Toshiba OCZ VX500 512 GB

W1zzard · Sep 13, 2016

OCZ's new VX500 SSD is built around a Toshiba controller paired with Toshiba 15 nanometer MLC flash chips. The drive offers excellent performance at even better pricing, making it a great candidate if you want to stay away from TLC drives, but don't want to break the bank.

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bug · Sep 13, 2016

I don't know, that drive doesn't look so hot in Anandtech's view.

HD64G · Sep 13, 2016

Very nice product for its speed and price. Nice review as usual @W1zzard :toast:

yogurt_21 · Sep 13, 2016

wow had to go digging for cons, nice. Wish there was a 2:1 on the 1tb pricing compared with the 512 but that's always where they nail you.

bug said:
I don't know, that drive doesn't look so hot in Anandtech's view.

they used windows 8.1 and their own custom tests which apparently favor the 2 year old and economy model Samsung 850 EVO. Hardly a good indicator of accuracy.

zmeul · Sep 13, 2016

what the hell is going on with the MS Office installation and the 950 PRO :wtf:

W1zzard · Sep 13, 2016

Both PCIe NVMe drives are affected, no idea why. This is 100% reproducable

zmeul · Sep 13, 2016

W1zzard said:
Both PCIe NVMe drives are affected, no idea why. This is 100% reproducable

can you guys test the new Intel 600p NVMe ?

Bayonet · Sep 13, 2016

Mistake in the last paragraph of the conclusion, "Another option could be the Crucial BX200 since it uses MLC..."
The BX200 is a planar TLC drive, not MLC.

newtekie1 · Sep 13, 2016

I think we've reached the point where there is going to be no noticeable difference in performance on any current SATA based SSD, they are all pretty much maxing out the the SATA connector.

dwade · Sep 13, 2016

All SSDs have hit a wall in real-world performance.

W1zzard · Sep 13, 2016

Bayonet said:
Mistake in the last paragraph of the conclusion, "Another option could be the Crucial BX200 since it uses MLC..."
The BX200 is a planar TLC drive, not MLC.

Oh wow you are right of course .. my bad .. somehow I completely forgot that fact. fixed!

bug · Sep 13, 2016

newtekie1 said:
I think we've reached the point where there is going to be no noticeable difference in performance on any current SATA based SSD, they are all pretty much maxing out the the SATA connector.

Only when it comes to sequential speeds. Random access has a lot of room to improve, but as I have noted above, it looks like it's limited by the flash technology itself.

newtekie1 · Sep 13, 2016

bug said:
Only when it comes to sequential speeds. Random access has a lot of room to improve, but as I have noted above, it looks like it's limited by the flash technology itself.

I don't believe random access has any significant room to improve on SATA.

cdawall · Sep 14, 2016

NVMe protocol needs to find its way into a sata connector alresdy....

bug · Sep 14, 2016

newtekie1 said:
I don't believe random access has any significant room to improve on SATA.

Why? Is there something inherent to SATA that limit how low latencies can go?

cdawall said:
NVMe protocol needs to find its way into a sata connector alresdy....

See above. If there's an inherent SATA limitation, NVMe would be pretty pointless. But afaik there were never plans to talk NVMe over SATA.

avatar_raq · Sep 14, 2016

bug said:
I don't know, that drive doesn't look so hot in Anandtech's view.

Nor in Tom's hardware review.

cdawall · Sep 14, 2016

bug said:
See above. If there's an inherent SATA limitation, NVMe would be pretty pointless. But afaik there were never plans to talk NVMe over SATA.

Yes number of instructions being able to be sent across is the limitation. Look into nvme a little more it is just a protocol.

bug · Sep 14, 2016

cdawall said:
Yes number of instructions being able to be sent across is the limitation. Look into nvme a little more it is just a protocol.

I'm not sure I follow. Are you saying SATA can't send enough commands, but using NVMe over SATA will somehow avoid that limitation?

newtekie1 · Sep 14, 2016

bug said:
I'm not sure I follow. Are you saying SATA can't send enough commands, but using NVMe over SATA will somehow avoid that limitation?

Current SATA controllers only support AHCI. Basically, it only allows processing of a single command to the drive at a time. This was fine for hard drives, which could only really handle reading or writing a single command at a time. NVMe, which is really NVMHCI on the PCI-Express bus, is designed for solid state media, which can handle multiple read and write commands at the same time.

So with current SATA controllers and SATA interface we currently have, we pretty much hit the limit with random access. The limiting factor is the AHCI protocol that the SATA controllers use, not necessarily the SATA interface itself. I'm actually betting that SATA IV will actually be the same maximum 6Gb/s, but implement the NVMHCI protocol instead of AHCI, allowing for much greater random access speeds using the SATA interface. But as long as SATA sticks with AHCI, that is the inherent something that limits how low latencies can go.

bug · Sep 14, 2016

newtekie1 said:
Current SATA controllers only support AHCI. Basically, it only allows processing of a single command to the drive at a time. This was fine for hard drives, which could only really handle reading or writing a single command at a time. NVMe, which is really NVMHCI on the PCI-Express bus, is designed for solid state media, which can handle multiple read and write commands at the same time.

