Disappointing test scores with OCZ AG3 SSD

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aurgathor

join:2002-12-01
Lynnwood, WA
kudos:1

On Marvell 88SE9230
On onboard SATA II
RE4 2TB on onboard
Red 3TB on onboard

I guess once again I get suckered with "up to".

Here are the specs:

quote:
Max Read:
up to 525 MB/s (SATA 6Gbps)
up to 280 MB/s (SATA 3Gbps)

Max Write:
up to 500 MB/s (SATA 6Gbps)
up to 260 MB/s (SATA 3Gbps)

And the results are shown above. While the SSD is obviously orders of magnitude better on access time, its sustained DTR isn't that much better than the WDs' on the outer edges. And I bought a SATA III HA ( SYBA SD-PEX40054 PCI-Express 2.0 x4 SATA III (6.0Gb/s) HyperDuo 4-port RAID Controller Card ) specifically because of this SSD.

PC is a Dell Precision 490 with dual Xeons, W7/64 and 16G RAM.

It's slightly OT in an OCZ thread, but I have to note that the 5400 (?) RPM 3TB Red has slightly better sustained DTR than the more expensive 7200 RPM 2TB RE4, meaning that the higher areal density can more than make up for the loss in RPM. Of course the access time of the RE4 is almost twice as good.
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to forum · permalink · 2012-10-27 12:10:52 ·

Krisnatharok
Caveat Emptor
Premium
join:2009-02-11
Earth Orbit
kudos:8

It's probably due to the add-in card and driver/FW implementation. I get similar/faster speeds with my Vertex 2 120 GB 3.0 Gbps.

to forum · permalink · 2012-10-27 12:15:10 ·

aurgathor

join:2002-12-01
Lynnwood, WA
kudos:1

Actually, I think the slightly slower speed with the Marvell is probably mostly due to the extra latency inherent to the additional circuitry needed for the physical PCI-e slot -- in other words, the add-in controller is 'farther' from the CPU than the onboard controller. If the SSD were truly capable of SATA III speeds this wouldn't be an issue, but looks to me it's barely over SATA I speeds.

Looking at the Anandtech review I think the official specs are with highly compressible data.... !@#$%^&*()!
Of course I should've read the reviews before buying it.

In any case, I plan to do some more testing with the Marvell to see what it's capable of. I was thinking of getting another OCZ and run them in RAID 0, but that's all but cancelled.
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to forum · permalink · 2012-10-27 13:11:04 ·

trparky
Apple... YUM
Premium,MVM
join:2000-05-24
Cleveland, OH
kudos:2

Reviews:

·Time Warner Cable

First of all, the Marvell SATA controller is garbage. It's seriously gimped by the fact that it only uses one PCI Express data lane and the drivers are buggy as well. Search anywhere on the Internet and you'll see people that agree with these statements.

If you have an onboard SATA controller, even if it's v2, you'll get better performance on it than you'll get on the gimped v3 controller.
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Tom
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to forum · permalink · 2012-10-27 14:36:03 ·

FizzyMyNizzy

join:2004-05-29
New York, NY
kudos:1

reply to aurgathor
You did get a Asynchronous drive(AG3). Which is slower than a Synchronous drive like a Vertex 3.

to forum · permalink · 2012-10-27 14:40:36 ·

aurgathor

join:2002-12-01
Lynnwood, WA
kudos:1

It was on sale and had a $20 MIR...

As for the Marvell, I think this is their 3rd generation chip, and I figured it should be better than the older ones. BTW, the SATA card has an x4 connector, and it appears to be using 2 lanes. And that was my other mistake -- I wrongly assumed that an x4 card will be x4.
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to forum · permalink · 2012-10-27 15:04:25 ·

n_w95482
Premium
join:2005-08-03
Ukiah, CA

1 edit

reply to aurgathor

Vertex 3 MI/Marvell 88SE9128
Agility 3/nForce 4 (3 Gbps)

It could be how HD Tune is interacting with the SSD, or the Marvell chip. It could also be using smaller transfer sizes. Try some other software, like AS-SSD, CrystalDiskMark, or ATTO. ATTO tests many different transfer sizes so you can see how the drive ramps up.

I'm currently using a Vertex 3 Max IOPS on a Marvell 88SE9128 controller on my motherboard, and an Agility 3 on the 3 Gbps ports on an nForce 4 SLI chipset (my spare PC). HD Tune results are above, CrystalDiskMark results below.

