Many users dream of their PC responding and launching applications as quickly as, for example, modern smartphones and tablets. And the path to fulfilling this desire lies, as a rule, not through a more powerful CPU or even through a larger RAM. The best results come from replacing a slow HDD (or old SSD) with a really fast solid state drive.
The measure of all things in this regard are modules with an M.2 interface operating according to the NVMe specification. The PCI Express bus and the data transfer protocol specifically designed for the SSDs connected over it break through all the limitations that prevent conventional SATA-enabled SSDs from achieving speeds above 550 MB/s and which pose a bottleneck for parallel requests on multi-core systems.
2.5" SATA SSDsConventional SSDs in the 2.5-inch drive form factor are in most cases the only option for laptops and older PCs
But such SSDs are usually noticeably more expensive than solid-state drives with a SATA connection and require a modern motherboard. Next, we will tell you which computers this or that type of disk is suitable for and how big the difference in speeds is in practice. Then we present the results of tests of SSDs using the NVMe protocol, and in conclusion we advise the easiest way to migrate the system from an old HDD or SSD to a new one.
Choosing the best technology: NVMe or SATA
The type of drive you choose depends on the system you intend to upgrade. Most laptops (especially older ones) are equipped with only one SATA connector and a hard drive bay. In this case, the disk can only be replaced with a 2.5-inch SATA SSD (see). The same applies to most PCs up to the Intel Broadwell generation, even if some expensive motherboards have an M.2 slot (along with PCIe lines, it can also use SATA with its characteristic limitations). If there is no modern M.2 slot on the board, you can connect an M.2 form factor module to a PCIe slot via an adapter.
M.2 to PCIe adapterSimple, inexpensive adapters (from 300 rubles) allow you to use M.2 drives in PCIe slots on a PC. To boot from them, the UEFI BIOS must support NVMe
If you are going to use an NVMe SSD as a system drive, then UEFI must support booting from NVMe - you should check this on the motherboard manufacturer's website (NVMe Boot option). Otherwise, you can use the SSD as an additional drive running Windows, but this will only be justified in certain cases.
The M.2 slot has become widely used in platforms starting with the Skylake generation (LGA 1151 socket) - information can be found in the technical specifications of the board. But be careful: M.2 is primarily a designation for the card form factor (22x80 mm).
There are two types. The M.2 module with the so-called “B” key supports conventional AHCI technology, which is used to connect drives via the SATA interface. Such drives have the same names as their 2.5-inch SATA counterparts (for example: Crucial MX300 M.2, Samsung SSD 850 Evo M.2) and do not differ from them in speed. Their advantage is that there are no compatibility or driver problems with these drives, and even installing Windows 7 occurs without problems.
If your PC or laptop motherboard has an M.2 slot, the optimal solution would be to install a high-speed SSD with support for the NVMe specification into it
A module with an “M” key and support for the NVMe protocol can use up to four PCIe 3.0 lanes. Most modern motherboards and many laptops are equipped with slots with a plug in the “M” position, that is, in principle compatible with NVMe drives. But in any case, before purchasing a drive with NVMe support, you should study the manufacturer's documentation and be sure to take into account the following: it is difficult to initially install Windows 7 on an NVMe drive. If Windows 7 is already installed on the computer you are upgrading, you can transfer the system to an NVMe solid-state drive.
In the early days of solid-state drives, due to their limited capabilities and high cost, it was popular to use one small SSD for the OS and one HDD for files in parallel. Now this option, as before, has a right to exist, but due to falling prices for solid-state drives, it is losing its attractiveness. The best price for one gigabyte currently comes from SATA solid-state drives with a capacity of about 1 TB: these models can be purchased from 17,000 rubles. For desktops and laptops with an M.2 slot and a 2.5-inch bay, a combination of a solid-state drive for the OS and programs and a high-capacity HDD for files is also justified.
NVMe vs SATA: Key Differences
The SATA interface was designed for serial access to the HDD. NVMe protocol enables parallel access to SSDs
On the other hand, the difference in price for a new terabyte hard drive (about 2,500 rubles) and a 256-gigabyte solid-state drive (about 5,500 rubles) on the one hand and a terabyte SSD (from 17,000 rubles) on the other is still quite large, so the option with two disks is still relevant. However, some users find it more convenient when the OS, programs and files are located on the same drive.
Owners of modern systems who want to switch to NVMe SSDs are faced with a choice. On the one hand, there are high-performance and expensive SSD drives (for example, the Samsung 960 line) that fully exploit the potential of NVMe. On the other hand, Intel offers a series of NVMe drives called 600p, which are interesting because the cost per gigabyte of memory is comparable to the price per gigabyte of SATA drives, and their speed, depending on the use case, ranges from “significantly faster than SATA” to "lower than SATA".
