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Review: Netac Reviewed by: Antonis Provided by: Netac Model: Netac N550S 240GB SSD Firmware version: O1217A
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With every review begins a journey, that
pumps and excites you. This time it's also the introduction of a new
manufacturer, Netac. Netac is a Chinese company that started in 1999 and they
focus on manufacturing flash memory products, such as USB flash storage,
portable hard drives, and solid state disks, together with security and
encryption of USB flash storage and portable hard drives. You can find out more
about Netac simply but visiting their website.
Netac has send me their N550S Elite 240GB
SSD to review. The drive uses TLC NAND, and it's available in three capacities
120GB, 240GB, and 480GB. Netac offers a three year warranty for the SSD, so
everything looks okay from this perspective. Now we'll move to the more
interesting part and start this review of the Netac N550S Elite SSD, as always by
taking a look at the package, and its contents.
The Netac N550S Elite 240GB SSD
As always I will start by taking a look at
the package and the contents that are included with the Netac N550S Elite 240GB
SSD. We'll start with the package.
The front of the box is very clean looking
and has some very basic information about the drive.
Here
is the back of the box.
A
look at the top of the Netac N550S Elite 240GB SSD. The thing that catches the
eye immediately is the blue colour of the SSD.
...and
the rear of the Netac N550S Elite 240GB SSD.
Inside the box there is only a printed page
that has the warranty info and some general information about the drive.
Inside the SSD we find a very small board
that has SK Hynix TLC NAND, NANYA RAM, and the Silicon Motion SM2256K AB
controller.
On the other side we find two more SK Hynix
TLC NAND.
Specifications of the Netac N550S Elite 240GB SSD
In the pictures below we get a more
detailed view of the specifications and the features of the Netac N550S Elite SSD
series, as they appear on the official website.
The information that Netac provides for the
N550S Elite SSD is very limited but they say that the drive is using TLC NAND,
and also they have two images from AS SSD and CrystalDiskMark to give you an
idea of the performance of the SSD. It would be nice to have more details about
the N550S Elite and hopefully this will happen in the future. The SSD is
available in three capacities, 120GB, 240GB, and 480GB. Netac has sent me the
240GB drive to test, so let’s start by taking a look at CrystaDiskInfo.
CrystalDiskInfo
In
the above screenshot we can see all the available info for the Netac N550S
Elite 240GB SSD.
Let’s head to the next page where we
take a look at our testing methods and the review PC.
Test machine
For this review I will be using a computer
with the following configuration:
Hardware:
- Motherboard: ASUS X99-A (Intel X99 chipset)
- Processor: Intel Core i7 5280K @ 4.4GHz
- RAM: RAM: HyperX Savage 4x4GB 2400 @ 2666
- GFX: MSI GTX 960 2GB
- Sound: Onboard Realtek HD audio
controller - OS SSD: HyperX Fury 240GB
- PSU: Seasonic 750W
- Display: Futsiju Siemens 22”
- Operating System: Windows 10
The Netac N500S Elite 240GB SSD was
connected to first SATA port on the ASUS X99-A motherboard. All power saving
features were disabled during all of my synthetic benchmarks.
The
SATA 6Gbps drivers used on our review PC were Intel Rapid Storage Technology
(RST) Version 14.5.0.1081.
Test applications
To test the performance of the Netac N550S
Elite 240GB SSD, I will be using the following test applications in this
review.
- HD Tune
Pro - ATTO
- Iometer
- AS SSD
Benchmark - CrystalDiskMark
- Anvil’s
Storage Utilities - PCMark
Test procedures
I will start off our testing procedures
explanation by stating that I did not run many synthetic benchmarks on the
Netac N550S Elite 240GB SSD. You may ask why I have run so few synthetic benchmarks.
SSD technology has moved so fast in the last
couple of years, that basic synthetic benchmarks alone are now of very limited
use, as they don't really tell us much about performance and how the drive will
behave in the real world. I have therefore decided to show some basic
benchmarks for the Netac N550S Elite 240GB SSD, and will complement this with
advanced benchmarks using IOMeter and AS SSD benchmark. I will also show how
the Netac N550S Elite 240GB SSD performs in the real world.
The reality of SSD performance
While I can easily show you which SSD is
technically the faster, when you use one of these modern SSDs as an operating
system drive it becomes very difficult to tell them apart as far as performance
is concerned.
A typical use of a small capacity SSD at
the moment is to have your operating system and applications installed onto the
SSD. The performance difference compared to a traditional HDD is enormous,
however when you start to compare SSD to SSD the difference becomes almost
impossible to detect.
Let’s look at why this is the case.
