Intel SSD 730 (480GB) Review: Bringing Enterprise to the Consumers
by Kristian Vättö on February 27, 2014 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Storage
- SSDs
- Intel
- Intel SSD 730
Performance Consistency
Performance consistency tells us a lot about the architecture of these SSDs and how they handle internal defragmentation. The reason we don’t have consistent IO latency with SSD is because inevitably all controllers have to do some amount of defragmentation or garbage collection in order to continue operating at high speeds. When and how an SSD decides to run its defrag or cleanup routines directly impacts the user experience as inconsistent performance results in application slowdowns.
To test IO consistency, we fill a secure erased SSD with sequential data to ensure that all user accessible LBAs have data associated with them. Next we kick off a 4KB random write workload across all LBAs at a queue depth of 32 using incompressible data. The test is run for just over half an hour and we record instantaneous IOPS every second.
We are also testing drives with added over-provisioning by limiting the LBA range. This gives us a look into the drive’s behavior with varying levels of empty space, which is frankly a more realistic approach for client workloads.
Each of the three graphs has its own purpose. The first one is of the whole duration of the test in log scale. The second and third one zoom into the beginning of steady-state operation (t=1400s) but on different scales: the second one uses log scale for easy comparison whereas the third one uses linear scale for better visualization of differences between drives. Click the buttons below each graph to switch the source data.
For more detailed description of the test and why performance consistency matters, read our original Intel SSD DC S3700 article.
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| Intel SSD 730 480GB | Intel DC S3500 480GB | Intel SSD 530 240GB | SanDisk Extreme II 480GB | Seagate 600 480GB | |||||
| Default | |||||||||
| 25% Spare Area | - | - | |||||||
Thanks to the enterprise DNA in the SSD 730, IO consistency is outstanding. We are looking at S3500 level consistency here, which isn't surprising given the similarity between the two. The faster controller and NAND interface mainly help with peak performance but IO consistency is built deep into the architecture of the drive. The only drive that can really challenge the SSD 730 is OCZ's Vector 150 while even the SanDisk Extreme II falls short once it reaches steady-state. Also of note is that Increasing the OP yields a healthy boost in performance and the SSD 730 actually manages more IOPS than the S3700 even though it has slightly less OP (25% vs 28%).
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| Intel SSD 730 480GB | Intel DC S3500 480GB | Intel SSD 530 240GB | SanDisk Extreme II 480GB | Seagate 600 480GB | |||||
| Default | |||||||||
| 25% Spare Area | - | - | |||||||
Here you can see the differences a bit better with the linear scale. The SSD 730 manages around 15K IOPS compared to a slighly lower 10K IOPS on the SanDisk Extreme II. With the increased overprovisioning, the SSD 730 is in a class of its own, maintaining a minimum 30K IOPS.
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| Intel SSD 730 480GB | Intel DC S3500 480GB | Intel SSD 530 240GB | SanDisk Extreme II 480GB | Seagate 600 480GB | |||||
| Default | |||||||||
| 25% Spare Area | - | - | |||||||
TRIM Validation
To test TRIM, I filled the drive with incompressible sequential data and proceeded with 120 minutes of incompressible 4KB random writes at queue depth of 32. I measured performance with Iometer after issuing a single TRIM pass to the drive.
| Intel SSD 730 Resiliency - Iometer Sequential Write | |||
| Clean | After TRIM | ||
| Intel SSD 530 240GB | 351.3MB/s | 402.9MB/s | |
TRIM definitely works as performance is actually higher than after a secure erase.
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emn13 - Sunday, March 2, 2014 - link
It's interesting to note that both Crucial's M500 and intel's 730 have power-loss protection and a fairly high idle power. Does power-loss protection imply a high idle power?Kristian Vättö - Sunday, March 2, 2014 - link
The M500 supports low-power states (HIPM+DIPM) so in a mobile environment the power consumption is much lower: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/732hojnikb - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
Is this related to devsleep or do older chipsets support that kind of low power consumption aswell ?Because in some reviews, m500 has quite high idle power consumption...
Kristian Vättö - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
This isn't DevSleep, it lower the idle power consumption even more. This is just HIPM+DIPM (Host/Device Initiated Link Power Management), which is supported by older chipsets as well. However, note that only mobile chipsets support HIPM+DIPM, which is why the power consumption is significantly higher when tested in a desktop environment (like most reviewers do).amddude10 - Friday, November 28, 2014 - link
The power loss protection in crucial drives like the m500 is supposedly very incomplete, and not nearly as good as it is with the 730, or in enterprise drives, so its comparing apples and oranges. I would however say that SSD's which are going to be used in laptops are in much less need of power loss protection, but more in need of low power consumption, whereas SSD's that are intended for desktop use don't need low power consumption, and are in much higher need of power loss protection.CeceliaAFolger - Sunday, March 2, 2014 - link
hywoolfe9998 - Sunday, March 2, 2014 - link
This doesn't strike me as an especially impressive product given what is already out there. Frankly, it seems that SSD technology has settled to the point where the only thing that matters any more is price/capacity. Find me half TB SSD for $200 and I'll care.hojnikb - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
U can get m500 480GB for ~250$ or less if u find a deal. Thats pretty cheap, if you ask me..RAYBOYD44 - Monday, March 3, 2014 - link
til I looked at the receipt for $5432 , I accept that...my... cousin had been truley bringing home money part-time on there computar. . there aunts neighbour had bean doing this for only about 1 year and just paid for the mortgage on their home and purchased BMW M3 .Neo Zuko - Monday, March 3, 2014 - link
I was a big fan of the Sata II Intel SSDs but for Sata III I switched to the Samsung 830 Pro and then the Samsung 840 Pro as my SSD of choice. Seems it's time change up again to the SanDisk Extreme II (which was mentioned to be the new favorite SSD) and or the Intel 730 here.However the Intel 730, for all it does well, does not seem to be completely optimized for the average home PC workload and the top performance is suffering. And you can't use it in a laptop. These seem to be big deal breakers to me. Given those limitations it seems the SanDisk Extreme II would still be Anandtech's favorite SSD. Did I get that right? And would the SanDisk Extreme II work well in a PS4 without trim? And as an aside, I would not mind a better paragraph as to why the SanDisk is a favorite. Is it the near Intel constancy combined with the fast performance - like a best of both worlds thing? Also when is SanDisk releasing that enterprise lite version of the Extreme II with power failure features?