|
|
Review: Samsung 850 EVO mSATA & M.2. Reviewed by: Wendy Robertson Provided by: Samsung |
Here at Myce.wiki, we have already reviewed the Samsung
850 EVO SATA SSD, with its ground breaking TLC 3D V-NAND, and found it to
be an excellent performer. Today I'm taking a look at a couple of variations to
the Samsung 850 EVO, which expands the 850 EVO SSD range into all 'consumer
grade' form factors, in the shape of the 850 EVO mSATA SSD, and the 850 EVO
M.2. SSD.
Instead of creating a separate review for each SSD, I have
decided to cover both of these new SSDs in the same article. The drives I will
be looking at are....
- Samsung 850 EVO mSATA 500GB. Available in capacities of
120GB, 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB. - Samsung 850 EVO M.2. 250GB using an M.2. 2280 form factor.
Available in capacities of 120GB, 250GB, and 500GB.
I should point out right at the start of this article, that
you cannot directly compare these two SSDs, as they have different capacities,
which means they will have different performance characteristics. For example,
250GB 850 EVO SSDs have 3GB of emulated SLC NAND (Turbo Write Area), whilst the
500GB variants have 6GB of emulated SLC NAND. The extra 'Turbo Write' area will
of course give the 500GB version of the 850 EVO much better sustainable writing
performance.
I should also point out that both these SSDs are
pre-production evaluation samples, and the final production drives may not be
the same, or perform identically to these pre-production units.
So let's find out how these new SSDs perform in our range of
tests.
Samsung company information
Samsung should need no introduction, but those of you who
would like to find out more about Samsung, can do so at their website.
The Samsung 850 EVO mSATA 500GB SSD
Box top
Box bottom
The Samsung 850 EVO M.2. 250GB SSD
Box top
Box bottom
Now let's head to the next page, where we look in more
detail at the Samsung 850 EVO SSD.....
A closer look at the Samsung 850 EVO hardware.
PCB mSATA
The Samsung 850 EVO mSATA. 500GB SSD is powered by Samsung's
MGX SSD controller, coupled to 32 layer 3D V-NAND (TLC). The drive also
features a 512MB LPDDR3 cache buffer. The mSATA variant is available in 120GB,
250GB, 500GB, and 1000GB capacities, with the 1000GB version using the Samsung
MEX SSD controller, rather than the MGX controller found in the lower capacity
versions.
PCB M.2.
The Samsung 850 EVO M.2. 250GB SSD is powered by Samsung's
MGX SSD controller, coupled to 32 layer 3D V-NAND (TLC). Like the mSATA
version, the 850 EVO 250GB M.2. SSD also features a 512MB LPDDR3 cache. The
Samsung 850 EVO M.2., although an M.2. device, is SATA 6Gbps compliant. This
means the M.2. versions are able to utilise Intel RST technology.
Turbo write
Turbo write is a feature found on the Samsung 850 EVO series
of SSDs. On the 850 EVO SSDs, a given amount of NAND acts as a high performance
write buffer. On the 120GB, and 250GB models, 9GB of TLC NAND is set aside for
this purpose. The high performance buffer is actually emulated SLC NAND,
therefore the actual size of the SLC buffer is 3GB on the 120GB, and 250GB 850
EVO.
The 500GB, and 1000GB variants of the 850 EVO have 6GB, and
12GB, of emulated SLC NAND respectively. SLC NAND is much faster to program
compared to TLC NAND, giving much higher performance.
When the 850 EVO is idle, the Turbo write buffer is
transferred over to the normal NAND, thus freeing the emulated SLC NAND for
further writes.
DATA encryption and protection
The Samsung 850 EVO series is a self encryption based
solution, which is compliant with TCG-OPAL 2.0.
Specifications common to both form factors.
Drive maintenance features
For Windows 7 and Windows 8 users, and some distributions of
Linux, the Samsung 850 EVO series SSD supports ATA TRIM to keep the NAND clean.
The Samsung 850 EVO series also has advanced garbage collection to clean the
NAND during drive idle periods.
Samsung SSD Magician
The SSD Magician software allows the user to maintain the
SSD, and has the following features.
- Disk drive: Brings up useful information about the
SSD, including its health status and how much data has been written to the
SSD. - System info: Allows the user to see system and
drive properties. - Performance Benchmark: Performs a very basic
benchmark on the SSD. - Performance optimization: Performs a manual TRIM of
the SSD. - OS Optimization: Allows operating system features
that can affect SSD performance, to be switched on or off. - Firmware Update: Allows the firmware to be updated.
- Secure Erase: Sends a Secure Erase command to the
SSD, clearing all NAND and returning the SSD back to its default factory
state. - Over Provisioning: Allows the user to set aside a
given amount of NAND as a manual over provisioning area. - SSD authenticity test: Checks to make sure
that the SSD is a genuine Samsung SSD. - Enable Rapid mode: Enables the 'Rapid mode' cache
feature.
Data migration software is also available as a download from
Samsung, which allows you to easily migrate your existing system installation
over to your new SSD.
Please note
At the time of writing this article, the current version
of Samsung Magician (4.5) does not support the mSATA or M.2. SSDs. Version 4.6
of Magician should be available at product launch towards the end of March 2015,
where all the features above will be available.
