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UltraDrive LE/ME Performance in Apple Mac Rev 1.0 May 2009 Page 1 SUPERTALENT ULTRADRIVE LE/ME PERFORMANCE IN APPLE MAC WHITEPAPER 2.5” SATA-II SOLID STATE DRIVE Copyright Information: Copyright ©, Super Talent Technology. All rights reserved. All trademarks property of their respective owners.

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Page 1: UltraDrive LE/ME Performance Analysis Whitepaper Ultradrive... · 2017-08-16 · UltraDrive LE/ME Performance in Apple Mac. Rev 1.0 May 2009 Page 9 . Figure 3: 13" MacBook Measured

UltraDrive LE/ME Performance in Apple Mac

Rev 1.0 May 2009 Page 1

SUPERTALENT ULTRADRIVE LE/ME PERFORMANCE IN APPLE MAC

WHITEPAPER 2.5” SATA-II SOLID STATE DRIVE

Copyright Information:

Copyright ©, Super Talent Technology. All rights reserved.

All trademarks property of their respective owners.

Page 2: UltraDrive LE/ME Performance Analysis Whitepaper Ultradrive... · 2017-08-16 · UltraDrive LE/ME Performance in Apple Mac. Rev 1.0 May 2009 Page 9 . Figure 3: 13" MacBook Measured

UltraDrive LE/ME Performance in Apple Mac

Rev 1.0 May 2009 Page 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of Tables ................................................................................................................................ 3

Table of Figures ............................................................................................................................... 3

1.0 Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... 5

2.0 Product Overview ..................................................................................................................... 5

2.1 Product Features ................................................................................................................... 5

2.2 Product Ordering Part Numbers ........................................................................................... 6

3.0 Test Setup ................................................................................................................................. 6

3.1 Tested Drives ......................................................................................................................... 6

3.2 Test System Configurations .................................................................................................. 6

3.3 Benchmarking Software ........................................................................................................ 6

4.0 Test Results ............................................................................................................................... 7

4.1 13” Macbook ......................................................................................................................... 7

4.2 MacBook Pro ......................................................................................................................... 9

4.2.1 15” MacBook Pro ........................................................................................................... 9

4.2.2 17” MacBook Pro ......................................................................................................... 12

4.3 Mac Pro ............................................................................................................................... 15

4.3.1 Mac Pro Quad Core RAID Striping Performance.......................................................... 15

4.3.2 Mac Pro RAID0 Boot Drive vs. Secondary Drive .......................................................... 19

4.3.3 Mac Pro RAID0, RAID1, and JBOD ................................................................................ 22

4.3.4 Mac Pro UltraDrive LE vs. UltraDrive ME Performance in RAID0 ................................ 24

5.0 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 28

For More Information ................................................................................................................... 28

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UltraDrive LE/ME Performance in Apple Mac

Rev 1.0 May 2009 Page 3

TABLE OF TABLES

Table 1: Tested Super Talent SSDs .................................................................................................. 6

Table 2: List of Tested Drives .......................................................................................................... 6

Table 3: Test System Configurations............................................................................................... 6

TABLE OF FIGURES

Figure 1: 13” MacBook Boot Performance ..................................................................................... 7

Figure 2: 13” MacBook xBench Scores ........................................................................................... 8

Figure 3: 13" MacBook Measured Bandwidth ................................................................................ 9

Figure 4: 15" MacBook Pro Boot Time .......................................................................................... 10

Figure 5: 15" MacBook Pro xBench Scores ................................................................................... 10

Figure 6: 15" MacBook Pro Measured Bandwidth ....................................................................... 11

Figure 7: 17" MacBook Pro Boot Time .......................................................................................... 12

Figure 8: 17" MacBook Pro xBench Scores ................................................................................... 13

Figure 9: 17" MacBook Pro Measured Bandwidth ....................................................................... 14

Figure 10: Mac Pro 32GB UltraDrive LE Stripe Test xBench Scores .............................................. 16

Figure 11: Mac Pro 32GB UltraDrive LE Stripe Test Measured Bandwidth .................................. 17

Figure 12: Mac Pro 64GB UltraDrive ME Stripe Test xBench Scores ............................................ 18

Figure 13: Mac Pro 64GB UltraDrive ME Stripe Test Measured Bandwidth ................................ 19

Figure 14: Mac Pro Boot vs. Secondary Drive xBench Scores ...................................................... 20

