Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD Review

Review: Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB Reviewed by: Wendy Robertson Provided by: Toshiba OCZ Firmware version: 1.02

OCZ is now fully integrated into the Toshiba Corporation,
with all the advantages and disadvantages of being part of a global giant. I
have very fond memories of the old independent OCZ who were the company that brought
SSDs to the masses, at truly affordable prices. They were always on the cutting
edge of SSD technology, and in most cases were first to bring new SSD
technology to the market. Being first to the market with a new technology also
had its disadvantages, and in OCZ’s early years in the SSD market, quite often SSDs
were launched that weren’t fully validated.

All this changed in later years, where SSDs such as the OCZ
Vector were both cutting edge, and properly validated before they were
launched. With OCZ now being fully integrated into Toshiba, the validation of
their products is among the best in the world. This does mean that OCZ are now slightly
later to the market with new products, but you can now be pretty sure that
these products are ready for primetime.

Consumer grade NVMe SSDs have been around for approximately
nine months, the first being the Samsung 950 Pro. There have been a few NVMe
SSDs launched during this period, but none until now have seriously challenged
the 950 Pro in terms of performance at an affordable price. Enter the new
Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe range of SSDs.

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 SSDs are available in capacities of
128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1024GB. Today I'm looking at the 512GB version of the
Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD. Utilising the new NVMe (Non Volatile
Memory Express) interface. NVMe SSDs are PCIe based and are
installed in a standard PCIe slot, M.2 socket, or via the brand new U.2
connector. PCIe SSDs are not new, and have been around for several years.
However, the PCIe SSDs of the past required a special controller which sat
between the SSD hardware and the PCIe system bus, to allow the SSD hardware and
the PCIe bus to perform the translation and communication between the two
interfaces. This was of course a very complex and time consuming task, which
inevitably led to increased latency.

NVMe is a native solution, with its own highly optimised
protocol, which features a very much reduced command set, much lower latency when
compared to AHCI, and is specifically optimised for Non Volatile Memory (FLASH
memory).

Toshiba OCZ was kind enough to send me one of their brand
new RD400 M.2 series NVMe SSDs for review. In this case the 512GB M.2 NVMe
version.

So let's find out how this new SSD performs in our range of
tests.

Toshiba OCZ company information

Toshiba OCZ should need no introduction, but those of you
who would like to find out more about Toshiba OCZ, can do so at their website.

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 NVMe 512GB SSD

Packaging

 

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB SSD mounted in the optional PCIe3 x4 adapter card

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe SSD

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD utilises a Toshiba
branded NVMe SSD controller, coupled with 512MB of LPDDR3 RAM as a cache. The
NAND is Toshiba’s own 15nm NAND in an MLC configuration.

Getting the best performance from the Toshiba OCZ RD400 will
require a native Hyper M.2 socket supporting PCIe gen3 x4. These are found in
most Z170 chipset, and X99 chipset motherboards.

Alternatively, you can mount the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe
SSD on the optional PCIe3 to M.2 adapter card, and then plug this combination
into an X16 PCIe3 socket on the motherboard. However, your motherboard needs to
be capable of booting from NVMe in order to use this combination as your boot
device.

Drive maintenance features

For Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10 users, and some
distributions of Linux, the Toshiba OCZ RD400 SSD supports TRIM to keep the
NAND clean. The Toshiba OCZ RD400 also has advanced garbage collection to clean
the NAND during drive idle periods.

OCZ SSD Utility

The SSD utility software allows the user to maintain the
SSD, and has the following features.

Overview tab

• Dashboard: Brings up useful information about the
  SSD, including its health status and how much data has been written to the
  SSD. It also displays how the SSD is connected, the firmware and NVMe
  driver version and if any updated firmware or drivers are available. There
  is also a handy temperature meter.
• SSD details: Brings up more details about the SSD,
  including its hardware ID string.
• System details: Allows the user to see a mass of
  information about the PC that the RD400 is connected to.
• SMART: Displays the S.M.A.R.T. information of the RD400.