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 Z97 Deluxe (Intel Z97 chipset)
- Processor: Intel 4th generation Core i7 4770K
- CPU cooler: BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro 2
- RAM: 16GB Samsung Green DDR3 1600MHz (dual channel)
- GFX: Onboard Intel HD 4600
- Sound: Onboard Realtek ALC1050 HD audio controller
- Hard disk OS: OCZ Vector 256GB SSD.
- Case: Antec Performance One P280
- PSU: Antec True Power modular 550W
- Display: Dell UltraSharp U2412M 24” widescreen IPS LCD (HDCP compliant)
- Operating System: Windows 8.1 Professional 64bit
AHCI mode was also selected for all drives in the UEFI of
our test PC, 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
13.2.4.1000.
CPU power saving states were disabled for consistency, and
all the SSDs in this article were tested with all CPU power saving states
disabled.
Test applications
To test the performance of the Samsung 850 EVO SSD, I will
be using the following test applications in this review.
- HD-Tune Pro
- ATTO
- Iometer
- AS SSD
Benchmark - CrystalDiskMark
- MyCE Reality Suite
- Anvil’s
Storage Utilities - PC
Mark 8
Test procedures
I will start off our testing procedures explanation by
stating that I did not run many synthetic benchmarks on the Samsung 850 EVO 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 of the Samsung
850 EVO SSD, and will complement this with advanced benchmarks using IOMeter
and AS SSD benchmark. I will also show how the Samsung 850 EVO SSD performs in
the real world with our Myce Reality Suite test.
The reality of SSD performance
Whilst 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. 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.
Test drives
- Intel 520 series 240GB
- Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB SSD
- OCZ Vector 256GB SSD
- Samsung 840 Pro 512GB SSD
- Plextor M5 Pro 512GB SSD
- OCZ Vertex 450 256GB SSD
- Seagate 600 series 480GB SSD
- OCZ Vector 150 240GB SSD
- OCZ Vertex 460 240GB SSD
- Crucial M550 512GB SSD
- Toshiba HG6 256GB SSD
- Samsung 850 Pro 1TB SSD
- Plextor M6e M.2. 256GB SSD
- OCZ ARC 100 240GB SSD
- Samsung 850 EVO 500GB SSD
- Samsung 850 Pro 512GB SSD
- Samsung 850 EVO M.2. 250GB
SSD - Samsung 850 EVO mSATA 500GB
SSD
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.
The Samsung 850 EVO M.2. SSD was connected to the native
M.2. socket on my test PC, and all tests were carried out the drive connected
to this socket.
The Samsung 850 EVO mSATA SSD was housed in a Startech
SAT2MSAT25 mSATA to SATA enclosure, and all tests were carried out with the
850 EVO mSATA SSD connected to this enclosure.
- All SSDs used in this article had their partitions aligned
to the Windows 8.1 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.
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
500GB SSD
Samsung 850 EVO M.2.
250GB SSD
Comparison SSD
Now let's head to the next page, where I look at some
basic benchmarks...
Synthetic Benchmarks
HD Tune Pro
In this benchmark I am checking sequential reading speed.
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
500GB SSD
With an average sequential reading speed of 522.8 MB/s the Samsung
850 EVO mSATA SSD shows an excellent turn of speed. Also worth noting are the
incredibly fast access times.
Samsung EVO 850 M.2.
250GB SSD
With an average sequential reading speed of 523.3 MB/s the
Samsung 850 EVO M.2. SSD also shows an excellent turn of speed.
Let's see how this compares to other recently tested SSDs in
the table below.
The Samsung 850 EVO SSDs have performed extremely well in
the HD Tune sequential reading test.
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.
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
500GB SSD
The reading speed results on the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA 500GB
SSD are extremely impressive, topping out at over 551 MB/s, and writing speed
is equally impressive topping out at over 534 MB/s.
Samsung 850 EVO M.2.
250GB SSD
The reading speed results on the Samsung 850 EVO M.2. 250GB SSD are also
extremely impressive, topping out at over 551 MB/s, and writing speed is
equally impressive topping out at over 532 MB/s.
Let's find out how this compares with other recently tested
SSDs.
ATTO Reading performance
ATTO - Reading
performance at various block sizes
The Samsung 850 EVO SSDs are two of the fastest SSDs when
reading data.
ATTO Writing performance
ATTO - Writing
performance at various block sizes
The Samsung 850 EVO SSDs show excellent 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.
As we can see from the above screenshots, sequential reading
and writing speeds are both very impressive, and random writing performance at
low and high queue depths is excellent.
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 7/8 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 Samsung 850 EVO SSD in
the form of a screenshot. All our other comparison drives’ results are
presented in the form of a graph.
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
500GB SSD
Samsung 850 EVO M.2.
250GB SSD
As we can see from the AS SSD test run, the Samsung 850 EVO
SSDs have excellent reading and writing performance, finishing this test in
second and seventh place respectively.
Summary:
The Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and M.2. SSDs have performed extremely
well in the basic synthetic benchmarks. Random reading and writing performance
is very impressive. Sequential reading and writing performance is outstanding.
