The SSD Relapse: Understanding and Choosing the Best SSD
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 30, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Overall System Performance using PCMark Vantage
Next up is PCMark Vantage, another system-wide performance suite. For those of you who aren’t familiar with PCMark Vantage, it ends up being the most real-world-like hard drive test I can come up with. It runs things like application launches, file searches, web browsing, contacts searching, video playback, photo editing and other completely mundane but real-world tasks. I’ve described the benchmark in great detail before but if you’d like to read up on what it does in particular, take a look at Futuremark’s whitepaper on the benchmark; it’s not perfect, but it’s good enough to be a member of a comprehensive storage benchmark suite. Any performance impacts here would most likely be reflected in the real world.
The overall PCMark Vantage score takes into account CPU and GPU performance and thus storage performance is only one aspect of determining your score. All of the SSDs do well here, the slowest configuration still around 36% faster than the WD VelociRaptor; something I'd say is more than reflected in real world performance.
The memories suite includes a test involving importing pictures into Windows Photo Gallery and editing them, a fairly benign task that easily falls into the category of being very influenced by disk performance.
Once again the SSDs all perform very similarly here. The fastest of the group is Intel's X25-E, but the Indilinx drives actually hold the next three spots followed by the new G2. The performance range is very small between these drives though, you honestly can't go wrong with either an Indilinx MLC or X25-M.
The TV and Movies tests focus on on video transcoding which is mostly CPU bound, but one of the tests involves Windows Media Center which tends to be disk bound.
The standings continue to be roughly the same. We see just how much more competitive Indilinx is this time around than when the OCZ Vertex first hit the streets. We do have a real alternative to Intel.
The gaming tests are very well suited to SSDs since they spend a good portion of their time focusing on reading textures and loading level data. All of the SSDs dominate here, but as you'll see later on in my gaming tests the benefits of an SSD really vary depending on the game. Take these results as a best case scenario of what can happen, not the norm.
The Vantage Gaming Suite shows us our first example of the X25-M G2 pulling ahead of even the SLC X25-E. Even the Samsung based OCZ Summit does very well here.
In the Music suite the main test is a multitasking scenario: the test simulates surfing the web in IE7, transcoding an audio file and adding music to Windows Media Player (the most disk intensive portion of the test).
The Intel drives are at the top, the G1 faster than the G2, followed by the Indilinx drives, then the Samsung drive and the mechanical drives. New performance is important here because once TRIM shows up, this is closer to what you'll be seeing for a drive with a good amount of free space.
The Communications suite is made up of two tests, both involving light multitasking. The first test simulates data encryption/decryption while running message rules in Windows Mail. The second test simulates web surfing (including opening/closing tabs) in IE7, data decryption and running Windows Defender.
I love PCMark's Productivity test; in this test there are four tasks going on at once, searching through Windows contacts, searching through Windows Mail, browsing multiple webpages in IE7 and loading applications. This is as real world of a scenario as you get and it happens to be representative of one of the most frustrating HDD usage models - trying to do multiple things at once. There's nothing more annoying than trying to launch a simple application while you're doing other things in the background and have the load take seemingly forever.
Here the Intel drives are at the top, by a noticeable margin. The G1, G2 and X25-E are all around the same level of performance. Samsung comes close with the OCZ Summit and the Indilinx drives pull up the rear. You can't go wrong with either the Intel or Indilinx drives but Intel is clearly faster here.
The final PCMark Vantage suite is HDD specific and this is where you'll see the biggest differences between the drives:
When it comes to pure drive performance, the breakdown doesn't get any simpler. Intel's X25-E holds the top spot, followed by the G2 and G1. While the G2 is only 5.6% faster than the G1, remember that we're looking at "new" performance here. Over time, with TRIM, the G2 will be closer to this performance, while the G1 will never get here again.
Despite poor random small file write performance, the OCZ Summit actually does very well here.
All of the drives perform incredibly compared to any mechanical hard drives.
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IPL - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link
I first started reading anandtech when I got seriously interested in SSDs and honestly, you write the best SSD articles around! Thank you for all the help you gave me in deciding which SSD to buy.I ordered online the new G2 last week and should be getting it in a few days. I live in Greece and the re-launched G2 has been available here for about a week now.