Tuner tab

• Benchmark: Performs a very basic benchmark on the
  SSD.
• SSD Tuner: Allows you to manually ‘over-provision’
  the RD400. In other words, set aside an amount of NAND for the exclusive
  use of the SSD controller. Using this feature will reduce the amount of
  user storage.
• OS Tuner: Allows operating system features that can
  affect SSD performance, to be switched on or off.

Maintenance tab

• Updates: Allows the Toshiba OCZ RD400 firmware to
  be updated.
• Tools: Allows the SSD to be 'secure erased', clearing
  all NAND and returning the SSD back to its default factory state.
• Alerts: Displays any pending problem with the SSD,
  or the system that it’s connected to.
• Bootable SSD Utility: Allows the user to make a
  bootable USB version of the SSD utility.

Settings tab

The settings tab allows the user to change various settings
in the OCZ SSD Utility. For example, if the monitoring part of the utility
should run in the background on closing the application, or if the OCZ SSD
Utility should be run automatically at Windows start up.

Help tab

The help tab creates a system report which can be saved as a
file, ready to be sent to Toshiba OCZ, should the user require technical
support from Toshiba OCZ.

Specifications.

Does the SSD support TRIM?

To allow TRIM to function you first need an SSD that
supports the TRIM command. You then need a storage stack that will allow the
TRIM command to pass-through to the SSD, and this includes the driver.

Thankfully this is now very easy to check with some degree
of reliability, using a small utility written by Vladimir Panteleev called TRIMCheck.

According to TRIMCheck, TRIM is functioning correctly on the
Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB SSD.

Let’s head to the next page where we take a look at our
testing methods and the review PC....

 

Test machine

For this review I will be using a computer with the
following configuration:

Hardware:

• Motherboard: Asus Z170 Deluxe (Intel Z170 chipset)
• Processor: Intel 6th generation Core i7 6700K
• CPU cooler: BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro 2
• RAM: 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 2666MHz DDR4 (dual channel)
• GFX: MSI GTX 950 Gaming 2G
• 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 P2715Q 27” 4K widescreen IPS LCD (HDCP compliant)
• Operating System: Windows 10 Professional 64bit
• Power consumption testing equipment: Quarch Technology QTL1824-02 XLC
  Programmable Power Module

The NVMe drivers used to test the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe
SSD were Toshiba OCZ own NVMe driver version 1.2.126.843.

CPU power saving states was 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 Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe  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
• Quarch Technology - Test
  Monkey 2

Test procedures

I will start off our testing procedures explanation by
stating that I did not run many synthetic benchmarks on the Toshiba OCZ RD400
M.2 NVMe 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 Toshiba
OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD, and will complement this with advanced benchmarks using
IOMeter and AS SSD benchmark. I will also show how the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 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

• Plextor M6e PCIe 256GB SSD
• OCZ REVODrive 350 PCIe 480GB
  SSD
• Intel 750 PCIe NVMe 1.2GB SSD
• Samsung 950 Pro M.2 NVMe
  256GB SSD
• Samsung 950 Pro M.2 NVMe
  512GB SSD
• Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe
  512GB 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 Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD was connected to the
native gen3 x16 PCIe socket on my test PC, and all tests were carried out the
drive connected to this socket. All SSDs used in this article had their partitions
aligned to the Windows 10 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.

 Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB 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 at
a file block size of 4MB.

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB SSD

With an average sequential reading speed of 2626.7 MB/s the Toshiba
OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD gives an outstanding turn of speed. Also worth noting are
the incredibly fast access times.

Let's see how this compares to other recently tested SSDs in
the table below.

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD has performed exceptionally
well in the HD Tune sequential reading test, and finishes the test in first
place.

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.

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB SSD

The reading speed results for the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe
512GB SSD are extremely impressive, topping out at over 2.7 GB/s, and writing
speed is equally impressive peaking at over 1.65 GB/s.

Let's find out how this compares with other recently tested
SSDs.

ATTO Reading performance

ATTO - Reading
performance at various block sizes

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD has outstanding reading
performance.

ATTO Writing performance

ATTO - Writing
performance at various block sizes

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD delivers outstanding
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 screenshot, sequential reading and
writing speeds are both extremely impressive, also random reading and writing performance
are outstanding, both at low and high queue depths.

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 Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe SSD in the form of a screenshot. All our other comparison drives’ results
are presented in the form of a graph.

