The test system used in this review is equipped with an Intel Core i7-6700K CPU, GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-UD3 motherboard, 32GB (16GB x 2) of Crucial Ballistix Sport LT DDR4 memory, Samsung 960 PRO 512GB SSD and a GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1060 WINDFORCE OC 6G graphics card. For the operating system, I used the latest version of Windows 10 Enterprise.
To test the performance of SK hynix's Gold P31 SSD, I ran a series of benchmarks using CrystalDiskMark, HD Tach RW, ATTO Disk Benchmark, AS SSD, HD Tune Pro, Anvil's Storage Utilities, Iometer and PCMark. For comparison, I've also included test results from the Crucial P5, ADATA SWORDFISH, ADATA FALCON, Lexar NM610, Silicon Power P34A60, Patriot P300, Plextor M9PG Plus, Plextor M9PY Plus, ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro, Western Digital WD Black SN750, Samsung 970 EVO Plus, ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro, Crucial P1, ADATA XPG SX8200, Western Digital WD Black NVMe, Samsung 970 EVO, Samsung 970 PRO, Plextor M9Pe, Plextor M8Se, Patriot Hellfire, ADATA XPG SX8000, Samsung 960 PRO, Toshiba OCZ RD400, Samsung 950 PRO, Samsung 870 QVO, Silicon Power P60, SK hynix Gold S31, ADATA Ultimate SU750, Samsung 860 QVO, Samsung 860 PRO, Crucial MX500, Plextor M8V, Samsung T5, Crucial BX300 and ADATA Ultimate SU900.
As I mentioned earlier, the Gold P31 uses SK hynix's ACNT038 controller chip. Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that it performs equally well with both incompressible (0%) and compressible (100%) data.
CrystalDiskMark 5.1.2:
First, I ran a few quick tests using CrystalDiskMark. This benchmark tool measures the performance of a storage device by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its random read and write speeds using blocks 512K and 4K in size.
 SK hynix Gold P31 1TB |
 Crucial P5 1TB |
According to SK hynix, the 1TB version of the Gold P31 is capable of reading at 3,500 MB/s and writing at 3,200 MB/s. Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that the drive had no problems reaching these speeds in CrystalDiskMark's sequential read and write tests.
 SK hynix Gold P31 1TB - All 0x00, 0Fill |
 Crucial P5 1TB - All 0x00, 0Fill |
The Gold P31 performed equally well when using highly compressible 0x00 (0 Fill) data. This time around, the drive was able to read at 3,565 MB/s and write at 3,308 MB/s.
HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0:
Next, I used HD Tach to test the Gold P31's read, write and burst speeds as well as its seek times and CPU usage.
Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that the Gold P31 had average read and write speeds of 1,550.7 MB/s and 1326.6 MB/s respectively, as well as a burst speed of 1328.0 MB/s. The screenshot also shows that, like most other TLC-based SSDs, the Gold P31 uses some sort of SLC caching. The drive starts writing at about 1,650 MB/s and then drops to about 1,300 MB/s when the write operation exceeds the size of the cache.
ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.46:
I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the Gold P31's sequential read and write speeds. The tests are run using blocks ranging in size from 0.5KB to 8192KB and the total length set to 256MB.
 SK hynix Gold P31 1TB |
 Crucial P5 1TB |
When tested with ATTO, the Gold P31's read speeds topped out at about 3,547 MB/s and its write speeds at 3,115 MB/s.
