Corsair Blog

Interested in an SSD with amazing read/write speeds and IOPS? If so, then the new Corsair Force Series™ 3 SSDs are exactly what you are looking for.

There has been quite a bit of anticipation regarding the arrival of the newest generation of SSDs using the SandForce® SF-2281 SSD Processor. Well, the wait is over. The drives are here and the results are spectacular! The complete specifications can be found here.

Here are the four primary specifications readers usually want first.

Force Series 3 240GB

Force Series 3 120GB

When I first saw these test results, I was extremely impressed. I went to one of our flash and SSD engineers and spoke with him about our testing and validation procedures. Our customers and readers quite frequently ask us exactly how we measure the performance of our SSDs. He told me that while there are no formal industry standards for SSD testing, we have used the same test procedures since the early days of our first SSDs.

A word of caution — be ready to get more than you asked for when asking engineers questions about testing procedures used to document these new drives. He explained that currently there are only three existing chipsets that we have documented with I/O Controller Hubs capable of pushing the Force Series 3 SSDs to their full potential.

Equipment, Software, and Testing Requirements

Some important notes:

• Benchmarks are run on the target drive as a secondary drive (non OS)
• Benchmarks are run on fresh, new drives, and represent out-of-box performance
  • As with all SSDs, benchmark scores will decrease over time as the drive is used
• System must be updated with the latest Microsoft Windows Service Pack, required updates and drivers
• Once updates and benchmarks have been installed make sure to disconnect the system from the network while testing
  • This is to prevent any background programs from interfering with results

The ATTO results are amazing for a single drive. It would take two or more earlier generation SSDs in a RAID-0 stripe to equal or better these numbers. I have already put in my order for one of these drives so that I can do more testing. You can’t be too thorough!

Test Procedure

ATTO is a relatively easy setup.

Sequential Read/Write Performance Test (ATTO)

• 1. Run ATTO Disk Benchmark
• 2. Select Queue Depth=10
• 3. Select the target drive letter and click start

We also use IOMeter 2008 to measure IOPS or input/output operations per second. We fully expected a big increase in performance from the new SandForce SSD Processor in both ATTO and IOMeter and it did not disappoint!  How about 85K IOPS? That should make for some snappy performance.

Below is a guide to set up IOMeter in the same manner that our engineers use. Here’s where that engineer question warning comes into play. For those of that wish to benchmark your drives or reproduce our testing methods, this should be helpful.

IOMeter 2008 IOPS Test (4k Aligned)

Here are the settings and procedures we use to measure IOPS. First, select "Worker 1", check the box next to target unit drive letter and specify the "Maximum Disk Size" to "16777216" sectors.

Then, select the "Access Specification" Tab, highlight "Default" and click "Edit".

Now let's set up the Write parameters. Specify a name for the drive, adjust "Transfer Request Size" to 4KB, adjust "Percent Read/Write Distribution to 100% Write, Adjust "Percent Random/Sequential Distribution" to 100% Random, adjust "Align I/Os on" to 4KB, double check the parameters and click "OK".

The next step is to click on the "Test Setup" tab, specify a name for the test, adjust "Run Time" to 5 minutes, adjust "Ramp Up Time" to 30 seconds, adjust "Cycling Options to "Cycle # Outstanding I/Os - run step outstanding I/Os on all disks at a time.", adjust "# Outstanding I/Os" to 32 Start and 32 End.

Now we are ready to go! Click on the "Green Flag" to start the test.

Record the" I/O per Second" after testing is complete. That is your IOPS score!

After seeing these test results, it's clear that the Force is with Corsair and it is strong with the Force Series 3 SSDs. Buy them you should, enjoy them you will, be disappointed you will not!