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB SSD

As we can see from the AS SSD test run, the Toshiba OCZ
RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD has outstanding reading performance. Writing performance is
also extremely impressive, but not quite as fast as the Intel 750 or the Samsung
950 Pro 512GB. The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD takes third place in this
test.

Summary:

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD has performed extremely well
in the basic synthetic benchmarks. Random reading and writing performance is
extremely impressive. Sequential reading performance is outstanding, and
sequential writing performance is also of an extremely high standard.

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 10, 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 Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 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

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB SSD – 4K random write (QD 1)

At 236.88 MB/s the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD's
performance is outstanding, and it finishes this test in third place.

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

Toshiba
OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB SSD (QD 4)

At a queue depth of 4, the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD is
outstanding, and finishes this test in second spot.

Queue depth 32

Toshiba
OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB SSD (QD 32)

Once the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB SSD reaches a
queue depth of four, there isn’t much more performance to be attained with
higher queue depths, when writing small random files. However, at 743.42 MB/s,
the Toshiba OCZ RD400 is still performing extremely well, and takes third spot
in this test.

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

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe SSD – 4K random write (QD 4 with fully random data)

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD pays no penalty when
writing data which is incompressible, and finishes this test in second place.

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 Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD has
outstanding performance at low queue depths but, after reaching a queue depth
of 4, performance doesn't increase with higher queue depths. One should note,
that with this level of performance at low queue depths, the fact that the Toshiba
OCZ RD400 M.2 doesn't really scale well after a queue depth 4 isn't really a
problem.

Below I present a table of the results in greater detail.

Queue depth 32 with four threads (write)

This test is new, and designed to simulate an extremely
heavy writing workload, and is unlikely to occur even in a heavyweight consumer
computing session. The test is simply to measure the maximum throughput a PCIe
NVMe SSD can achieve.

The workload consists of writing 4K random data at a queue
depth of 32, and running this workload with four threads.

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB SSD – 4K random write QD32 with 4 threads

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD is by far the fastest SSD
in this test.

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

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
512GB SSD - 4K random read (QD 1)

In this test the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD has
excellent performance, and finishes in third place.

Queue depth 4

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB SSD - 4K random read (QD 4)

At a queue depth of four, the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe is
excellent, and once again is the third fastest SSD in this test.

Queue depth 32                            

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB SSD - 4K random read (QD 32)

At a queue depth of 32, the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD
is showing outstanding performance, and finishes this test in first place.

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.

Queue depth 32 with four threads (read)

This test is new, and designed to simulate an extremely
heavy reading workload, and is unlikely to occur even in a heavyweight consumer
computing session. The test is simply to measure the maximum throughput a PCIe
NVMe SSD can achieve.

The workload consists of reading 4K random data at a queue
depth of 32, and running this workload with four threads.

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB SSD – 4K random read QD32 with 4 threads

The result is interesting to say the least. Whilst it’s
unlikely that a consumer workload would require this sort of performance, it is
still interesting to see that the Toshiba OCZ RD400 can reach 1.107 GB/s, and
reach an incredible 270269.08 IOPS.

Let’s compare the results with other recently tested PCIe
NVMe SSDs.

IOMeter 512KB sequential write test with repeating data.

Sequential writing performance is also very important; and in
this test sequential writing performance is measured.

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB SSD - 512K Sequential write with repeating data

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD gave an excellent turn of
speed in this test, and finished in second place.

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.

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.

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB SSD – 512K sequential write with fully random data

With data that is not so easy to compress, the SandForce SF-2282
based OCZ REVODrive 350 took a big performance hit, whilst the Toshiba OCZ
RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD retains its writing performance, and finishes this test in
top spot.

IOMeter 512KB sequential read test QD1.

This test measures 512k sequential reading performance at
very low queue depths.

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB SSD – 512K sequential reading test (QD 1)

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD has excellent sequential
reading performance at very low queue depths, finishing in third place in this
test.

IOMeter 512KB sequential read test (dual threaded).

This test measures 512k sequential reading performance QD2.

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB SSD – 512K sequential reading test (QD 2)

At a more realistic queue depth the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe SSD is showing outstanding sequential reading performance, and finishes this
test in first 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).