Drive A can boot to the desktop in 8.11
seconds, and drive B can boot to the desktop in 8.12 seconds, the difference in
time is milliseconds, and can one really tell the difference?
The fact is, all modern SSDs are only
ticking over when they are only running the OS and launching applications, it’s
only when you get to some of the larger capacity SSDs, with enough free space
to be able to hold the actual data that you’re going to be working with, be
that video, audio or pictures, for example, that you actually get a tangible
difference in performance. This is where the SSDs with the better sequential
performance start to pull well ahead of the SSDs which have lower sequential
read/write performance.
Small file random IOPS vs sequential performance
IOPS
This is a fairly complex subject, but I
will do my best to explain things in a manner that is easy to understand.
The term IOPS is the amount of input or
output transactions that can take place in a one second interval, so for
example, if an SSD is quoted as being able to cope with 20,000 4K random write
IOPS, then the SSD should be able to cope with 20,000 input transactions in a
period of one second. If the same SSD is said to be able to produce 20,000 4K
random read IOPS, then the same SSD should be able to produce 20,000 4K random
read output transactions in a one second interval.
Ok, now we have some figures to work with,
the next question is how many IOPS are actually required?
This will depend on your usage pattern. If
you are a typical desktop user who browses the internet, does some word
processing or perhaps some audio or video editing, and perhaps plays a few
games, then in actual fact, you don’t need to have massive 4K random read/write
performance. The actual amount of 4K random performance that is required for a
fast and smooth running system for a desktop user with a usage pattern similar
to the above will be well under 1,000 4K IOPS.
On the other hand, if the SSD is being used
for running a large and complex database server, then 4K random performance is
the absolute measurement of how fast that server will run, as this type of
application does most of its input and output transactions in the 4K domain.
So why would I need an SSD with 80,000 4K
IOPS for a desktop?
In fact you don’t need this type of performance
for a desktop, but an SSD which is capable of coping with 80,000 4K IOPS will
be faster than an SSD which can only cope with 20,000 4K IOPS.
OK, I just said if under 1,000 4K IOPS are
actually required for typical desktop usage, why is an SSD with 80,000 4K IOPS
faster than an SSD with only 20,000 4K IOPS, confused?
You may ask, if I only require 1,000 4K
IOPS surely the rest is wasted?
While you may never need 80,000 4K IOPS,
IOPS is all about latency. The reason that an SSD can cope with as much as 80,000
4K IOPS is because latency in this domain is very low. With 4K files, even if
you require to process 500 of them at the same time, you are not talking about
a huge amount of data, it has far more to do with how long it takes the SSD to
process a single file, and the amount of time required to process a single 4K
is all about how long it takes for the SSD to access or store that data before
it can move on to the next transaction.
In other words an SSD with 80,000 4K IOPS
performance will handle those 500 files faster than the SSD with 20,000 IOPS.
So how will a desktop user even notice this
faster speed if so little 4K random IOPS and data are actually used?
Multitasking is a good example. The more
tasks you run at the same time, you more you will notice the speed difference.
Sequential performance
I have always maintained that sequential
performance was every bit as important as small random file performance for a
desktop SSD. Some highly regarded people on other sites found this statement
quite funny a couple of years ago when I made it, but my, how times have
changed in the world of SSD reviewing.
To me this was always so obvious for a
desktop user. For example, let’s say you want to launch an application or game.
Both have some fairly large files to load, and also a great many small files,
but the point is, even the smaller files are sequential in nature. Now let’s
say you’re into audio or video editing. Video files tend to be huge, and the
files are written or read sequentially. Isn’t this how many users are using
their PCs these days?
Summary
So how does this shape up in the real
world? Which is better, massive 4K IOPS or massive sequential performance?
In an ideal world you want both, as an SSD
with massive random 4K IOPS and sequential performance will always be faster
than an SSD that has high sequential performance and moderate 4K random IOPS
performance, and the same applies to an SSD that has massive 4K random
performance and moderate sequential performance. The SSD which has high
performance in both patterns will always be the faster SSD.
However, you can still have an SSD that is
very fast for desktop use that has moderate random 4K performance and massive
sequential performance, the same can be said about a drive having massive
random 4K performance and moderate sequential performance, as it is about
getting the balance right if you have to compromise on one or the other.
Drive preparation for running the tests
All the SSDs used in this article were in a
clean and fresh state when the testing period started. From then on, each drive
had to rely on its own NAND cleaning effectiveness for the remainder of the
tests.
- Both our spinning HDD drives were
defragged before the start of each test.
- All SSD and HDD used in this article had
their partitions aligned to the Windows 7 x64 defaults.