Figure 15: Mac Pro Boot vs. Secondary Drive Measured Bandwidth ........................................... 21

Figure 16: Mac Pro RAID0, RAID1, & JBOD xBench Scores ........................................................... 22

Figure 17: Mac Pro RAID0, RAID1, & JBOD Measured Bandwidth ............................................... 23

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UltraDrive LE/ME Performance in Apple Mac

Rev 1.0 May 2009 Page 4

Figure 18: Mac Pro LE vs. ME RAID0 xBench Scores ..................................................................... 25

Figure 19: Mac Pro LE vs. ME RAID0 Measured Bandwidth ......................................................... 26

Figure 20: 8-Core Mac Pro HDD xBench Scores ............................................................................ 27

Figure 21: 8-Core Mac Pro HDD Measured Bandwidth ................................................................ 27

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UltraDrive LE/ME Performance in Apple Mac

Rev 1.0 May 2009 Page 5

1.0 ABSTRACT

In March 2009 Super Talent introduced its UltraDrive series to market. In May 2009 Super Talent tested both the UltraDrive LE and UltraDrive ME in the Apple 13” Macbook, the 15” Macbook Pro, 17” Macbook Pro, Quad-core Mac Pro and the 8-core Mac Pro.

We easily upgraded the Hard Drive in the laptops to UltraDrives, enabling faster boot and better overall performance. We also installed multiple drives in JBOD, RAID0, RAID1 on the Mac Pro as both a secondary drive array and also as a boot drive array.

Both the UltraDrive LE and the UltraDrive ME performed very well across all of the Apple products. In the MacBooks we were able to cut boot time by up to 58%. We also learned that the performance of the UltraDrive ME was over 2.5x that of the standard Apple SSD and 5.4x that of the built in Hard Drive.

Through our Mac Pro testing, we see that performance doesn’t vary greatly based on stripe size and that the UltraDrive ME performs close to the UltraDrive LE on all but small random writes.

2.0 PRODUCT OVERVIEW

2.1 PRODUCT FEATURES

• Capacity: 32-256GB

• 64MB Internal Cache

• Form Factor: 2.5” HD (100.20mm x 69.85mm x 9.5mm)

• MLC or SLC Flash

• Fully compliant with SATA revision 2.6 o Compatible with SATA 3.0Gb/s and SATA 1.5Gb/s interfaces

• Fully compliant with ATA-7 Standard

• PIO, DMA, UDMA (up to 6, dependent on host) supported

• Certified for Apple MacBook (13”), MacBook Pro (15/17”), and Mac Pro (4/8-core)

• Rugged Metal Case

• Minimum 10 year data retention

• Built in wear leveling algorithm

• Built in error detection and correction

• 100% tested HW and SW

• Designed and Manufactured in the USA

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UltraDrive LE/ME Performance in Apple Mac

Rev 1.0 May 2009 Page 6

2.2 PRODUCT ORDERING PART NUMBERS

The following products were used during our testing, they all had firmware version 1370 installed.

Product Family Capacity Flash Channel/Retail Part Number OEM Part Number

UltraDrive ME 64GB MLC FTM64GX25H SX64B6X25H

256GB MLC FTM56GX25H SX56B7X25H UltraDrive LE 32GB SLC FTD32GX25H ST32A5X25H

Table 1: Tested Super Talent SSDs

3.0 TEST SETUP

3.1 TESTED DRIVES

Name Type Capacity

UltraDrive ME SSD 256GB SSD 64GB

UltraDrive LE SSD 32GB

Apple Original

HDD 250GB HDD 320GB HDD 640GB SSD 256GB

Table 2: List of Tested Drives

3.2 TEST SYSTEM CONFIGURATIONS

System Model Number Processor Memory (DRAM) Operating

System

MacBook 13” MB467 2.4Ghz Intel Core i7 2x1GB 1066 DDR3

OS X v10.5.6 Leopard

MacBook Pro 15” MB471 2.53Ghz Intel Core i7 2x2GB 1066 DDR3 MacBook Pro 17” ZOG5 2.93Ghz Intel Core i7 2x4GB 1066 DDR3

Quad Core Mac Pro MB871 2.66Ghz Intel Core i7 4x2GB 1066 DDR3 8-Core Mac Pro MB535 2x2.26Ghz Intel Core i7 8x2GB 1066 DDR3

Table 3: Test System Configurations

3.3 BENCHMARKING SOFTWARE

We used the following software to benchmark the Apple Mac disk performance.

