The SSD Review The Worlds Dedicated SSD Education and Review Resource | 
For our last benchmark, we have decided to use PCMark 8 Extended Storage Workload in order to determine steady state throughput of the SSD. This software is the longest in our battery of tests and takes just under 18 hours per SSD. As this is a specialized component of PCMark 8 Professional, its final result is void of any colorful graphs or charts typical of the normal online results and deciphering the resulting excel file into an easily understood result takes several more hours.
There are 18 phases of testing throughout the entire run, 8 runs of the Degradation Phase, 5 runs of the Steady State Phase and 5 runs of the Recovery Phase. In each phase, several performance tests are run of 10 different software programs; Adobe After Effects, Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop Heavy and Photoshop Light, Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint and Word, as well as Battlefield 3 and World of Warcraft to cover the gaming element.
- PRECONDITIONING -The entire SSD is filled twice sequentially with random data of a 128KB file size. The second run accounts for overprovisioning that would have escaped the first;
- DEGRADATION PHASE – The SSD is hit with random writes of between 4KB and 1MB for 10 minutes and then a single pass performance test is done of each application. The cycle is repeated 8 times, and with each time, the duration of random writes increases by 5 minutes;
- STEADY STATE PHASE – The drive is hit with random writes of between 4KB and 1MB for 45 minutes before each application is put through a performance test. This process is repeated 5 times;
- RECOVERY PHASE – The SSD is allowed to idle for 5 minutes before and between performance tests of all applications. This is repeated 5 times which accounts for garbage collection; and
- CLEANUP – The entire SSD is written with zero data at a write size of 128KB
In reading the results, the Degrade and Steady State phases represent heavy workload testing while the recovery phase represents typical consumer light workload testing.
As you can see, performance is recorded in terms of Bandwidth and Latency. Bandwidth (or throughput) represents the total throughput the drive is able to sustain during the tests during each phase. Latency, at least for the purposes of PCMark 8, takes on a different outlook and for this, we will term it ‘Total Storage Latency’. Typically, latency has been addressed as the time it takes for a command to be executed, or rather, the time from when the last command completed to the time that the next command started. This is shown below as ‘Average Latency’.
PCMark 8 provides a slightly different measurement, however, that we are terming as ‘Total Storage Latency’. This is represented as being the period from the time the last command was completed, until the time it took to complete the next task; the difference of course being that the execution of that task is included in ‘Total Storage Latency’. For both latency graphs, the same still exists where the lower the latency, the faster the responsiveness of the system will be. While both latency charts look very similar, the scale puts into perspective how just a few milliseconds can increase the length of time to complete multiple workloads.
For a more in-depth look into Latency, Bandwidth, and IOPS check out our primer article on them here.
AVERAGE BANDWIDTH (OR THROUGHPUT)
These results show the total average bandwidth across all tests in the 18 phases. In this graph the higher the result the better.
AVERAGE LATENCY (OR ACCESS TIME)
These results show the average access time during the workloads across all tests in the 18 phases. In this graph the lower the result the better.
TOTAL STORAGE LATENCY
These results show the total access time across all tests in the 18 phases. In this graph the lower the result the better.
We elected to use an array of SSDs for this test and tried to match up the Patriot ignite as you might compare it to another in a typical system. The Ignite fared well, especially when considering that this SSD has probably seen the hardest usage it will most likely ever see during it’s 22 hours of this test. One must remember that, up until the final Steady State 5 phase, the SSD was left with no opportunity to recover and effect TRIM and garbage collection. Looking at the bandwidth chart above, we can see the performs jump when TRIM is allowed to occur.
LES, from what I’ve gathered the M.2 SSD’s overheat a lot, as compared to traditional 2.5 inch or PCIe (slot) drives, & as a result throttle from time to time. Is that more like a norm now or are there exceptions, talking particularly about drives that are close to the SM951 in terms of performance, especially considering there’s very little data on this topic of temperature &/or thermal throttling of M.2 drives from reputable sites like yours?
Can I ask where you are hearing this info on overheating? We have yet to have any drives overheat or throttle in testing. We like to think the 17-24 testing where The drive is filled and TRIM is constrained for several hours might cause such…but it hasn’t. We run several M.2 drives on a continual basis in our systems without any heat considerations at all.
The difference between most PCIe and the notebook drives is they require a mechanism to get the heat to the exterior of the package to dissipate, whereas, the M.2 does not. Imagine running a race car without a hood.
Mostly on forums like AT, TPU, Toms et al. This is just for desktops btw, & most of’em were overclocked setups, so anecdotal or hearsay at best.
I’d like to think in a non open bench system this would be more of a problem, since I don’t own any M.2 SSD myself I’ll just have to rely on word of mouth from fellow board members but there certainly have been complaints of overheating from many of them. As for thermal throttling IIRC only the latest models, like 850 EVO & some of the others, have this mechanism incorporated that actually throttles the drive under severe conditions viz high temperature.
So to sum it up I’m just curious to know whether the extremely SFF & controller are responsible for this overheating/throttling phenomena or are the drives absorbing excess heat from the mobo &/or the CPU, GPU with the results varying greatly, depending on the individuals’ setup also their case airflow?
HELLO , looking for this form SSD with more than 500 GB any words awhere to get those
Many people are – they do not exist (yet). My guess is that first designs are around six month away. Samsung said that they intend to make higher capacities (no details, just vague between the lines suggestion). BTW, Les was asked this a few times, but never commented, thus he also does not know who/when, etc.