G.Skill Latest SSD Benchmark test by Michaelsoft

Article by: Damien Lee

G.Skill's SSD: Phoenix III

Michaelsoft technician has decided to test a SSD from G.Skill to see how their new product performs. 

G.Skill is famous for their RAMs, with one of their products such as Trident X which recently won a gold award from HardwareMX.com.   

Most of the small scale cybercafé owners and home user would consider this enthusiast driven SSD for their client PC or workstations, and how Michaelsoft’s Damien Lee perceives this G.Skill Phoenix III SSD.

Methodology

Test System

• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-D3H (Intel Z77 Express)
• Processor: Intel Core i5-2400 @ 3.10 GHz
• System Memory: 16GB Dual-Channel DDR3 1333MHz CL9-9-9-24
• AHCI mode - Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver 11.1.0.1006
• SATA 6 GB/s Controller: Intel(R) 7 Series /C216 Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Edition 64-Bit
• OS is freshly installed.
• Testing SSD drive doesn't contain any files/data.

SSD Benchmark Tools

	Info provided by benchmark tool developer:
AS SSD benchmark	Test the sequential or random read/write performance without using the cache. AS SSD Benchmark reads/writes a 1 GByte file as well as randomly chosen 4K blocks. Additionally, it performs the tests using 1 or 64 threads and it determines the SSD's access time. Two extra benchmark tests examine the drive's behavior when (1) copying a few big files, a lot of small files and a mixture of file sizes by using cached copy functions of your OS as well as (2) reading/writing data depending on the data's compressibility.
ATTO Disk Benchmark	Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously.
Crystal Disk Mark	A disk drive benchmark tool that also features 4k size block with the queue depth of 32 for NCQ&AHCI.
HD Tune	HD Tune is a hard disk utility with many functions. It can be used to measure the drive's performance, scan for errors, check the health status (S.M.A.R.T.), securely erase all data and much more.

Benchmark:

Before we continue looking at the results, lets get a little familiar on how to read the results. When we test these SSD's performance, the result were derived from sequential and random operations. Transferring big size files in the blocks of 16MB, 512B, or even processing 4KB file with single thread and with 64 threads.

Random VS Sequential Access

Sequential access is commonly associated with transferring large files, whereas random access associate with seeking/reading files in the disk drive at any sector.

Analogically, sequential accessing is like reading a scroll, where you need to unfold it and read/write on it continuously. Random accessing is like reading a book, where you can read and write at any page on the book.

Benchmark Tool: 

AS SSD

G.Skill Phoenix III 120GB

G.Skill Phoenix III 240GB

Input/Output Operation Per Second (IOPS), is a measurement for the disk drive's performance, where in a second, how much information can it process.

G.Skill Phoenix III 120GB

G.Skill Phoenix III 240GB

G.Skill's Phoenix III 120 GB: RM2.90/GB
G.Skill's Phoenix III 240 GB: RM2.75/GB

Buyers can contact Idealtech or visit their facebook for the best price for G.Skill's SSD.

Benchmark Tool:

Crystal Disk Mark

G.Skill Phoenix III 120GB

G.Skill Phoenix III 240GB

 

When it comes to usage, Crystal Disk Mark measures random read/writes for 4KB block size file, and the queue depth set at 32, because some of the applications loads file as small as 4KB, such as databases. The following is a application I/O workload profile compiled by Dell, where SSD is the more suitable to handle random access operations such as:

• Web File Server
• Database Online Transaction Processing
• Exchange Email
• OS Drive
• Decision Support Systems
• File Server
• Video on Demand. 

Benchmark Tool:

ATTO

G.Skill Phoenix III 120GB

G.Skill Phoenix III 240GB

 

 

 

 

Benchmark Tool:

HD Tune

G.Skill Phoenix III 120GB

G.Skill Phoenix III 240Gb

In summary, these benchmark tools only gives their relative readings and the result may be different if used on different PC spec, hopefully they will give you a rough guide on which SSD to buy to suit your budget. In the case of Michaelsoft DDS servers, we always choose hardware that is best for peak performance, we believe that good quality(performance) items doesn't come cheap. However, as to compare its cost-benefit, finding the right hardware to suit budget is never easy as there are many more brands in the market that offers better performance at a higher price.

Feel free to leave comments about these findings.