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB 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 Toshiba
OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD has excellent mixed read/write performance, and finishes
the test in third place.

Summary

All in all, the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSDs has
performed extremely well in our IOMeter tests. The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe
SSD has outstanding reading performance, and writing performance is exceptional.

 

Now let’s head to the next page where we will look at how
the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 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

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB SSD (0 fill)

In the 0 fill test, the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD has
performed extremely well.

Application profile

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB SSD (application profile)

The application test pattern is much more realistic in terms
of the type of data transfers that real users will employ. The Toshiba OCZ
RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD has once again performed extremely well in this test.

100% incompressible

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB SSD (100% incompressible)

With test data that can't be compressed at all, the Toshiba
OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD is still performing excellently, and finishes this test
in third place.

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 Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD has however performed
exceptionally well in Anvil's SSD benchmark tests.

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 and NVMe PCIe SSDs just around the corner, the OCZ REVODrive
X2 would no longer be fast enough to supply data to a SATA Express or NVMe PCIe
SSDs. 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 Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe SSDs and our comparison drives.

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB SSD

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB SSD has outstanding
sequential writing performance, and finishes this test in second spot.

Write a folder of JPG picture files.

For this test I copied a folder of JPG picture files from
the RAMDisk to the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe series SSDs, and our other
comparison drives. The folder contained 7861 JPG pictures, with a total
capacity of 8410.3MB.

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB SSD

Once more the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD is performing
well, this time taking third place.

Write a folder of MP3 audio files.

For this test I copied a folder of MP3 audio files from our RAMDisk
to the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD series SSD and our other comparison drives.
The folder contained 1691 MP3 audio files, with a total capacity of 9176.5MB.

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB SSD

Yet again the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB SSD is
performing well, and is the third fastest drive.

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)

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB SSD

In this test the SSD has to read and write data. We already
know that the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB SSD has outstanding mixed
reading and writing performance, so it's no surprise to see the Toshiba OCZ
RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD doing well in this test.

Single drive copy tests – 7,861 JPEG picture files (8410.3MB total)

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB SSD

It's the same story. The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB
SSD is performing extremely well in this test.

Summary

It is quite clear from these real world copy tests that the Toshiba
OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD is an excellent performer, with the low latency NVMe
protocol helping things along nicely.

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 Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD gave an excellent turn of
speed when installing this large office suite, and finished the test in joint first
place.

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 PCIe SSDs. However, the Toshiba OCZ
RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB SSD finishes this test in joint first place.

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 Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB SSD has outstanding
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 very little difference in tangible performance between
these SSDs. However, the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD loaded this large
application in 3.24 seconds, and finished the test in second place.

Corel PaintShop Pro 12

Again, I doubt anyone could tell difference from the fastest
to the slowest 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

It's a dead heat in this test, with all the SSDs recording
the same loading time.

Summary

By now it's is becoming very clear that the Toshiba OCZ
RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD delivers outstanding performance, with its powerful SSD
controller, and low latency NVMe interface, ensuring it will perform extremely
well in the real world.

Now let's head to the next page where we will see how the
Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 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.

Please note; Due to lack of time, I was not able to perform
the PC Mark 8 test on the OCZ REVODrive 350. Therefore, only the Toshiba OCZ
RD400 M.2 NVMe, Intel 750, and the Plextor M6e SSDs were tested.

PC Mark 8 storage suite results

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB

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 the three
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 the five competing
SSDs.

PC Mark 8 storage suite: Adobe Photoshop light

This time the Toshiba OCZ RD400, Samsung 950, and the Intel
750 manage to pull ahead of the Plextor M6e.

PC Mark 8 storage suite: Adobe Photoshop heavy

Again, the Toshiba OCZ RD400 Samsung 950 Pro, and the Intel
750 SSDs are faster than the Plextor M6e and, because the workload is heavier
in this test, the speed advantage is more pronounced. 

PC Mark 8 storage suite: Adobe InDesign

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD is the third fastest SSD
in this test.

PC Mark 8 storage suite: Adobe After Effects

There is virtually no difference between the tested SSDs in
this test.

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 0.4 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 0.1 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 Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe has
607.45 MB/s of storage bandwidth.

