Random IO

Random read/write performance matters if you copy a lot of small files or use the drive as storage for games/applications that are directly started off the drive.

Sequential IO

Sequential performance is relevant when you copy large files—videos, for example. Performance here is clearly limited by the maximum USB bandwidth of 10 Gbps (or 1 GB/s).

Sustained Write Speeds

Sequential write speeds start out high, at around 550 MB/s while the pseudo-SLC cache gets filled up. Interestingly, unlike any other controller we've encountered before, the Innogrit controller seems to gradually reduce write speeds, possibly by writing to a mix of SLC and TLC at the same time. This has the effect that performance doesn't fall off a cliff immediately. Once the write activity stops and the drive is idle, the pSLC cache gets flushed to TLC in the background and full write performance is restored.