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Preview: OCZ Vertex 3 |
OCZ Technology was kind enough to send me an engineering
sample of the Vertex 3 240GB SSD for preview. The OCZ Vertex 3 is a native SATA
6Gbps solution and sports the brand new SandForce SF-2281 SSD processor coupled
with 25nm MLC NAND manufactured by Micron. I ask you to keep in mind that the
engineering sample I have received may not contain the final version of the PCB
or hardware, and the firmware is of course a BETA, that is for sure still being
optimized, so you can perhaps expect even better performance from the retail
Vertex 3.
In this preview I will run a good number of tests so
everyone can see what the Vertex 3 is capable of doing, and will follow this up
with a full review once the Vertex 3 goes retail, and the drive is available
for end consumers to purchase.
SandForce came from nowhere last year and took the SSD
market by storm with their SF-1200 series SSD processor. In a single swoop they
managed to saturate SATA 3Gbps, and not only that, the SF-1200 series had
mighty impressive small random file writing performance, excellent durability,
and is still present in the review PC as I write this article. The question
that most of you will want answered now is, can the Vertex 3 and its SandForce
SF-2281 SSD processor surpass what is already an extremely high performance bar
set by the Vertex 2?
I speculated
back in December 2010 that we would see a consumer version of the SandForce
SF-2000 family of SSD processors, and guessed that these new processors would
be designated the SF-2200 series. What I didn’t bargain for then was for the
SF-2281 to make it to the market so soon in 2011. However, it’s here now, and
the NDA is now lifted, so I can now show you a preview of the brand new OCZ
Vertex 3 SSD.
We'll find out in this preview how this new SSD performs in
our range of benchmarks and real world tests.
OCZ company information
I’m sure most MyCE members will be familiar with the OCZ
brand name. OCZ Technology has been manufacturing high performance, high
quality PC memory, PSU units, SSDs, and other PC related hardware for many
years.
If you would like to find out more about OCZ Technology, you
can visit the OCZ website.
The OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD
Now it’s time to take a look at the drive itself and what
the drive came shipped with.
The package contained the OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD itself, which has a user capacity of 223GB when used with Windows 7.
It’s an engineering sample, so the case still doesn’t have the Vertex 3 label,
but below I have a marketing picture of how the retail product may look.
Drive bottom
Once again, the back of the drive doesn’t have a great deal
of information to show you. We can see a label with what I suspect is a part
number, and that the drive is a marketing sample. We can also see the SATA
power and data connector.
Now let's head to the next page, where we look in more
detail at the OCZ Vertex 3.
OCZ Vertex 3 hardware.
Now let’s take a look at the OCZ Vertex 3 hardware.
PCB
Near the centre of the above screenshot we can see the
SandForce SF-2281 SSD processor, and we can also see 8 25nm MLC NAND chips
manufactured by Micron, the other side of the PCB being populated by a further
8 NAND chips.
The SandForce SSD processor
The SSD processor used in the Vertex 3 is the brand new SandForce
SF-2281, designated SF-2281VA1-SDC-ES on our engineering sample.
The SF-2281 is the high performance “enthusiast” client SSD
processor in the SF-2000 family. There is also a mainstream/budget SSD
processor, the SF-2100 series, and the upmarket high performance and endurance
2500/2600 series for the enterprise and industrial markets.
When the SandForce SF-1200 series SSD processor arrived last
year which was used in the Vertex 2, it brought a number of new technologies to
SSD, some are designed to increase performance, others designed to improve
durability and increase the lifespan of the SSD.
Key changes from the SandForce SF-1200 family to the SF-2200 family of SSD
processors.
The new SandForce SF-2281 SSD processor builds on the
original design and has many improvements over the original SF-1200 series. The
SF-2281 still has 8 channels, but there are 16 data lanes to the NAND array,
and of course the SF-2281 communicates with the outside world by using a new
SATA 6Gbps host controller. Other key changes include enhanced error
correction, enhanced NAND support, and enhanced security features.
Let’s take a brief look at a few of these technologies.