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.
IOMeter is probably the most versatile of all the synthetic
benchmarks. Its ability to be configured to generate a multitude of different
I/O traffic is unmatched. Another great feature of IOMeter, is the capability
to test any storage metric that you can think of, providing you know how to
configure the assignments. The reviewer also has complete control over things
like queue depth, block size, whether the traffic is random, sequential, or
even a mixture of both.
Partition alignment and sector boundaries
Windows 8.1, Windows 7, and Windows Vista 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 and 8 will use 4k boundaries
if they can. The Samsung 850 EVO 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, Windows 8, 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, and I have been requested to
include this test in my reviews.
Queue depth 1
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
500GB SSD – 4K random write (QD 1)
Samsung 850 EVO M.2
250GB SSD – 4K random write (QD 1)
At 154 MB/s the Samsung 850 EVO SSDs are excellent, and finish
this test in fourth and fifth places respectively.
Our next 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.
Queue depth 4
Samsung
850 EVO mSATA 500GB SSD (QD 4)
Samsung
850 EVO M.2. 250GB SSD (QD 4)
At a queue depth of 4, the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA SSD is
outstanding, and finishes this test in second place. The M.2. version is a little
slower, and finishes the test in seventh place.
Queue depth 32
Samsung
850 EVO mSATA 500GB SSD (QD 32)
Samsung
850 EVO M.2. 250GB SSD (QD 32)
At 367.07 MB/s, the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA 500GB SSD is
excellent, and finishes this test in seventh place. The lower capacity M.2. SSD
is once again a bit slower, but is still performing well.
IOMeter 4K random write test with fully random data.
This test is exactly the same as the test above except that
the test data is fully random and is therefore much more difficult to compress.
This test was requested as SandForce based SSDs gain a lot of performance by
being able to compress data on the fly. While the above test shows the
SandForce based SSDs in a best case scenario, the following test will show the
SandForce based SSDs in a much more realistic scenario.
Queue depth 4 with fully random data
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
SSD – 4K random write (QD 4 with fully random data)
Samsung 850 EVO M.2.
SSD – 4K random write (QD 4 with fully random data)
The Samsung 850 EVO SSDs pay no penalty when writing data
which is incompressible.
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.
The results are shown below.
As we can see, the Samsung 850 EVO SSDs have outstanding
performance at low queue depths, but after reaching a queue depth of 4,
performance doesn't increase with higher queue depths.
Below I present a table of the results in more detail.
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.
It is said that most 4K random reads take place at a queue
depth of only one, and readers have requested that I include this test in my
reviews.
Queue depth 1
Samsung 850 mSATA 500GB
SSD - 4K random read (QD 1)
Samsung 850 M.2.
250GB SSD - 4K random read (QD 1)
In this test the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and M.2. SSDs have
outstanding performance, and finish in first and third places respectively.
Queue depth 4
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
500GB SSD - 4K random read (QD 4)
Samsung 850 EVO M.2.
250GB SSD - 4K random read (QD 4)
At a queue depth of four, the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and M.2.
SSDs are outstanding, and are the third and fourth fastest SSDs in this test.
Queue depth 32
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
500GB SSD - 4K random read (QD 32)
Samsung 850 EVO M.2.
250GB SSD - 4K random read (QD 32)
At a queue depth of 32, the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and M.2. SSD
are showing outstanding performance, and they are the fifth and sixth fastest
SSDs in this test.
4K random read queue depth profile.
This test shows how the review drive scales with increasing
queue depths.
Below I present a table of the results in greater detail.
IOMeter 512KB sequential write test with repeating data.
Sequential writing performance is also very important; in
this test sequential writing performance is measured.
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
500GB SSD - 512K Sequential write with repeating data
Samsung 850 EVO M.2.
250GB SSD - 512K Sequential write with repeating data
The Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and M.2. SSDs show an excellent
turn of speed, finishing this test in sixth and eleventh places respectively.
512K sequential write - Queue depth profile
While most sequential writes will rarely rise above a queue
depth of two, it has been noted from SATA analyzer traces that with more
demanding tasks, queue depths can rise very close to a queue depth of four.
This is why I now include queue depth profiles for sequential read and write.
Please note that in the following graph, I do not have the
lowest possible score set at zero. This is purely to allow the graphs to be
easier to read, but starting with a lowest possible score other than zero,
gives the impression that there are large differences between competing SSDs with
regard to performance, so please keep this in mind.
512K sequential write
- Queue depth profile
Below I present a table of the results in more detail.
IOMeter 512KB sequential write test with fully random data.
This test is almost exactly the same as the test above
except that the test data is fully random in nature. This test was requested as
SandForce based SSDs gain a lot of performance by being able to compress data
on the fly. While the above test shows the SandForce based SSDs in a best case
scenario, the following test will show the SandForce based SSDs in a more
realistic light. In the real world, the data is neither 100% incompressible nor
100% compressible, it is somewhere in between. So please keep this in mind.
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
500GB SSD – 512K sequential write with fully random data
Samsung 850 EVO M.2.
