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SSD SATA vs. SSD PCI-E | Part Two: Practical

“Soon the fairy tale affects, but it is not done soon”
Russian folk saying

Not so long ago there was a material with theoretical calculations “ Why is PCIe, but not SATA? ". It should be said that it was impossible to make an unequivocal conclusion, and therefore I had to understand it in practice. To make matters worse, I’ll take not just SATA, but a pair of disks in RAID 0.



In order to compare something with something, it would be nice to understand what we are competing in and how we fight. Agree that you can compare a hippopotamus with a moth on different parameters and the conclusions will be completely different. PCIe and SATA are not so significant differences, but, nevertheless, requires clarity. For her, I ask under the cat.

Test stand


First of all, I will determine the configuration of the test bench:
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The disks used in the tests:

PCIe: OCZ RevoDrive 350, 480 GB
SATA: 2 pieces OCZ Vector 150, 480 gigabytes, controller Barefoot 3
SATA: 2 pieces Kingston V300, 240 gigabytes, SandForce controller



Without pretending to be a gold medal at the Olympiad of storage systems specialists, I will look for scenarios that are close to the heart of an ordinary user, not forgetting, however, the recommendations of manufacturers.

Testing method


The testing methodology assumes the following conditions: the Windows 8.1 Professional operating system works adequately with modern SSDs, which means that both during the tests and in everyday life, the TRIM team works constantly and is actively used. To avoid the effect of a “new SSD”, before conducting tests, a data volume equal to the doubled SSD volume is recorded on each disk.

Between the runs of each test, a pause is made for the TRIM command to work correctly.

So a set of software for evaluation:

Crystal Disk Mark 3.0.3b


A synthetic test that helps to evaluate, first of all, the data declared by the manufacturer on the box. Four disk access options are being tested. I will use linear read and write speed for results and comparisons (this case should reveal the potential of RAID 0) and random read and write speed in blocks of 4 KB (kilobyte), and also with a queue depth of 32 commands. (look at the efficiency of work when lining up the queue).

PC Mark 8 2.3.293


This synthetic test emulates the load of various applications, namely, Adobe Master Suite and Microsoft Office packages, as well as two popular games - World Of Warcraft and Battlefield 3.

I give the full layout of the tests below:

  1. World Of Warcraft - the situation when the user starts the game, logs in and starts the gameplay is emulated. During the test, 390 MB of data is read and 5 MB of data is written. The largest number of random reads is up to 64 KB.
  2. Battlefield 3 - emulates the situation when the user starts the game, logs in, loads the save and starts playing. During the test, 887 MB of data is read and 28 MB of data is written. The largest number of operations - random reading of blocks up to 4 KB and up to 64 KB
  3. Adobe Photoshop light - emulates workload with 14 files from 4 to 17 MB in size. During the test, 313 MB of data is read and 2336 MB of data is written. The greatest number of operations is sequential writing of blocks up to 128 KB.
  4. Adobe Photoshop heavy - emulates the workload with large raster graphics files (creating a poster for printing in high resolution - the final layout in PSD is 1320 MB). During the test, 468 MB of data is read and 5640 MB of data is written. The greatest number of operations is sequential writing of blocks up to 128 KB.
  5. Adobe Illustrator - emulates workload with vector graphics (creating presentations from images created in Adobe Photoshop - add text, frames, etc. The total size of a PDF file is 5.6 MB). During the test, 373 MB of data is read and 89 MB of data is written. The largest number of operations is random reading of blocks up to 64 KB.
  6. Adobe InDesign - computer load layout is emulated (publishing a publication with a large number of illustrations - the total size of a PDF file is 64.7 MB). During the test, 401 MB of data is read and 624 MB of data is written. The largest number of operations is random reading of blocks up to 4 KB and up to 64 KB.
  7. Adobe After Effects - emulates the workload of the video editing program (fast video rendering, 1920 * 1080, 30 fps). The test reads 311 MB of data and writes 16 MB of data. The largest number of operations is random reading of blocks up to 4 KB and up to 64 KB.
  8. Microsoft Excel - emulates workload with spreadsheets (work with a table of 75 thousand cells). During the test, 73 MB of data is read and 15 MB of data is written. The largest number of operations is random reading of blocks up to 64 KB.
  9. Microsoft Word - emulates the workload of a text editor (a number of changes in a 57 MB file). During the test, 107 MB of data is read and 95 MB of data is written. The largest number of operations is random reading of blocks up to 64 KB.
  10. Microsoft Powerpoint - emulates workload with a presentation wizard (creating a presentation with a large number of pictures - the final file size is 27.1 MB). During the test, 83 MB of data is read and 21 MB of data is written. The largest number of operations is random reading of blocks up to 64 KB.