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 the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD, and the Intel 750. However,
the two Samsung 950 Pro M.2 NVMe SSDs proved to be the fastest SSDs in the PC
Mark 8 storage suite tests.

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

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.

Please note that this test has become CPU tied and this will
be resolved in the next revision of the Myce Reality Suite.

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 test has become CPU tied and will be fixed in
the next revision of these tests.

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.

This time the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSDs is the second fastest
SSD.

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 Toshiba OCZ
RD400, Samsung 950 Pro, Intel 750, and the OCZ REVODrive 350, are able to show us
what they can really do. The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD being the second fastest
of these four SSDs.

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 Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSDs gave outstanding performance
in this test, and finishes in second place.

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 Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD has performed
extremely well in this test, and is yet again the second fastest SSD.

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 Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD is clearly a very capable performer.

Now let’s head to the next page, and see how well the
drive performs after heavy use....

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.

The SSD is first filled to 80% of its stated capacity.
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 173GB
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 Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB SSD doesn’t show any real
evidence of slowing down when pushed very hard. In fact it drops only 4 MB/s
from peak performance, which is an outstanding result.

Let’s head to the next page, where I examine power
consumption and efficiency....

Power requirements and efficiency

Storage device manufacturers by law must provide power
consumption specifications with their storage device products. Quite often
these specifications are quite vague, and rarely, if ever, publish the power
efficiency of their storage devices with regard to how much work a storage
device can do for a given amount of energy consumed. In this article we will
disclose with unprecedented precision, the energy efficiency of some popular
storage devices. 

Myce has now secured a piece of 'state of the art' test
equipment, which takes a sample every four micro-seconds, that I will be using
to measure the power consumption of consumer grade SSDs and HDDs. I'm so very proud
to be able to announce that Myce.wiki, in partnership with Quarch Technology, now aims to bring our
readers the most comprehensive, and accurate, power consumption tests ever
carried out on consumer grade storage devices, to be found anywhere on the
Internet.

Myce’s Power Testing will be carried out using
Quarch Technology products. More specifically we are privileged that Quarch has
allowed us to use their latest XLC Programmable Power Module (‘XLC PPM’) and we
would also like to take this opportunity to give a huge 'thank you' to Quarch
for providing this equipment. The XLC PPM is specifically designed for testing
low power sleep states on modern SSDs and as such has a remarkably accurate low
level current measurement, down to 100μA (micro amps, or millionths of an
amp). Please click here for details.

Quarch Technology is a world leader in the
supply of testing solutions for the data storage industry and if you would like
any further information please visit their website by clicking here. 

Let's take a closer look at the Quarch XLC PPM box in a bit
more detail.

Quarch Technology XLC
PPM

The Quarch Technology XLC PPM is able to provide two power
supply rails to the target SSD. A 12V (volt) rail is required for PCIe based
SSDs, and also for SATA HDDs, SATA HDDs also require the 5V rail to function.
All the power requirements of a SATA SSD are handled by the 5V rail.

As already mentioned, PCIe SSDs also require a 12V rail, but
the second rail is 3.3V rather than the 5V rail used by SATA SSDs. Generally,
most of the PCIe based SSDs that I have tested, which admittedly isn't a huge
number at the moment, draw their power from the 12V rail, the exception being
the Intel 750 NVMe SSD which uses both the 12V and 3.3V rails.

The Quarch Technology XLC PPM can switch between 5V and 3.3V
on the secondary power output channel as required. So for SATA based SSDs it is
set to 5V, and for PCIe based SSDs, it is set to 3.3V.  

On the left hand side of the Quarch XLC PPM, you can see
trigger in and out sockets. These are used for external triggering of the XLC
PPM. For now, I will not be using this feature.

On the right of the Quarch XLC PPM, you can see the socket
where the main power injection lead connects.

On the rear of the box (not shown) you will find a USB 2
socket, a power socket (to supply power to the unit) and a Torridon connection
interface, for connecting to external equipment.

My setup.

Although the Quarch Technology XLC PPM can be used on a
single PC, which can act both as host and measurement system, I will be using
two PCs to run the tests. One PC will handle the measurements, and the second
PC will act both as a host for the target SSD, and will also be used to load
the target SSD with data. This will allow me to do some pretty fancy power
consumption tests.

