AS SSD Benchmark Results

Website: AS SSD

AS SSD is a freeware benchmarking tool designed just for SSDs, performing a battery of sequential read and write tests, as well as random read and write tests and sequential access tests over a 3GB portion of the drive. As Windows 7's caching technology makes using real world tests such as FC-Test almost impossible, this is the next best test for judging sequential read and write speeds. It also produces accurate access times, and is wonderfully easy to use.

AS SSD's benchmark uses data that is predominantly incompressible, which negates much of SandForce's DuraWrite compression technology. This means that it can be seen as a worst case scenario for drives that use compression, such as the OCZ Vertex 3.

Sequential Speeds

As none of the four new drives on test make use of compression technology in the way that SandForce powered SSDs do, AS-SSD serves as a good indication of performance. When it comes to sequential read speeds the SSD 840 Pro and SSD 840 are identical with a chart-topping speed of 521MB/sec, while the Vector isn’t too far behind with a speed of 517MB/sec. The Neutron GTX 480GB doesn’t deliver the same headline speeds though, with a sequential read speed of 493MB/sec. When it comes to sequential write speeds in the same test the SSD 840 Pro and Vector are deadlocked with a speed of 498MB/sec, a hefty improvement over the previous best. The Neutron GTX also accounts well for itself here with a speed of 448MB/sec, while the TLC NAND of the SSD 840 sees its write speeds come in at 250MB/sec.

Random Performance

Moving to random 4K performance in AS-SSD, the SSD 840 Pro was peer-less with a 4K random read single queue-depth speed of 31.33MB/sec, with the other new drives achieving between 24.75MB/sec- 26MB/sec. This gives the SSD 840 Pro a palpable advantage when it comes to single queue-depth reads. Single queue-depth writes however see all four drives underwhelm, with the Vector coming out best with a speed of 79.68MB/sec. clearly performance has been optimised elsewhere.



With 64 queue-depth random 4K read reads, the SSD 840 Pro again came out on top with a huge result of 379MB/sec. The Vector is close behind, with a speed of 368MB/sec, while the Neutron GTX and SSD 840 both do well with 324MB/sec and 330MB/sec respectively. In comparison to the last round of SATA 6Gbps SSDs, these are all great results and represent a significant increase in performance under these heavily threaded workloads. 64 queue depth random 4K write speeds see the SSD 840 predictably drop off with a speed of 207MB/sec (although this stil, surpasses that of the SSD 830 family). The SSD 840 Pro and Vector are again closely matched with a write speed of 327MB/sec and 329MB/sec respectively, while the Neutron is pleasingly quick, but again a little behind with a speed of 286MB/sec.