• xBench v1.3

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UltraDrive LE/ME Performance in Apple Mac

Rev 1.0 May 2009 Page 7

4.0 TEST RESULTS

4.1 13” MACBOOK

We tested the built in 250GB Hard Disk Drive and then upgraded to the 64GB UltraDrive ME, tested again and compared the results. After blessing the system we found the boot time cut by nearly 60% and the overall disk test score as measured by xBench improved by over 5x! On Random performance The UltraDrive delivered roughly 10x the performance of the Hard Disk and it showed up in the test scores. It was interesting to see that the built in HDD achieves less than 1MB/sec on the random 4K read and write tests. On 4K random reads the UltraDrive ME outperformed the HDD by over 25x.

Figure 1: 13” MacBook Boot Performance

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Seconds

13" MacBook Boot Time

250GB HDD 64GB UltraDrive ME

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Rev 1.0 May 2009 Page 8

Figure 2: 13” MacBook xBench Scores

211.43

180.3

209.99

193.13

106.85

346.52

255.55

90.55

358.71

1813.41

787.71

40.6

84.16

102.8

100.57

51.76

117.11

26.76

9.24

70.3

60.42

95.16

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000

Disk Test

Sequential

Seq. Uncached Write [4K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Write [256K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Read [4K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Read [256K blocks]

Random

Ran. Uncached Write [4K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Write [256K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Read [4K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Read [256K blocks]

13" MacBook xBench Scores

64GB UltraDrive ME 250GB HDD

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Rev 1.0 May 2009 Page 9

Figure 3: 13" MacBook Measured Bandwidth

4.2 MACBOOK PRO

We tested both the new 15” and 17” MacBook Pros with built in Intel Core i7 CPUs.

4.2.1 15” MACBOOK PRO

We compared the standard built in 320GB HDD to our 64GB UltraDrive ME. Boot time fell from 38 to 29 seconds. The difference in boot speed was noticeable. Note that the first time we installed the SSD the boot time actually went up to nearly 60 seconds. That’s when we figured out we needed to bless the drive. That can be done by holding down the option key during boot and selecting the SSD. Then after the system boots up set it as your primary target drive using Disk Utility.

Then we ran xBench and observed a 5x increase in score vs. the HDD. On 4K Random Reads we saw over 32x the bandwidth on 256K Random Writes we saw over 4x the bandwidth.

128.93

109.27

31.27

174.16

9.59

114.84

12.85

146.17

63.12

56.9

15.15

58.86

0.98

22.5

0.43

17.66

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200

Seq. Uncached Write [4K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Write [256K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Read [4K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Read [256K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Write [4K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Write [256K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Read [4K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Read [256K blocks] MB/sec

13" MacBook Measured Bandwidth

64GB UltraDrive ME 250GB HDD

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UltraDrive LE/ME Performance in Apple Mac

Rev 1.0 May 2009 Page 10

Figure 4: 15" MacBook Pro Boot Time

Figure 5: 15" MacBook Pro xBench Scores

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Seconds

15" MacBook Pro Boot Time

320GB HDD 64GB UltraDrive ME

205.42

181.02

231.27

181.01

107.16

342.88

237.42

84.12

316.06

1914.69

784.87

42.34

83.41

98.7

101.89

51.16

118.13

28.37

9.9

75.83

59.65

99.8

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500

Disk Test

Sequential

Seq. Uncached Write [4K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Write [256K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Read [4K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Read [256K blocks]

Random

Ran. Uncached Write [4K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Write [256K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Read [4K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Read [256K blocks]

15" MacBook Pro xBench Scores

64GB UltraDrive ME 320GB HDD

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UltraDrive LE/ME Performance in Apple Mac

Rev 1.0 May 2009 Page 11

Figure 6: 15" MacBook Pro Measured Bandwidth

142

102.41

31.36

172.33

8.91

101.18

13.57

145.64

60.6

57.65

14.97

59.37

1.05

24.28

0.42

18.52

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200

Seq. Uncached Write [4K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Write [256K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Read [4K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Read [256K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Write [4K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Write [256K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Read [4K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Read [256K blocks] MB/sec

15" MacBook Pro Measured Bandwidth

64GB UltraDrive ME 320GB HDD

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Rev 1.0 May 2009 Page 12

4.2.2 17” MACBOOK PRO

Boot times improved from 38 seconds to 32 seconds when going from the Apple HDD to the Apple SSD. As shown in Figure 7: 17" MacBook Pro Boot Time boot times improved again to 28 and 27 seconds with the 64GB and 256GB UltraDrive ME respectively.

