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Review: ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD Reviewed by: Wendy Robertson Provided by: ZOTAC Model: ZTSSD-A5P-240G-PE Firmware version: SAFM01.6 |
It was back in March 2015 that I last reviewed an SATA SSD.
Since then I’ve been mainly testing NVMe SSDs. SATA SSDs still have their
place, in both the budget and mainstream SSD market, as not everyone is lucky
enough to own a Skylake or Haswell-E PC platform. As a system drive, SATA based
SSDs still have a lot of life left in them, and I expect them to be around for
some time to come.
Today I’m looking at an SSD from ZOTAC. ZOTAC may not be a
name you are particularly aware of, but ZOTAC has been producing PC
motherboards and graphics cards for many years. In fact I still have a media
centre PC built around an Intel Atom, and a ZOTAC ITX motherboard, which still
works flawlessly.
The review sample that ZOTAC has sent me is from the A5P
Premium range, and in this review I will be looking at the 240GB version. 120GB
and 480GB versions are also available. This will also be the first time I have
come across an SSD using the Phison S10 SSD controller.
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium SSD is aimed at the upper end of
the budget conscious consumer market, so let's find out how this new SSD
performs in our range of tests.
ZOTAC company information
Those of you who would like to find out more about ZOTAC,
can do so at their website.
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD
Now it’s time to take a look at the drive itself and what it
came shipped with.
Packaging
The package contained
the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium SSD, and a quick start guide (not shown)
Box top
Box bottom
Drive top
Drive bottom
Now let's head to the next page, where we look in more
detail at the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD.....
A closer look at the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB hardware.
PCB
PCB top side
The top side of the PCB contains the Phison S10 SSD
controller, 256GB of Toshiba 19nm Toggle NAND (MLC), and 256MB of DDR3 cache
memory.
PCB bottom
The bottom of the PCB contains the remainder of the NAND
chip packages, and various support components.
Specifications
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 UltraSharp U2412M
24” widescreen IPS LCD (HDCP compliant)
·
Operating
System:
Windows 10 Professional 64bit
·
Power
consumption testing equipment: Quarch Technology QTL1824-03 XLC Programmable
Power Module
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
14.6.0.1029.
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 ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB
SSD, I will be using the following test applications in this review.
- HD-Tune Pro
- ATTO
- Iometer
- AS SSD
Benchmark - CrystalDiskMark
- MyCE Reality Suite
- 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 ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD. You may ask why I have run so few synthetic benchmarks?
SSD technology has moved so fast in the last couple of years,
that basic synthetic benchmarks alone are now of very limited use, as they don't
really tell us much about performance and how the drive will behave in the real
world. I have therefore decided to show some basic benchmarks of the ZOTAC
ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD, and will complement this with advanced benchmarks
using IOMeter and AS SSD benchmark. I will also show how the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB 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
- Seagate 600 series 480GB SSD
- OCZ Vector 150 240GB SSD
- Toshiba HG6 256GB SSD
- Samsung 850 Pro 1TB SSD
- OCZ ARC 100 240GB SSD
- Samsung 850 EVO 500GB SSD
- Samsung 850 Pro 512GB SSD
- ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB
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.
For the sake of clarity, I now only include SATA 6Gbps SSDs
in these tests, and all were connected to the native Intel SATA 6Gbps (port 0)
of my motherboard for these tests.
- 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.
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB
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
with a 4MB block size.
With an average sequential reading speed of 528.4 MB/s the ZOTAC
ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD shows an excellent 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 ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD has done extremely
well in the HD Tune Pro 5 sequential reading test, and whilst there isn't a
large margin between the top SSDs, the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB is the fastest
in this 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.
The reading speed results for the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium
240GB SSD are extremely impressive, topping out at over 564 MB/s, and writing
speed is equally impressive topping out at over 544 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 ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD is the fastest SSD, when
reading data.