 

I will first show the type of workload being used to load
the SSD during the power consumption test. I will then present the power
consumption graph, and power consumption statistics of the SSD.

I will display the results in the form of bar graphs, at the
end of each test carried out in this article, so one can compare the results
obtained on all the SSDs featured in this article.

I will use the following IOMeter test patterns to load the
SSD or HDD.

• 4K random read and write at a queue depth of 1 (to emulate
  a lightweight consumer workload).
• 4K random read and write at a queue depth of 4 (to emulate
  a medium workload).
• 4K random read and write at a queue depth of 32 (to
  emulate a heavy workload).
• 512K sequential read (to emulate reading a sequential file
  from the storage device).
• 512K sequential write (to emulate writing a sequential
  file to the storage device).

I will also show graphs that will display how much work an
SSD can do for a given amount of energy usage. To do this I will use the
IOMeter results obtained in the tests, and then use a simple calculation to
work out how many IOPS a drive can generate per Watt of power consumed.

The calculation used for the results is IOPS divided by
the amount of power consumed in Watts.

Example: The Intel 750 NVMe 1.2TB SSD obtained an IOPS
result of 219,716.47 IOPS for 4K random read at a queue depth of 32, and
consumed 5097mW (5.097 Watts). Divide the IOPS by 5.097 and this shows that the
Intel 750 NVMe SSD can generate 43,107.01 IOPS per Watt of energy consumed for
this particular workload.

For all these tests IOMeter was used to generate the test
patterns and workload for the target SSD. The tests were run for a duration of
approximately 90 seconds.

I will also run a couple of additional tests.

• Power consumption when the drive is idle.
• The maximum power required to initialise a drive (this is
  for information only).

All results in this article are derived from the 'average
power consumption' and are displayed in milliwatts (mW), unless otherwise
stated.

In order to run the power consumption tests on the Toshiba
OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD, the drive was mounted in the optional M.2 PCIe3 adapter
card, which was supplied with my Toshiba OCZ RD400 review sample. This was then
mounted in the Quarch PCIe power injection fixture.

Power requirements for a lightweight consumer workload. - 4K random read
and write QD1

A typical lightweight consumer workload will generally be at
very low queue depths. Typically at a queue depth of one or less. I'm testing
random data at a block size of 4 Kilobytes, as this block size of small random
files is generally accepted as the most frequently occurring in the consumer
environment.

I will show the chart generated by the Quarch XLC PPM for
the drive that I have tested. I will then show the results in the form of bar
graphs, so one can easily compare with other recently tested SSDs.

There will actually be two bar graphs for each test. The
first graph will show the average power consumption during the test run. The
second graph, which is much more important, will indicate the power efficiency
of the storage device, showing how much work the storage device can do for each
Watt of energy it consumes.

4K Random Read - queue depth 1

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB – 4K random read QD1

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 SSD consumes 2421.31 mW of power, but
let’s see how this translates into power efficiency.

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 SSD managed 4980.18 IOPS for each watt
of energy it consumed.

4K Random Write - queue depth 1

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB – 4K random write QD1

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB has an average power
consumption of 2852.39 mW, but let’s see how this translates to power
efficiency.

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB SSD proves to be the most
energy efficient drive, managing an impressive 20277.45 IOPS for every watt of
energy it consumes.

Power requirements for a medium weight consumer workload. - 4K random read
and write QD4

A typical medium weight consumer workload will generally be
at a queue depth of four or lower. This workload would typically involve some
multitasking, with perhaps two or three applications running, and processing
data simultaneously.  I'm testing random data at a block size of 4 Kilobytes,
as this block size of small random files is generally accepted as the most
frequently occurring in the consumer environment.

I will show the charts generated by the Quarch XLC PPM, for
the drive that I have tested. I will then show the results in the form of bar
graphs, so one can easily compare with other recently tested SSDs.

There will actually be two bar graphs for each test. The
first graph will show the average power consumption during the test run. The
second graph, which is much more important, will indicate the power efficiency
of the storage device, showing how much work the storage device can do for each
Watt of energy it consumes.

