AS SSD:
AS SSD is a relatively new benchmark designed specifically for solid state drives. The application contains five synthetic tests used to determine the sequential and random read and write performance of a drive.
AS SSD also includes a copy benchmark. This test copies an ISO (two large files), program (many small files) and game (small and large files), returning the speed and duration of each.
HD Tune Pro 4.61:
Next, I ran a series of tests using HD Tune Pro. This hard disk utility measures a drive's performance by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its access time, burst rate and CPU usage. For this review, I'm also going to use it to benchmark the Extreme's random read and write speeds, random access times and the number of operations per second.
The Extreme performed very well when benchmarked with HD Tune. The drive had average read and write speeds of 484.9 MB/s and 423.4 MB/s, respectively, and a burst rate of 317.8 MB/s when reading.
SanDisk Extreme 240GB - HD Tune Random Access Read |
Patriot Pyro SE 240GB - HD Tune Random Access Read |
SanDisk Extreme 240GB - HD Tune Random Access Write |
Patriot Pyro SE 240GB - HD Tune Random Access Write |
The Extreme didn't disappoint when doing random reads and writes. When reading 4KB blocks, the drive reached 16337 IOPS and had an average speed of 63.975 MB/s. The Extreme was even faster when writing, reaching 18985 IOPS with an average speed of 74.162 MB/s.
Iometer:
Lastly, I ran a series of tests using Iometer. This tool can be configured to benchmark a number of things. In this case, I used it to measure the Extreme's read and write speeds and the number of operations per second. The tests were run using random bytes and a queue depth of 3.
The Extreme's performance was very similar to what we saw in our other tests. With highly compressible, repeating data, the drive was able to read at 524.07 MB/s and write at 476.93 MB/s. With its Toggle Mode NAND flash, the Extreme did not slow nearly as much as the OCZ Agility 3 when reading random data. However, its write speeds dropped to 275.9 MB/s.
The Extreme performed very well when doing random reads and writes. With repeating data, the drive was able to read at 67.79 MB/s and write at a blazing 296.64 MB/s. Here too, the Extreme took a performance hit when tested with random data. However, it was still able to write at 174.69 MB/s.
According to SanDisk, the Extreme can deliver a maximum of 83,000 IOPS when randomly writing 4K blocks. In our tests, the drive reached 75,940 IOPS with repeating data and 44,721 IOPS with random data.