Where I use graphs in this article to
display results, I will use the following colours to make it easier, for our
readers to see which drive we are reviewing.
Netac N550S
Elite 240GB SSD
Comparison SDD
Now let's head to the next page, where I
look at some basic benchmarks...
Reading Benchmarks
HD Tune
HD
Tune Test – Sequential reading test
The Netac N550S Elite SSD showed very good
read performance.
ATTO disk benchmark
ATTO has become a standard tool for
measuring the data throughput of HDDs and SSDs. It measures the reading and
writing performance, using different file sizes and block sizes.
ATTO is the test where almost every SSD is
able to achieve its maximum rated speed, and the Netac N550S Elite I s no
exception to this rule.
CrystalDiskMark 3.0
CrystalDiskMark is quite a handy
benchmarking application, as it focuses on the file sizes that can cause problems
for a system drive.
The numbers continue to be encouraging for
the Netac N550S Elite SSD, and for a TLC SSD this is a very good result.
The two graphs below will give a more
detailed view of how the Netac N550S Elite compares with other SSDs that I have
retested.
Here I present the graph for the read speed
tests. You can compare the Netac N550S Elite performance with other drives I
have tested.
Finally the results for the Netac N550S
Elite for write speed, and again you can compare it with other drives.
AS SSD Benchmark
AS SSD benchmark is a benchmarking tool
specifically designed to test SSDs. The application tests sequential reading
and writing performance, 4K random reading and writing performance.
AS SSD benchmark also tests 4K threaded
performance. This is very exciting, as this test is the first available test
that I am aware of, that simulates how a PC operating system actually works. A
modern PC and OS, such as Windows Vista/7 does not just run a single thread at
a time, it runs many threads. The AS SSD benchmark "4K 64Thrd" tests
run 64 threads simultaneously throughout the test. If this result is good, then
you can be pretty sure the drive will perform extremely well as a system drive.
After the tests complete, AS SSD benchmark
derives a total score for the drive being tested. This is based on all aspects
of the test results, and gives an indication of how the drive is performing
overall.
Now let’s look at the results for the Netac
N550S Elite 240GB SSD in the form of a screenshot. All our other comparison
drives’ results are presented in the form of a graph.
Again the result is very good for a TLC
drive, and it's also very close to the one that you see on the Netac product
page.
Let's head to the next page and run some
tests using PCMark 8.....
PC Mark 8 - HDD Suite
We have built quite a close relationship
with FutureMark software, the authors of the PCMark PC benchmarking software
that we use in our tests. I decided I would use PCMark Vantage as stopgap
measure until the more up-to-date PCMark 8 benchmarking suite became available.
I'm pleased to say that PCMark 8 is now available, and it gives me great
pleasure to introduce you all to the results obtained by this new 'real world'
benchmarking suite.
I will describe the basic way that each
test is carried out, above the graph for each test.
PC Mark 8 HDD suite results
Here
is a screenshot displaying the results for the Netac N550S Elite 240GB SSD.
235.27 MB/Sec is the magic number for the
Netac N550S Elite SSD, and puts it right in the middle.
As we can see the Netac N550S Elite is at the
middle of the chart.
Again the N550S Elite is in the middle of
the chart.
This time the result is very good and very
close to other MLC SSDs.
The story continues, and again the Netac
N550S occupies the middle of the chart.
A nice surprise with this test result.
The third fastest drive, and again a very
good result.
Once again the Netac N550S Elite is in the
middle of the chart.
The N550S Elite SSD is up there on top with
a great result.
9.3 seconds is a good result.
Once more 9.3 seconds, which is a good result
for the Netac N5550S Elite SSD.
Summary:
The Netac N550S Elite gave some good
results, especially when we are talking about a TLC drive.
Let's head to the next page for our
IOMeter test results.....
I/O Performance
There is little point of having an SSD
drive that has blazing sustained reading and writing speeds, if the drive can't
handle reading and writing of small random files. If you intend to use your new
SSD drive to store and run your operating system, then the drive must be able
to cope with the many small random files that Windows will write to the drive
continually. So I feel it is very important to test how many of these random
files that a drive can handle in one second. I believe that anything over 1,000
I/O’s per second would be enough for most users running a consumer grade
mainstream PC, and should provide a smooth running system. But obviously, the
more I/O's that a drive can handle, the faster the drive will feel and leave
more headroom for those huge multitasking sessions that users sometimes engage
in.
The things that I will look at are the
total I/O per second and total MB/s.
Partition alignment and sector boundaries
Windows 7 and Vista will automatically
align a partition to 4k boundaries during partition creation, Windows XP won’t.
