Desktop PC – Synthetic Benchmarks
AS SSD
As its name suggests AS SSD was developed specifically to
measure the performance of SSDs. It measures Sequential Read and Write
performance with an IO Size of 16MB and a Queue Depth of 1. It measures Random
4K Read and Write for a Queue Depth of 1 and for 64 Threads. 64 Threads
generates a Queue Depth of 64 (please note that SATA drives support a maximum
Queue Depth of 32, so they are at a disadvantage in this test to NVMe devices,
which support queue depths of 128 or more). The Access Time AS SSD reports is
for 512 Byte sequential reads and writes.
The 4K random Reads and Writes performance is particularly
relevant to a drive’s ability to act as a Windows system drive. I use the
default test file size of 1GB.
AS SSD produces a score for Read Performance, Write
Performance and an Overall Score.
The scores are calculated as –
Overall score = (Seq Write x 0.15) + (Seq Read
x 0.1) + (4K Read * 2) + 4K Write + 4K-64Thrd Write + (4K-64Thrd Read * 1.5)
Read score = (Seq Read * 0.1) + 4K Read + 4K-64Thrd
Read
Write score = (Seq Write *0.1) + 4K Write + 4K-64Thrd
Write
For Client SSDs, I feel that there should be an
even greater loading given to the Queue Depth 1 4K Read and 4K Write results
but nevertheless AS SSD is a quick and useful benchmark. I always use a 1GB
test file. We would expect a modern SATA SSD to achieve an overall score
of 1000+.
The latest version of AS SSD can be downloaded here.
Here is the AS SSD result for the Corsair MP300 –
Here is a comparison of the overall AS SSD score with the
other products I have tested –
This result is excellent when compared to those for SATA SSDs
but falls well below those for the 4 Lane NVMe drives I have tested.
Anvil’s Storage Utilities
Anvil’s Storage Utilities tests Sequential Reads and Writes
with an IO Size of 4MB, Random 4K Reads and Writes at Queue Depths of 1, 4 and
16 and Random 32K and 128K Writes.
The scores are calculated as –
Overall Score = Read Score + Write Score
Read Score = (Seq 4MB = MB/s x 1) + (4K = MB/s
x 4.5) + (4K QD4 = MB/s x 2.75) + (4K QD16 = MB/s x 1.75) + (32K = MB/s x 1) +
(128K = MB/s x 1.5)
Write Score = (Seq 4MB = MB/s x 1) + (4K =
MB/s x 4) + (4K QD4 = MB/s x 3) + (4K QD16 = MB/s x 3)
I always use a Test size of 1GB and 100%
Incompressible data.
The latest version of Anvil’s Storage
Utilities can be downloaded here.
Here is the Anvil result for the Corsair MP300
–
Here is a comparison of the Anvil Total score with the other
products I have tested –
Again, this result is excellent when compared to those for
SATA SSDs but falls well below those for the 4 Lane NVMe drives I have tested.
Crystal Disk Mark
Crystal Disk Mark is a widely respected benchmark, which is
often used by manufacturers as a basis for publishing their ‘headline’
sequential read and write speeds. I always run the test with One Thread and a
Queue Depth of 32 (which generates a Queue Depth of 32, being the maximum Queue
Depth supported by SATA drives), a 1GB test file, Random data and 3 or 5
passes. The benchmark performs sequential IO with an IO Size of 512K for the
Seq Q32T1 test, sequential IO with an IO Size of 1MB for the Queue Depth 1 Seq
test and Random IO with an IO Size of 4K for the 4K (Queue Depth 1) and the 4K
Q32T1 test.
Crystal Disk Mark can be downloaded here (I use the
standard edition).
Here is the CDM result for the Corsair MP300 –
You can see that the headline Sequential Read speed, as
specified by Corsair, of 1580MB/s, has nearly been achieved in this test,
whilst the headline sequential write speed of 920 MB/s has not.
ATTO
The ATTO benchmark tests Sequential IO for a large range of
IO Sizes. I always run the test with the default Queue Depth of 4.
ATTO can be downloaded here.
Here is the ATTO result for the Corsair MP300 –
You can see that the maximum Sequential Read speed (of 1,580
MB/s), as specified by Corsair, has been achieved but the maximum write speed
(of 920 MB/s) has not.
Now let’s head to the next page, to look at the results
for the Desktop PC Real World Benchmarks…..
