There was a time, early to mid 90s, when the PC gaming was under going a revolution. In fact the entire gaming industry was going through one. The Sega Genesis and Nintendo’s SNES were about to retire. Everyone was looking forward to Sega’s next killer console called the Saturn. But an unknown entity (unknown in console gaming), spoiled both Sega’s and Nintendo’s party. The company was called Sony and the weapon was Playstation. Rather than rely on 2D sprites, the Playstation would immerse you in a 3D polygon world. There was a revolution in the way games were looked at and programmed.
The revolution came to the PC in the form of Voodoo graphics from the now defunct 3dfx. There were accelerator cards available before it, but Voodoo graphics was the first “serious” effort at uniting the industry under one API –GLide. 3dfx not only created the hardware but the software middleware that helped programmer control the power Voodoo graphics processor.
Everyone wanted one. It was the must have hardware of its time. Obviously not everyone could have one. You had to part with precious cash to get your hands on a Voodoo graphics accelerator.
Today even entry level Intel boards have some form of 3D acceleration. Mainstream market is flooded with ~US$150 cards that provide decent performance. Not all accelerators are created equal, but they have reached out to all market segments.
A similar, but a more muted revolution is going on in the computer storage realm. The voices might not be loud, but the implication of the voices is. The revolution is called Solid State Drives or SSDs for short.
We are at a stage, with SSDs, where we were with graphic accelerators in the early 90s -Great, but at a cost.
Every new technology comes with its own set of issues. This was also true of SSDs. The technology was in its nascent phase, no one was sure which performance numbers to target.
Workarounds have been developed for these problems, most of which are controller based.
Today we will be looking at the G.Skill Phoenix Pro series SSD. This is powered by silicon from the latest and the hottest SSD controller manufacturer -Sandforce. The current king of the hill in terms of performance is Intel. Will G.Skill challenge or will run out of steam? Read on to find out.
SSD PRIMER
In order to better understand SSD construction, function, problems and workaround I strongly urge you to read Aanadtech’s article linked here. For those who want a more accessible article (less tech jargon) look here. The latter is my effort based on the excellent work done by Anand Lal Shimpi.
THE G.SKILL SSD -EXTERNALS
The G.Skill drive comes in a card board box. The front of the box features the “Phoenix Pro” and “Sandforce” logos. The latter shows that the drive is powered by the Sandforce controller.
The back of the box describes how the Sandforce controller helps the drive achieve best random 4KB read/ write speeds (the most important indicator of a SSD performance today). The drive also supports the TRIM command
The spec box is below the description. It lists environmental thresholds together with performance characteristics.
Inside, the drive comes in a black foam packing. The foam packing enshrouds the drive.
Lifting the flip reveals the drive, a metal adapter to fit the 2.5” drive in a regular 3.5” bay and a instruction leaflet.
The drive comes in a standard anti-static bag. A set of screws is also provided to fix the drive to the adaptor and then into the computer case.
The drive itself is a standard affair 2.5” SSD. The phoenix pro sticker adorns the front of the drive.
The back lists, among other things, various safety regulations that the drive meets as well as the maximum sequential read/ write speeds.
The packaging is sound and despite the relative “toughness” of a SSD compared to a HDD, it comes in protective foam packing. Everything needed to install the drive is included including screws and 3.5” drive bay adapter.
THE G.SKILL SSD –INTERNALS
Opening the drive reveals several components:
- The Sandforce Controller:
- The Flash Memory ICs:
- Interface:
Outlined in red this is the SF-1200 controller found in all consumer level drives. There is another Sandforce controller –the SF-1500 which is meant to go in enterprise grade SSDs. The controller feature several innovations which will be looked into detail in the next section. Sandforce also sells a SF-1000 controller.
The drive features 8 Intel NAND memory ICs. The total capacity of the drive is 64GB (which includes about 13% over provisioned area). Thus each IC has a capacity of 8GB. The memory chips are outlined in blue
The power green and data purple interfaces are the same as found on any present day SATA device. The unit draws power primarily from the +5V line.
Notice the lack of any DRAM chips. Sandforce based drives don’t have any cache chips. They simply don’t need one.
The back of the circuit board is relatively bare. There are a couple of labels from the testing and validating department, but that is about it.
THE SANDFORCE CONTROLLER –IMPROVING PERFORMANCE
Sandforce is a recent entrant in the world of SSDs. They don’t manufacture drives or circuit boards, only controllers. But the performance of their controllers has taken the industry by storm. Just about everyone who wants to build a performance SSD has signed up with Sandforce. It’s like 3dfx all over again. Remember 3dfx initially sold their Voodoo processor to manufacturers –they didn’t make any cards, Sandforce is primarily following a similar business model. Also recall that until 3dfx got into manufacturing it was very successful. As long as Sandforce realizes that it can be the industry leader if it continues to focus on its core business, I am bet that Sandforce will have a better future than 3dfx did.
SANDFORCE SECRET –DURACLASSTM
Sandforce bunches some technologies together under the umbrella Duraclass.
These technologies help overcome some of the glaring shortcomings of an SSD. These technologies are listed below (taken from Sandforce website):
DuraWrite, which optimizes the number of program cycles to the flash effectively extending flash rated endurance by 20x or more when compared to standard controllers.
Powerful flash media error correction (ECC) and RAISE (Redundant Array of Independent Silicon Elements), which deliver an orders-of-magnitude improvement in drive reliability versus today’s best enterprise HDDs and SSDs. The result is single-drive RAID-like protection and recovery from a potentially catastrophic flash block failures – all while avoiding the inefficiencies of traditional RAID.