NVMe vs SATA: Practical ConsiderationsThe speed benefits of an NVMe (Samsung) drive are also reflected when launching programs. When copied to an SSD, the NVMe standard is noticeably superior to modern (Crucial) and old (Intel) SATA drives
Practical comparison of different types of SSDs
The data transfer speeds and IOPS values of NVMe drives are impressive on paper. But what advantages do these drives actually have? First of all, in a purely external comparison with 2.5-inch SATA drives, the practicality of the form factor attracts attention: the M.2 module is neatly located directly in the motherboard slot, while SATA requires the use of a power cable in the PC case, which is the main way and interferes. In order to clearly show the speed advantages, we compared three solid-state drives: an early generation from the Intel Postville family, a modern Crucial MX300, and an ultra-fast NVMe-capable Samsung 960 Evo 500 GB.
Ten times faster than HDDNVMe SSDs (here: Toshiba OCZ RD400 256GB) read and write very quickly - this is demonstrated by special test software
The speed advantage should have been evident when the PC booted up, but during practical testing we encountered obstacles. For the M.2/NVMe platform, we only had the latest AMD Ryzen system, whose motherboard spent a full 25 seconds initializing UEFI from the moment it was turned on until the desktop was ready. And this is despite all the parameters optimized for increasing speed: Windows 10 was installed in UEFI mode (that is, both the installation media and the solid-state drive were initialized as supporting the GPT standard), UEFI technology was configured to support Windows 10 and fast boot, etc. .
The next UEFI updates should reduce the delay. For the Samsung NVMe drive, the net Windows boot time is 8.6 seconds. A modern SSD with SATA (Crucial) requires 33% more time, and an Intel Postville drive, due to its low data transfer speed, generally takes twice as long. In other words, in everyday use the difference is quite noticeable.
High NVMe copy speed
The differences were especially striking when copying program folders to storage devices. When reading and writing in parallel, the NVMe drive demonstrated its unparalleled multitasking capabilities, achieving speeds three and four times faster than modern and legacy SATA drives, respectively. But all the more surprising was the slight advantage of NVMe when installing LibreOffice.
BIOS/UEFI boot delayThe operating system must be installed in UEFI mode, and the UEFI itself must be properly configured for the system to boot quickly
After calling the MSI installation package with the “/passive” parameter, the installation process immediately begins without prompting, and both modern drives are noticeably ahead of the old Intel in terms of speed - 23 seconds for Crucial and 22.2 seconds for Samsung versus 38.7 seconds for Intel. When scanning a copy of the “Programs” folder using Windows Defender, it was generally found that the strength of the drives was equal - even the low speed of the old SATA drive was used by Defender to a small extent.
The high-performance eight-core Ryzen CPU can be eliminated as a bottleneck. But during further testing, it was revealed that if the SATA drive is completely busy scanning, the system performs other requests (for example, launching programs) with a significant delay. A system with an NVMe drive continues to respond immediately. Because of this perceived smoothness and future-proofing of the technology, we recommend purchasing a drive that runs on the NVMe specification - as long as it's compatible with your system, of course.
That is why in the next part of the article we will talk in detail about the results of testing NVMe drives conducted at the Chip test center. But even if you're looking to save money or your system isn't compatible with NVMe-enabled M.2 drives, a modern SATA SSD will do the trick, especially since they're relatively inexpensive.
At High Speeds: Testing NVMe Drives to Endurance
If a drive is primarily required to have high data transfer speeds, then it should be an SSD running on the NVMe protocol. If at first there was a very small number of similar models on the market (and not cheap ones), now the choice has become much more diverse. Even small suppliers offer their models. Our testing will show which model is optimal for certain tasks. We decided to limit ourselves to models for the M.2 slot. They are preferable to exotic, expensive PCIe cards because they can be installed on motherboards and laptops either in the M.2 slot or via an adapter in the PCIe slot.
NVMe drives: different controllersThe performance of NVMe SSDs largely depends on the controller used. The greatest potential is offered by Samsung Polaris with five cores on ARM architecture. The Silicon Motion chip of the Intel 600p drive (shown) is economical and affordable, but it is one of the slowest controllers
Technical Issues: Controller and Flash Memory
The tasks of the control element of a solid-state drive - the controller - are to exchange data with the PC processor via the PCIe interface, as well as to write to memory cells and read data from them. Its performance plays a special role when working with large amounts of data and parallel read and write access. Our test covers a wide range of modern drives with five different types of controllers.
Software updateprovision
In addition to powerful hardware, good drivers and firmware updates are also important, something that major manufacturers do better than anyone else.
Samsung develops and produces not only memory chips, but also its own controllers with a five-core processor based on ARM microarchitecture - the most powerful of those tested, which constantly produces high results in almost every benchmark. Corsair and Patriot drives with a Phison controller can compete with Samsung in terms of read and data transfer speeds, as well as the number of operations performed per second - but, nevertheless, their write speeds turned out to be much lower. However, this difference when working on a home desktop or gaming PC will be noticeable in extremely rare cases. In this range of devices with performance and the mark “very good” also falls the Toshiba OCZ RD400 with a Toshiba controller, which reveals similarities with the Marvell chip.