SandForce SF-2281 block diagram
What we can see is the new 55b BCH ECC error correction
engine, and a few other changes over the older SF-1200 series of SSD
processors, the most notable being a switch to a SATA 6Gbps host controller,
and support for toggle and ONFI 2 NAND. As NAND becomes forever smaller in its
fabrication process, more robust and faster error correction is required.
From the above screenshot we can see at least 2 unique
technologies that SandForce are using on this new SSD processor under a
technology they call DuraClass.
Let’s first take a brief look at NAND.
NAND
There are two fundamental things that cannot be ignored when
using flash memory for storage. That is, the flash memory type currently used
is NAND, which is (a) expensive and (b) has a limited amount of total write
cycles. I’m pretty sure that all SSD manufactures would love to only use SLC
(single level cell) NAND on their SSDs: it’s faster and has approximately 10x
the total write cycles of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND. Unfortunately though,
the cost of SLC is enormous, and this is the main reason that SLC is generally
reserved for high end enterprise class SSDs.
It’s easy to see the good points of using commodity NAND,
it’s cheaper so costs can be kept down, and with each new fabrication process
the cost is further reduced, and the NAND dies themselves can carry more
capacity and they can be faster.
The downside of using commodity NAND is endurance, and as
new fabrication processes shrink the die, endurance can become much more of a
problem.
If we look at the above screen shot, it is very obvious why
it is so desirable to use commodity NAND. We all want reliable SSDs, but we
must be able to afford to purchase them in the first place.
The NAND on our OCZ Vertex 3 engineering sample was fitted
with 16 high bandwidth ONFI 2 MLC NAND chips manufactured by Micron using a
25nm fabrication process.
DuraWrite
If we look at the OCZ Vertex 3, it uses MLC NAND, and on the
240GB model it uses sixteen MLC NAND chips to give the total user capacity. The
actual amount of NAND amounts to 256GB, but we will look at why only 240GB is
available for user storage a little later. Had the OCZ Vertex 3 used SLC NAND
of the same density, thirty-two NAND chips would have been required to have the
same 240GB capacity. The reason for this is that SLC can store a single bit of
data per NAND cell, while SSD grade MLC can store 2 bits of data per cell. In
other words, SSD grade MLC NAND can store twice the amount of data compared to
SLC NAND, and this in turn means the cost of MLC NAND is much less than half
the price of SLC NAND, and also the main reason why SLC NAND based SSDs are
generally lower capacity drives.
The other fundamental is MLC NAND is less durable compared
to SLC NAND. SLC NAND is reckoned to have 100,000 total write cycles, whereas 25nm
MLC NAND has a typical 3,500 to 5,000 total write cycles. The curse of NAND is
write amplification: put simply, this means that the more data that has to be
written, the faster those write cycles are used up. SandForce has looked at
write amplification in great detail, and come up with a new technology called
DuraWrite. The SandForce SSD processor is smart enough and fast enough to
compress data on the fly, and then write a compressed version of the data to
the NAND itself. By doing this, some writes can be 20 times smaller than they
would be if they remained uncompressed. This also has an added bonus, if you
have to write less of the data to NAND, then the write process also becomes
much faster.
So, as well as lowering write amplification you also
increase performance, which is very clever, allowing the much cheaper MLC NAND
to be used in an enterprise class environment. Of course, not all data can be
compressed in this fashion, ZIP, RAR, and MPEG files for example are already
heavily compressed so won’t benefit so much by this process, but overall
DuraWrite works extremely well as we will see later on in this article.
RAISE
Another technology found in the SandForce SF-2281 is RAISE (Redundant
Array of Independent Silicon Elements).
As I mentioned earlier, our OCZ Vertex 3 SSD engineering
sample has a user capacity of 240GB. The actual amount of NAND that the drive
has is 256GB of MLC NAND. So what is the other 16GB used for?
At some point during an SSD’s life a NAND cell or block of
NAND cells will fail, which is why all SSDs do not make the full amount of
onboard NAND available to the user for storage. All SSDs have a pool of
reserved NAND to map into use if a cell or block of cells fails. This can be as
low as 1GB or 2GB of NAND in reserve. RAISE sets aside a good deal more than
this in its pool of reserved NAND. In the case of the OCZ Vertex 3 240GB, the
amount of reserved NAND is approximately 16GB. By keeping so much NAND in
reserve, this should ensure the SSD can last for the expected minimum lifespan
of 5 years.
