| OCZ RevoDrive PCI-Express SandForce SSD |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Storage | |
| Written by Olin Coles | |
| Wednesday, 22 September 2010 | |
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Page 9 of 12
Iometer IOPS PerformanceIometer is an I/O subsystem measurement and characterization tool for single and clustered systems. Iometer does for a computer's I/O subsystem what a dynamometer does for an engine: it measures performance under a controlled load. Iometer was originally developed by the Intel Corporation and formerly known as "Galileo". Intel has discontinued work on Iometer, and has gifted it to the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL). Iometer is both a workload generator (that is, it performs I/O operations in order to stress the system) and a measurement tool (that is, it examines and records the performance of its I/O operations and their impact on the system). It can be configured to emulate the disk or network I/O load of any program or benchmark, or can be used to generate entirely synthetic I/O loads. It can generate and measure loads on single or multiple (networked) systems. To measure random I/O response time as well as total I/O's per second, Iometer is set to use 4KB file size chunks over a 100% random sequential distribution at a queue depth of 32 outstanding I/O's per target. The tests are given a 50% read and 50% write distribution. While this pattern may not match traditional 'server' or 'workstation' profiles, it illustrates a single point of reference relative to our product field. The chart below illustrates combined random read and write IOPS over a 120-second Iometer test phase, where highest I/O total is preferred:
Since Iometer wasn't the first test we conducted on the OCZ RevoDrive (Everest was), it's surprising to see that 'dirty' NAND flash was still able to produce nearly 70,000 IOPS with 32 outstanding I/O's per target. From the onset, SandForce SSDs clearly outperform the competition when tested which a larger queue depth. In our Iometer tests, which use 32 outstanding I/O's per target and a random 50/50 read/write distribution, only the 'unrestricted' SandForce SSDs approach 50,000 IOPS. OCZ's Agility 2 promises 10,000 IOPS each way, and yet it delivers 23,376 total - outperforming their specification once again . The SandForce-Driven SSDs demonstrate the highest IOPS performance we've ever seen on a consumer storage device, and the 'unlocked' firmware further extends the performance level to as high as 50,000 IOPS. Benchmark Reviews discusses this topic in more detail in our SandForce SF-1200 SSD Firmware Comparison article. Drive Hardware
In our next section, we test linear read and write bandwidth performance and compare its speed against several other top storage products using EVEREST Disk Benchmark. Benchmark Reviews feels that linear tests are excellent for rating SSDs, however HDDs are put at a disadvantage with these tests whenever capacity is high.
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Comments
They have certain bandwidth restrictions on the PCI-E bus with multiple PCI-E slots occupied concurrently. (X16 is divided into X8 times two)
I just wonder if this architecture would effect the output of the drive, and if the drive would effect the output of the Video Card?
PARECE QUE VAO MUDAR A TATICA!
Aside from the tranlation, can someone tell me if this type of storage( via Pci-e)is bootable??
I'd guess quite a lot will need bios updates.
I notice the idle power consumption on the data sheet provided by OCZ is 7W. Although still small, it seems to be much higher than other SSDs. Is this correct? If so, is it an artifact of having two controllers on the card or of being a PCI-E footprint? Any idea?
I agree with you about the controller; it works, but better options exist. Perhaps it was a cost benefit issue.
@ Neil: OCZ doesn't recommend motherboards with restrictive bandwidth on the PCI-Express bus, and the P55 motherboard would be a concern if SLI or CFX were used. If it's a single VGA with Revo on P55, I don't see a problem.
@ Robert: A standard SSD has a controller and NAND, while the Revo has twice the amount of NAND ICs, a RAID processor, and PCI-E bridge. This is where the extra power consumption comes from.