In our table below, Toshiba shows a visible and tangible gap in the overall score, which is based primarily on performance: drives with Marvell and Silicon Motion controllers (from Plextor to WD) are a good ten points behind the previous position. But it should be taken into account that at least their price per gigabyte is much lower. However, Plextor is too underpowered for its price per gigabyte.
Therefore, the Intel 600p becomes an advantageous offer, the cost per gigabyte of which is at the level of SATA drives - however, this drive does not provide the performance typical of NVMe drives for very long. The point is this: Intel uses multi-level Triple Level Cell flash memory technology, in which three bits are stored in a cell. Because this technology is more complex than the commonly used two-bit Multi Level Cell memory, the writing process is slower. To correct the situation, the Intel 600p uses a certain part of the cells for the SLC cache (Single Level Cell), which fills up very quickly.
Solid State Drivesfor PCIe slots
NVMe drives in the form of PCIe cards,
for example, Zotac Sonix (in the picture)
or Intel 750, are also characterized
high speeds, but cost more than M.2 modules
All incoming data first ends up here, and then is gradually saved into standard TLC memory. While this trick works, Intel reaches the speed of NVMe drives. But as soon as the amount of data increases, the cache can no longer cope. In this case, the cache has to be released (and this is a very labor-intensive process), and only then will it be able to accept new data. And since this overloads the controller, the cache, which in itself is a justifiable solution, becomes a bottleneck, and the speed is reduced to a level below the SATA drive.
Flash memory: MLC, TLC and others
Solid-state drives use flash memory of varying density, which depends on the stage of technology development.
> SLC (Single Level Cell)- the fastest and most reliable flash memory. Each cell stores one bit. Currently, SLC is used either in very expensive drives or as a fast cache.
> MLC (Multi Level Cell)- memory with multiple charge levels, storing two bits per cell.
> TLC (Triple Level Cell) with a large number of charge levels, it stores three bits per cell, which makes it slower and more sensitive than MLC.
> 3D-MLC or 3D-TLC means that the cells are located not only in one plane, but also in layers. The three-dimensional structure provides higher recording density and reliability and a shorter data transmission line, which means higher speed.
Heating problem and memory bottleneck
The last problem does not apply to drives that use MLC technology on an ongoing basis. But they are at risk of trouble due to heating. A long write process brings the controller to its maximum possible temperature, and on a small module with purely passive cooling, the heat cannot be dissipated effectively, and so the controller slows down to cool down. But in everyday use this is unlikely to happen often: the Corsair MP500 480 GB shows such a sharp drop after about 50 seconds of continuous recording at the maximum possible speed - and thanks to the high data transfer rate, this period of time corresponds to a 64 GB recording.
Data transfer speed: recording disadvantagesIn reading, the Corsair barely pulls ahead, while the affordable Intel barely lags behind. When recording, the picture is completely different
Samsung itself designs and produces memory and controllers, so its products outperform most rivals. Its modules use three-dimensional flash memory technology, which allows cells to be arranged not only in a plane, but also in layers, thereby reducing the length of data transmission lines and increasing its speed. The MLC (two bits per cell) version is designed for the expensive 960 Pro models, which are designed to withstand even high loads on workstations or servers. The 960 Evo models run on a cheaper version of 3D TLC memory (three bits per cell), their speed is noticeably lower, and therefore, like Intel, Samsung resorts to SLC cache.
On the 500GB Evo, it's very noticeable when the SLC cache is full: after 11 seconds, or about 20 GB, of writing (incompressible data), the speed drops from 1800 maximum possible to 630 MB/s. This speed remains fixed, indicating that the data is then stored directly into 3D TLC memory. The 960 Evo with a capacity of 1 TB has a larger SLC cache and twice as many memory modules, which the drive can write to simultaneously.
Disks with TLC memory are noticeably slowerPart of the memory of TLC disks is allocated for fast SLC cache. When it gets full, the speed decreases noticeably
In fact, the drive maintains speeds at 1,800 MB/s for about twice as long (23 seconds) before slowing down to about twice the minimum speed of the 500 GB model. But even then, you need to copy tens of gigabytes of data from a source whose speed matches or exceeds the speed of the NVMe SSD in order to reach the memory bottleneck - something that is unlikely to ever happen in normal use.
Heat stagnation in the M.2 form factorDuring intensive recording under long-term load, available M.2 drives heat up and slow down, but this hardly affects the Samsung Pro at all
The Future of SSDs
As demonstrated by released and announced products, new types of memory open up new possibilities for using disks.
>Intel Optane- the name of the technology for M.2 drives running on the new 3D XPoint memory with instant response. Optane modules, however, are not intended to be used as storage devices, but as a fast cache for frequently accessed files stored on an HDD or SSD.