The RAISE area is where all your immediate writes to the SSD
end up in the short term. The RAISE area should always have fresh and clean
NAND to work with, providing you are not hammering the drive. Under normal
operation the 16GB of NAND should have enough clean NAND to make sure that
performance doesn’t take a hit. During idle time, the RAISE area is recycled,
and all writes in this area are committed to the normal NAND array.
Also, in combination with DuraWrite and RAISE, the SandForce
SF-2281 will monitor the amount of writes in a given time frame that the NAND
has to endure. If the writes are dangerously high in a small time frame, then
the SF-2281 is able to throttle down the SSD processor, slowing it down to
preserve durability. The same technique is also used to return the drive back
to full speed (see the section on TRIM for more details).
Security features
As we can see from the above screen shot, the security and
encryption features are quite complex and beyond the scope of this article, and
I’m certainly not qualified to write any in depth material about the advanced
security technologies used on the Vertex 3.
Basically what happens is, data that is written to the
Vertex 3 is encrypted on the fly, or to put it simply, any would be data thief
is not going to able to get hold of your private data.
OCZ Vertex 3 Specifications
Drive maintenance features
For Windows 7 users and some distributions of Linux, the OCZ
Vertex 3 supports ATA TRIM to keep the NAND clean. The Vertex 3 also has, as I
touched on above, DuraClass. The new technologies involved in DuraClass should
keep the OCZ Vertex 3 operating at peak performance levels under normal usage
patterns.
TRIM commands are acted upon on SandForce based SSD
processors in a totally different way to normal SSD controllers. To keep write
amplification low, when you delete data from the SSD these blocks are then
marked as discarded by TRIM in the normal way, but the NAND blocks are only
actually cleaned by DuraClass as and when they are required, and this will
normally only take place when NAND is gathered into the RAISE area of the NAND
array. I should stress that under normal operation of the SSD, this is
transparent to the user, and you will never be aware of this taking place at
all.
However, if you hammer the drives with benchmarks, for
example, you may notice the drive being throttled and slowing down slightly. At
least this was the case with the Vertex 2, I will find out in due course if
this is still the case with Vertex 3.
The OCZ Vertex 3 can also be “secure erased”, which will
return all NAND on the SSD to its factory default clean state. You can do this
via the DOS application “HDDErase” or as I prefer by using a Linux “live”
distribution called Parted Magic.
Test machine
For this review I will be using a computer with the
following configuration:
Hardware:
- Motherboard: Asus P8P67 Deluxe (Intel P67 chipset)
- Processor: Intel 2nd generation Core i7 2600K
- RAM: 4GB GEIL Ultra Line DDR3 2133MHz (dual channel)
- GFX: Sapphire Vapor X HD 5770 (1024 Megabytes GDDR5 HDCP compliant)
- Sound: Onboard Realtek ALC889 HD audio controller
- Hard disk OS: OCZ RevoDrive X2 240GB PCIe
SSD, and Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB - Hard disk storage: 1X 500GB Samsung Spinpoint F3, and 1X 1TB
Samsung Spinpoint F1. - Case: Antec 900
- PSU: Enermax Liberty 620W
- Display: Samsung Syncmaster 245B 24” widescreen LCD (HDCP
compliant) - Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit with Service Pack 1
The OCZ Vertex 3 SSD was connected to SATA 6Gbps (port 0) on
the P67 motherboard of our review PC and all tests on the drive were carried
out with the drive connected to this connector.
AHCI mode was also selected for all drives in the UEFI of
our test PC with “hot plugging” enabled, and all tests were carried out in this
mode.
The SATA 6Gbps drivers used on our review PC were the Intel
Rapid Storage Technology (RST) Version 10.1.0.1008.
Test applications
To test the performance of the OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD, I
will be using the following test applications in this review.
- HD Tune Pro
- ATTO
- Iometer
- AS SSD
Benchmark - CrystalDiskMark
- MyCE Reality Suite
Test procedures
I will start off our testing procedures explanation by stating
that I did not run many basic benchmarks on the OCZ Vertex 3 series drive. 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 of the OCZ Vertex
3 SSD, and will complement this with advanced benchmarks using IOMeter and AS
SSD benchmark. I will also show how the OCZ Vertex 3 performs in the real world
with our recently introduced MyCE Reality Suite test.
