SSD Performance Real World Trace Testing

Real world benchmarks

To collect a more precise picture of real-world performance of SSDs, we run trace benchmarks, or tests that are based on the use of real applications. On the next three pages of benchmarks, we make use of traces of Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Adobe After Effects, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, World of Warcraft, and Battlefield 3. Scores from all these individual tests can be found on the next three pages. We believe that what you can find there is the most representative set of tests from a consumer’s perspective.

The graphs below show a bandwidth score, which is the average read and write transfer speed, measured across all ten application traces. These traces are played and recorded in real-time, including idle time during the initial recording of disk usage. The overall score is based on the geometric average of the time it takes to run all the tests, including idle time. This is why results for all modern SSDs are so close to each other in standard tests.