250GB SSD – 512K sequential write with fully random data
With data that is not so easy to compress, the SandForce SF-2281
based SSDs take a big performance hit, whilst the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and
M.2. SSDs return a very impressive 530.24 MB/s and 520.19 MB/s respectively.
IOMeter 512KB sequential read test QD1.
This test measures 512k sequential reading performance at
very low queue depths.
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
500GB SSD – 512K sequential reading test (QD 1)
Samsung 850 EVO M.2.
250GB SSD – 512K sequential reading test (QD 1)
The Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and M.2. SSDs have excellent
sequential reading performance at very low queue depths, finishing in sixth and
seventh places respectively.
IOMeter 512KB sequential read test (dual threaded).
This test measures 512k sequential reading performance QD2.
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
500GB SSD – 512K sequential reading test (QD 2)
Samsung 850 EVO M.2.
250GB SSD – 512K sequential reading test (QD 2)
At a more realistic queue depth the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
and M.2. SSDs are still showing outstanding sequential reading performance for SATA
SSDs, and finish this test in seventh and ninth place.
512K sequential read - Queue depth profile
While most sequential reads will rarely rise above a queue
depth of two, it has been noted from SATA analyzer traces that with more
demanding tasks, queue depths can rise very close to a queue depth of four.
This is why I now include queue depth profiles for sequential read and write.
Please note that in the following graph, I do not have the
lowest possible score set at zero. This is purely to allow the graphs to be
easier to read, but starting with a lowest possible score other than zero, gives
the impression that there are large differences between competing SSDs with
regard to performance, so please keep this in mind.
512K sequential read - Queue depth profile
Below I present a table of the results in greater detail.
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).
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
500GB SSD – Workstation simulation
Samsung 850 EVO M.2.
250GB SSD – Workstation simulation
The 'workstation' simulation sorts the men out from the
boys, with its mixed reads and writes. This test shows how an SSD could behave with
a heavy workload, in a graphics, or video workstation environment. The Samsung
850 EVO mSATA SSD has excellent mixed read/write performance, and finishes the
test in third place. The Samsung 850 EVO M.2., with its lower capacity is still
performing well.
Summary
All in all, the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and M.2, SSDs have
performed extremely well in our IOMeter tests. They both have outstanding
reading and writing performance, with the higher capacity mSATA version excellent
across the board. The Samsung 850 EVO M.2. 250GB SSD with only 3GB of emulated
SLC NAND doesn't have the sustainable writing performance of the higher
capacity mSATA version, so tends to be a bit slower overall.
Now let’s head to the next page where we will look at how
the Samsung 850 EVO SSD performs using a new benchmarking application....
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 datasets 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.
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% (incompressible data)
So let’s begin the tests.
0 fill
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
500GB SSD (0 fill)
Samsung 850 EVO M.2.
250GB SSD (0 fill)
In the 0 fill test, the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and M.2. SSDs
have performed extremely well, and are the fastest SSDs in this test.
Application profile
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
500GB SSD (application profile)
Samsung 850 EVO M.2.
250GB SSD (application profile)
The application test pattern is much more realistic in terms
of the type of data that real users will employ, with the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
and M.2. SSDs being the fastest SSDs in this test.
100% incompressible
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
500GB SSD (100% incompressible)
Samsung 850 EVO M.2.
250GB SSD (100% incompressible)
With test data that can't be compressed at all, the Samsung
850 EVO mSATA and M.2. SSDs are still exceptional, and finish the test in first
and third places respectively.
Summary
One should keep in mind that although Anvil’s Storage
Utilities SSD benchmark is a very good benchmark, and tests many aspects of SSD
performance, ultimately it is demonstrating which SSD is technically the
fastest when reading data, and this may not be showing (for example) which
drive will be fastest in the real world with a home user's work pattern.
The Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and M.2. SSDs have however performed
exceptionally well in Anvil's SSD benchmark tests, with the M.2. version coming
out on top.
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 run 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 I will then round off the tests by
copying a folder of MP3 audio files, and also a folder of JPG pictures.
In past reviews I simply used Windows copy and paste to copy
the files from one drive to the target drive, and then I measured the time
taken to complete the test with a stop watch. This method was flawed in a
couple of ways. Windows employs a cache, so even when the files had been
copied, some of the data was still in the Windows cache and hadn't yet been
written to the SSD. The other flaw was that a stop watch is not a very accurate
way of measuring the time taken to complete the test.
I had also noticed that copying the small file set had
become pointless, as most modern SSDs have a rather large cache, in fact large
enough to be able to take the complete file set in this cache without having to
commit that data to NAND before the test had completed. I could have increased the
amount of data in the test, but I felt this was moving away from the real
world. For example, who would copy 2GB of data containing only very small
files?
I concluded it was perhaps better just to drop this test
completely, and just focus on the large 8GB ISO file, the folder of MP3 audio
files, and the folder of JPG picture files. I also have taken the opportunity
to increase the amount of data to be copied in the MP3 and JPG tests, to make
sure the SSD's memory cache doesn't obtain an unfair advantage.
The other change is that I now use an application to copy
the data, which also times how long it takes to complete the test. This
application also supports "cache write-through". What this basically
means is, there is now no caching of the files, and instead the data being
copied must be committed to the target SSD as it's being copied.