4K Random Read - queue depth 4

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB – 4K random read QD4

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD is consuming 2603.84 mW,
but let’s wait and see if this translates into it being an energy efficient
SSD.

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB SSD is managing
18052.55 IOPS for each watt of energy it consumes, which is quite a long way
behind the energy efficiency of the Samsung 950 Pro.

4K Random Write - queue depth 4

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB – 4K random write QD4

This time the Toshiba OCZ RD400 512GB SSD has an average
power consumption of 3775.32 mW.

On this occasion the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD is very
energy efficient, managing a very impressive 48563.99 IOPS for each watt of
energy consumed.

Power requirements for a heavyweight consumer workload. - 4K random read
and write QD32

Whilst this workload is unlikely arise for the casual
consumer PC user, it could well appear in a semi-professional consumer
environment, such as in a graphics workstation. This workload would usually
involve heavy multitasking, and having several processes running concurrently that
require constant access to small files located on the storage device for input
or output.

I'm testing random data at a block size of 4 Kilobytes, as
this block size of small random files is generally accepted as the most
frequently occurring in the consumer environment.

I will show the chart generated by the Quarch XLC PPM, for
the drive that I have tested. I will then show the results in the form of bar
graphs, so one can easily compare with other recently tested SSDs.

There will actually be two bar graphs for each test. The
first graph will show the average power consumption during the test run. The
second graph, which is much more important, will indicate the power efficiency
of the storage device, showing how much work the storage device can do for each
Watt of energy it consumes.

4K Random Read - queue depth 32

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB – 4K random read QD32

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD has an average power
consumption of 3445.18 mW.

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD’s energy efficiency is
very impressive in this test, managing an exceptional 70280.48 IOPS for every
watt of energy it consumes.

4K Random Write - queue depth 32

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB – 4K random write QD32

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB SSD has an average
power consumption of 3701.62 mW in this test.

Once again, the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD proves to be
exceptionally energy efficient when writing data, managing a very impressive
49040.55 IOPS for each watt of energy consumed, and is by a large margin the
most energy efficient SSD in this test.  

Power requirements of a storage device when reading and writing sequential
data

Not all of a consumer workload is based around the reading
and writing of small random files. Many files are sequential in nature, and can
vary in size from a few Kilobytes to several Gigabytes, so your storage device
will spend a lot of time reading and writing sequential data.

I'm testing sequential data at a block size of 512
Kilobytes.

There will actually be two bar graphs for each test. The
first graph will show the average power consumption during the test run. The
second graph, which is much more important, will indicate the power efficiency
of the storage device, showing how much work the storage device can do for each
Watt of energy it consumes.

512KB Sequential read

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB – Sequential read

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD has an average power
consumption of 4900.92 mW during this test, but let’s see how this translates
into its energy efficiency.

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD is the most energy
efficient SSD in this test, managing a very impressive 947.28 IOPS for every
watt of energy it consumes.

512KB Sequential write

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB – Sequential write

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB SSD has an average
power consumption of 5793.82 mW during this test.

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB SSD is the most power
efficient unit in this test.

Power requirements of storage devices when they are idle and doing no work
at all

The practical reality relating to power consumption is that
it can be quite erratic and sometimes unpredictable. Some of us will invest in
the most powerful PC we can afford, only to find that the PC can spend quite a
lot of time running and doing absolutely nothing. Storage devices are no
different.

Often we can be sitting idly pondering what to do next, or
perhaps browsing the Internet. When we arrive at a page that interests us, we
will read it, and that can take a fair amount of time to complete. During this
period the storage device will most likely be idle, but still consuming energy.

In this test, I'm measuring how much energy the storage
device consumes when doing no work at all.

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD consumes 1576.8 mW when
idle and doing no work at all, which is quite high when compared to the Samsung
950 Pro. Having said that, the RD400 uses much less energy than the Intel 750 and
the power hungry REVODrive 350.

Power requirements to initialise a storage device.

This test is for information and interest only, and in these
results we're looking at the maximum power consumption figure during
initialisation of each drive, rather than the average power consumption for
each device.

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB SSD requires 5531.73 mW
of power to kick it into life. This test is for information only.

Power requirement trace of an SSD booting Windows 10, in real time.