It is imperative that an SSDs partition is aligned. Windows XP is also
restricted to sector boundaries, while Windows 7 will use 4k boundaries if it
can. The Netac N550S Elite 240GB SSD is 4k boundary aware, and will use these
boundaries if possible. Of course it will also remap LBAs for compatibility
with the sector boundaries so that the drive can be used with Windows XP.
IOMeter allows us to set the sector
boundaries for conducting the tests, and I have therefore set the sector
boundaries at 4K, which means the IOMeter tests are valid for Windows 7 and
Windows Vista users. XP users will not be able to obtain such results.
I will provide a screenshot of the tests on
the review drive for those of you who like to see the actual test result. All
the comparison drive results are represented in the form of graphs.
If any of you would like to see a
screenshot from any IOMeter test on a particular drive, please feel free to request
one, and I’ll post the screenshot in the forum thread.
All the IOMeter tests create a 10GB data
set on the target drive, and each test is run for a duration of 3 minutes.
IOMeter 4K random write test with repeating data.
The first test involves creating continual
4KB random files on the target drive with IOMeter. I use a 4KB file size, as it
is believed that Windows will create and modify many of this size of file
constantly in the background during a typical Windows session. It is said that
most 4K random writes take place at a queue depth of only one.
Queue depth 1
Netac N550S Elite 240GB SSD (Queue depth 1)
The Netac N550S Elite SSD was only able to
reach 69.92MB/Sec which is just okay, but is expected from a TLC drive.
Queue depth 4
Netac N550S Elite 240GB SSD (Queue depth 4)
This time it's 119.42 MB/sec. Again the
result is okay and demonstrates the limitations of TLC NAND.
Queue depth 32
Netac N550S Elite 240GB SSD (Queue depth 32)
Again we see the limitations of the TLC
NAND, as the Netac N550S Elite SSD was only able to achieve 127.40 MB/sec.
4K random write queue depth profile
For this
test I used various queue depths from 1 – 32 to give you an idea how this SSD
performs at different queue depths. For a normal desktop user, with lightweight
multitasking, the queue depth will rarely rise above 2. For heavy multitasking,
the queue depth is unlikely to rise above a value of 8.
It should be clear that if for some reason
you do a lot of writes, then TLC SSDs are not for you.
IOMeter 4K random read test.
If there are many 4k files created, then
that must also mean that many 4k files need to be read. This test measures 4k
reading performance.
Queue depth 1
Netac N550S Elite 240GB SSD (Queue depth 1)
Read performance in this first test appears
to be good, at 29.49 MB/Sec for the Netac N550S Elite.
Queue depth 4
Netac N550S Elite 240GB SSD (Queue depth 4)
Again the Netac SSD shows an okay result of
82.03 MB/Sec.
Queue depth 32
Netac N550S Elite 240GB SSD (Queue depth 32)
This time the Netac N550S Elite SSD gave a
good result, and was able to achieve 306.77 MB/Sec.
4K random read queue depth profile.
This test
shows how the review drive scales with increasing queue depths.
The read performance of the Netac N550S
Elite SSD is good, and if you are a casual user you probably won't need much
more speed.
IOMeter 512KB write test with repeating data.
Sequential writing performance is also very
important, and in this test I will be measuring the sequential writing
performance of the drive.
Netac N550S Elite 240GB SSD - 512K Sequential write with repeating data
The result is simply disappointing. The
Netac N550S Elite was only able to achieve 106.5 MB/Sec in this write test.
This shows how fast the SLC cache runs out causing the drive to slow down
dramatically.
IOMeter 512KB read test.
This test measures 512k sequential reading
performance.
Netac N550S Elite 240GB SSD – 512K sequential reading test
Read speed shows a different story, as the
Netac N550S Elite delivers a very good performance.
IOMeter Workstation simulation (outstanding I/Os = 64).
When running applications you will find
that there is a mixture of small random files and larger sequential files,
being created and read. Not only that, it isn’t just one file at a time. In
this test I measure a simulated workstation pattern, with a queue depth of 64
(threaded).
Netac N550S Elite 240GB SSD – Workstation simulation
The Netac SSD managed a speed of 234.92MB/Sec
which isn’t the best result that I have seen but it is a good result.
Summary
There are two sides to the story for the
Netac N550S Elite. The one that does not impress is the write speed of the
N550S Elite. The drive is simply slow once the SLC cache runs out, and because
of its size it runs out very quickly. On the other hand if you are casual user,
and you will mainly read from the Netac N550S Elite, the drive is able to show
some good results.