The Apple SSD showed great gains over the Apple HDD achieving approximately 2x the overall xBench disk score. But the 64GB UltraDrive ME achieved ~4.5x the overall score and the 256GB UltraDrive ME achieved ~5.4x the overall score significantly outperforming the Apple SSD. See Figure 8: 17" MacBook Pro xBench Scores for more details.

Both the 64GB and 256GB Super Talent UltraDrive ME SSDs achieved 90% greater bandwidth on every single test compared to the Apple SSD. See Figure 9: 17" MacBook Pro Measured Bandwidth for more details.

Figure 7: 17" MacBook Pro Boot Time

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Seconds

17" MacBook Pro Boot Time

256GB SSD 320GB HDD 64GB UltraDrive ME 256GB UltraDrive ME

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Rev 1.0 May 2009 Page 13

Figure 8: 17" MacBook Pro xBench Scores

268.24

241.38

316.06

268.98

137.56

413.23

301.84

108.12

457.3

1648.16

826.5

222.55

196.47

287.69

238.27

102.14

345.34

256.62

88.69

421.52

1483.92

789.84

101.89

102.17

128.3

129.29

53.51

202.7

101.61

49.18

66.41

594.52

435.59

50.27

66.74

101.47

94.57

31.83

123.7

40.32

15.2

100.59

68.11

113.87

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800

Disk Test

Sequential

Seq. Uncached Write [4K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Write [256K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Read [4K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Read [256K blocks]

Random

Ran. Uncached Write [4K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Write [256K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Read [4K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Read [256K blocks]

17" MacBook Pro xBench Scores

256GB UltraDrive ME 64GB UltraDrive ME 256GB SSD 320GB HDD

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UltraDrive LE/ME Performance in Apple Mac

Rev 1.0 May 2009 Page 14

Figure 9: 17" MacBook Pro Measured Bandwidth

194.06

152.19

40.26

207.69

11.45

146.4

11.68

153.36

176.64

134.81

29.89

173.57

9.39

134.95

10.52

146.56

78.77

73.15

15.66

101.87

5.21

21.26

4.21

80.83

62.3

53.51

9.31

62.17

1.61

32.2

0.48

21.13

0 50 100 150 200 250

Seq. Uncached Write [4K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Write [256K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Read [4K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Read [256K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Write [4K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Write [256K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Read [4K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Read [256K blocks] MB/sec

17" MacBook Pro Measured Bandwidth

256GB UltraDrive ME 64GB UltraDrive ME 256GB SSD 320GB HDD

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Rev 1.0 May 2009 Page 15

4.3 MAC PRO

The new Mac Pro comes standard with 4 SATA Ports. The built in controller supports RAID0, RAID1 and JBOD. The built in Disk Utility Software allows the user to create RAID1 with stripe sizes of 16, 32, 64, 128 and 256 KB. We did the majority of our testing on the Quad Core Mac Pro.

4.3.1 MAC PRO QUAD CORE RAID STRIPING PERFORMANCE

First we took the Quad Core Mac Pro and ran it with its built in 640GB HDD as the boot drive and three of our 32GB UltraDrive LE drives in RAID1 on SATA ports 2-4. We ran the benchmark repeatedly as we swept the stripe size of the RAID1 array from 16KB to 256KB. The results are in Figure 10: Mac Pro UltraDrive LE Stripe Test xBench Scores and Figure 11: Mac Pro UltraDrive LE Stripe Test Measured Bandwidth. The 256KB stripe scored tops but some of that may be due to the test weighing 256KB transactions so highly. In all there was relatively little difference in performance between stripe sizes.

Next we wanted to see how performance varied with stripe size with MLC Flash on the UltraDrive ME, but we were short on time and we saw the best performance at 16KB, 64KB, and 256KB so we limited our test to these stripe sizes. Again the 256KB stripe RAID0 array came out on top with limited difference in performance between stripe sizes. Full details are in Figure 12: Mac Pro 64GB UltraDrive ME Stripe Test xBench Scores and Figure 13: Mac Pro 64GB UltraDrive ME Stripe Test Measured Bandwidth below.