Test drives
- 120GB OCZ Vertex SSD (firmware 1.5)
- 500GB Samsung SpinPoint F3 (HD502HJ)
- Seagate Momentus XT 500GB (Hybrid drive)
- OCZ Agility 120GB (firmware 1.5)
- Intel X25-M 80GB (series G1)
- OCZ Vertex 2 100GB
- Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB
- OCZ Vertex 3 240GB (engineering sample)
The OCZ Vertex 3 SSD came supplied with firmware version 1.11
BF, this is beta firmware, and retail firmware as I write this article is still
being optimized.
Drive preparation for running the tests
All the drives used in this review were in a "used
state" with the exception of the OCZ Vertex 3, which was in a clean
state at the start 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.
OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD
Comparison SSD
Comparison HDD
Now let's head to the next page, where I look at some
basic benchmarks...
Reading Benchmarks
HD Tune Pro
I present the graph below for comparison with other recently
tested drives.
From our limited number of test samples, we can clearly see that the OCZ Vertex 3 series SSD is very fast;
in fact it’s the fastest reading drive in this test by a long way.
ATTO disk benchmark
ATTO has become a standard tool for measuring the data
throughput of HDD and SSD. It measures the performance of reading and writing,
using different file sizes and block sizes.
(Default queue depth 4)
The reading speed results on the OCZ Vertex 3 are extremely
impressive, topping out at over 555 MB/s, writing speeds are equally impressive,
topping out at 530 MB/s.
ATTO writes its test patterns in form that are easily
compressed by DuraWrite, so you are seeing the OCZ Vertex 3 in a best case
scenario, but it certainly shows what the SSD is capable of.
I thought it would be interesting to see what would happen
with an increased queue depth, so below you can see the result of increasing
the queue depth to 10.
(Queue depth 10)
Increasing the queue depth doesn’t really alter the maximum
throughput of the OCZ Vertex 3, but it does lift small file reading and writing
performance.
CrystalDiskMark 3.0
Crystal Disk Mark is quite a handy benchmarking application,
as it focuses on the file sizes that can cause a problem on a system drive.
With Crystal DiskMark writing mainly non-compressible data
using its default test patterns, we are really seeing Vertex 3 in a worst case
scenario. None the less, the test results are still mighty impressive.
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 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 result from the OCZ Vertex 3 in the
form of a screenshot. All our other comparison drives’ results are presented in
the form of a graph.
Once again, AS SSD creates its test data in a format that
cannot be compressed by DuraWrite, so again we are seeing Vertex 3 in a worst
case scenario. However, the OCZ Vertex 3 has still produced the best results I
have ever seen from a single SATA SSD.
AS SSD compression benchmark.
This test creates test patterns on the target drive which
are random and vary in the level of compression used in the test data. This
ranges from 0% compressible to 100% compressible. This test is ideal for
SandForce based drives, as it will show the relevant performance at different
levels of compression already applied to the test data.
I run this test on the OCZ Vertex 3, and I also run the same
test on two other SSDs.
- Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB
- OCZ Vertex 2 100GB
Below are the obtained results.
OCZ Vertex 3
Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB
OCZ Vertex 2
Even when faced with having to write data that is not
compressible at all by DuraWrite, the OCZ Vertex 3 is still by a huge margin
the fastest drive. In fact, the Vertex 2 also performs very well in this test.
Summary:
In every single area I have tested so far, the OCZ Vertex 3
is by far the fastest drive in these tests.
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 will automatically align a partition to 4k
boundaries during partition creation, Windows XP won’t. It is imperative that
an SSD’s partition is aligned. Windows XP is also restricted to sector
boundaries, while Windows 7 will use 4k boundaries if it can. The Vertex 3 is 4k
boundary aware, and will use these boundaries when it can. Of course it will
also remap LBAs for compatibility with the sector boundaries so 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 (outstanding I/Os = 4, 32) write test.
