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STEADY STATE 4K RANDOM WRITE IOPS TESTING
The bread and butter of OCZ SSDs it seems these days is their fine tuning of both the Vector and Vertex at a level above what we might see in many consumer SSDs. By listing specifications that speak to steady state testing, and even then speaking of mixed load testing that we see in enterprise SSDs, OCZ literally dares reviewers to rip their drive apart and write about it. The result is just under 14 hours of testing, the majority of which is low 4K incompressible data testing by which any questionable drive would definitely show its colors.
For our own testing, we have stood the OCZ Vertex 460, not only beside the enterprise Seagate 600 Pro and consumer Plextor M5M Extreme but also, we have included the previously released Vector 150 to show how similar these SSDs really are:
As you can see, the OCZ stood well above its consumer counterpart, yet just below the enterprise SSD as expected. Most interesting however, is how close it is to the previously reviewed OCZ Vector 150 SSD. It almost seems that, even with the new and improved Indy Barefoot 3 M10, they beefed performance up just a bit as we originally saw steady state IOPS just above 21K for the Vector, and we now see the same steady state IOPS just above the 22K mark for the Vertex 460.
MIXED WORKLOAD PERFORMANCE
Up next in our test file we decided to put OCZ’ claims to the test with a bit of mixed workload testing. Once again using IOMeter, we tested all three SSDs with data samples typically seen in a Database (67%R/33%W), File Server (80%R/20%W), WorkStation (20%R/80%W), and a Web Server (100%R). These tests were conducted part and parcel to steady state testing above.
This mixed workload testing was conducted just after steady state testing, and even so, still had a ‘ramp up’ period for mixed workload testing. As we can see, the Vertex 460 stands its own ground beside the enterprise Seagate 600 Pro, and once again, is remarkably similar to the Vector 150.
MIXED LOAD PERFORMANCE – SECURE ERASE
We were a bit curious as to what the mixed load comparisons would look like after we did a secure erase on the four SSDs. We were very confident that a performance increase would be seen, however, wanted to se if the comparisons deviated at all, especially since the configuration file accounted for a ramp up period before conducting the test.
Secure erasing the Vertex 150 fared particularly well, especially in Database and Workstation comparisons where it topped all other drives.
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.