SanDisk Ultra Plus SSD Review (256GB)
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 7, 2013 9:00 AM EST
Performance vs. Transfer Size
ATTO does a good job of showing us how sequential performance varies with transfer size. Most controllers optimize for commonly seen transfer sizes and neglect the rest. The optimization around 4KB, 8KB and 128KB transfers makes sense given that's what most workloads are bound by, but it's always important to understand how a drive performs across the entire gamut.
Ah that's a pretty read curve. Other than Samsung's SSD 840 Pro, none of the other vendors here deliver as good and consistent performance at smaller transfer sizes.
The write curve isn't as impressive. It starts out nicely but does lose out to the higher performers with larger transfer sizes - that 4-channel controller is likely to blame here.
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Kristian Vättö - Monday, January 07, 2013 - link
Performance vs Transfer Size and TRIM graphs are missing, I know. Already pinged Anand about those so expect to see them soon (the graphs weren't in our admin engine so I couldn't add them, Anand needs to upload them). Replyvol7ron - Monday, January 07, 2013 - link
The impact of spare area graphs are interesting. OWC has claimed that the spare area doesn't have much of an influence on drives using SF controller, thus defending their non-TRIM support.Perhaps Anand could include an OWC drive in there for comparison. Reply
dave_the_nerd - Monday, January 07, 2013 - link
OWC has to run down TRIM because they sell third-party SSDs to Mac OS X users. Apple forces OS X to disable TRIM on SSDs they don't supply, because they're jerks sometimes.Apple ships its own machines with TRIM enabled, just like everybody else,
There are hacks. But nobody, OWC or otherwise, is going to say, "oh, yeah, our product supports TRIM, but you need to download this sketchy looking program from this guys blog to make it work. Good luck." Reply
Darnell021 - Monday, January 07, 2013 - link
haha yess I just went through that process myself and it's worth adding that every incremental OSX update resets that sketchy little program hack to turn TRIM back off.Still worth it though if you know what you're doing ;) Reply
Samus - Monday, January 07, 2013 - link
"but you need to download this sketchy looking program from this guys blog to make it work."word. true dat, had to do this when I put an Intel X25-M 160GB in my wife's Macbook a few years ago. after about a year it started running crazy slow and fortunately that was just around the time the 3rd party TRIM tool surfaced. works like a charm, but definitely a sketchy solution.
no more sketchy than jail-breaking an iPhone though. pretty much the only reason I jailbroke my iPod Touch was to disable wifi while its sleeping, because, for some reason, Apple DOESN'T allow that. Reply
NCM - Monday, January 07, 2013 - link
I don't see anything "sketchy" about it. A quick trip to the Unix command line enables/disables TRIM in OSX. All the TRIM Enabler utility does is to offer a convenient GUI for that process. It can hardly be said to rise to the level of a hack. The System Profiler correctly shows whether TRIM is enabled or not for either an original or aftermarket SSD.It's always dangerous to impute motives to others, and especially so in the case of the typically secretive Apple. Nonetheless I'd guess that Apple, whose customer support is consistently rated well above that of other PC manufacturers, isn't going to endorse something it hasn't tested, and isn't going to test something it doesn't sell. Therefore OSX neither enables TRIM automatically for third party SSDs, nor prevents users from doing so themselves. Sound pretty neutral to me. Reply
PJCarmody - Tuesday, January 08, 2013 - link
NCM,To your point "isn't going to endorse something it hasn't tested" - Apple is not being asked to endorse the third party options. Not for a moment. So your point is invalid.
I like your open mind but let's face facts: Apple has a history of crippling third party competitors e.g. for storage. Reply
Kristian Vättö - Monday, January 07, 2013 - link
Yeah, that's true. SandForce drives perform well when it comes to consistency and there is no big benefit from more OP (I've tested this with 240GB Intel SSD 335). ReplySamus - Monday, January 07, 2013 - link
I'm just dying for a mainstream Intel S3700 to hit the consumer corner... ReplyBeenthere - Monday, January 07, 2013 - link
Few if anyone would be able to differentiate a noticeable actual system performance change no matter which one of the listed SSDs they chose. SanDisk hasn't yet learned how to dupe the benches but in due time their numbers will increase similar to the others.If you're going to buy an SSD you should do your homework so you know the liabilities and realities including reliability and campatibility issues, lost data, drive size change, etc. If you want an eye opener read the warranties on SSDs at the respective SSD mfg. websites. Reply