How do we test?

Testenvironment

We recommend that readers who aren't interested in test procedures jump over this page and head directly to the test results.

Models tested	Samsung PM840 256 Gigabyte Corsair Neutron GTX 240 Gigabyte OCZ Vertex 4 256 Gigabyte FW 1.5 OCZ Agility 4 256 Gigabyte Corsair Force GS 240 Gigabyte Kingmax SMP35 Client 240 Gigabyte OCZ Octane 1000 GByte OCZ Vertex 4 256 GByte Firmware 1.4RC OCZ Vertex 4 512 GByte Firmware 1.4RC Kingston HyperX 3K SSD 120 GByte SanDisk Extreme SSD 240 GByte SanDisk Extreme SSD 120 GByte OCZ Vertex 4 512 GByte OCZ Vertex 4 256 GByte OCZ Octane 512 GByte Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GByte Intel SSD 520 240 GByte Kingston SSDNow V+ 200 90 GByte OCZ Synapse 64 GByte Samsung PM830 128 GByte OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid 120GB SSD, 1TB HDD Extrememory XLR8 Express 120 GByte MLC Corsair Force 3 120 GByte MLC Samsungs PM 830 SSD 256 GByte MLC OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 480 GByte PCIe-SSD MLC Kingston HyperX 240 GByte SSD MLC ADATA S511 SSD 120 GByte MLC Corsair Force GT 120 GByte MLC Kingston HyperX 120 GByte MLC ADATA S511 60 GByte MLC OCZ Agility 3 240 GByte MLC OCZ Vertex 3 240 GByte MLC OCZ IBIS 240 GByte MLC OCZ Revo Drive X2 480 GByte MLC Samsung SSD 64 GByte MLC Corsair F100 100 GByte MLC Corsair X128 128 GByte MLC Corsair P128 128 GByte MLC Intel X25-M 80 GByte MLC Intel X25-M Gen2 160 GByte MLC Intel X25-M Gen2 160 GByte MLC Raid0 Intel X25-E 32 GByte SLC OCZ Vertex 120 GByte MLC Samsung SSD PM800 256 GByte MLC Samsung SSD PM800 64 GByte MLC Kingston SSDNow V+ 64 GByte MLC OCZ Agility 128 GByte MLC OCZ Apex 120 GByte MLC Photofast G-Monster 120 GByte V2 MLC Kingston SSDNow VSeries 40 GByte MLC
Testenvironment
Motherboard	ASUS P8P67 Deluxe B3
Chipset	Intel P67	1'333 MHz
CPU	Intel Core i7 2600k	3.4 GHz
Memory	Kingston HyperX 2133	4 GByte
Graphics card	Gigabyte GeForce GTX 285
Storage (system)	Seagate Barracuda	640 GByte
Operating systems	Ubuntu - most recent Kernel version Windows 7 64 Bit with caching drives
Filesystem	XFS

We think everybody reading this article can imagine the following scenario: You just bought a hard drive which according the specs sheet should transfer 120 MByte/s reading and writing. In the reviews you read about astonishing 110 MByte/s but after you put the drive into you system it feels much slower. The whole story gets even worse when you start a benchmark which does randomread/write of 4 KByte blocks. There you only get two to three MBytes/s.

Because of this we don't want to publish screenshots of standard programs like HD-Tach, HD-Tune, ... we want our tests to be

• reproducible,
• accurate
• meaningful and
• varied ...

... sind.

We test with activated caches and NCQ (Native Command Queueing) because they're also activated under daily use. But the data size tested is always at least twice the amount of the memory. In this there will be no intereference.

We noticed that the measuring error is constantly within ±2%. Therefore we mention it only here.

Additionally we evaluate the S.M.A.R.T. data to assess if there are already errors.

The following table give you a brief overview to which points we turn our centre of attention.

Test	Observations
Sequential Read/Write Tests	Are the values within the specifications? Which influence has the block size? Which influence has the filesystems block size?
Random Read/Write Tests	How severe is the influence on the theoretically possible (sequential) datarate? Which influence has the block size? Which influence has the block size on the filesystem?

iozone3

iozone3 is a benchmark suit for storage solutions which natively runs under Linux.

Therefore we are testing the throughput with different block sizes using the following commands:

KByte/s

• iozone -Rb test4k.xls -i0 -i1 -i2 -+n -r 4k -s4g -t32
• iozone -Rb test16k.xls -i0 -i1 -i2 -+n -r 16k -s4g -t32
• iozone -Rb test32k.xls -i0 -i1 -i2 -+n -r 32k -s4g -t32
• iozone -Rb test64k.xls -i0 -i1 -i2 -+n -r 64k -s4g -t32
• iozone -Rb test128k.xls -i0 -i1 -i2 -+n -r 128k -s4g -t32
• iozone -Rb test256k.xls -i0 -i1 -i2 -+n -r 256k -s4g -t32

iops

• iozone -Rb test4ko.xls -i0 -i1 -i2 -+n -r 4k -s4g -t32 -O
• iozone -Rb test16ko.xls -i0 -i1 -i2 -+n -r 16k -s4g -t32 -O
• iozone -Rb test32ko.xls -i0 -i1 -i2 -+n -r 32k -s4g -t32 -O
• iozone -Rb test64ko.xls -i0 -i1 -i2 -+n -r 64k -s4g -t32 -O
• iozone -Rb test96ko.xls -i0 -i1 -i2 -+n -r 96k -s4g -t32 -O
• iozone -Rb test128ko.xls -i0 -i1 -i2 -+n -r 128k -s4g -t32 -O

 

Why do we test different block sizes?

It is important to reproduce scenarios of daily usage. Certain parameters need to be variable during the test to make a statement about the product. In our test the parameters are the different block sizes. It defines the size in KBytes which is written/read on the drive during a transaction.

With this method one can test the reading and writing of either small and big files. In a normal personal computer environment you usually don't find many files smaller than 16 KByte. The relative amount of small files is much bigger on a mail or database server. Therefore tests with small block sizes are of interest for database-based applications.

In bigger RAID arrays the hard disk cache is usually disabled and the RAID-Controller takes over the job of caching. Exactly in such setups hard drives need to be very fast when reading or writing small amounts of data. Sequential throughput isn't interesting in this case.

Page 1 - Introduction / Specs	Page 7 - Random read KByte/s
Page 2 - Impressions	Page 8 - Sequential writeIOPS
Page 3 - How do we test?	Page 9 - Sequential readIOPS
Page 4 - Sequential write KByte/s	Page 10 - Random writeIOPS
Page 5 - Sequential read KByte/s	Page 11 - Random readIOPS
Page 6 - Random write KByte/s	Page 12 - Conclusion

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