> Samsung Z-NAND- the next stage in the development of flash memory. The 800GB Z-NAND drive promises speeds of up to 3.2GB/s and 750,000 IOPS. However, when it will be released is still unclear.
Service and warranty terms
If you're buying an expensive drive that's built for the future, make sure your device comes with a long warranty. In general, solid-state drives and their flash memory have not caused much inconvenience lately, so some manufacturers - for example, Adata, Intel, Plextor and Western Digital - give them a full five-year warranty.
Maximum performance with the right driverWindows 10 has a driver for NVMe, but optimal performance can only be achieved with the manufacturer's drivers
Toshiba OCZ even offers to immediately replace the device free of charge during the term: you receive a new disk before sending the faulty one. The Samsung Pro model also comes with a five-year warranty, although it expires when the drive exceeds a specified Total Bytes Written threshold. For the 960 Pro 512 GB, the threshold value is as much as 400 TB.
That is, in order to expire the warranty early, you need to write at least 220 GB to the SSD every day for five years. One way or another, the high speed of NVMe SSDs makes them promising for the next few years.
TOP 10 SATA SSDs under 10 thousand rubles.
1.
Overall rating: 95.6
Price/quality ratio: 74
2.
Overall rating: 91.2
Price/quality ratio: 67
3.
Overall rating: 89.8
Price/quality ratio: 48
4.
Overall rating: 91.3
Price/quality ratio: 22
5.
Overall rating: 89.6
Price/quality ratio: 28
6.
Overall rating: 85.5
Price/quality ratio: 19
7.
Overall rating: 87.9
Price/quality ratio: 69
8.
Overall rating: 83.7
Price/quality ratio: 28
9.
Overall rating: 83.3
Price/quality ratio: 15
10.
Data transfer rate (40%)
: 85.5
Access time / IOPS (25%)
: 46.2
Application performance (25%)
: 89.3
Energy consumption (10%)
: 100
Overall rating: 78.1
Price/quality ratio: 53
TOP 15 M.2/NVME SSDs
1.
: 96.1
: 94.5
Overall rating: 95.8
Price/quality ratio: 63
2.
Read data transfer rate (80%)
: 95
Recording data transfer rate (20%)
: 92.9
Overall rating: 94.6
Price/quality ratio: 79
3.
Read data transfer rate (80%)
: 91.4
Recording data transfer rate (20%)
: 89.3
Overall Score: 91
Price/quality ratio: 77
4.
Read data transfer rate (80%)
: 94.1
Recording data transfer rate (20%)
: 80.9
Overall rating: 91.5
Price/quality ratio: 60
No matter what speed the manufacturer indicates in the characteristics of their SSDs, the user always wants to check everything in practice. But it is impossible to find out how close the drive speed is to the declared one without the help of third-party programs. The most that can be done is to compare how quickly files are copied on a solid-state drive with similar results from a magnetic drive. In order to find out the real speed, you need to use a special utility.
SSD speed test
As a solution, we will choose a simple program called . It has a Russian interface and is very easy to use. So let's get started.
Immediately after launch, the main window will open in front of us, which contains all the necessary settings and information.
Before starting the test, we will set a couple of parameters: the number of checks and the file size. The accuracy of the measurements will depend on the first parameter. By and large, the five checks that are installed by default are quite enough to obtain correct measurements. But if you want to get more accurate information, you can set the maximum value.
The second parameter is the size of the file that will be read and written during tests. The value of this parameter will also affect both the measurement accuracy and the test execution time. However, in order not to reduce the service life of the SSD, you can set the value of this parameter to 100 Megabytes.
After setting all the parameters, we proceed to selecting a disk. Everything is simple here, open the list and select our solid-state drive.
Now you can proceed directly to testing. CrystalDiskMark offers five tests:
- Seq Q32T1– testing sequential writing/reading of a file with a depth of 32 per thread;
- 4K Q32T1– testing random writing/reading of blocks of size 4 Kilobytes with a depth of 32 per thread;
- Seq– testing sequential write/read with depth 1;
- 4K– testing random write/read with depth 1.
Each of the tests can be run separately; to do this, just click on the green button of the desired test and wait for the result.
You can also do a full test by clicking on the All button.
In order to get more accurate results, it is necessary to close all (if possible) active programs (especially torrents), and it is also desirable that the disk is no more than half full.
Since in everyday use of a personal computer the random method of reading/writing data is most often used (80%), we will be more interested in the results of the second (4K Q32t1) and fourth (4K) tests.
Now let's analyze the results of our test. An ADATA SP900 disk with a capacity of 128 GB was used as an “experimental” disk. As a result, we got the following:
- With the sequential method, the drive reads data at a speed 210-219 Mbit/s;
- recording with the same method is slower - only 118 Mbit/s;
- reading with a random method with a depth of 1 occurs at speed 20 Mbit/s;
- recording using a similar method - 50 Mbit/s;
- read and write with depth 32 - 118 Mbit/s and 99 Mbit/s, respectively.
