lawsuits against drive manufacturers because of this oversight on their part:
https://gizmodo.com/183980/western-digital-settles-hard-drive-capacity-lawsuit
https://apcmag.com/Content.aspx?id=1817
Cheers!
Very familiar with your point and quoted articles but couldn’t disagree more. This same argument is always raised by, what I like to call the ‘storage bean counters’ who like to impart their knowledge time and time again about how space is calculated. Unfortunately, most are so tied up in the technical side of the story, that they have trouble with the simplest of statements. Regardless of how you look at it, an advertised 240 GB capacity SSD is reduced when only 224 GB is available to the end user. Different people understand things in different ways and we form our articles to the vast majority who will be reading this article….the typical consumer.
The problem is it’s misleading. I’ve seen customers give disk drives bad ratings because the capacity was “not as advertised”. Actually, it was as advertised. They quoted it in SI units just like every other disk drive manufacturer. It’s the operating system that is incorrect, technically. It should really use the “Gi” prefix. On Linux and Mac OS X, you should see the capacity as 240 GB.
What would be best is if people were aware of the difference.
The average reader isn’t technically sound enough to grasp what you are asking; they simply want to know what is availale to them, at the end of the day.
We would definitely welcome your submission for such an article though.
I have to say, Les has a point. In a way, it’s false advertisement when you consider that every 1TB drive will only ever yield 931GB. And with SSDs, you have further reductions in size, depending on how much it is over-provisioned for longevity’s sake, but the same dissimilar advertising capacity and actual capacity applies.
That said, I think a lot (if not most) consumers have simply come to accept this. I know I have. Add to that the fact that storage is dirt cheap.