Computer external nvme solid state and ssd which is better

Intel 660P Multi-Software Test Comparison Western Digital SN500

Before the test, first of all, let's introduce the information of these two SSDs, first of all, the Western Digital SN500. For the Western Digital this manufacturer believe that the friends who often play the computer will not be unfamiliar with it, it has the world's first 96-layer 3D flash memory technology and the world's first 64-layer 3D flash memory technology. It has the world's first 96-layer 3D flash memory technology and the world's first 64-layer 3D flash memory technology, and it has 14,000 valid patents under its belt, so it can be said that the technical conditions are profound. The Western Digital SN500 uses a TLC NAND Flash chip and master control, with a total write capacity of 300TBW and a five-year warranty.

Intel, as a leader in the computer industry, its SSDs also have a very good performance, this time I got the Intel 660P, which is equipped with Huirong's SMI2263 master control, 256MB DDR3 cache chip and two QLC flash memory particles, total write for 100TBW, also has a five-year warranty period.

Seeing the difference between the two SSDs, the Western Digital SN500 uses TLC flash particles, while the Intel 660P uses QLC flash particles, each with its own advantages. The most important advantage of TLC flash particles is stability and longevity, compared to QLC flash particles, whose 300TBW is three times as long as QLC flash particles' 100TBW (three times the lifespan). QLC flash particles' sustained write performance drops dramatically when the cache is depleted (100MB/s), which is not as good as TLC flash particles in terms of stability. But QLC has the advantage of being cheap, and it's very possible to replace mechanical hard drives in the future as the technology matures.

Theory is always theory, to want to compare the good and bad of a hard disk, of course, or to the actual test shall prevail, and then I will carry out a number of practical tests, to see the two SSDs in the end what are the differences. First of all, I would like to introduce you to my test platform (both SSDs are tested on the same platform).

Before the test, I checked the status of the two hard disks through CrystalDiskInfo, and found an interesting issue, the Western Digital SN500 is PCI-E 3.0 x2 channel, while the Intel 660P is PCI-E 3.0 x4 channel, the Western Digital SN500 seems to have a certain degree of bandwidth reduction, but the SN500 is not the only one. Who's better? Let's take a look at some specific speed tests.

CrystalDiskMark Software Test

CrystalDiskMark is a software program that tests the read and write speeds of hard disks in a very compact, easy-to-use package that allows users to test their storage devices at any time, with a wide variety of options. The most important thing to look at here is the speed at which it can be read and written to.

The Intel 660P's read and write speeds were 1828MB/S and 985.5MB/S, while the Western Digital SN500's read and write speeds were 1711MB/S and 1455MB/S. Since this is the first software test, I won't be able to draw any conclusions, so let's move on to the next software test.

AS SSD Benchmark software test

AS SSD Benchmark is a SSD performance test software, which can very accurately measure the performance of SSD continuous reading and writing, and also very clearly see whether our SSD's 4K has been aligned. The results of the AS SSD Benchmark test are as follows.

Intel 660P's reads and writes were 1631.49MB/S and 916.31MB/S, respectively, and Western Digital SN500's reads and writes were 1272.19MB/S and 1367.01MB/S, respectively.

4K randomized Intel 660P's reads and writes were 322.62MB/S and 639.97MB/S, Western Digital SN500 read and write 1023.20MB/S and 1299.24MB/S, Intel scored 1642, Western Digital SN500 scored 3323, in fact, the test up to here I have felt Intel 660P a little biased situation.

ATTO Disk Benchmark software test

The next I used ATTO Disk Benchmark read and write tests, its detection can be said to be very simple and clear, using different sizes of data test packets, data packets according to the 0.5K, 1.0K, 2.0K until 8192.0KB respectively. Read and write tests, after the completion of the test data expressed in the form of bar charts.

Through the test, the result is really as I thought, Intel 660 is still biased, Intel 660P's read and write are about 1800MB/S and 980MB/S respectively, Western Digital SN500's read and write are about 1540.MB/S and 1450MB/S respectively.

HD Tune pro software test

This is the first time that I've seen an HDMI with the HDMI, but I'm not sure if I've ever seen one.