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Figure 10: Mac Pro 32GB UltraDrive LE Stripe Test xBench Scores

507.13

309.55

672.67

708.99

118.87

620.19

1401.87

926.48

1202.92

2759.43

1723.32

497.15

301.59

672.65

681.73

116.11

589.31

1414.1

916.78

1255.8

2667.98

1764.42

511.92

314.52

619.8

677.03

123.21

661.74

1374.72

923.21

1159.02

2902.69

1614.97

482.59

293.64

678.89

638.25

112.51

590.24

1353.62

917.94

1109.28

2808.71

1644.42

518.61

316.87

680.88

706.49

122.17

643.5

1427.4

990.46

1197.23

2640.39

1728.07

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500

Disk Test

Sequential

Seq. Uncached Write [4K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Write [256K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Read [4K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Read [256K blocks]

Random

Ran. Uncached Write [4K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Write [256K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Read [4K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Read [256K blocks]

Quad Core Mac Pro xBench Scores32GB UltraDrive LE

16K Stripe 32K Stripe 64K Stripe 128K Stripe 256K Stripe

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Figure 11: Mac Pro 32GB UltraDrive LE Stripe Test Measured Bandwidth

413.01

401.15

34.79

311.7

98.08

385.1

19.55

319.77

413

385.72

33.98

296.18

97.05

402.03

18.91

327.4

380.55

383.06

36.06

332.59

97.73

371.04

20.57

299.67

416.83

361.12

32.93

296.65

97.17

355.12

19.9

305.13

418.05

399.73

35.75

323.42

104.85

383.28

18.71

320.66

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450

Seq. Uncached Write [4K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Write [256K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Read [4K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Read [256K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Write [4K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Write [256K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Read [4K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Read [256K blocks] MB/sec

Quad Core Mac Pro Measured Bandwidth32GB UltraDrive LE

16K Stripe 32K Stripe 64K Stripe 128K Stripe 256K Stripe

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Figure 12: Mac Pro 64GB UltraDrive ME Stripe Test xBench Scores

410.8

290.15

671.08

683.47

113.07

502.88

703.17

294.1

810

2537.87

1515.8

382.74

266

670.22

521.9

107.17

435.06

682.09

298.46

802.01

2237.9

1219.4

428.36

301.62

672.28

693.33

127.31

403.66

738.78

316.7

964.25

2726.6

1172.39

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000

Disk Test

Sequential

Seq. Uncached Write [4K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Write [256K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Read [4K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Read [256K blocks]

Random

Ran. Uncached Write [4K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Write [256K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Read [4K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Read [256K blocks]

Quad Core Mac Pro xBench Scores64GB UltraDrive ME

16KB 64KB 256KB

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Figure 13: Mac Pro 64GB UltraDrive ME Stripe Test Measured Bandwidth

4.3.2 MAC PRO RAID0 BOOT DRIVE VS. SECONDARY DRIVE

We were curious how much of a performance hit we would see running xBench on our RAID array when we were also running our Operating System off of the array. We ran 3 of the 32GB UltraDrive LE in RAID0 with 256KB stripe sizes (since we saw the best overall benchmark score with that striping), and tested with the array configured as our boot drive containing our OS and also as a secondary drive. The results are below in Figure 14: Mac Pro Boot vs. Secondary Drive xBench Scores and Figure 15: Mac Pro Boot vs. Secondary Drive Measured Bandwidth.

412.04

386.7

33.09

252.75

31.13

259.31

17.98

281.27

411.51

295.29

31.36

218.66

31.6

256.75

15.86

226.27

412.77

392.28

37.26

202.87

33.53

308.69

19.32

217.55

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450

Seq. Uncached Write [4K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Write [256K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Read [4K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Read [256K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Write [4K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Write [256K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Read [4K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Read [256K blocks] MB/sec

Quad Core Mac Pro Measured Bandwidth64GB UltraDrive ME

16KB 64KB 256KB

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Rev 1.0 May 2009 Page 20

Interestingly random speeds were barely impacted or even better on the boot drive but sequential bandwidth was 3% to 15% worse on the boot drive than the secondary drive. Likely this is because of random reads and writes from the OS being issued during the sequential tests throwing the results off slightly. However this is a realistic measure of real life behavior.