Let's head to the next page for our
power consumption test results.....
Power requirements and efficiency
Storage device manufacturers by law must
provide power consumption specifications with their storage device products.
Quite often these specifications are quite vague, and rarely, if ever, publish
the power efficiency of their storage devices with regard to how much work a
storage device can do for a given amount of energy consumed. In this article we
will disclose with unprecedented precision, the energy efficiency of some
popular storage devices.
Myce has now secured a piece of 'state of
the art' test equipment, which takes a sample every four micro-seconds, that I will
be using to measure the power consumption of consumer grade SSDs and HDDs. I'm so
very proud to be able to announce that Myce.wiki, in partnership with Quarch Technology, now aims to bring our readers
the most comprehensive, and accurate, power consumption tests ever carried out
on consumer grade storage devices, to be found anywhere on the Internet.
Myce’s Power Testing will be carried out using
Quarch Technology products. More specifically we are privileged that Quarch has
allowed us to use their latest Programmable Power Module (‘PPM’) and we would
also like to take this opportunity to give a huge 'thank you' to Quarch for
providing this equipment. The PPM is specifically designed for testing low
power sleep states on modern SSDs and as such has a remarkably accurate low
level current measurement, down to 100μA (micro amps,
or millionths of an amp). Please click here
for details.
Quarch Technology is a world leader in the
supply of testing solutions for the data storage industry and if you would like
any further information please visit their website by clicking here.
Let's take a closer look at the Quarch PPM
box in a bit more detail.
Quarch
Technology PPM
The Quarch Technology PPM is able to
provide two power supply rails to the target SSD. A 12V (volt) rail is required
for PCIe based SSDs, and also for SATA HDDs, SATA HDDs also require the 5V rail
to function. All the power requirements of a SATA SSD are handled by the 5V
rail.
The Quarch Technology PPM can switch
between 5V and 3.3V on the secondary power output channel as required. So for
SATA based SSDs it is set to 5V, and for PCIe based SSDs, it is set to 3.3V.
On the right of the Quarch PPM, you can see
the socket where the main power injection lead connects.
On the rear of the box (not shown) you will
find a USB 2 socket, a power socket (to supply power to the unit) and a Torridon
connection interface, for connecting to external equipment.
My setup.
Although the Quarch Technology PPM can be
used on a single PC, which can act both as host and measurement system, I will
be using two PCs to run the tests. One PC will handle the measurements, and the
second PC will act both as a host for the target SSD, and will also be used to
load the target SSD with data. This will allow me to do some pretty fancy power
consumption tests.
I will first show the type of workload
being used to load the SSD during the power consumption test. I will then
present the power consumption graph, and power consumption statistics of the
SSD.
I will display the results in the form of
bar graphs, at the end of each test carried out in this article, so one can
compare the results obtained on all the SSDs featured in this article.
I will use the following IOMeter test
patterns to load the SSD or HDD.
- 4K random read and write at a queue depth
of 1 (to emulate a lightweight consumer workload). - 4K random read and write at a queue depth
of 4 (to emulate a medium workload). - 4K random read and write at a queue depth
of 32 (to emulate a heavy workload). - 512K sequential read (to emulate reading
a sequential file from the storage device). - 512K sequential write (to emulate writing
a sequential file to the storage device).
Power requirements for a lightweight consumer workload. -
4K random read and write QD1
A typical lightweight consumer workload
will generally be at very low queue depths. Typically at a queue depth of one
or less. I'm testing random data at a block size of 4 Kilobytes, as this block
size of small random files is generally accepted as the most frequently
occurring in the consumer environment.
I will show the chart generated by the
Quarch PPM for the drive that I have tested. I will then show the results in
the form of bar graphs, so one can easily compare with other recently tested
SSDs.
There will actually be two bar graphs for
each test. The first graph will show the average power consumption during the
test run. The second graph, which is much more important, will indicate the
power efficiency of the storage device, showing how much work the storage
device can do for each Watt of energy it consumes.
4K Random Read - queue depth 1
Netac
N550S Elite 240GB – 4K random read QD1
The Netac N550S Elite SSD's average power
consumption is very good for a TLC SSD.
Also the IOPS per Watt result is very good.
4K Random Write - queue depth 1
Netac
N550S Elite 240GB – 4K random write QD1
When it comes to the average write power
consumption result, the Netac N550S Elite gives the performance level that you
would expect for a TLC SSD.
As we saw in the IOMeter test the overall
performance wasn’t that good, and this result is also verified here.
Power requirements for a medium weight consumer workload.