To this point, I have a rough idea of the performance of these two SSDs, but driven by curiosity, I still keep testing, HD Tune pro is a hard disk performance diagnostic test tool, you can detect the transfer rate of the hard disk and other storage devices (such as memory cards, USB sticks, iPods, etc.), I simulated a 100G or so big The test results are as follows.

The Intel 660P's read and write rates were 1397MB/S and 212MB/S respectively, while the Western Digital SN500's read and write rates were 1399MB/S and 757MB/S. The above test results show that the Intel 660's read and write rates dropped dramatically after 50G of continuous writing, and that write rates weren't even close to those of mechanical hard drives. The Intel 660's write speed is even lower than that of a mechanical hard drive, while the Western Digital SN500 shows a drop in speed when transferring 8G, but still maintains a super fast write speed of around 750.

Through the understanding of the author speculates that it may be because the Intel 660P adopts the full disk analog SLC cache, when the cache is exhausted, the QLC flash chip sustained write performance has fallen dramatically, even lower than the traditional HDD, and the random read and write performance is not as good as the TLC flash chip. I also found that when the Intel 660P hard drive space is filled with most of the data (like 2/3), it will also be increasingly faster to show a decline in speed, and the stability is not good, while the Western Digital SN500 has been very stable.

TxBENCH Software Test

The last test software I used was the professional-grade SSD test software, TxBENCH, which is an SSD test software from abroad, and in addition to the basic test items, it also supports customized test items, which allow you to freely set up the test's block size, queue depth, etc., as well as a full disk write test (both FILE and RAW are supported). RAW are supported).

The test results are similar to those of the multiple software programs above, with the Intel 660P's reads and writes at 1,821MB/S and 983MB/S, respectively, and the Western Digital SN500's reads and writes at 1,631MB/S and 1,467MB/S.

The Intel 660P's reads and writes, from the first to the last test program, were almost There is no surprise that the bias situation, read high write low, on the contrary, the Western Digital SN500 is very stable, read and write speed is very stable, I deliberately understand a bit to understand the reason. It turns out that because the Intel 660 uses QLC flash memory particles, its sustained write performance will drop dramatically, while TLC flash memory particles do not have this problem.

The test does not represent the final result, of course, still have to be the actual use of the experience to feel the most convincing, so I deliberately downloaded a 5G size of the game installation package, and then on the Intel 660P and Western Digital SN500 respectively, the installation time comparison. We all know that the installation package has a variety of different sizes of files, as small as a few K, up to several hundred megabytes are there, and 5G installation package in the actual installation of the hard disk space occupied by about 17G or so, it can be a very good test out of the hard disk in the actual scenarios of the use of the situation. After starting the installation, I timed it with my cell phone stopwatch, and the Intel 660P took 3 minutes and 30 seconds, and the Western Digital SN500 took 2 minutes and 40 seconds, so it seems that the QLC flash particles are not as stable as the TLC flash particles under sustained writing.

Experience Summary:

In order to better visualize the test results of these data so that users can understand at a glance, I deliberately made a table, the results of each test software are in the table, can be very clear to see, at a glance. Although I love to toss, but this time to the two SSD test is really also consumed the author a long time a period of time, which is a variety of data organization and record, and sometimes in order to be more fair, I give each software test are run three times.

The next thing I'd like to say is that if you're choosing between the Intel 660P and the Western Digital SN500, I'd prefer the Western Digital SN500, which, after so many software tests, has been very stable in terms of read and write speeds, while the Intel 660P is like a student at school, with a very obvious bias. Very obvious bias phenomenon, especially when the cache is exhausted, the QLC flash memory particles of the continuous write download is very obvious, the performance is not stable. So in terms of overall performance the Western Digital SN500 has a much faster write speed and stability of use, given that it doesn't have to worry about degradation under prolonged use.

If you don't want to choose between the two, the author's recommendation is to choose a TLC flash particle SSD, although the price is relatively expensive compared to the QLC flash particles, but its stability and longevity are much better, I believe that in the near future, when the QLC flash particles technology is mature, then we will no longer be subjected to any concerns about the choice.