Our 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. I will use queue depths of 4 and
32 for these tests on the OCZ Vertex 3, OCZ Vertex 2, and Crucial RealSSD C300.
(Queue depth 4)
(Queue depth 32)
IOPS
MB/s
I had to run this test several times, because after the
first test and the result, I was sure I had made an error somewhere when
running the test. In the specifications, OCZ quote up to 60,000 IOPS for 4K
random write with the test data aligned at the boundaries, and the test was
showing well over 84,000 IOPS. I reran the test a couple of more times, and I
hadn’t made an error the first time around, the OCZ Vertex 3 was performing
much better than the claimed specification, with an actual 4K random write
result of 85,209 IOPS which translates to an incredible 332.85 MB/s. That is
incredible performance from a single SATA SSD.
IOMeter 4K random (outstanding I/Os = 4, 32) 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 4)
(Queue depth 32)
IOPS
MB/s
The Crucial RealSSD C300 was always mighty with 4K random
reading performance, and is two times faster than the SF-1200 based Vertex 2.
While the Vertex 3 still can’t match the performance of the RealSSD C300, it is
getting closer and performs much better than the Vertex 2 with 4K random read.
IOMeter 512KB (outstanding I/Os = 2) write test.
Sequential writing performance is also very important; in
this test sequential writing performance is measured.
IOPS
MB/s
The OCZ Vertex 3 slaughters the competition in this test,
and is very near twice as fast as the next fastest drive in this test. We have
been waiting a long time for native SATA 6Gbps support on the Intel platform,
it finally arrived in the shape of P67 just over 6 weeks ago, and here we have
the Vertex 3 already pushing SATA 6Gbps very close to its maximum throughput.
Remember, the Vertex 3 is connected to a single SATA port
here, this isn’t relying on PCIe or multiple SSDs in a RAID 0 array, this a
single SATA drive.
IOMeter 512KB (outstanding I/Os = 2) read test.
This test measures 512k sequential reading performance.
IOPS
MB/s
Sequential reading performance is very impressive, and the Vertex
3 is by a large margin the fastest reading drive.
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).
IOPS
MB/s
The OCZ Vertex 3 has done extremely well in the workstation
simulation, and is a good deal faster than any of the competition.
Summary
I am trying to keep my feet on the ground here, and trying
very hard not to get too excited about what I have just witnessed here in these
IOMeter test results. What IOMeter is showing us here, albeit in a best case
scenario (the test data is compressible by DuraWrite), but what it does show us
is, the Vertex 3 is not just an evolution of the Vertex 2 series, it is more a
revolutionary step forward, and the obtained results are nothing short of
stunning.
Now let's head to the next page for some real world tests....
It has become clear recently 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.
Real world copy
tests
I will now conduct a few real world copy tests. These tests
simulate what real people do with their drives. I will be conducting writing
tests, using a large single file and a multiple file copy of various file
sizes. Then I will round off the tests by copying a folder of MP3 audio files,
and also a folder of JPG pictures.
I should point out that this is not a scientific way of
measuring performance. These timings were taken with a stop watch; we have
however ensured that the reading drive is well able to supply a data stream to
our writing drive, which is high enough not to be slowing down the performance
of the writing drive.
I will once again be comparing the obtained results with our
comparison drives, and will present the results in the form of graphs.
Multiple file copy writing test
For this test I copied the Nero Burning Rom install folder
from our review PC to the OCZ RevoDrive X2 240GB SSD, and then copied the
contents from the RevoDrive to the OCZ Vertex 3 SSD and our other comparison
drives.
Our test copy contained 1,772 files of various sizes with a
combined capacity of 307MB.
The OCZ Vertex 3 is quite a bit faster than any of our
comparison drives in this test.
Single large file writing test (7.95GB)
For this test I used a single DVD9 ISO file which had been
copied to the OCZ RevoDrive X2 240GB SSD. The file was then copied to the OCZ
Vertex 3 240GB SSD and our comparison drives.
The OCZ Vertex 3 with its massive sequential writing performance
is just miles ahead of any of the comparison drives in this test.
Write a folder of JPG picture files.