ATTO Writing performance
ATTO - Writing
performance at various block sizes
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD shows 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 screenshot, 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 ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD in the form of a screenshot. All our other comparison drives’
results are presented in the form of a graph.
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD
As we can see from the AS SSD test run, the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD has excellent reading and writing performance, finishing this
test in first place.
Summary:
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD has 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 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 ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD is 4k boundary aware, and will
use these boundaries if possible. Of course it will also remap LBAs for
compatibility with the sector boundaries so that the drive can be used with Windows
XP.
IOMeter allows us to set the sector boundaries for
conducting the tests, and I have therefore set the sector boundaries at 4K,
which means the IOMeter tests are valid for Windows 7, 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
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD – 4K random write (QD 1)
At 130.18 MB/s the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD's
result is very good, and it finishes this test in ninth 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
ZOTAC
ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD (QD 4)
At a queue depth of 4, the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD
is excellent, and finishes this test in fourth place.
Queue depth 32
ZOTAC
ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD (QD 32)
At 373.14 MB/s, the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD is
outstanding, and finishes this test in third place.
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
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD – 4K random write (QD 4 with fully random data)
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD pays no penalty when
writing data which is incompressible, and at 345.08 MB/s it finishes the test
in fifth 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 ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD has
excellent performance at low queue depths but, after it reaches a queue depth
of 4, performance doesn't really 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
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD - 4K random read (QD 1)
In this test the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD has
excellent performance, and finishes in third place.
Queue depth 4
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD - 4K random read (QD 4)
At a queue depth of four, the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB performs
excellently, and is the third fastest SSD in this test.
Queue depth 32
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD - 4K random read (QD 32)
At a queue depth of 32, the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB
SSD is showing excellent performance, and is the sixth fastest SSD 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.
If we look at the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD 4K
random read performance in detail, at low queue depths, the performance is excellent,
with the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB scaling well, all the way up to a queue
depth of 32.
IOMeter 512KB sequential write test with repeating data.
Sequential writing performance is also very important; in
this test sequential writing performance is measured.
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD - 512K Sequential write with repeating data
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD delivers an excellent
turn of speed, finishing this test in first 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.
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.
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD series reaches peak performance
at a queue depth of four, where it manages an impressive 541.31 MB/s.
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.
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB 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 ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB
SSD returns a very impressive 541.03 MB/s, and finishes this test in first
place.
IOMeter 512KB sequential read test QD1.
This test measures 512k sequential reading performance at
very low queue depths.
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD – 512K sequential reading test (QD 1)
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD has excellent
sequential reading performance at very low queue depths, finishing in second
place.
IOMeter 512KB sequential read test (dual threaded).
This test measures 512k sequential reading performance QD2.
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD – 512K sequential reading test (QD 2)
At a more realistic queue depth the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium
240GB is still showing outstanding sequential reading performance for an SATA
SSD, 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.
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD reaches maximum
sequential reading performance at a queue depth of four, where it achieves an
outstanding 563.74 MB/s.
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).
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB 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 ZOTAC
ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD has good mixed read/write performance, but it's still
quite a long way behind many of the SSDs in this test.
Summary
All in all, the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD has
performed extremely well in our IOMeter tests. It has outstanding reading
performance, and writing performance is excellent across the board. The ZOTAC
ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB also has extremely impressive 4K random reading
performance at very low queue depths, which is a key factor for a consumer SSD.
Now let’s head to the next page where we will look at how
the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB 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
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD (0 fill)
In the 0 fill test, the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD
has performed extremely well and is the fastest SSD in this test. However,
because the test data is repeating data, I’m quite sure the Phison SSD
controller is simply reading some of the data from the drives cache memory
rather than all of the data from the NAND array.
Application profile
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD (application profile)
The application test pattern is much more realistic in terms
of the type of data that real users will employ, and this time the ZOTAC ZTSSD
A5P Premium 240GB SSD is the fourth fastest SSD in this test.