- 4K random read and write QD4
A typical medium weight consumer workload
will generally be at a queue depth of four or lower. This workload would
typically involve some multitasking, with perhaps two or three applications
running, and processing data simultaneously. I'm testing random data at a
block size of 4 Kilobytes, as this block size of small random files is
generally accepted as the most frequently occurring in the consumer environment.
I will show the charts generated by the
Quarch PPM, for the drive that I have tested. I will then show the results in
the form of bar graphs, so one can easily compare with other recently tested
SSDs.
4K Random Read - queue depth 4
Netac N550S Elite 240GB – 4K random read QD4
Once again the N550S Elite SSD gives a very
good performance.
The same applies for the IOPS per Watt
result.
4K Random Write - queue depth 4
Netac
N550S Elite 240GB – 4K random write QD4
The Netac N550S Elite SSD shows a very low
average power consumption but how does this translate to the IOPS per Watt
chart?
As you have probably guessed the low
IOMeter result again puts the Netac SSD into a difficult place.
Power requirements for a heavyweight consumer workload. -
4K random read and write QD32
Whilst this workload is unlikely arise for
the casual consumer PC user, it could well appear in a semi-professional
consumer environment, such as in a graphics workstation. This workload would
usually involve heavy multitasking, and having several processes running
concurrently that require constant access to small files located on the storage
device for input or output.
I'm testing random data at a block size of
4 Kilobytes, as this block size of small random files is generally accepted as
the most frequently occurring in the consumer environment.
I will show the chart generated by the
Quarch PPM, for the drive that I have tested. I will then show the results in
the form of bar graphs, so one can easily compare with other recently tested
SSDs.
4K Random Read - queue depth 32
Netac
N550S Elite 240GB – 4K random read QD32
The Netac N550S Elite is in the middle of
the chart with another good result.
This time the result is surprisingly very
good.
4K Random Write - queue depth 32
Netac
N550S Elite 240GB – 4K random write QD32
Again the Netac SSD shows that it requires
less power to complete the task, but let’s see again how this translates to the
IOPS per Watt chart.
It’s clear that less power and less IOPS won't
give you a good result.
Power requirements of a storage device when reading and
writing sequential data
Not all of a consumer workload is based
around the reading and writing of small random files. Many files are sequential
in nature, and can vary in size from a few Kilobytes to several Gigabytes, so
your storage device will spend a lot of time reading and writing sequential
data.
I'm testing sequential data at a block size
of 512 Kilobytes.
512KB Sequential read
Netac
N550S Elite 240GB – Sequential read
A very good result for the Netac N550S
Elite SSD.
Also the IOPS per Watt result is very good.
512KB Sequential write
Netac
N550S Elite 240GB – Sequential write
Once again the power consumption number looks
great but will it also translate to something equally good in the IOPS per Watt
test?
Unfortunately the answer is 'no', and as
expected the IOPS in the IOMeter test were very low which impacted on the IOPS
per Watt performance.
Power requirements of storage devices when they are idle
and doing no work at all
The practical reality relating to power
consumption is that it can be quite erratic and sometimes unpredictable. Some
of us will invest in the most powerful PC we can afford, only to find that the
PC can spend quite a lot of time running and doing absolutely nothing. Storage
devices are no different.
Often we can be sitting idly pondering what
to do next, or perhaps browsing the Internet. When we arrive at a page that
interests us, we will read it, and that can take a fair amount of time to
complete. During this period the storage device will most likely be idle, but
still consuming energy.
In this test, I'm measuring how much energy
the storage device consumes when doing no work at all and with link power
management disabled.
Netac
N550S Elite 240GB – Drive idle
Idle power consumption is good, and should
be able to save some power from your laptop battery.
I will now show one more test, and this
should be regarded as being for information purposes only.
Power requirement trace of an SSD booting Windows 10, in
real time.
This test is for interest only, and shows
the power requirements of the review SSD booting Windows 10 to the desktop.
Netac
N550S Elite 240GB – Real time trace of the drive booting Windows 8.1 to the
desktop.
These results are here as a reference, but
as we can see the Netac SSD was able to give a good result.
Summary
The Netac N550S Elite SSD is a nice drive,
but it’s a TLC drive and it also exhibits some of the negatives that come with
TLC NAND. These are mainly focused on the write speed, and in all the write tests
the drive had a hard time, although in the read tests it was able to deliver some
good results.
Now let’s head to the next page where we
will look at how the Netac N550S Elite SSD performs using Anvil's Storage
utilities....
Anvil’s Storage Utilities
As well as performing SSD endurance tests.
Anvil’s Storage Utilities has a very nice SSD benchmarking application. The SSD
benchmark tests many different aspects of SSD performance, including 4K random
at different queue depths, and also sequential performance, but more importantly
than this, all using real test data.