Figure 14: Mac Pro Boot vs. Secondary Drive xBench Scores

518.61

316.87

680.88

706.49

122.17

643.5

1427.4

990.46

1197.23

2640.39

1728.07

440.37

261.96

542.36

656

97.11

623.51

1380.51

963.64

1217.65

2131.03

1756.77

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000

Disk Test

Sequential

Seq. Uncached Write [4K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Write [256K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Read [4K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Read [256K blocks]

Random

Ran. Uncached Write [4K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Write [256K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Read [4K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Read [256K blocks]

Quad Core Mac Pro xBench Scores3x 32GB UltraDrive LE

Boot vs. Secondary RAID0 256K Stripes

3x 32GB UltraDrive LE (RAID0 256K stripe secondary drive)

3x 32GB UltraDrive LE (RAID0 256K stripe boot drive)

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Rev 1.0 May 2009 Page 21

Figure 15: Mac Pro Boot vs. Secondary Drive Measured Bandwidth

418.05

399.73

35.75

323.42

104.85

383.28

18.71

320.66

333

371.17

28.42

313.37

102.01

389.82

15.1

325.98

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450

Seq. Uncached Write [4K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Write [256K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Read [4K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Read [256K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Write [4K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Write [256K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Read [4K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Read [256K blocks] MB/sec

Quad Core Mac Pro Measured Bandwidth3x 32GB UltraDrive LE

Boot vs. Secondary RAID0 256K Stripes

3x 32GB UltraDrive LE (RAID0 256K stripe secondary drive)

3x 32GB UltraDrive LE (RAID0 256K stripe boot drive)

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4.3.3 MAC PRO RAID0, RAID1, AND JBOD

Figure 16: Mac Pro RAID0, RAID1, & JBOD xBench Scores and Figure 17: Mac Pro RAID0, RAID1, & JBOD Measured Bandwidth compare the performance of 3 units of 32GB Ultradrive LE in RAID0 with 256KB stripes, RAID1 and JBOD. As expected the RAID0 significantly outperformed the other arrays. Interestingly small sequential reads didn’t benefit from the RAID0 structure.

Figure 16: Mac Pro RAID0, RAID1, & JBOD xBench Scores

518.61

316.87

680.88

706.49

122.17

643.5

1427.4

990.46

1197.23

2640.39

1728.07

191.55

202.86

360.27

199.53

116.44

299.11

181.43

73.87

154.22

2213.83

635.46

176.77

163.75

367.42

100.46

127.24

256.83

192.05

86.03

143.83

2038.02

567.99

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000

Disk Test

Sequential

Seq. Uncached Write [4K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Write [256K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Read [4K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Read [256K blocks]

Random

Ran. Uncached Write [4K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Write [256K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Read [4K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Read [256K blocks]

Quad Core Mac Pro xBench Scores3x 32GB UltraDrive LE

RAID0, RAID1, JBOD Secondary Drives

3x 32GB UltraDrive LE (RAID0 256K stripe secondary drive)

3x 32GB UltraDrive LE (RAID1 secondary drive)

3x 32GB UltraDrive LE (JBOD secondary drive)

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Rev 1.0 May 2009 Page 23

Figure 17: Mac Pro RAID0, RAID1, & JBOD Measured Bandwidth

418.05

399.73

35.75

323.42

104.85

383.28

18.71

320.66

221.2

112.89

34.09

150.33

7.82

49.37

15.69

117.91

225.59

56.84

37.24

129.08

9.11

46.05

14.44

105.39

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450

Seq. Uncached Write [4K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Write [256K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Read [4K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Read [256K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Write [4K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Write [256K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Read [4K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Read [256K blocks] MB/sec

Quad Core Mac Pro Measured Bandwidth3x 32GB UltraDrive LE

RAID0, RAID1, JBOD Secondary Drives

3x 32GB UltraDrive LE (RAID0 256K stripe secondary drive)

3x 32GB UltraDrive LE (RAID1 secondary drive)

3x 32GB UltraDrive LE (JBOD secondary drive)

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4.3.4 MAC PRO ULTRADRIVE LE VS. ULTRADRIVE ME PERFORMANCE IN RAID0

Finally we go head to head with the 32GB UltraDrive LE and the 64GB UltraDrive ME. This is an interesting match-up because both devices have the same number of Flash die and the same number of pages. The results of our testing are below in Figure 18: Mac Pro LE vs. ME RAID0 xBench Scores and Figure 19: Mac Pro LE vs. ME RAID0 Measured Bandwidth.