This test is for interest only, and shows the power
requirements of the review SSD booting Windows 10 to the desktop.

Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe 512GB SSD – Real time trace of the drive booting Windows 10 to the
desktop.

 

Summary

In general, the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB SSD is
extremely energy efficient. When reading data, the Toshiba OCZ RD400 is in the
majority of cases one of the most energy efficient SSDs I have tested. When
writing data though, the Toshiba OCZ RD400 is by far the most energy efficient
SSD to date.

Where the Toshiba OCZ RD400 loses out is when the drive is
doing no work at all, where it consumes approximately 1.5 watts of energy. Not
a huge amount by any means, but the moral of this story is to keep the RD400
busy, when it then becomes a very energy efficient device. 

 

This concludes our review. To read the final thoughts and
conclusion, click the link below....

Final thoughts and the conclusion

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User experience

A modern operating system such as Windows 10 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 Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB SSD has all of these attributes
in abundance, and feels extremely snappy in use as a system drive.

Stability

I have only had the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB SSD for
a few weeks, so it’s not possible to comment on the drive's long term reliability.
However, during the testing period, this SSD has been 100% stable and has
caused no issues whatsoever.

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSDs are as “plug n play” as
it gets, providing you are running Windows 8.1 or later, and you have a
motherboard which supports 'boot from NVMe'. If you don't have a motherboard
which supports 'boot from NVMe' then you may need to find a workaround to allow
you to boot the operating system from the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD. If
you can't find a workaround to boot the drive, then you can still use the Toshiba
OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD as perhaps a scratch disk for something like Photoshop.

To get the best performance from the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2
NVMe SSD, you will require either the Intel SkyLake Z170 platform, or an Intel
X99 chipset motherboard. In each case, the motherboard will need to be equipped
with a Hyper M.2 socket PCIe3 x4 (32Gbps).

Conclusion:

Let us summarise the most important positive and negative
points below:

Positive:

• Silky smooth operation as a system drive.
• Outstanding sequential reading and writing performance,
  even at very low queue depths.
• Outstanding 4K random writing performance.
• Outstanding 4k random reading performance at very low and
  very high queue depths.
• TRIM support under Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10.
• Completely silent operation.
• Fast operating system start-up and shutdown times.
• Extremely fast in 'real world scenarios'.
• Very low power consumption considering the amount of grunt
  this drive has.

Negative:

• Power consumption when idle could be better.

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To sum up, this is what I
would say:

As an operating system drive, the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe
SSD is pretty hard to fault. Performance is outstanding and this SSD proved to
be very stable during the testing period. Make no mistake though; the Toshiba
OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD has a performance profile ideally suited to professional
consumer workloads.

Whilst I haven’t tested a large amount of NVMe SSDs, if we exclude
enterprise class drives, it has become apparent to me that there are two
distinct market segments that the so called ‘pro-sumer’ class NVMe SSDs are
aimed at. The Samsung 950 Pro, despite its ‘Pro’ tag is squarely aimed at the
consumer end of the market. At the other end of the scale is the Intel 750,
which is aimed squarely at the professional market.

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD sits right in the middle.
It may not have the ultimate grunt of the Intel 750, but it does come close,
and with a professional workload, it is certainly faster than the Samsung 950
Pro. As a true consumer SSD, it isn’t quite as fast as the Samsung 950 Pro with
the very low queue depths that are found with true consumer workloads. But once
again, the Toshiba OCZ RD400 isn’t far behind.

It might be fair to say that the Toshiba OCZ RD400 is a true
pro-sumer SSD, as you get the best of both worlds. It’s blistering fast with both
consumer and professional workloads. It’s very energy efficient when working.
It also initializes the fastest of any of the NVMe SSDs that I have tested, and
is the fastest to the Windows 10 desktop, if this is important to you. All in
all, the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD is outstanding, so much so, that I have
chosen to use the RD400 as my system drive.    

Price and availability

I found the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB SSD available
at Scan
UK for £278.03 including VAT.

The parting sentence is:

“If you really must have one of the fastest professional consumer
grade SSDs currently available, at an affordable price, then the Toshiba OCZ
RD400 M.2 NVMe 512GB SSD is the one to have”.

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:

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