For this test I copied a folder of JPG picture files from
our OCZ RevoDrive X2 SSD to the OCZ Vertex 3 SSD, and our other comparison
drives. The folder contained 3,714 JPG pictures, with a total capacity of
5.16GB.
Again the Vertex 3 is miles in front when writing our folder
of JPG picture files.
Write a folder of MP3 audio files.
For this test I copied a folder of MP3 audio files from our
OCZ RevoDrive X2 SSD to the OCZ Vertex 3 SSD and our other comparison drives.
The folder contained 851 MP3 audio files, with a total capacity of 3.85GB.
The OCZ Vertex 3 was over three times faster than its
nearest competitor in this test, and as we are dealing with data that is
already heavily compressed, the test shows how much SandForce has advanced when
the SSD has to deal with writing non compressible data with the new SF-2281 SSD
processor.
Just for the fun of it, I grabbed a screenshot of the actual
copy taking place, and you can view it below.
MP3 file copy progress, showing the writing speed on the Vertex 3 of 381 MB/s
Summary
In the previous two pages of this article, it was clear that
according to our synthetic benchmarks and the IOMeter test results that the OCZ
Vertex 3 was performing extremely well, at least in the synthetic world. It is
very encouraging to see this excellent performance being carried over to the
real world with these copy tests.
Windows start-up and closedown
For these tests, I simply used a stop watch and tested the
amount of time taken for a full installation of Windows 7 to boot to the
desktop, and then timed how long it took for Windows 7 to close down by the
normal start menu method.
The timing was started once the BIOS had initialised and
reached the “loading OS message”.
Windows 7 boot time
Windows 7 closedown
The OCZ Vertex 3 is marginally faster than the other
comparison SSDs in booting Windows 7 and then closing the PC down again.
Single drive copy tests
These tests are to simulate a single drive in a PC or
laptop. In other words, I will copy a series of files from one folder on the
tested drive to another folder on the same drive. This means the drive is simultaneously
reading and writing during the tests. I also want to make this a realistic
test. So I have used a folder or MP3 music files, and then repeated the test
with a folder of JPG picture files.
Single drive copy tests – 851 MP3 song files (3.85GB total)
The OCZ Vertex 3's excellent reading and writing performance
has made sure that is by far the fastest drive in this test.
Single drive copy tests – 3,714 JPEG picture files (5.16GB total)
Once again, the OCZ Vertex 3 is the fastest drive by a very
long way, and basically leaves the other drives for dead.
Summary
Our real world tests, though not scientific in nature, I feel
are more realistic than simply running benchmarks. What is clear from our tests
is that the OCZ Vertex 3 has phenomenal performance in the real world. Whatever
SandForce has done with the SF-2281 SSD processor to improve how the SSD can
handle data that isn’t easily compressible by DuraWrite has totally transformed
this new generation of SSD.
Now let’s round of this article with our new MyCE Reality
Suite tests on the next page.....
MyCE Reality Suite (storage).
So what is the MyCE Reality storage test?
The MyCE Reality Suite of tests is made from real everyday
applications and real data, there are no simulated tests, and everything is in
the real world. The only thing that's synthetic is that everything is automated
to make the tests fair, no matter which drive the tests are run on.
Recorded user sessions, by means of a script, are used to
launch the applications, load data, edit data, and then finally write that data
back to the target drive. The scripts do load the system much more than a human
could with these tests, as the scripts do not make mistakes, or pause to think
about what has to be done next.
Measurement system (revision 2)
The measuring system is part hardware and part software. The
hardware is proprietary and under an NDA, but what I can tell you is: The
measuring system can now accommodate SATA2, SATA3, USB3, PCIe, and DMI.
Testing method.
Once all the test data files were complete, they were then
copied to a single folder. I then fitted an old 80GB HDD into the PC and did a
clean install of Windows 7 Home Premium x64. The latest hardware drivers were
installed and Windows update was run to install any new updates that were
available up to 13/05/2010. At this point the applications that were to be used
in the tests were installed and updated with the latest patches.
The folder containing the application test data files was
then copied over to our fresh Windows 7 HDD. The drive was cleaned up and then
the four test scenarios were recorded, with the scenario playback data file
which will run each test scenario saved to the desktop. A drive snapshot was
then taken of the complete HDD and the drive snapshot image copied to a second
HDD for safe keeping.