Advanced Wear Leveling and Monitoring - Optimized wear leveling algorithms, further extending flash endurance
Advanced Read/Program Disturb Management, which safeguards against errant re-programming of cells during read and program cycles
Recycler, which intelligently performs garbage collection with the least impact on flash endurance.
Each of these features helps improve SSD performance beyond those of the competition.
1. DuraWrite
Durawrite helps overcome the problem of write ampiflication. SSDs have to write more data to their memory chips than what the OS passes it. This is because of way data is organized and written to in an SSD. Usually the amount of data that has to be written can 10 times what the OS had passed on. Average life of a flash IC is about 10,000 erase/over-write cycles. This implies that the more you write, the quicker you’ll have to re-write (as you run out of space). It also means that the entire process is slowed down as the amount written is amplified. Durawrite actually helps convert ampiflication into write reduction. Sandforce reckons that their write ampiflication is .5x for all non compressed data.
2. RAISE
RAISE (Redundant Array of Independent Silicon Elements) is the flash memory equalent of RAID. It functions just like RAID i.e. helps improve data reliability but reducing failure rates.
3. WEAR LEVELLING & MODELLING
SSDs also have a problem with the way data is written. If the data is written to the same flash IC, it would degrade faster than other memory chips. A technique called wear leveling helps get over this by distributing flash memory access over the drive.
4. RECYCLER
SSDs can improve garbage collection by using the OS dependent TRIM command.
5. OTHER DESIRABLE FEATURES –ENCRYPTION
Sandforce controllers do on the fly encryption. This adds a layer of safety to your data
6. OTHER DESIRABLE FEATURES –CONSISTENT SSD PERFORMANCE
Most of the technologies mentioned help preserve SSD performance as it is used. There is obviously a perceptible difference, but even with this amount of degradation they are faster than the fastest hard disk drives.
OFFICIAL SPECS
The specs are taken from G.Skill’s website. The important numbers are represented in bold. Benchmarking procedures will test validity of G.Skill’s claim to these numbers.
TESTING AN SSD –WHAT NOT TO TEST
The most important parameter that defines SSD performance is the Random 4KB write numbers. As things stand today a SSD will primarily be used as a OS + productivity apps (read MS Office) drive.
This performance is what separates boys from men, heroes from also rans, trash from gold.
Another factor that needs to be kept in mind is how consistent is the performance of the hard disk over time. Again the way SSD interacts with data causes it to slow down as you fill it up, delete stuff, and add more stuff to it.
The tests done on the drive will focus on:
- 1. Sequential read and write performance
2. Random read and write performance
3. New vs Old SSD performance
4. Simulated real world testing (PC Mark Vantage)
The programs used to test these parameters include:
- 1. ATTO Disk Benchmark -V2.46
2. Crystal Disk Mark –V3.00
3. HD Tune Pro –V4.50
4. PC Mark Vantage
To test “New vs Old” SSD performance the drive will go through real world use and retested using ATTO disk benchmark V2.46
TEST SETUP
DRIVE INFORMATION (HD TUNE PRO)
RESULTS
1. ATTO DISK –V2.46 BENCHMAKRS
ATTO disk benchmark is used by manufacturers to verify data transfer rates. The drive meets G.Skill’s specs.
ATTO DISK BENCHMARK –NEW
ATTO DISK BENCHMARK –USED
NEW vs USED –WRITE PERFORMANCE
NEW vs USED –READ PERFORMANCE
The new vs used performance shows the benefit of TRIM and DuraWrite technologies. Both are within 4% of a new drive.
2. CRYSTAL DISK MARK –V3.0
Crystal disk mark shows the important 4KB speeds. These are much better than what most other controllers offer. In fact these are some of the best for a 60GB drive.
3. HD TUNE PRO
HD Tune Pro was used to measure latencies for Random 4KB read and write performance. This program was also used to benchmark the disk
RANDOM READ AND WRITE TESTS (4KB)
Both offer latencies that are much lower than the fastest hard drives. Even the fastest hard drives have latencies that are more than 5 milliseconds.
DISK BENCHMARK (SEQUENTIAL READ AND WRITE TESTS)
Sequential tests are carried out over the entire area of the disk.
4. PC MARK VANTAGE HARD DISK TESTS
PC Mark Vantage tests HDDs by running a series of “real world” scenarios. These tests are applicable to SSDs as well. The results here are approximates to how the drive would perform every day.
CONCLUSIONS –IMPRESSIVE
You really can’t go wrong with the G.Skill drive. And to really understand the difference in speed, buy one and then stop using it. You’ll think your computer is broken.
Given the relatively high cost of ownership of an SSD, they really have to deliver to justify their cost. The G.Skill Phoenix drive delivers the goods and does it with a lot of oomph and pizzazz. Its performance is right up there with the best that Sandforce controller drives have to offer. Given that SSDs based on this controller are the best in business, so is the G.Skill drive. G.Skill also upped the warranty to its Phoenix range to 3 years.
If you’re in the market for a SSD, G.Skill should be at the top of your wish list.
PROS
- Sandforce based controller –Comes with all the advantages this has to offer
- On the fly encryption and compression of data
- TRIM support
- Excellent 4KB Random Read & Write performance
- Sequential Read and Write performance
- Built-in (free) data reliability system (RAISE)
CONS
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