Model | OCZ Synapse Cache 64 Gigabyte |
Capacity | 64 Gigabyte |
Memory | Asynchronous NAND Flash |
Technology | Micron 29 F64G08CBAAA |
Throughput | up to 550 MB/s reading, up to 490 MB/s writing |
Accesstime (read) | < 0.1 ms |
Acoustics | no noise |
Warranty | 3 Years |
Models tested | ||
Testenvironment |
||
Motherboard | ASUS P8P67 Deluxe B3 | |
Chipset | Intel P67 | 1'333 MHz |
CPU | Intel Core i7 2600k | 3.4 GHz |
Memory | Kingston HyperX 2133 | 4 GByte |
Graphics card | Gigabyte GeForce GTX 285 | |
Storage (system) | Seagate Barracuda | 640 GByte |
Operating systems | Ubuntu - most recent Kernel version Windows 7 64 Bit with caching drives |
|
Filesystem | XFS NTFS |
We think everybody reading this article can imagine the following scenario: You just bought a hard drive which according the specs sheet should transfer 120 MByte/s reading and writing. In the reviews you read about astonishing 110 MByte/s but after you put the drive into you system it feels much slower. The whole story gets even worse when you start a benchmark which does randomread/write of 4 KByte blocks. There you only get two to three MBytes/s.
Because of this we don't want to publish screenshots of standard programs like HD-Tach, HD-Tune, ... we want our tests to be
... sind.
We test with activated caches and NCQ (Native Command Queueing) because they're also activated under daily use. But the data size tested is always at least twice the amount of the memory. In this there will be no intereference.
We noticed that the measuring error is constantly within ±2%. Therefore we mention it only here.
Additionally we evaluate the S.M.A.R.T. data to assess if there are already errors.
The following table give you a brief overview to which points we turn our centre of attention.
Test | Observations |
Sequential Read/Write Tests |
|
Random Read/Write Tests |
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iozone3 is a benchmark suit for storage solutions which natively runs under Linux.
Therefore we are testing the throughput with different block sizes using the following commands:
It is important to reproduce scenarios of daily usage. Certain parameters need to be variable during the test to make a statement about the product. In our test the parameters are the different block sizes. It defines the size in KBytes which is written/read on the drive during a transaction.
With this method one can test the reading and writing of either small and big files. In a normal personal computer environment you usually don't find many files smaller than 16 KByte. The relative amount of small files is much bigger on a mail or database server. Therefore tests with small block sizes are of interest for database-based applications.
In bigger RAID arrays the hard disk cache is usually disabled and the RAID-Controller takes over the job of caching. Exactly in such setups hard drives need to be very fast when reading or writing small amounts of data. Sequential throughput isn't interesting in this case.
Announcement:
Despite the circumstance that the rating of a product is based on as many
objective facts as possible there are factors which can have an influence on a
rating after publication. Every autor may perceive data differently over time
whereas one possible reason for example is a deeper background knowledge or
understanding of certain processes. Certain unforseen market conditions as well
as changes have the potential to render a descision made at a certain point in
time obsolete.
With the Synapse, OCZ has a 64 Gigabyte cahing SSD in its portfolio that is very
easy to install. The fact that the drive has been equipped with a SandForce
SF-2281 controller already suggests that it might be fast. At the end of the day
you get 70'000 IOPS when doing 4k reads and 52'000 IOPS when performing 4k
writes. Therefore the Synapse really is a quick drive.
A closer look at the sequential thoughput rates reveals that the asynchronous NAND flash has an impact. Regarding sequential reads we se a maximum value of 441 Megabyte per second. Concerning sequential writes the drive tops out at 487 Megabyte per seconds. These values really aren't bad, but it's not wat the manufacturer promises in the specifications.
The most important thing about a caching drive is, that it's easy to install. Once you plugged it to your computer you'll just have to download and install the Dataplex caching software. After a reboot everything worked perfectly and you get a really significant performance boost over the old hard drive. There is only one thing we found that wasn't very good: if you should have a power outage it can take the software up to six hours to recover all data.
Last but not least there is the price: the 64 Gigabyte Synapse Caching costs
about CHF 115.- (est EUR 96.-). The fact that this drive is very easy to install
we can even recommend it to unexperienced users.
The OCZ Synapse 64 GB SSD receives good four out of five
stars.