The image is then simply restored to each of the drives on
test. In the case of SSD’s the partition is then realigned “on the fly” and for
SSDs that support TRIM, the free space is filled and then deleted to force
TRIM. All other HDDs and SSDs in the system are then disconnected to make sure
the complete test can only run on the drive I am testing.
A 20 minute settling time is allowed before the tests are run,
then each of the 4 tests is run and the results gathered. This process is
repeated for each of the drives I am testing.
The test scenarios are as follows.
- Graphics content
- Video editing
- Audio import and compression
- Application multitasking
Let’s begin the tests.
MyCE Reality Suite – Graphics content.
Using ACDSee Pro 3, 100 JPG pictures with an average size of
10MB are imported into the ACDSee library, and then 12 of these JPG files are
then selected for a batch process, of resize, compress the quality to 80%, and
finally write the edited pictures back to the drive. The test is approximately
78% read and 22% write.
The OCZ Vertex 3 has performed extremely well with the
graphics suite, and is a good deal faster than any of our comparison drives.
MyCE Reality Suite – Video editing.
Using Vegas Pro, a 14GB HD MPEG2 video stream is loaded into
the editor, from which 2 segments are then cut and pasted into new segments. There
is a lot of disc caching going on in this test, and the test is approximately
55% read and 45% write.
I had a hunch before running this test that the Vertex 3
would show its true colours. Not only does this test involve more writing than
our other Reality Suite tests, the data that it has to handle is already quite
heavily compressed. We can see quite clearly that the new SandForce SF-2281 SSD
processor is very strong, even when it has to handle content that is already
compressed.
MyCE Reality Suite – Audio import and compression.
Using Sony Soundforge 10, a batch process is run consisting
of 30 24bit (192000hz sample rate) .wav files, and 100 16bit (44100hz sample
rate) .wav files are imported and then converted to MP3 audio files with a bit rate
of 128kbps, and the converted files are written back to the drive. The test is
approximately 72% read and 28% write.
Once again, the OCZ Vertex 3 is well out in front, leaving
the other tested drives in its wake.
MyCE Reality Suite – Application multitasking.
For this I used several popular applications, Microsoft Word
2007, Microsoft Access 2007, Microsoft Excel 2007, Microsoft Outlook 2007,
Adobe reader, Adobe Photoshop CS3, uTorrent, Windows media player, and Internet
Explorer 8.
This session runs for approximately 12 minutes. The test is
started by downloading a Linux distribution via uTorrent, Windows media player
is then opened and a 1080p video file is opened and played for the duration of
the test. Microsoft Outlook is opened and any new emails are received, read,
then replied too, a document in Adobe reader is opened and scrolled from start
to finish, 3 Microsoft Word documents with graphics content are opened, browsed
and some sections of the documents are copied and pasted into a forth document
and then saved back to the drive. The same applies to Microsoft Access and
Excel. 100 MP3 files are imported into Windows media library. Six JPG images
are loaded into Adobe Photoshop and some minor editing is done and the files
saved back to the drive.
Finally, Internet Explorer 8 is opened with 10 tabs, and the
contents of the 10 tabs refreshed, and browsed while the other applications are
busy in the background.
I would describe the multitasking pattern as modest.
During this test there is approximately 85% reading and 15%
writing.
There were no surprises here, and the Vertex 3 is miles in
front of the other comparison drives when running this test.
Summary
I firmly believe that the MyCE Reality Suite gives a very
good overall picture of how a drive can perform in the real world, and in this
case, the OCZ Vertex 3 SSD is head and shoulders above our other tested drives.
This concludes our preview. To read the final thoughts
and conclusion, click the link below....
Final thoughts and the conclusion
Positive:
- Silky smooth operation as a system drive (during the test
period). - Phenomenal reading and writing performance.
- Incredible 4K random I/O performance.
- SATA 6Gbps support.
- Outstanding multitasking potential.
- TRIM support under Windows 7.
- Lightning fast access times.
- Completely silent operation.
- Fast operating system start-up and shutdown times.
- 3 years warranty.
Negative:
- I couldn’t find a single negative with this SSD.
