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CRYSTAL DISK BENCHMARK VER. 3.0 X64
Crystal Disk Benchmark is used to measure read and write performance through sampling of raw (0/1 Fill/compressible) or random data which is, for the most part, incompressible. In the Monster Digital OverDrive 3.0 512GB External SSD, performance results are very similar whether we test with compressible or incompressible data and, for this reason, results are displayed utilizing incompressible data.
Crystal DiskMark gives us a good look at exactly what today’s USB three external storage mediums are meant for, and that is large file storage. We have seen exactly the same in the Patriot and Kingston reviews, as we see here, and that is very low 512 and 4K read and write performance which is not indicative of today’s typical notebook SSDs. There is a reason why.
Typical form factor notebook SSDs are built to start and run your computer. The boot process and typical operation of just about every application requires the following of instructions laid out in 4K small 4 K files. If you tried to boot a system from the OverDrive, a visible difference in performance would be visible compared to that of an SSD based system. This mandates the necessity for consumer SSDs that have all around performance, whereas, external SSDs are intended for data storage and most often, large file storage of things such as photos, music and videos. For this, the high sequential performance we see above reigns true.
ANVIL STORAGE UTILITIES PROFESSIONAL (BETA)
You may not see this for long (and its definitely not common) but you get a freebee simply for reading! Over the last little while, we have been assisting with beta testing new benchmark software called Anvil Storage Utilities which is an absolutely amazing SSD benchmarking utility. Not only does it have a preset SSD benchmark, but also, it has included such things as endurance testing and threaded I/O read, write and mixed tests, all of which are very simple to understand and utilize in our benchmark testing.
Anvil Storage Utilities provides a good rendition of both IOPS and access times with respect to the Monster Digital OverDrive 3.0 512GB SSD. Both system and drive information are available on the bottom left and right of the chart. One might notice that only ‘storage driver’ is listed as use with the OverDrive, and not AHCI. Although the controller is built specifically for USB 3.0, it is most likely that USB 3.0 itself creates the performance bottleneck we see with such devices.