Vertex 3:

Vertex 3/Marvell 88SE9128/random
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]
 
           Sequential Read :   370.434 MB/s
          Sequential Write :   208.195 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :   330.026 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :   187.246 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    19.154 MB/s [  4676.2 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    61.948 MB/s [ 15124.0 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :   172.242 MB/s [ 42051.3 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :   158.716 MB/s [ 38749.1 IOPS]
 
  Test : 1000 MB [C: 46.9% (52.4/111.7 GB)] (x5)
  Date : 2012/10/27 15:34:44
    OS : Windows 7  SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)
  
 
Vertex 3/Marvell 88SE9128/0s
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]
 
           Sequential Read :   376.599 MB/s
          Sequential Write :   247.247 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :   337.123 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :   244.179 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    21.330 MB/s [  5207.6 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    62.789 MB/s [ 15329.3 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :   180.538 MB/s [ 44076.7 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :   184.293 MB/s [ 44993.3 IOPS]
 
  Test : 1000 MB [C: 46.9% (52.4/111.7 GB)] (x5) <All 0x00, 0Fill>
  Date : 2012/10/27 15:41:09
    OS : Windows 7  SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

Agility 3:

Agility 3/nForce 4/random
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]
 
           Sequential Read :   172.776 MB/s
          Sequential Write :   107.447 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :   166.166 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :    93.685 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    19.051 MB/s [  4651.2 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    61.208 MB/s [ 14943.3 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :    21.230 MB/s [  5183.1 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :   107.205 MB/s [ 26173.1 IOPS]
 
  Test : 1000 MB [C: 36.5% (40.8/111.7 GB)] (x5)
  Date : 2012/10/27 17:00:55
    OS : Windows 7  SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)
  
 
Agility 3/nForce 4/0s
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]
 
           Sequential Read :   241.218 MB/s
          Sequential Write :   221.032 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :   228.330 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :   220.042 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    20.793 MB/s [  5076.4 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    62.187 MB/s [ 15182.3 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :    24.464 MB/s [  5972.7 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :   115.403 MB/s [ 28174.4 IOPS]
 
  Test : 1000 MB [C: 36.5% (40.8/111.7 GB)] (x5) <All 0x00, 0Fill>
  Date : 2012/10/27 16:38:32
    OS : Windows 7  SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

OT: Thanks for posting this thread, it got me to benchmark the Agility 3 again and notice that it was running at 1.5 Gbps. I was able to force it to negotiate 3 Gbps with OCZ's tools.

Edit: I moved my Vertex 3 to the 3 Gbps ports on my motherboard (ICH10R southbridge) to hopefully resolve some other issues I'm having occasionally. Here's a CDM run on it. Keep in mind that the ICH10R's 3 Gbps SATA implementation is excellent, probably the fastest for that SATA generation.

Vertex 3/ICH10R/random
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]
 
           Sequential Read :   273.494 MB/s
          Sequential Write :   209.297 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :   252.648 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :   198.594 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    21.011 MB/s [  5129.6 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    79.494 MB/s [ 19407.7 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :   169.450 MB/s [ 41369.6 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :   159.651 MB/s [ 38977.2 IOPS]
 
  Test : 1000 MB [C: 48.5% (54.1/111.7 GB)] (x5)
  Date : 2012/10/30 23:38:47
    OS : Windows 7  SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)
  
 
Vertex 3/ICH10R/0s
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]
 
           Sequential Read :   274.604 MB/s
          Sequential Write :   266.001 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :   253.380 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :   263.672 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    21.211 MB/s [  5178.4 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    80.571 MB/s [ 19670.6 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :   176.473 MB/s [ 43084.2 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :   173.699 MB/s [ 42407.1 IOPS]
 
  Test : 1000 MB [C: 48.8% (54.5/111.7 GB)] (x5) <All 0x00, 0Fill>
  Date : 2012/10/30 23:32:12
    OS : Windows 7  SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

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to forum · permalink · 2012-10-27 20:10:44 ·

Morris0

join:2011-05-14
kudos:1

In my experiance the Agility 3 is slower than the Agility 2

to forum · permalink · 2012-11-01 21:18:10 ·

Technical > PC Hardware Discussion/Reviews > Disappointing test scores with OCZ AG3 SSD

Disappointing test scores with OCZ AG3 SSD