Disk Benchmark Data Size

[Praz]

Hi Fiery

As I'm sure you are aware SSD users are concerned with the amount of data written to the disks while benchmarking. Would it be possible to list the amount of MB/GB of data that the disk benchmark writes for the different benches.

Thanks

[Fiery]

Generally speaking, write benchmark tests shall not be used on SSD drives, unless the measurements are done for specific purposes like it is for a hardware review article, or there's a suspicion about hardware malfunctioning.

Linear Write fills the whole disk space once, so unless it is performed in loop mode, it's nothing critical for a SSD, since it only writes every flash memory block just once. The Buffered Write test however constantly writes the beginning first few sectors of the SSD "surface", so it shall not be used on flash memory based devices at all, unless it's absolutely necessary.

Random Write and Average Write Access tests write random sectors on the SSD "surface", so they are not much harmful, unless of course you use them a lot, or if you use loop mode and let it go "all night long"

We'll add a special warning for the Buffered Write test, specifically about SSD drives, so it would strongly advise against using that particular test on SSD drives.

Thanks,

Fiery

[Praz]

Thanks for the quick reply. Two more questions if I may. No data is written to the drive for the read tests? And the data that is written to the drive is it random in nature or compressible such as all zeros?

On an SSD the Buffered Write test, although writing to the first sectors at the operating system level, would be spread out across the NAND by the drive's controller. so overall the effect of excessive writes to the SSD would be no greater then the other write tests.

Thanks again

[Fiery]

1) No data is written during read tests.

2) The data written during write tests were garbage. We've changed that in the latest beta version of AIDA64 Extreme Edition (link below) so that from now on the written data will be absolutely random (non-compressable). We've also added a warning for the Buffered Write test about SSD drives.

http://www.aida64.com/downloads/aida64extremebuild1123r4ivje6xphzip

After upgrading to this new version, make sure to restart Windows to finalize the upgrade.

Regards,

Fiery

[Praz]

Thanks for all the answers.