100% incompressible
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD (100% incompressible)
With test data that can't be compressed at all, the ZOTAC
ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD is still excellent, and once again finishes the
test in fourth 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 ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD has however performed
very 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 SSDs just around the corner, the OCZ REVODrive X2 would no
longer be fast enough to supply data to an NVMe PCIe3 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 ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium
240GB SSD and our comparison drives.
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD has excellent
sequential writing performance, and finishes this test in third spot.
Write a folder of JPG picture files.
For this test I copied a folder of JPG picture files from
the RAMDisk to the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB series 512GB SSD, and our
other comparison drives. The folder contained 7861 JPG pictures, with a total
capacity of 8410.3MB.
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD
Once again the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB is performing
extremely well, and finishes in sixth place in this test.
Write a folder of MP3 audio files.
For this test I copied a folder of MP3 audio files from our RAMDisk
to the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD series SSD and our other comparison drives.
The folder contained 1691 MP3 audio files, with a total capacity of 9176.5MB.
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD
Yet again the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD is performing
well, and finishes this test in fourth spot.
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)
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD
In this test the SSD has to read and write data, and we
already know that the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB has excellent mixed reading
and writing performance, so it's no surprise to see the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium
240GB finish this test near the top of the table, in this case in second place,
and only marginally slower than the very fastest SSD.
Single drive copy tests – 7,861 JPEG picture files (8410.3MB total)
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD finishes in sixth
place in this test.
Summary
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB has performed extremely
well in the copy tests, with its high performance sequential writing speeds
translating into some very fast write times. The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB
also has fairly impressive mixed read/write performance, and this has ensured
that it has finished near the top of the tables when the SSD is faced with
having to simultaneously read and write data.
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 ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD gave an excellent turn
of speed when installing this large office suite, and finished the test in seventh
place, along with four other drives.
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 ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD finishes this test in eighth 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 ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB 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 very little difference in tangible performance between
the modern SSDs. However, the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD loads this large
application in 3.38 seconds, and finishes the test in fourth 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 SSDs in
this test.
F.E.A.R. 2
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD has performed very
well.
Summary
By now it's is becoming very clear that the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD delivers excellent performance, and its superb reading capabilities
have ensured that it's one of the fastest SSDs in these tests.
Now let's head to the next page where we will see how the
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB 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
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB
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.
PC Mark 8 storage suite: Adobe InDesign
The SSDs with the higher writing performance head the table.
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 0.3 seconds between the slowest and the
fastest SSDs 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 ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB
has 259.58 MB/s of bandwidth.
PC Mark 8 storage suite: Overall Score
PC Mark 8 sums all the individual times taken to run each
storage benchmark, and 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 ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium
240GB SSD takes seventh spot in these 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 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 ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB performs well in this
test, and finishes in seventh place.
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 ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD finishes in
seventh spot
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 ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB takes sixth
place.
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 ZOTAC ZTSSD
A5P Premium 240GB SSD is able to show what it can really do, when pushed hard,
and performs well, finishing in fourth spot.
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 ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD has performed well in
this test, finishing in sixth 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 ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD has
performed well, and takes sixth spot.
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 ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB 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....
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.
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.
With the drive filled to 80% of its capacity, 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
There is evidence of a slowdown in the performance of the
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium SSD. It doesn’t slow down a lot, in fact it is the
region of only 17 MB/s, so this will most likely be unnoticeable in the real
world.
Let’s head to the next page for an in depth analysis of
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.
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
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB – 4K random read QD1
The OCZ Vector 150 consumes the least amount of power, with
the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium consuming 1228 mW, but let’s see how this
translates to power efficiency in the graph below.
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB is the second most power
efficient SSD in this test, managing 8298.66 IOPS per Watt.
4K Random Write - queue depth 1
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB – 4K random write QD1
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB has an average power
consumption of 1672mW, but let’s see how this translates to power efficiency.
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium was the least power efficient in
this test, and quite a long way behind the Samsung 850 EVO and the OCZ Vector
150.