So with current SATA controllers and SATA interface we currently have, we pretty much hit the limit with random access. The limiting factor is the AHCI protocol that the SATA controllers use, not necessarily the SATA interface itself. I'm actually betting that SATA IV will actually be the same maximum 6Gb/s, but implement the NVMHCI protocol instead of AHCI, allowing for much greater random access speeds over SATA. But as long as SATA sticks with AHCI, that is the inherent something that limits how low latencies can go.

Ok that makes sense. Because my original question was whether that something that inherently limits SATA's ability to sustain random access. The answer is SATA is fine, the bottleneck is AHCI.
And then we look at PCIe drives that do use NVMe and see the random performance isn't that much better. It's better, but not by much. Hence my conclusion the limitation is now somewhere in the flash memory itself (or maybe controllers).

cdawall · Sep 14, 2016

bug said:
Ok that makes sense. Because my original question was whether that something that inherently limits SATA's ability to sustain random access. The answer is SATA is fine, the bottleneck is AHCI.
And then we look at PCIe drives that do use NVMe and see the random performance isn't that much better. It's better, but not by much. Hence my conclusion the limitation is now somewhere in the flash memory itself (or maybe controllers).

Protocols and controllers limit random access. The new Samsung 961's show what a good controller and NVMe can do, their random 4k is higher than some drives peak transfer.

ssdpro · Sep 14, 2016

zmeul said:
what the hell is going on with the MS Office installation and the 950 PRO

Both drives are nvme as W1zzard noted; perhaps the native nvme driver is being used which forces FUA? If .NET framework is used during Office installation with Force Unit Access enabled, the queued performance rates can drop wildly. Try running AS SSD (.NET base) on a NVMe drive with the native Win10 nvme driver. Yikes.

newtekie1 · Sep 14, 2016

bug said:
Ok that makes sense. Because my original question was whether that something that inherently limits SATA's ability to sustain random access. The answer is SATA is fine, the bottleneck is AHCI.

No, the answer is SATA's reliance on AHCI is what limits SATA's ability to sustain random access. SATA is not fine, it needs to be updated to support newer protocols. That has to be done at a hardware level, with new controllers that use the newer protocol.

bug said:
And then we look at PCIe drives that do use NVMe and see the random performance isn't that much better. It's better, but not by much. Hence my conclusion the limitation is now somewhere in the flash memory itself (or maybe controllers).

Doubling the random access performance, or more, is a lot more than "not much better".

bug · Sep 14, 2016

newtekie1 said:
Doubling the random access performance, or more, is a lot more than "not much better".

I haven't noticed any doubling. Maybe I need to look at more reviews?

cdawall · Sep 15, 2016

bug said:
I haven't noticed any doubling. Maybe I need to look at more reviews?

Samsung SM961

For reference an 850 PRO gets 30-40 and 80-95 for 4K

Processor	Ryzen 7 5700X
Memory	48 GB
Video Card(s)	RTX 4080
Storage	2x HDD RAID 1, 3x M.2 NVMe
Display(s)	30" 2560x1600 + 19" 1280x1024
Software	Windows 10 64-bit

Processor	Intel i5-12600k
Motherboard	Asus H670 TUF
Cooling	Arctic Freezer 34
Memory	2x16GB DDR4 3600 G.Skill Ripjaws V
Video Card(s)	EVGA GTX 1060 SC
Storage	500GB Samsung 970 EVO, 500GB Samsung 850 EVO, 1TB Crucial MX300 and 2TB Crucial MX500
Display(s)	Dell U3219Q + HP ZR24w
Case	Raijintek Thetis
Audio Device(s)	Audioquest Dragonfly Red :D
Power Supply	Seasonic 620W M12
Mouse	Logitech G502 Proteus Core
Keyboard	G.Skill KM780R
Software	Arch Linux + Win10

Processor	AMD Ryzen 5 5600@80W
Motherboard	MSI B550 Tomahawk
Cooling	ZALMAN CNPS9X OPTIMA
Memory	2*8GB PATRIOT PVS416G400C9K@3733MT_C16
Video Card(s)	Sapphire Radeon RX 6750 XT Pulse 12GB
Storage	Sandisk SSD 128GB, Kingston A2000 NVMe 1TB, Samsung F1 1TB, WD Black 10TB
Display(s)	AOC 27G2U/BK IPS 144Hz
Case	SHARKOON M25-W 7.1 BLACK
Audio Device(s)	Realtek 7.1 onboard
Power Supply	Seasonic Core GC 500W
Mouse	Sharkoon SHARK Force Black
Keyboard	Trust GXT280
Software	Win 7 Ultimate 64bit/Win 10 pro 64bit/Manjaro Linux