Another very nice feature of Anvil’s SSD
benchmark is the fact that you can change the compression levels of the test
data. The compression levels of the data sets used for the tests can be varied
from 0% compression right up to 100% compressed data, and there are even a few
data profiles already included, such as database (8%) compression, and also an
application profile (46%) compression, which is designed to simulate real
application data being read and written to the SSD.
Anvil’s Storage Utilities is still in beta
at the moment, but the application is currently solid enough to use in this
article, and I have already verified the results obtained using an SATA
analyser.
I will include a screenshot of the review
drive, and all comparison results will be presented in the form of graphs. If
you would like to see screenshots of the test results obtained on the other
SSDs in this article, you can do so by following the link here.
I will also be testing three different
compression profiles, which are as follows.
- 0 fill (100% compressible data)
- Application simulation profile (46%
compressed) - 100% (non compressible data)
So let’s begin the tests.
0 fill
Netac N550S Elite 240GB SSD (0 fill)
Results
are ranked by highest total score.
The Netac N550S Elite SSD is the slowest drive
that I have tested. The reasons for this are the TLC NAND and the low capacity
of the drive.
Application profile
Netac N550S Elite 240GB SSD (application profile)
Results are ranked by highest total score.
In this test thing are looking a little
better, and the drive is closer to the middle of the chart.
100% incompressible
Netac N550S Elite 240GB SSD (100% incompressible)
Results are based on the highest total score.
Again with incompressible data the Netac
N550S Elite is able to stay in the middle of the graph, and it's a good result.
Summary
The Netac N550S Elite gave good performance
with the exception of the 0-Fill Test. Overall though the result is good for a
240GB TLC SSD.
Now let's head to the next page for some
real world tests....
It has become clear that simply conducting
endless benchmarks on SSD drives is pointless. Real users may run a few
benchmarks when they first fit their SSD drive, but most users just want a
drive that performs well in the real world. They want their drive to work
"out of the box" and work fast and smoothly.
Most of the latest SSD drives can deliver
very fast sustained reading and writing speeds, but these alone tell you very
little about how the drive will perform in the real world.
If you intend to use your SSD as your
primary system drive, with an operating system and applications installed and
running from the drive, real world performance becomes much more important than
just fast sequential read and write speeds, in this case I felt that it was
time to move into a different method of testing.
From now on I will only use the log files
from the Event Viewer to measure the start-up and shutdown of the system, and
also use filecopy to measure all my copy tests from a RAM disk to the selected
storage drive that I will be testing. For these tests I will also enable all
power savings features that are available, since I believe that this is the way
that the majority of the users will have them set on their PC.
Real
world copy tests
I will now conduct some real world copy
tests so that you can have a much better view of how the drive will perform. In
these simple tests I try to simulate what a real user does with their drives. I
will be copying some mp3 files, various picture and MKV files, and finishing by
installing MS Office 2007.
As I said earlier from now on all my test
files will be stored in a RAM disk and copied/pasted to the destination drive
using filecopy. The filecopy utility will be used from now on for all my tests,
and I’ll be using it this way to measure the time that it takes to copy the
files.
Before I move on to the test, I want to
give you an idea on how fast your RAM is. Below you can find the results.
As
we can clearly see speed isn’t going to be an issue in these tests.
Read write tests – 259 MP3 song files (1.36GB total)
I will start this set of tests by copying
259 MP3 files from the RAM disk to the destination SSD and also from the SSD to
the RAM disk.
Very good results for the Netac N550S Elite
SSD, as both read and write times are very good.
Read write tests – 3,377 JPEG picture files (2.56GB total)
Continuing my set of tests, but this time I
will be copying 2.54GB of pictures that are stored in the RAM disk to the
currently testing SSD and vice versa.
Again read and write times for the Netac
N550S Elite are very good.
Read write tests – 1 MKV and 1 SRT file (3.46GB)
Copying a movie is very common task for all
of us, and in this test there are two files that will be copied from the RAM
disk to the SSD and again from the SSD to the RAM disk.
The Netac N550S Elite continues to give
very good performance.
Read write tests – ISO (7927MB)
For this test, I copied ISO of the 'Iron
Man' movie from the RAMDisk to the SSD and vice versa.
Here we can see that the performance of the
Netac N550S Elite falls behind in the write test, and it shows that the SLC
cache isn’t enough to hold an almost 8GB file.
Read write tests – Small files (533MB)
I have decided to adapt the very small
files test that I am using as part of my USB3 flash tests, so this time I will
be also copying all the files from the RAM disk to the SSD, and again from the
SSD to the RAM disk.