It is worth paying attention to the fact that reading/writing is performed at high speeds only with files whose volume is equal to the buffer size. Those with larger buffers will be read and copied more slowly.
So, with the help of a small program we can easily estimate the speed of the SSD and compare it with what the manufacturers indicate. By the way, this speed is usually overestimated, and using CrystalDiskMark you can find out exactly how much.
Hi all! I think it’s no secret to anyone that one of the most important components inside your computer or laptop is the drive that contains the operating system. A completely logical consequence is the question of how to perform a hard drive (or SSD, if the computer is newer) speed test.
If your operating system is installed on a slow hard drive, then it doesn’t matter how powerful your central processor or RAM is - Windows itself and installed programs will start very reluctantly and you won’t be able to enjoy full multitasking.
In the age of the Internet, there are quite a lot of publications that will tell you about almost any drive model on sale. In addition, there are a huge number of programs for checking the speed of a hard drive, the result of which will be an understanding of what your drive is capable of.
There are many paid utilities, like PCMark or PassMark, that can test the entire system and can often be found in tests from well-known publications. We're going the other way and I'm going to tell you about four free ways to test the speed of your hard drive or SSD.
The real performance of an HDD or SSD in a Windows environment (and not only) is determined not only by the rotation speed of the magnetic disk or the memory of the drive chips, but also by many other important factors. The drive controller, the SATA version on the motherboard, the drivers of the controller itself, the operating mode (ACHI or IDE) - all this affects the performance of the disk subsystem (even the CPU or RAM can affect the performance)
Method 1: CrystalDiskMark is our main tool
Probably the most popular tool for testing hard drive speed is CrystalDiskMark. Almost no drive testing is complete without this utility - this situation will help you compare your results and draw the right conclusions. A big plus is the program’s ability to test not only HDD/SSD, but also flash drives and other storage media.
The application has both a distribution and a portable version that does not require installation. You can download it as usual on the official website (I, as always, recommend portable).
CrystalDiskMark is incredibly easy to use. We launch the utility, select the size of the test block (in the picture below we chose 1 GB), the number of test repetitions (I chose 5 - the more repetitions, the more accurate the result) and the drive itself. We press the “all” button and wait until the program runs all the tests (by the way, you can run a separate test for each mode).
In the screenshot on the left is the SSD speed test, and on the right is the HDD. Just so you know how big the difference is between them and what kind of performance gain you will get by replacing just one component in the system
Method 2. CrystalDiskInfo - detailed information about the HDD/SSD drive
At the very beginning of the note, I already wrote that the speed test of a hard drive or SSD will not be entirely correct if we do not find out the factors affecting the performance of the disk subsystem. The CrystalDiskInfo utility will tell you a lot of interesting things about your drive, but we are interested in just one nuance - download the application from the official website and run it.
Pay attention to the line “Transfer mode”, in the picture below I have it (SATA/600 | SATA/600). These parameters must match, i.e. By connecting the SSD drive to the SATA/300 port (this is the SATA II standard), we will get a maximum exchange speed with the disk of 300 MB, and if we look at the performance test in the first method, we see that the maximum read speed was far beyond 300...
By connecting such a high-speed drive to a SATA or SATA II port, its performance will simply be limited by the performance of the controller (with classic HDDs it is not so critical, since even SATA capabilities are abundant)
In general, CrystalDiskInfo can tell you about the temperature, operating time of the drive and many other useful indicators. For owners of classic HDDs, the Reallocate Sector item will be useful - thanks to it you can predict the failure of the device
Method 3. AS SSD Benchmark - a healthy competitor to CrystalDisk from the Germans
The Germans know how to make not only films for adults, but also excellent utilities for testing the speed of a hard drive or SSD. In this case, I want to introduce you to the AS SSD Benchmark application, the functionality of which is very similar to CrystalDiskMark, but unlike it, it also shows data access time (and in general there are still minor differences).
You can download it from the official website (it’s in German, the download link is at the end of the page), the application itself is in English (many bloggers have a version exclusively in German)
The utility is portable and does not require installation, just run the application, select the required tests and press START, just like in the first method. On the left is my home SSD, on the right is the classic HDD.
Please note that in the TOOLS menu there are a couple of interesting tests that can predict the performance of the drive when copying ISO files, programs or various toys - CrystalDiskMark does not have such functionality
Method 4. HD Tune is a good tool with a visual graph
HD Tune is most likely the most famous application for testing hard drive speed, but it is in last place in today's ranking for a reason. The fact is that the free version of HD Tune has not been updated since February 2008... however, everything still works in 2k17 on the latest Windows 10. As always, you can download it from the official website (unfortunately there is no portable version)
After passing the test, we will have access to a visual reading graph (along with the maximum and minimum values, as well as the speed of data access). In general, the information is useful, but there is no way to test the disk writing speed, which is a little disappointing...