In the end both drives achieved nearly 420 MB/sec write speeds which is fast enough to capture three unencrypted HD Video streams. As expected the SLC UltraDrive LE outperformed the MLC UltraDrive ME slightly, but more significantly in 4KB random writes 990 to 316. Still when comparing to the built in HDD’s unimpressive 19, as shown in Figure 20: 8-Core Mac Pro HDD xBench Scores, one can see how easy it is to reap the performance benefits of SSD technology with lower cost MLC based products.

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Figure 18: Mac Pro LE vs. ME RAID0 xBench Scores

518.61

316.87

680.88

706.49

122.17

643.5

1427.4

990.46

1197.23

2640.39

1728.07

428.36

301.62

672.28

693.33

127.31

403.66

738.78

316.7

964.25

2726.6

1172.39

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000

Disk Test

Sequential

Seq. Uncached Write [4K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Write [256K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Read [4K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Read [256K blocks]

Random

Ran. Uncached Write [4K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Write [256K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Read [4K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Read [256K blocks]

Quad Core Mac Pro xBench Scores3x 32GB UltraDrive LE vs. 3x 64GB UltraDrive ME

Secondary Drive RAID0 256K Stripes

3x 32GB UltraDrive LE (RAID0 256K stripe secondary drive)

3x 64GB UltraDrive ME (RAID0 256K stripe secondary drive)

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Rev 1.0 May 2009 Page 26

Figure 19: Mac Pro LE vs. ME RAID0 Measured Bandwidth

418.05

399.73

35.75

323.42

104.85

383.28

18.71

320.66

412.77

392.28

37.26

202.87

33.53

308.69

19.32

217.55

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450

Seq. Uncached Write [4K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Write [256K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Read [4K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Read [256K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Write [4K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Write [256K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Read [4K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Read [256K blocks] MB/sec

Quad Core Mac Pro Measured Bandwidth3x 32GB UltraDrive LE vs. 3x 64GB UltraDrive ME

Secondary Drive RAID0 256K Stripes

3x 32GB UltraDrive LE (RAID0 256K stripe secondary drive)

3x 64GB UltraDrive ME (RAID0 256K stripe secondary drive)

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Figure 20: 8-Core Mac Pro HDD xBench Scores

Figure 21: 8-Core Mac Pro HDD Measured Bandwidth

149.3

163.07

165.03

103.08

204.17

54.23

19.04

219.65

93.47

167.42

0 50 100 150 200 250

Sequential

Seq. Uncached Write [4K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Write [256K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Read [4K blocks]

Seq. Uncached Read [256K blocks]

Random

Ran. Uncached Write [4K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Write [256K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Read [4K blocks]

Ran. Uncached Read [256K blocks]

8 Core MacPro xBench Scores640GB HDD (Boot Drive)

640GB HDD (Boot Drive)

93.37

30.17

102.61

2.02

70.32

0.66

31.07

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Seq. Uncached Write [256K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Read [4K blocks] MB/sec

Seq. Uncached Read [256K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Write [4K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Write [256K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Read [4K blocks] MB/sec

Ran. Uncached Read [256K blocks] MB/sec

8-Core Mac Pro Measured Bandwidth640GB HDD (Boot Drive)

640GB HDD (Boot Drive)

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5.0 CONCLUSION

The UltraDrive delivers consistent performance 4 to 5 times that found on a standard Apple HDD and 2 to 3 times that found on a standard Apple SSD. This performance shows up in real world applications such as boot time where the UltraDrive delivers up to 60% shorter boot times vs. the stock HDD.

The UltraDrive is easy and quick to install in the new MacBook and MacBook Pros. Disk Utility makes the copy over process simple even for non-“Geniuses” and users will reap significant performance gains by upgrading to a Super Talent SSD.

The UltraDrive can be used in RAID1, RAID0 and JBOD configurations to deliver unheard of performance in the MacPro. For under $500 a user can create an internal disk array capable of delivering over 400MB/sec performance!

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Please Contact:

Super Talent Technology 2077 North Capitol Avenue San Jose, CA 95132 USA Tel: +1 (408) 934-2560 Support: [email protected] Sales: [email protected] OEM Sales: [email protected]