Obviously making such changes to the methods of testing is
not taken lightly. To make changes means a lot of extra work, as all the
comparison drives have to be re-tested with the new method. However, here at
Myce.wiki, we believe we should always try to improve our reviews, and if that
means updating the testing methods and some initial extra work, then that benefits
the Myce community as a whole.
For the reading drive, I have made the switch to a RAMDisk.
With SATA Express SSDs just around the corner, the OCZ REVODrive X2 would no
longer be fast enough to supply data to a SATA Express SSD. Because RAM has
lower latency and higher transfer speeds when compared to an SSD, this has
meant having to rerun the tests on a selection of other SSDs to make sure the
results are up to date. Please note, that some SSDs which were on loan during
the review period, has meant that these SSDs still use the old results, simply
because I can't retest them.
For the tests themselves, I will show a screenshot of the
copy test for the SSD that I'm reviewing. All other results will be presented
in the form of a graph, so you can easily compare the results.
Single large file writing test (8144.6MB)
For this test I used a single DVD9 ISO file which had been
copied to the RAMDisk. The file was then copied to the Samsung 850 EVO SSDs and
our comparison drives.
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
500GB SSD
Samsung 850 EVO M.2.
250GB SSD
The Samsung 850 EVO mSATA 500GB SSD has excellent sequential
writing performance, and finishes this test in sixth spot. The 250GB M.2.
version lags behind, with only 3GB of emulated SLC NAND this is soon used up,
and the 250GB Samsung 850 EVO M.2. has to rely on its limited available
channels to the NAND array. The higher capacity mSATA version has 6GB of
emulated SLC NAND. This of course is used up before the end of the test, but
the 500GB version has more available channels to the NAND array, and therefore can
maintain its writing performance much better than the 250GB version.
Write a folder of JPG picture files.
For this test I copied a folder of JPG picture files from
the RAMDisk to the Samsung 850 EVO series SSDs, and our other comparison
drives. The folder contained 7861 JPG pictures, with a total capacity of
8410.3MB.
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
500GB SSD
Samsung 850 EVO M.2.
250GB SSD
Once again the 500GB mSATA 850 EVO is performing well, and
the 250GB M.2. version is struggling to maintain its writing performance when under
a heavy workload.
Write a folder of MP3 audio files.
For this test I copied a folder of MP3 audio files from our RAMDisk
to the Samsung 850 EVO SSD series SSD and our other comparison drives. The
folder contained 1691 MP3 audio files, with a total capacity of 9176.5MB.
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
500GB SSD
Samsung 850 EVO M.2.
250GB SSD
Yet again the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA 500GB SSD is performing
well, and the 250GB M.2. is struggling to maintain its writing performance.
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 of MP3 music files, and then repeated the test with a
folder of JPG picture files.
Single drive copy tests – 1,691 MP3 song files (9176.5MB total)
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
500GB SSD
Samsung 850 EVO M.2.
250GB SSD
In this test the SSD has to read and write data, and we
already know that the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA 500GB SSD has excellent mixed
reading and writing performance, so it's no surprise to see the Samsung 850 EVO
mSATA SSD finish this test near the top of the table. The Samsung 850 M.2.
250GB has excellent reading performance but, as we have already found out, it
struggles to maintain its writing performance when under a heavy workload.
Single drive copy tests – 7,861 JPEG picture files (8410.3MB total)
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
500GB SSD
Samsung 850 EVO M.2.
250GB SSD
It's the same story, the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA 500GB SSD is
one of the fastest SSDs in this test, whilst the 250GB M.2. EVO 850 struggles
to keep pace with its larger capacity sister.
Summary
If there was ever a case for encouraging people to buy the
largest capacity SSD they can afford, then this is it. I think I have shown
quite clearly why a larger capacity SSD will in most cases perform much better
than a lower capacity version of the same series of SSDs.
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 a RAMDisk. 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 drives,
which were all running mirror image installations of our Windows 8 Professional
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 Professional (full install)
MS Office is one of those applications that make you cringe
at the thought of re-installing it.
Let's find out how our drives coped with the MS Office 2007
full install.
The Samsung 850 EVO mSATA SSD showed an excellent turn of
speed when installing this large office suite, and finished the test in joint fourth
place. The Samsung 850 EVO M.2. has performed well, but was still five seconds
slower when installing this large application.
Adobe Fireworks CS3
Adobe Fireworks CS3 is another popular package. Let's find
out how our drives coped with installing this application.
There isn’t a huge margin in the amount of time taken to
install this application on our modern SSDs. However, the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
500GB SSD finishes this test tied in fifth place with six other SSDs. The
Samsung 850 EVO M.2. 250GB performed well, but was still quite a long way
behind the larger capacity mSATA 850 EVO 500GB SSD.
Summary
Our real world tests, though not scientific in nature, I
feel are more realistic than simply running benchmarks. What is clear from these
tests is that the Samsung 850 EVO 512GB SSD has excellent performance in the
real world.
Let’s check out application and game loading performance
on the next page of this article.....
These tests are very simple tests, but very important to
some users of SSD drives.
We simply started an application or game, and measured the
time taken for the application or game to fully load and start.