Due to its antiquities the application may not correctly detect modern drives, but this does not affect the test results in any way
Conclusion about hard drive speed testing programs
It's time to draw conclusions. We performed a hard drive or SSD speed test using four different programs (or rather, there are only three testing applications, and one more utility to make sure that the tests will be objective).
In reality, programs that allow you to check the speed of a hard drive are many times faster, but I decided to introduce you to the leaders of this niche... but if you have anything to add, I’m waiting for you in the comments.
Now more and more users are thinking about switching from HDD to SSD. This issue is especially acute for owners of mid-price gaming systems, since in the budget segment a hard drive is still preferable, while in the top segment users can easily afford a capacious and fast solid-state drive. In the mid-price, you have to think about which part of the system to strengthen in a limited budget: take a more powerful processor or video card, install more RAM, or buy an SSD.
Therefore, for testing we used a stand based on an overclocked 4-core processor. The motherboard, 16 GB set of Patriot Viper 4 RAM in DDR4-3200 mode and the video card have not gone anywhere.
Test stand:
- AMD Ryzen 5 1400
- MSI X370 SLI PLUS
- be quiet! Silent Loop 240mm
- 2 x 8 GB DDR4-3400 Patriot Viper 4
- Colorful GTX 1060 SI-6G
- Kingston SSDNow KC400 (SKC400S37/256G)
- Seagate IronWolf ST2000VN004 2 TB
- be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 850W
- be quiet! Pure Base 600 Window Orange
- AOC U2879VF
To begin with, we note that this SSD combines Toshiba A19 MLC memory chips, 1 GB of cache memory and a 4-core Phison S10 controller. It is opposed by a 2-terabyte HDD of the Seagate IronWolf series with a spindle speed of 5900 rpm and 64 MB of cache memory. Both use the SATA 3.0 interface.
In synthetic tests, the advantage of the GOODRAM Iridium Pro series model raises absolutely no questions. When working with incompressible data in CrystalDiskMark sequential read and write speeds were 564 and 530 MB/s, respectively. With a small-block load of 4 KiB files, the figures reach 34 and 110 MB/s. The competitor's sequential speeds are much lower - 137 and 121 MB/s, respectively. And with small files everything is very bad, like with all hard drives.
Working with compressible data in a test ATTO Disk Benchmark The solid-state drive also takes the lead: while the hard drive's read and write performance is in the region of 130-140 MB/s, the SSD reaches 530-560 MB/s.
In terms of data access time and other tests, the solid-state drive also looks much more interesting. You can watch the video below for more details. And we move on to gaming benchmarks.
Just to start, let’s clarify two points. First. Previously, we pre-launched almost all tests once or twice so that the necessary objects were loaded, and only then turned on recording and carried out control measurements. Now testing took place the first time, as if we launched the game and immediately rushed into battle.
Second. It's well known that SSDs make games load faster, but it's not always known by how much. We also decided to measure this point at the beginning of each test.
So let's start with Assassin's Creed Origins with a very high graphics preset. The waiting time for the benchmark to start was a little more than 4 seconds with an SSD, and with an HDD we had to wait more than 14 seconds. But the test itself was not particularly revealing, since both systems produced approximately the same results. And the Frame Time graph in the case of the hard drive was completely better.
When switching from HDD to SSD, benchmark loading time Ghost Recon Wildlands, decreases from 24 to 11 seconds or by 55%. During the test, the frame time graph in both cases was approximately the same, but still the system with an SSD produced 1 FPS more at the minimum frame rate.
Very interesting results were found in WATCH_DOGS 2 with a high graphics settings profile. Firstly, with an HDD it takes almost 4 times longer to load a game: 27 seconds versus 8. Secondly, on the first playthrough, the system with a hard drive noticeably slows down: freezes reach 6 FPS, so it’s unpleasant to play. But with an SSD there are no such problems, because the minimum figure was 56 frames/s, and the Frame Time graph was smoother.
After that, we turned around, reset the meters and drove along the same street again. And since all the main objects had already loaded, there was no big difference between the indicators: the minimum speed was 53 - 55 FPS, and the average was 61.
Online multiplayer Battlefield 1 with ultra settings, it loads onto the SSD almost twice as fast: 21 seconds versus 41. In terms of the minimum indicator, there is no difference, but the frame time graph is better in a system with an SSD, so the smoothness and comfort of gameplay should be higher. And in terms of average frequency it was ahead: 75 versus 69 FPS.
Developers Need for Speed Payback They approached loading the level in a very original way: instead of a splash screen, they used an extended cutscene, so it was not possible to determine the loading time. We didn’t feel much of a difference in performance, although there is still a slight advantage when pairing with an SSD: 73 versus 70 fps at the minimum speed and 106 versus 104 at the average.