I am planning on replacing the HDD on my Feb 08 Macbook Pro (last refresh pre-unibody) as soon as I get it. I am just a consumer with a little bit of knowledge on tech but not a pro at all. I just thought of asking all a few questions that I have pre-drive swapping.
1. Will TRIM be supported on macs? Any news if and when?
2. When then new TRIM firmware is out, do I have to just install the firmware or will I need to format everything and start from fresh in order to get it to work?
3. I have bought a 2,5'' SATA USB enclosure in order to put my G2 in there first, connect it to the laptop via the USB and install Snow Leopard from there. After I am done, I will remove the G2 from the enclosure, swap the drives and hopefully, everything will be working. Does this sound logical? I am worried about the h/w drivers to be honest.
Thanks in advance for your help. I will post some non-scientific time results as soon as get this done. Cant wait.
gstrickler - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link
The simplest way to swap the HD on most Mac OS machines is:1. Connect both the old and the new drive to the machine (internally or in an external USB or FireWire case).
2. Use Disk Utility (included in Mac OS X) to set the appropriate partitioning scheme (GUID for Intel based Macs, Apple Partition Scheme for PPC Macs) on the new drive.
3. Partition and format the new drive.
4. Use Carbon Copy Cloner (shareware) to clone the old drive to the new drive.
5. Try booting off the new drive. Note that PPC Macs can't boot from USB drives, but Intel based Macs can. All PPC and Intel Macs with a built-in FireWire port can boot from a FireWire drive.
6. If not already done, physically swap the drives to the desired locations, boot and set the preferred startup drive.
IPL - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
Awesome, thanks for the help.I have checked Carbon Copy Cloner and it is already one of my options. Never tried it before but looked easy enough.
I havent decided yet which way I will do it (fresh install or clone existing drive) but I will make my mind up when everything is ready!
Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link
Thank you for reading and saying such wonderful things, I really do appreciate it :)1) I don't believe TRIM is presently supported in Snow Leopard. I've heard that Apple may be working on it but I don't think it's there now.
2) From what I've seen, it should preserve your data. It's still worth backing up just in case something ridiculous happens.
3) What you're describing should work, although if I were you I'd just swap the drives and install. Hook your old drive up via USB and pull any data you need off of that.
Take care,
Anand
sunbear - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link
Another fantastic article. I just wanted to draw your attention to recent reports that the majority of currently available laptops (including the MacBookPro) are unable to support transfer rates greater than SATA-150 (http://www.hardmac.com/news/2009/06/16/new-macbook...">http://www.hardmac.com/news/2009/06/16/...imited-1....Since most laptops can't even use the full performance of these SSD's, do you have any recommendation regarding which one would be the best bang-for-the-buck to speed up a laptop?
Personally, I am interested in putting SSD's in a laptop not only for the speed improvements, but I'm also hoping that it reduces the amount of heat that my laptop will put out so that I can finally find a laptop that you can use comfortably on your lap!
Incidentally, it would be really great if laptop reviewers checked to see if they could comfortably work with a laptop at full load on their lap as a standard test.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link
Even on a SATA-150 interface, you're generally only going to be limiting your sequential read speed and perhaps your sequential write speed a bit. Random read/write speeds don't really go above 60MB/s so you're fine there.They recommendations remain the same; Intel at the top end, anything Indilinx MLC to save a bit. If anything, a SATA-150 interface makes the Intel drive look a bit better since its 80MB/s sequential write limit isn't as embarrassing :)
Take care,
Anand
Dobs - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link
I hope Seagate / Western Digital etc. bring even more innovation / competition in SSD's next year... and not just Enterprise products.And one thing I don't fully understand is why there aren't more dedicated 3.5" drives. Patriot has the adapter but what about the rest??? No money in desktops anymore???
Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link
OCZ is making a 3.5" Vertex drive, waiting on it for review :)Take care,
Anand
kisjoink - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link
Now that the good performing SSDs are half the price of last year, I'd really like to see a 2xSSD in RAID 0 article!mgrmgr - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link
I second the request for a 2xSSD RAID-0 article...with specific discussions about which applications it benefits (Photoshop?) and which ones it doesn't.Before October 22nd when I buy a new Win7 computer? Please. :-)