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
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB – 4K random read QD4
In this test the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium is consuming an
average of 1575mW, but again let’s see how this translates to the drives power
efficiency in the graph below.
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium is pretty power efficient in
this test, finishing in second place.
4K Random Write - queue depth 4
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB – 4K random write QD4
This time the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium has an average power
consumption of 2757mW of energy.
Here the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium SSD is the least power
efficient SSD.
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
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB – 4K random read QD32
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium SSD has an average power
consumption of 2322mW, and consumes exactly the same amount of energy as the
OCZ Vector 150, but will the ZOTAC be turn out to be more power efficient?
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium is more efficient than the OCZ
Vector 150, but is still a long way behind the efficiency of the Samsung 850
EVO.
4K Random Write - queue depth 32
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB – 4K random write QD32
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium SSD has an average power
consumption of 2877mW in this test.
This also translates to the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium being
the least power efficient 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
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB – Sequential read
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium SSD has an average power
consumption of 2074mW during this test, but let’s see how this translates into
its energy efficiency.
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium SSD is the most energy efficient
SSD in this test, managing an impressive 518.45 IOPS for each Watt of energy it
consumes.
512KB Sequential write
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB – Sequential write
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium SSD has an average power
consumption of 3673mW during this test.
This time the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium SSD is the least power
efficient 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.
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB – Drive idle
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium SSD consumes very little energy
when doing no work at all. It isn’t quite as efficient as the two Samsung SSDs,
but nonetheless, 74mW when idle is still an excellent result.
I will now show a couple of additional tests which are for
information only.
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.
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD – Power up maximum power requirements.
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium requires the most amount 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.
ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P
Premium 240GB SSD – Real time trace of the drive booting Windows 10 to the
desktop.
Summary
The power efficiency of the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium SSD is a
mixed bag. It’s quite energy efficient when reading data, but when writing
data, its energy efficiency is not the best in class.
When the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium SSD is doing no work at
all, it is a very energy efficient SSD, consuming only 74mW of energy when
idle.
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 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 ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD series SSD has all of
these attributes, and feels very snappy in use as a system drive.
Stability
I have only had the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD for a
few weeks, so it’s not possible to comment on the drive's long term reliability.
What I can say is the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium SSD has caused no problems with
stability during the test period.
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD is 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 this SSD.
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. - Excellent 4K random writing performance, at low and high queue
depths. - Excellent 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.
- Fast in 'real world scenarios'.
- Reasonably priced.
Negative:
- Power efficiency when writing data is not what it could be.
To sum up, this is what I
would say:
As an operating system drive, the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium
240GB SSD is pretty hard to fault. Performance is excellent and the SSD proved
to be very stable during the testing period.
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium is up against some very stiff
opposition in this market segment, with the Samsung 850 EVO probably its most direct
rival. The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium isn’t quite as fast as the Samsung 850 EVO,
but it does have MLC NAND in its favour.
As I said in the first page of this article, the ZOTAC ZTSSD
A5P Premium SSD uses the popular Phison S10 SSD controller. It’s an interesting
SSD, where sequential reading and writing performance is outstanding, small
file random performance is also of a very high standard, and the ZOTAC ZTSSD
A5P Premium is as fast as any other high performance consumer SSD in the real
world. All in all, the ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium is a very good effort from
ZOTAC.
Price and availability
The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB SSD should be available
now, and I found the SSD on sale at Amazon
UK for £81.43, making the SSD reasonable value. The 120GB and 480GB
versions are also available for £51.98 and £167.84 respectively.
The parting sentence is:
“The ZOTAC ZTSSD A5P Premium 240GB is an excellent reasonably
priced consumer SSD, with excellent performance in the real world.
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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EFD Software for |
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Alex Schepeljanski |
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FutureMark for |
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Quarch Technology for |
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