If you replace the hard drive with a solid-state drive, then the benchmark launch time GTA V is reduced from 31 to 14 seconds, or almost 55%. But we did not record any noticeable difference in the Frame Time graphs. Speed indicators also turned out to be the same: 64 FPS with drawdowns of up to 45.
A more interesting picture is observed in The Third Witcher at maximum presets. Firstly, boot time is reduced from 37 to 14 seconds. Secondly, the Frame Time graph becomes smoother: even when we ran in the opposite direction, large differences were observed in the system with HDD, although the objects should have already loaded. As a result, we have a large advantage in terms of the minimum frequency: 45 versus 55 FPS in favor of the combination with the SSD.
The benchmark also turned out to be exemplary Rise of the Tomb Raider at very high settings. The reduction in startup time from 12 to 5 seconds is no longer particularly surprising, but the “Geothermal Valley” scene deserves close attention: when using the HDD, some objects are missing or are loaded as the camera moves, so the system is less loaded and produces a higher framerate. With an SSD, all objects are in place, so the speed is lower. As a result, we took the results of the “Syria” scene for the graph.
In the benchmark Middle-earth Shadow of War with a high profile, there was the highest gap in loading speed: 6 seconds versus 22. Interestingly, the test itself was faster on a system with an SSD, so I had to tinker a little with synchronization. The final results recorded parity in the average frequency and a 50% lead in the minimum frequency in favor of the combination with a solid-state disk.
Ends the test session PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds at high settings. We stopped the loading timer only when all objects were completely loaded. The acceleration from using an SSD was 33%. And in terms of speed indicators, I was pleased with the 6% increase in the minimum frame rate. The average is fixed at parity.
Comparison of game loading times:
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Boot time from HDD, sec |
Boot time from SSD, sec |
Difference, % |
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WATCH_DOGS 2, High |
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GTA V, Very High |
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The Witcher 3, Max |
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Average |
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As a result, we see that replacing the hard drive with a solid-state drive leads to a reduction in game loading time by an average of 59%, in other words: loading is more than 2 times faster. In some cases, the frame time graph becomes smoother and the minimum FPS increases, that is, the comfort of the gameplay improves.
Comparison of minimum and average frame rates in games:
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SSD vs HDD, min FPS, % |
SSD vs HDD, avg FPS, % |
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Assassin's Creed Origins, Very High |
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Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands, High |
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WATCH_DOGS 2, High, Pass 1 |
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WATCH_DOGS 2, High, Pass 2 |
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Battlefield 1, Multiplayer, Ultra |
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Need for Speed Payback, Ultra |
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GTA V, Very High |
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The Witcher 3, Max |
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Rise of the Tomb Raider, Syria, Very High |
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Middle-earth Shadow of War, High |
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PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, High |
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Average |
The average increase in the minimum frequency was 88%, but all thanks to WATCH_DOGS 2. If we exclude this result, we get 12%. But the average speed increased by less than 1.5%, which can be attributed to measurement error.
Results
So, does replacing the HDD with an SSD improve the gaming experience? Our answer: Yes! Is such a replacement critically necessary and mandatory for the average gaming PC? It depends on who.
After all, you can still play with the HDD, although in some projects it may initially take time to load all the objects. Therefore, if it is the level of performance that is important, then it is better to direct free finances to a more powerful processor, a newer video card or more fast RAM. And if you are interested in the comfort of gaming and the operation of the computer as a whole, including loading the operating system, starting programs, deploying updates, etc., then an SSD will be a very useful purchase.
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When a PC gamer wonders which tuning options are the most important, besides the obligatory purchase of a powerful graphics card and processor, we give him the following advice: replace your classic hard drive with an SSD drive. Just buy not a SATA-SSD, but a flash drive that transfers data via PCI-Express and uses the NVMe protocol for this.
Such models achieve five times higher data transfer speeds, and this technology practically knows no upper limit. Currently, the market is increasingly filled with similar turbo drives (albeit still quite expensive), so the gamer is faced with the question of whether he is ready to invest a little more money in a significant increase in speed or will give preference to classic, relatively slow SSDs.
New era of turbo SSD
To replace the HDD, you didn’t have to think about anything special - just buy a drive of the size you need. Over time, everything became somewhat more complicated, since the SATA interface was originally designed to work with the AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Protokol) protocol and the corresponding driver for slow classic drives with spinning magnetic disks.
An unpleasant side effect: the SATA-600 interface allows a maximum data transfer rate of 600 MB/s.
If you look at ours, you can see that many models achieve an average data transfer speed (when reading) already above 550 MB/s, and when writing, you can often see 540 MB/s on their “speedometer”. Thus, it becomes obvious that this technology no longer has the potential for growth in performance today.