Even with very small files the Netac N550S
Elite gives a very good result.
Windows start-up based on the Boot Racer 5.00
Start-up time
On the next screen shot you can compare the
current tested SSD and compare it to other drives that I tested. Below I
present the results.
30.7 seconds is a very good result for the
Netac N550S Elite SSD.
Installing applications
Installing applications is possibly
something you don't do that often. But should you replace your system disk,
then you will most likely have to re-install your applications. Most of the SSD
drives I have tested up until now are quite slow at installing applications,
most likely because their I/O performance was quite limited.
For these tests, we picked some popular
applications and copied the entire contents of the CD or DVD media to the RAM disk.
We did this to make sure that the reading speed of our CD/DVD reader would not
hamper the performance of the target drive.
We then installed these applications onto
our comparison HDD drives, which were all running mirror image installations of
our Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit installation, and timed the amount of time
taken to install the application with a stopwatch on each of the drives.
MS Office 2007 Enterprise (full install)
Now let’s see
how the Netac N550S Elite SSD performs with the installation of MS Office 2007
Enterprise Edition.
The procedure
followed was very simple. I copied all the files from the CD to the RAM disk and
used the virtual drive as a source for the installation files.
The result is good, 119 seconds for a full
install of Office 2007.
Speed degradation after heavy testing
On this page I will measure how the SSD
performs after heavy testing and usage.
I will run an AS SSD benchmark test when
the OS is freshly installed so that we can get a good view of how the drive
performs with the OS. After that I will fill the drive up to 50% of its capacity,
use the drive for a few days, and then re-run the AS SSD benchmark. The same
procedure will be followed once again, but this time the drive will be filled
close to 90% or higher of its capacity. To finish this test, I will simply
delete all the extra data and leave the PC idle for a few hours so that the
controller has the time to perform any necessary cleaning, then see how the
drive performs.
In this picture you can see the test files
that I will be copying to fill the drive with data, as you can see files vary
from 8GB ISOs to very small text files.
In the picture below you will find all the
applications that were installed for this test using Ninite, and I have also installed Microsoft
Office 2007.
Now let’s start our tests.
First the AS SSD benchmark on the Netac
N550S Elite SSD when the OS was just installed, and these are the results I got.
Here we can clearly see that the sequential
write performance takes a massive hit when the drive hasn't enough free space.
Leaving 50% free space on the Netac N550S
Elite has a beneficial impact, and the performance is restored.
After deleting all the extra files and
leaving the drive almost back to its original state we can see that it
continues to give a result that is very close to the first test.
Write Speed test
At this moment I would like to say HD Tune
write speed test was the very first test that I ran on this drive right after I
got it out of the box, and from looking at the result it was clear that it
wouldn’t be very difficult to push it to its limits.
As you can see the write speed of the Netac
N550S Elite SSD is able to keep its maximum write speed only for the first
10-12GB, and after that the SLC cache runs out the write performance drops down
to 72.8 MB/Sec.
So during my real world tests I needed to
copy a lot of files, and noticed that the drive will reach maximum write speeds
of 70MB/Sec to 60MB/sec when copying large files. Below is a screen-shot that I
took during the copying of various files from one folder to another, on the
same disk.
This concludes our review. To read the final
thoughts and conclusion, click the link below....
The cons:
It’s no secret that so far the performance
of TLC NAND isn’t something that has impressed us, and the Netac N550S Elite is
no exception to this rule. Also the smaller size doesn’t give much room for the
SLC cache to work for that little extra bit of speed, so as you have seen the
write speeds are very low. Availability is also something that Netac needs to
improve.
The pros:
The bold decision on the colour. I like the
blue and its catches your eye very quickly. The three year warranty is also something
that is welcomed for an SSD that is designed to bring good value to
performance.
The read performance of the Netac N550S Elite
was good, and the overall results show that this drive can be a good
alternative option for those that need an inexpensive SSD to replace their old
mechanical hard drive. Power consumption was also good, especially for the read
tests.
To sum up, this is what I would say:
This introduction of Netac to Myce readers
for this review has come to an end, and in a way I am left me with some mixed feelings.
To start with I didn’t like the write performance but this was something to be expected
from a TLC SSD, however casual users, that are have more read focussed
requirements, won't notice that and will have a nice experience, with relatively
low power consumption. So let’s see what the future holds for Netac.
Thanks to:
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EFD |
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Alex Schepeljanski for |
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FutureMark |
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Quarch |
You may comment on this review here, you
can also post your benchmarks in our forum.