System Name	Thought I'd be done with this by now
Processor	i7 11700k 8/16
Motherboard	MSI Z590 Pro Wifi
Cooling	Be Quiet Dark Rock Pro 4, 9x aigo AR12
Memory	32GB GSkill TridentZ Neo DDR4-4000 CL18-22-22-42
Video Card(s)	MSI Ventus 2x Geforce RTX 3070
Storage	1TB MX300 M.2 OS + Games, + cloud mostly
Display(s)	Samsung 40" 4k (TV)
Case	Lian Li PC-011 Dynamic EVO Black
Audio Device(s)	onboard HD -> Yamaha 5.1
Power Supply	EVGA 850 GQ
Mouse	Logitech wireless
Keyboard	same
VR HMD	nah
Software	Windows 10
Benchmark Scores	no one cares anymore lols

Processor	Intel i7 13700K
Motherboard	ASUS PROArt Z690 Creator WiFi
Cooling	Liquid Freezer II - 280
Memory	Kingston 32GB DDR5 @ 6200 MT/s
Video Card(s)	Palit RTX3070 GamingPRO
Storage	TrueNAS CORE
Case	Phanteks ECLIPSE P600S
Audio Device(s)	Creative Sound Blaster AE-5
Power Supply	SEASONIC CONNECT 750W

Toshiba OCZ VX500 512 GB

W1zzard

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dwade

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cdawall

where the hell are my stars

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cdawall

where the hell are my stars

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cdawall

where the hell are my stars

ssdpro

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cdawall

where the hell are my stars

System Name	Workstation
Processor	2x Intel Xeon E5-2697 V3
Motherboard	Supermicro X10DRi-T
Cooling	2x Noctua NH-U12DX i4
Memory	4x 32GB Samsung ECC 2400MHz
Video Card(s)	Nvidia Geforce Titan X (Maxwell)
Storage	Samsung 6.4TB PM1725a + Intel 800GB 750 series + 2x Micron 4TB 5100 ECO
Display(s)	3x BenQ 3200PT + Dell UltraSharp UP2720Q
Case	NZXT S340 White
Audio Device(s)	Grace Design m9XX
Power Supply	Corsair HX850
Mouse	Logitech MX Master 3
Keyboard	CM NovaTouch TKL (MX compatible stem Topre!)
Software	Windows 10

Processor	Intel Core i7 10850K@5.2GHz
Motherboard	AsRock Z470 Taichi
Cooling	Corsair H115i Pro w/ Noctua NF-A14 Fans
Memory	32GB DDR4-3600
Video Card(s)	RTX 2070 Super
Storage	500GB SX8200 Pro + 8TB with 1TB SSD Cache
Display(s)	Acer Nitro VG280K 4K 28"
Case	Fractal Design Define S
Audio Device(s)	Onboard is good enough for me
Power Supply	eVGA SuperNOVA 1000w G3
Software	Windows 10 Pro x64

System Name	Off-Brand PC System
Processor	2990WX
Motherboard	X399
Cooling	Wraithripper
Video Card(s)	Vega 64
Benchmark Scores	Less than Intel and Nvidia

System Name	All the cores
Processor	2990WX
Motherboard	Asrock X399M
Cooling	CPU-XSPC RayStorm Neo, 2x240mm+360mm, D5PWM+140mL, GPU-2x360mm, 2xbyski, D4+D5+100mL
Memory	4x16GB G.Skill 3600
Video Card(s)	(2) EVGA SC BLACK 1080Ti's
Storage	2x Samsung SM951 512GB, Samsung PM961 512GB
Display(s)	Dell UP2414Q 3840X2160@60hz
Case	Caselabs Mercury S5+pedestal
Audio Device(s)	Fischer HA-02->Fischer FA-002W High edition/FA-003/Jubilate/FA-011 depending on my mood
Power Supply	Seasonic Prime 1200w
Mouse	Thermaltake Theron, Steam controller
Keyboard	Keychron K8
Software	W10P

System Name	Simon
Processor	Core i7 5820K @ 4.4GHz @1.25v core, 1.9v input, 1.12v system agent, 0.9v cache - 24/7 & P95 stable
Motherboard	ASUS X99 Deluxe U3.1, BIOS 3101
Cooling	Corsair H110i GTX + 2 x Corsair ML140 Pro Red LED, exhaust @ top panel
Memory	Corsair Vengeance LPX 4x 8GB 2666 MHz 16, 18, 18, 35, 2T (Stock)
Video Card(s)	MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X (OC BIOS), +60 MHz GPU, +450 MHz Memory
Storage	Samsung 960 Evo 500 Gb, WD Green + White Label, total 17 TB
Display(s)	3x Samsung CFG73 (24" 1920x1080, 144Hz) in 2D Surround, LG C7 OLED TV (55", 4K, 60Hz)
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Mouse	Razer Naga Chroma + Reflex Lab Extended Mouse Pad + Xbox One S Controller + 3 x Xbox 360 Controllers
Keyboard	Corsiar K70 RGB (2016 Edition) Cherry Mx Red w/ custom Arabic-legend shine-through keycaps
Software	Windows 10 Pro x64 - ver. 20H2
Benchmark Scores	Onkyo TX-NR626 AV Receiver, speakers: 4x Yamaha NS-M325 + Yamaha NS-C3290 + Proson Libre Sub 8.1

Processor	AMD 1700X
Motherboard	Crosshair VI Hero
Memory	F4-3200C14D-16GFX
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