AJA System test


The program creates a video file with a size of 16 gigabytes and a resolution of 2048 * 1556 10-bit RGB and performs a read and write operation on the target disk with it.

AS SSD Benchmark 1.7.4739.38088


Subtest - Copy - I will use all three scenarios: ISO (two large files), Program (folder with a large number of small files) and Games (folder with assorted large and small files)

This is the part of the tests that concerns synthetics.

In real life, there will be the following measurements (I will immediately say subjective and with errors).

Run Windows 8.1 operating system


The same system image was rolled out on all the disks and arrays, and then using the stopwatch built into the smartphone, the time was measured from the moment the button was pressed until the desktop was loaded.

Running the game World Of Warplanes with HD textures


Measured time to start the game, login and login to the hangar.

Copying video file


For the test, BD Remux with a capacity of 35.2 GB was used. - First Avenger: Another War / Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) BDRemux - the system was copied from the SSD drive to the drive under test.

So, the participants are known, the conditions of the struggle, too, the price of the device will be taken into account - make your bets. Who will win?

Test results


Crystal Disk Mark 3.0.3b


The results are quite expected: synthetics did not reveal a clear winner, somewhere better than PCIe, somewhere RAID 0 from OCZ Vector, Kingston slightly worse, because the controller is different, and the volume is smaller



PC Mark 8 2.3.293


A test simulating the operation of real applications demonstrates that nothing better can be better than RAID 0 from good SSDs. And let the difference in the results is quite insignificant, however, the user will not need an expensive PCIe SSD for everyday life.



AJA System test


The hint is completely transparent. If you work with large video footage, your choice of PCIe SSD is the definitive test leader.



AS SSD Benchmark 1.7.4739.38088


A curious movie: where it is necessary to work only with large or only small files - the best result shows RAID 0 from OCZ Vector 150, but on a mixed load, it “drives” the PCIe OCZ RevoDrive 350.



Vital part


Run Windows 8.1 operating system


From the moment of pressing the power button until the desktop was fully loaded, it was far from 5 seconds =) Most of the time, the initialization of the RAID controllers was eating up, so the result may be slightly surprising. For greater reliability, I ran the system three times - the results were the same up to a second.
The champion was RAID 0 from Vector.



Running the game World Of Warplanes with HD textures


Here a strange story happened, but repeated, so I consider it true. When starting from a PCIe SSD drive, the game started visually a little faster (i.e., the screens “blackened” faster and switched over), but in the end the launch error between the two RAID 0 and PCIe turned out to be minimal and one could say that there was no difference.



Copying video file


“In life, like a movie, but not like a movie” (C) Treasure Island, a cartoon.
PCIe takes over the data faster, which, incidentally, is not surprising.



Bonus Test - average latency


To create the load, the program IOMeter 1.1.0 was used. The average delay was measured in the following scenarios:
Block size: 512 bytes, 4 kilobytes, 8 kilobytes. Load: 100% read, 65% read - 35% write, 100% write



Frankly, the results of the SSD on SandForce upset me at the testing stage in 4K blocks and starting testing 8K blocks - I realized that it would be even worse, so I will leave only the average block size on the tablet.

From the plate it is perfectly clear that modern SATA-controllers in SSD OCZ Vector 150 were pulled up by this parameter to the previous generation of PCIe-drives, but SandForce definitely lacks stars from the sky.

Let's sum up


PCIe is really fast, but extremely expensive. At the same time, it is easy to install, there is no need to pull cables and occupy SATA ports. If you are engaged in video editing, and even at work, and even for a salary, ask to buy a PCIe SSD in a working computer and a larger volume.

RAID 0 is not equally useful from all drives. Yes, of course, the larger the disk, the higher the speed of its operation (slightly exaggerated, but true). Yes, RAID from large disks will be faster, but the above figures will help to understand the speed order. And two 60 gigabyte disks will never be able to catch up to PCIe. Therefore, if you have the opportunity and desire to build a RAID from SSD - look for funds of 2 * 240 gigabytes and you will be happy in any applications and tasks.

There is no direct comparison between the SATA SSD and PCIe SSD solos, because, for example, OCZ RevoDrive 350 has a RAID 0 of four drives. But it’s not worth it to expect that RAID 0 out of four SATA will destroy everyone in the next five years. New controllers for PCIe drives are on the way, and we'll see there.

Our previous posts:
» OCZ ZD-XL SQL Accelerator. Enlarge your SQL
» SSD SATA vs. SSD PCIe | part one: theoretical
» OCZ. We returned.

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/376843/

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