Application loading times
Adobe Fireworks CS3
There is so little difference in tangible performance between
the modern SSDs. However, the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and M.2. SSDs load this large
application in 3.38 seconds, and finish the test in joint fifth place.
Corel PaintShop Pro 12
Again, I doubt anyone could tell difference from the fastest
to the slowest modern SATA 6Gbps SSD, as they are all very close.
Games loading times
FAR CRY 2
Once again the results are all very close, and I highly
doubt anyone could tell the difference between the fastest and slowest SSD in
this test.
F.E.A.R. 2
With only 20ms between the fastest and slowest SSDs in this
test, I would highly doubt anyone could tell the difference in performance.
Summary
By now it's is becoming very clear that the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
and M.2. SSDs deliver excellent performance, and their excellent reading capabilities
have ensured that they are among the fastest SSDs in these tests.
Now let's head to the next page where we will see how the
Samsung 850 EVO SSD performs in PC Mark 8.....
PC Mark 8 - Storage Suite
Here at Myce.wiki, we only recently introduced PCMark Vantage
into our SSD testing. PCMark Vantage is a good test, but is now somewhat
outdated in the applications that it tests, even to the extent of including a
test trace on how Windows Vista booted. We could of course have opted for the
newer PCMark 7, but I personally had issues with the way it ran the HDD tests.
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 storage suite results
Samsung 850 EVO mSATA
500GB
Samsung 850 EVO M.2.
250GB
Now let’s look at the individual PC Mark 8 HDD suite scores,
in the form of tables and graphs.
PC Mark 8 storage suite: World of Warcraft
The first thing that is very noticeable is that all the
tested SSDs are remarkably close, performance wise, when loading this game.
PC Mark 8 storage suite: Battlefield 3
Once again, the results are very close between all the
competing SSDs.
PC Mark 8 storage suite: Adobe Photoshop light
Yet again the results are all very close together.
PC Mark 8 storage suite: Adobe Photoshop heavy
Again, there isn't a large difference between any of the
competing SSDs, but once more the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA 500GB SSD is the
fastest, with the M.2. version finishing this test in eighth place.
PC Mark 8 storage suite: Adobe InDesign
The Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and M.2. SSDs are the fastest drives
in this test.
PC Mark 8 storage suite: Adobe After Effects
There is virtually no difference between the tested SSDs.
PC Mark 8 storage suite: Adobe Illustrator
Once again, there is hardly any difference between the
tested SSDs.
PC Mark 8 storage suite: Microsoft Word
With only 0.3 seconds between the fastest and the slowest
SSD in this test, I would doubt anyone could tell the difference.
PC Mark 8 storage suite: Microsoft Excel
There is only 0.2 seconds between the slowest and the
fastest SSD in this test.
PC Mark 8 storage suite: Microsoft PowerPoint
Once again, the results obtained from our test SSDs are
almost identical.
PC Mark 8 storage suite: Storage bandwidth
Storage bandwidth displays the amount of bandwidth available
from the storage device, when it is faced with requests for simultaneous reads
and writes.
According to PC Mark 8, the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and M.2.
have 321.93 MB/s and 324.27 MB/s of bandwidth respectively.
PC Mark 8 storage suite: Overall Score
PC Mark 8 sums all the individual times taken to run each
storage benchmark, then comes up with an overall score for each of the tested
SSDs.
As we can see from the above graph, there isn't a large
difference between any of the tested SSDs, but the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and
M.2. SSDs take second and third place.
Summary
You may well ask, if the scores are so close between the
tested SSDs, then what is the point of running PC Mark 8 storage benchmark?
Basically, most of these individual tests are very low
demand as far as storage is concerned. More or less all the traces are
lightweight. But hang on a minute, this is how real applications work, and I
and many other reviewers have been saying for years that when we have
lightweight storage traces, it becomes almost impossible to tell SSDs apart
from a performance perspective. We now have a tool that can demonstrate this to
very good effect.
It's not until we start to push SSDs very hard that the
performance differences between SSDs start to become clearer, and for that we
need much heavier workloads, such as the tests run in the Myce Reality Suite.
PC Mark 8 is still very useful, as I'm quite sure that most of you will use at
least a couple of the applications used in these tests, and now you will be
able to compare one SSD to another.
Now let’s round off the performance tests with the Myce
Reality Suite on the next page.....
Myce Reality Suite revision 4.
NOTE: New in revision 4.
- Support for NVMe
- Support for SATA Express
- Support for PCIe
- Support for M.2.
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
The measuring system is part hardware and part software. The
hardware is a two part system comprising of a host PC and an external hardware
analyser which is proprietary, and runs a proprietary version of Linux with
special software.
The host PC is built around an Intel Core i7 2600 (Sandy
Bridge) CPU, and an Asrock Z68 Extreme 4 motherboard, with 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3
RAM. The interface between the host PC and the external measuring system uses a
proprietary PCIe2 x8 card, which is housed in the primary PCIe2 x16 slot on the
host PC. The analyser is calibrated before the start of the tests, and is
guaranteed to be accurate to within 0.03%.
Testing method.