User experience
A modern operating system such as Windows 7 rarely does one
thing at time; it processes hundreds of threads at once. Just take a look at
the processes and services that are running in task manager for an idea of how
much is going on, even with the PC idling at the desktop. When you start
running applications on top of this, the workload increases in line with the number
and type of applications you are running. It’s also fair to say that many of
these processes are already loaded into system RAM, but many are also loaded into
and unloaded from RAM from the system drive as and when they are required.
The fact of the matter is this. If you are running a mainstream
or high end modern PC with a powerful CPU and graphics card, and are still
running a traditional HDD as a system drive, regardless of how fast that HDD
is, it is still bogging the system down substantially. It has long since passed
the stage where one can meaningfully debate if an SSD is really faster than a
traditional HDD. The fact is they are, and not just by a little bit: they are
much faster.
If we look at the 3 basic requirements for a fast SSD, they
are as follows.
- Small file threaded performance needs to be high
- Small random file performance needs to be high
- Sequential read and write speeds needs to be high
The OCZ Vertex 3 240GB has all of the above in abundance.
Stability
With only 3 days of testing, it is impossible to say if the
drive is stable or not. We also have to consider the drive is perhaps not the
absolute final hardware, and the firmware is most certainly beta.
All I can say is, during the 3 day period, the Vertex 3
showed no hint of instability, and remained perfectly stable during the test
period.
Preliminary pricing
The preliminary price of the OCZ Vertex 3 240GB is suggested
at $499. While this is by no means cheap, it is nonetheless very competitive
when you take into account the capacity and performance of the Vertex 3 240GB
SSD.
Below I have some data supplied by OCZ Technology, which
compares the relative performance and pricing of previous and future generations
of OCZ and competitor SSDs.
Conclusion:
Let us summarise the most important positive and negative
points below:
The
main positive points:
The OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD has the fastest reading and
writing speeds from a single SATA drive that we have ever tested here on
MyCE.com.
4K random IOP performance is incredible and small file threaded
performance is phenomenal.
Non-compressible data is handled with ease on the Vertex 3;
with the new SandForce SF-2281 SSD processor showing far better performance in
this area than compared to the older SF-1200 based Vertex 2.
With TRIM support in Windows 7, the OCZ Vertex 3 should
remain at near peak performance during the expected life cycle of the drive.
Noise levels from the drive are nil; there are no moving
parts so the drive is completely silent.
The
main negative points:
I really can’t find anything negative to say about this SSD,
even the suggested selling price of $499 looks very competitive considering the
capacity and performance of the Vertex 3.
To sum up, this is what I
would say:
As I write this article given that the OCZ Vertex 3 has not
been released yet, the OCZ Vertex 3 has no serious rivals, as it is simply head
and shoulders above anything else that is available at this moment in time in
regards to a single drive SATA solution, with the exception of the Vertex 3 Pro.
Intel and Crucial will soon launch their new range of SATA
6Gbps SSDs, but in the performance stakes, the SandForce SF-2281 SSD processor
based SSDs are going to be very difficult to get anywhere even close to.
The only rivals that OCZ are likely to come across in the
short term are drives based on the same SandForce SF-2281 SSD processor which
will no doubt launch at around the same time as the Vertex 3. OCZ Technology,
possibly more than their rivals have invested heavily in better manufacturing
processes. Should this investment give the expected return, then OCZ Technology
have themselves in a very nice position as the new Vertex 3 SSD nears
availability.
Our parting sentence is
“The OCZ Vertex 3 is an incredible SSD, and by far the
fastest SATA SSD we have ever tested here on MyCE.com”.
As the OCZ Vertex 3 was not a retail unit and I haven’t had
time to test the durability of the SSD, I am not going to give an award to this
drive at this stage. You will have to wait until the Vertex 3 is available in
the shops before a full review is carried out on the final retail firmware and specification.
Only then will I be able to judge if the Vertex 3 qualifies for an award. Hopefully
you will not have long to wait, and the Vertex 3 should become available
sometime in March or April 2011.
What I can do is, give the drive a rating based on its
performance and stability during the 3 day testing period.
You may comment on this review below.
Thanks to:
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EFD Software for |
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Alex |
