SSD Performance AS SSD Benchmark

AS SSD Benchmark

The AS SSD benchmark is a fairly neat little two in one, and whilst it may appear simple (and, well... it is), the results it produces are very consistent. Enough to be reliable, certainly. Here, we will run both the normal read/write tests, as well as the included compression benchmark.

All looks to appear normal, until we get to the 4k 64T (thread) write test when all hell appears to break loose. Out of absolutely nowhere, given the results we've had so far, the Seagate product scores a fantastic 532 MB/s of 4k read. I was astounded, and actually re-ran this test several times, all with the same result. I cannot fathom the rest for this result, at all. I would guess, however, that we had a hint of it during the initial file copy tests, where we got bursts of very specific 500+ MB/s speeds. Perhaps the AS SSD benchmark recreates those conditions during that test? It is hard to be sure, but what was said earlier regarding different benchmarks suiting different types of storage seems to be at least a little bit true here.

The rest of the AS suite, however, remains fairly predictable, with the Seagate drive proving itself to be in T5 class drive range. Somewhat curiously, the drive seems to score higher than the T5 in the overall score, though I would put a major part of that down to the seemingly fairly random results above. Whilst it is not my place to say, I suspect this bit of the benchmark may be subject to a flaw or bug that hasn't yet surfaced, as there is no way (in my mind) that a product that has been consistently 15-20% behind all review suddenly pulls out a 200% win. 

Compression Benchmark

Moving onto the compression benchmark, and we see 380 MB/s on the read (fairly consistently) and 360 MB/s on the writes (with two dips in performance that aren't all that uncommon on any form of storage media, though generally it becomes a rarer phenomenon the higher up the echelons you go). The drive manages to stay relatively consistent, however, indicating only a little performance loss throughout the run.