Previously the test platform was Windows 7 Home Premium
64bit. The transition to Windows 8.1 Professional 64bit has now been made, and
at the same time a couple of new tests have been validated and introduced. This
has of course meant that I have had to retest a selected number of SSDs on the
new platform, and the results from SSDs that were old, or no longer available
in the test labs, have been discarded.
Building the tests and test image.
Once all the test data files and the scripts that run the
tests were complete, they were then copied to a single folder. I then fitted an
120GB SSD into the PC and did a clean install of Window 8.1 Professional x64.
The latest hardware drivers were installed and Windows update was run to
install any new updates that were available up to 24/11/2013. 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 and
scripts was then copied over to our fresh Windows 8.1 Professional 64bit SSD. A
drive snapshot was then taken of the complete SSD and the drive snapshot image
copied to an HDD for safe keeping.
The image is then simply restored to each of the SSDs on
test. After imaging the drive the partition is then realigned “on the fly” and the
free space is filled and then deleted to force TRIM. A 20 minute settling time
is allowed before the tests are run, then each of the 6 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
- Windows defender (full system drive scan)
- GRID 2 gaming test.
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, with an average queue depth of 1.98.
The Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and M.2. SSDs perform well in this
test, and finish in sixth and tenth places respectively.
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, which is approximately 55% read
and 45% write, with an average queue depth of 1.89.
Once again the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and M.2. SSDs deliver good
performance in this test.
Myce Reality Suite – Audio import and compression.
Using Sony Sound Forge 10, a batch process is run consisting
of importing 30 24bit (192000 Hz sample rate) .wav files, and 100 16bit (44100
Hz sample rate) .wav files which are converted to MP3 audio files with a bit rate
of 128kbps, and the MP3s are then written back to the drive. The test is
approximately 72% read and 28% write, with an average queue depth of 2.62.
Yet again the Samsung 850 EVO SSDs are showing a good turn
of pace.
Myce Reality Suite – Application multitasking.
For this test 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 9.
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 11 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 moderate to
heavy.
During this test there is approximately 85% reading and 15%
writing, with an average queue depth of 6.73.
With the higher queue depths in this test the Samsung 850 mSATA
and M.2. SSDs are able to show what they can really do, when pushed hard, and perform
well in this test.
Windows Defender (full system drive scan)
A full system drive scan is selected on drive C: and then
run. The test is approximately 99% reading and 1% writing, with an average
queue depth of 1.2.
The Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and M.2. have once again performed
well.
GRID 2 gaming test
The game is launched and then a pre-saved level is loaded.
The test runs until the loaded level starts. The test is approximately 98% reading
and 2% writing, with an average queue depth of 1.
Once again, the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and M.2. SSDs have
performed extremely well in 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 Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and M.2. SSD are clearly a very capable performers.
Now let’s head to the next page, and see how well the
drive performs after heavy use....
Filling up the SSD with data
For obvious reasons, when an SSD is tested, the drive is
always tested as a spare drive, and is generally always empty (no data on the
drive) during the synthetic benchmarks. There is no other way of having a level
playing field for all the SSDs under test. This of course changes during the
real world tests we conduct here at Myce.wiki.
Real users of course don't buy an SSD for it to remain
empty, and how full the SSD will eventually become varies from one user to the
next. What I thought would be useful is to run tests on the SSDs with real data
on the drives, and at different levels regarding how full the drive is.
For these tests the SSD is connected as a spare, and I test
at three different levels.
- Level 1: There an operating system installed on the
SSD, and all the applications that I use are also installed. In my case
that amounts to approximately 44GB of data on the SSD. - Level 2: The SSD is filled to 60% of its formatted
capacity. - Level 3: The SSD is filled to 80% of its formatted
capacity.
For the 60% and 80% tests, the type of data varies from
compressible to incompressible data, and file sizes range from a few Kilobytes
to very large files of several Gigabytes, then a single run of Anvil's SSD
Benchmark is run (100% incompressible).
It is also worth noting that the larger capacity SSDs will
tend to slow down less than their smaller counterparts, as the larger SSDs will
have more free NAND available to work with, and this is only a quick burst test
that all members will be able to run for themselves. The real test is the Myce
Sustained Performance test, which you can find a little further down the page.
In the graph below, I present the results.
Filling up an SSD with data can certainly cause a slowdown to
occur on some SSDs. The Samsung 850 EVO mSATA 500GB SSD experienced a slight
slowdown when filled with data, but the decrease is so slight that it should go
unnoticed. The Samsung 850 EVO M.2. 250GB SSD again shows a slowdown. It's not
a large speed decrease by any means but, according to this test, the M.2. SSD
does slow down to a greater extent than the larger capacity mSATA SSD.
This however is a short burst test and we will see what
happens in a much more gruelling test below.
Myce Sustainable Performance Test
Over the last few months I have been studying countless
analyzer traces of real computing workloads, and also developing a test that
would accurately emulate and measure how performance is sustained over a period
of time. For obvious reasons, it is not possible to test an SSD review sample
over several months before publishing a review. The solution was to condense
this down to a manageable test, that doesn't take too long to run.
