Explain SSD benchmark stats

[Sir Shfvingle]

I honestly looked around the forums and the other internetz for quite a bit, and for the life of me I cannot find an explanation of SSD benchmarks. If there is another resource explaining it, please show me. If not, could someone explain to me what all the things in an SSD benchmark mean(either statistically or practically), such as as the 4k, 512k, sequential and such, and their relation to Mb/s and IOPS. Thank you.

[Taiji]

My ssd goes from post to windows desktop in less than 10 seconds

That's how to benchmark an ssd, you just look at how much it reduces the time taken to do something.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

4k-512k represents a block of data,

everything on an SSD or HDD takes space usually in Kilobyte blocks,

the larger the block the quicker it can be found and read

you will notice below the 1 Terabyte HDD a Samsung F1 1TB gets faster as the block sizes increase
notice the SSDs speeds the SSD shown on the right is an OCZ Vertex II 60gb
take note that 4k read / write speeds 4k is a common file size, so its used extensively up to 512k sizes
notice the HDD only has 25-30mb/s the SSD maintains 100-130mb/s 400% increase in read write speeds at that file size
512k the HDD hits 100-110mb/s the SSD hits 250mb/s

The important thing to realize is these are sequential reads. think of it like an Old record player, an HDD if its reading or writing sequentially is like a disk spinning and you read from the outside to the inside, outside edge is faster, inside edge slower, what happens with HDDs is that sequentially it rights just like the grooves on an old record its reading and writing data in such a way its a continuous stream, the problem is this dosent work all the time most read and writes are random on a PC, in this regard
an HDD will drop as low as 2-4mb/s where as an SSD can maintain 20-50mb/s on top of this. access times matter, an HDD has seek times access times etc, this is a delay, it can be anywhere from 10-30 milliseconds, where as an SSD only takes .01- .3 milliseconds these things matter in that

Faster read write speeds coupled with faster seek times allows SSDs to perform far quicker then HDDs, even with HDDS in raid 0 to boost read and writes will not remove the latency in terms of seek time etc for finding data. the benchmarks themselves are unimportant as the user above me posted what matters is with an SSD the way windows loads the way it feel doing everyday tasks is far more satisfying then with an HDD, but as with anything it comes with a price.

[Taiji]

Reduced CPU usage, no noise, and massively increased impact resilience through having no moving parts, are also benefits over hdds that are worth mentioning.

And BTW my ATTO results are nearly double yours, Crazyeyesreaper (Agility3 120gb )

(But your graphics solution is way better than mine )

[Crazyeyesreaper]

those aren't my results lol i dont have any ssds currently waiting for a a few kingston drives to arrive for Raid 0 but its gonna be awhile.

[Taiji]

Ah, and I will get another Agility to raid as soon as I feel foolish enough

It almost seems a waste of money since things are already so damn fast... almost!

[Crazyeyesreaper]

im doing it for capacity,

2x 256gb

[Freddie]

Adverts and marketing always like to promote the Read/Write times because big numbers sell, in reality though your not going to see any noticeable difference in loading times by going from a 2010 SATA 2.0 SSD to one of the newer and faster 2011 SATA 3.0 models unless you going to transfer a lot files between flash drives. Its the access times and 4k read times you should be keeping an eye on.