In other words, the SATA interface can become a so-called “bottleneck” for flash drives, which are becoming faster and faster. It's good that new SSDs bypass this speed limit if you use PCIe connectors for connections instead of red SATA cables - that is, use the type of connection that was traditionally used for graphics cards. A single PCIe 3.0 lane can theoretically transfer up to 1 GB/s.
Tiny NVMe-SSDs like the new Samsung PM971 are also suitable for ultrabooks or tablets - they measure only two centimeters
In this test, four such lines were used to connect SSD drives. So this gives a maximum of 4 GB/s - at least in theory. In practice, this figure is not achieved: the highest data transfer speed to date was demonstrated by the latest Samsung 960 Pro with a reading result of 2702 MB/s.
This is significantly faster than any SATA-SSD, and the interface has not yet exhausted its potential: data transfer speeds are currently limited by the type of flash memory used and the storage media controllers.
This might be interesting:
Two different types of connectors
Unlike SATA drives, when purchasing a turbo SSD, you should pay attention to the correct choice of its form factor. Fast data storage devices can be produced both in the form of expansion cards inserted into a PCIe connector, and in the form of memory strips that are installed in so-called M.2 slots.
Thus, before purchasing the model you like, we recommend that you take a look at the motherboard and check whether the appropriate type of interface is presented there.
Many SSD manufacturers develop software that analyzes the health of NVMe SSDs. Intel calls it Solid-State Drive Toolbox
This advice is especially relevant for older motherboards, since their M.2 slot can only output the SATA bus for data transfer. Anyone who is assembling a new computer for themselves may not have to worry too much about this issue: motherboards for new processors have M.2 connectors with a PCIe connection and support the new Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) data exchange protocol - this provokes a second turbo. jump.
Unlike models for M.2, SSDs in the form of a card for a PCIe connector may also be interesting for upgrading older systems. However, you should definitely make sure that there is one more free PCIe slot on the motherboard in addition to the one occupied by the graphics card.
And one more small detail may turn out to be very important: of the six SSD drives taken for this test, four have an expansion card form factor, but only three of them support the PCIe 3.0 standard. Kingston HyperX Predator is limited only by PCIe 2.0, which is capable of passing only 500 MB/s through the line.
And while your read and write speeds of 1400 and 1010 MB/s, respectively, will be significantly better than SATA competitors, they won't match the performance of the fastest SSDs. In this case, media that support PCIe 3.0 will also work in the PCIe 2.0 slot, but their speed will be significantly reduced.
Overheated SSDs become slower
The Angelbird Wings PX1 PCIe card adapter with its own cooling radiator prevents overheating of the Samsung 950 Pro
We can now expect data transfer speeds in excess of 2.5 GB/s from PCIe SSDs. SSD drives with M.2 interface produced by OCZ are usually supplied with a PCIe adapter. Based on our measurement results, we see it as more than rational to leave the device there. We measured the characteristics of these devices for M.2 and without an adapter, registering slightly worse values: for example, when reading, a speed of only 2382 MB/s was achieved, which is approximately 130 MB/s less than with the adapter.
Very short reaction time
High data transfer speeds are good for speeding up loading, but the reason why Windows and games run noticeably faster with an SSD drive on a computer is primarily due to the low latency. During testing, we study it during I/O measurements (Input/Output), that is, counting the number of read or write operations performed per second when processing sequential memory blocks. This parameter, the so-called IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second), is the missing “ingredient” for a fast PC, which is often heavily loaded.
In this test discipline, the OCZ RD400 drive has an advantage with 43,974 IOPS when writing. When reading, on the contrary, the result of 18,428 IOPS is not even half of the previous one. Our rating leader, Samsung 960, has the same heterogeneity of characteristics: when writing, it reaches 42,175 IOPS, and when reading - only 29,233.
The enviable similarity of the results is demonstrated by Zotac with its approximately 35,000 IOPS (both reading and writing). However, when comparing products, this parameter often has to be combined with others. At the same time, turbo SSDs should soon “break through” the psychologically important mark of 100,000 IOPS.
The Kingston HyperX Predator performed the worst: about 23,000 IOPS when reading and 17,800 when writing means last place, and by a wide margin. The main reason for this is outdated technology, since this SSD still transfers data using the AHCI protocol. The new NVMe access protocol, on the contrary, is optimized for working with SSDs.
The advantages of NVMe manifest themselves primarily when parallelizing processes: the data transfer protocol allows you to work with I/O queues of up to 65,536 commands. The AHCI protocol is limited to only one queue of 32 commands - and this can cause data accumulation under heavy load.
10 best SSD NVMe drives in terms of price/quality ratio
Even for new ultra-fast drives, prices are gradually decreasing, and the most inexpensive SSD with NVMe support can already be found at the price of SATA drives, and this is good news. We have selected for you the 10 best SSD flash drives with NVMe support in terms of price/quality ratio.