I will make it clear right from the outset that this is not
a torture test. Bringing any SSD to its knees is not helpful in the least, as I
for one would not use any SSD that had slowed down to crawl, just to prove a
point. The Myce Sustainable Performance test, I believe is a tough, but
sensible test pattern to use for measuring how an SSD will be behave once it's pushed
hard over a period of time.
The test pattern is "workstation" based, and
closely emulates a typical video or graphics workstation environment. The
results are measured using the same hardware I use for the Myce Reality Suite
tests, however, the test data and measuring system use a different method.
From the 80% full test listed above, I already have an SSD
with a lot of data on it. Adding to the data that is already there, the
"Sustainable Performance" test data is added. This test data is
approximately 20GB is size, so once this is added the SSD is pretty full.
The test is then run for a period of 20 minutes. 60
performance measurements are taken for every minute of the test, and an average
performance figure is generated after each minute. At the end of the test I
have 20 performance measurements which are then used to generate the graph
below.
The faster SSDs will obviously sustain more writes then the
slower SSDs. For the fastest SSD in this test, the test pattern generated 146GB
of writes, and 193GB of data was read from the SSD during the test.
When reading the graph, you should not pay too much
attention to which drive is the fastest, but instead look at the sustainable
performance curve of each SSD, as this is what this test is all about.
For the SSD that I am reviewing, I will also add a second graph
which looks at the result in more detail.
So let's look at the results.
Sustainable
Performance test
Detailed results for the
review drive
The Samsung 850 EVO mSATA 500GB SSD has very good
sustainable performance when pushed extremely hard. There is a slowdown, but
it's only down by 7 MB/s from peak performance. I highly doubt anyone would be
able to notice this slowdown in the real world.
The Samsung 850 EVO M.2. 250GB SSD however has slowed down
quite a lot. With only 3GB of emulated SLC NAND, and fewer available channels
between the SSD controller and the NAND compared to the larger 500GB mSATA SSD,
the 850 EVO M.2. 250GB SSD just can't quite keep pace with this very heavy
workload.
This concludes our review. To read the final thoughts and
conclusion, click the link below....
Final thoughts and the conclusion
User experience
A modern operating system such as Windows 8 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 to the system drive as and when they are required.
If we look at the 4 basic requirements for a really 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 need to be high.
- Fast access times.
The Samsung 850 EVO series SSDs have all of these attributes
in abundance, and feel very snappy in use as system drives.
Stability
I have only had the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and M.2. for a few
weeks, so it’s not possible to comment on the drives long term reliability.
However, during the testing period, the SSDs have been 100% stable and have
caused no issues whatsoever.
The Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and M.2. SSDs are as “plug n play”
as it gets. There are no special tweaks needed other than simply making sure
that AHCI SATA mode is enabled in the system UEFI (BIOS), and installing the
latest Intel RST SATA drivers, if you want to get the best performance and
compatibility out of these SSDs.
Conclusion:
Let us summarise the most important positive and negative
points below:
Positive:
- Silky smooth operation as system drives.
- Outstanding sequential reading and writing performance,
even at very low queue depths. - Outstanding 4K random writing performance, at low queue
depths. - Outstanding 4k random reading performance at very low, and
very high queue depths. - TRIM support under Windows 7 and Windows 8.
- Completely silent operation.
- Fast operating system start-up and shutdown times.
- Very fast in 'real world scenarios'.
- Low power consumption.
Negative:
- The lower capacity M.2. SSD struggles to maintain writing
performance when pushed very hard.
To sum up, this is what I
would say:
As operating system drives, the Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and
M.2. are pretty hard to fault. Performance is outstanding and both these SSDs
proved to be very stable during the testing period.
The new 3D V-NAND is a huge step in the right direction in
my opinion. Endurance is much improved over the current crop of planar MLC
NAND. Plus as added bonuses you also get a boost in NAND performance, and lower
power consumption.
There is however a lesson to be learned here. One should not
for a second think that the M.2. version of the Samsung 850 EVO is inferior to
the mSATA version, or for that matter the SATA versions of the Samsung 850 EVO.
The lesson is, a lower capacity TLC NAND based SSD will generally not perform
as well as its larger capacity stable mates. If you're simply going to run a
lower capacity SSD as your system drive, and spend most of your time launching
applications, games, or general light weight computing tasks, then the 250GB
Samsung 850 EVO will do a perfectly good job.
If however you are into heavier write intensive workloads,
then spend some extra money and purchase one of the larger capacity Samsung 850
EVO SSDs.
The inclusion of the Samsung 850 EVO in mSATA and M.2. form
factors completes the 850 EVO line up of consumer SSDs, where Samsung now has all
consumer based form factors covered.
Price and availability
The Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and M.2. SSDs will be available
soon, with suggested pricing as follows.
The parting sentence is:
“The Samsung 850 EVO mSATA and M.2. are outstanding, high
performance, SSDs, with performance profiles ideally suited to real world home computing.
Do get the larger capacity versions though, as they are well worth the extra
investment”.
Rating system
The editor rating is based on the following key factors.
- Performance
- Stability (is the device stable?)
- Price
- Warranty
- Supplied accessories (what is included in the package)
Thanks to:
|
|
EFD Software for |
|
|
Alex |
|
|
|
|
|
FutureMark for |
You may comment on this review below.
