Flash Media: 1GB CompactFlash Roundup
by Purav Sanghani on December 23, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
SiSoft Sandra File System Benchmark
SiSoft Sandra does things a little different than HDTach 3 RW. The results reported here refer to the number of operations per minute while working with the various sizes of chunks of data. The final "Combined Index" value refers to the "combined performance in terms of Combined Operations Per Second, with respect to a mix of write, read and delete operations" across all of the tested file sizes.
The number we see for the "Endurance Factor" represents the overall "Wear and Life Expectancy" of the flash media. The fact of the matter is that flash media can be written to only so many times. Upon each write, some amount of wear occurs which cause performance degradation and eventually, though not so quickly, failure of the media. SiSoft Sandra calculates the "Endurance Factor" by dividing the average performance, for example a sequential write, by the lowest performance, a rewrite of the same block of data initially written to. For all of the values, high is always better.
As far as performance goes, Lexar's Professional series CompactFlash media takes the gold with its combined index of 3543 operations per minute but its overall life expectancy is not much to drool about. The values should be compared not to any outside standard but only to the other media on this list and it looks like Viking's standard CompactFlash model is going to outlive the rest of these devices. In fact, none of the top performers look like they will live as long as the lower performing cards. We assume this is because the high performance products perform a lot more read, write, and erase operations on average compared to the lower end cards. It is a simple trade-off between performance and life expectancy.
SiSoft Sandra does things a little different than HDTach 3 RW. The results reported here refer to the number of operations per minute while working with the various sizes of chunks of data. The final "Combined Index" value refers to the "combined performance in terms of Combined Operations Per Second, with respect to a mix of write, read and delete operations" across all of the tested file sizes.
The number we see for the "Endurance Factor" represents the overall "Wear and Life Expectancy" of the flash media. The fact of the matter is that flash media can be written to only so many times. Upon each write, some amount of wear occurs which cause performance degradation and eventually, though not so quickly, failure of the media. SiSoft Sandra calculates the "Endurance Factor" by dividing the average performance, for example a sequential write, by the lowest performance, a rewrite of the same block of data initially written to. For all of the values, high is always better.
| SiSoft Sandra Removable Storage/Flash Benchmark Operations per second |
|||||||
| 512B | 32KB | 256KB | 2MB | 64MB | Combined Index | Endurance Factor | |
| EDGE | 1885 | 1659 | 866 | 161 | 6 | 1509 | 14.0 |
| Kingston | 351 | 331 | 242 | 33 | 2 | 299 | 38.2 |
| Lexar | 4699 | 3853 | 1355 | 194 | 7 | 3543 | 7.6 |
| PNY | 650 | 613 | 464 | 71 | 5 | 556 | 19.3 |
| PQI | 240 | 230 | 197 | 78 | 3 | 215 | 42.7 |
| RiData | 1080 | 1000 | 676 | 87 | 6 | 903 | 32.4 |
| Rosewill | 240 | 231 | 200 | 79 | 3 | 216 | 43.3 |
| SanDisk | 470 | 439 | 349 | 94 | 7 | 407 | 43.5 |
| Transcend | 1588 | 1428 | 849 | 127 | 7 | 1296 | 8.9 |
| Viking | 245 | 236 | 206 | 81 | 3 | 221 | 45.0 |
As far as performance goes, Lexar's Professional series CompactFlash media takes the gold with its combined index of 3543 operations per minute but its overall life expectancy is not much to drool about. The values should be compared not to any outside standard but only to the other media on this list and it looks like Viking's standard CompactFlash model is going to outlive the rest of these devices. In fact, none of the top performers look like they will live as long as the lower performing cards. We assume this is because the high performance products perform a lot more read, write, and erase operations on average compared to the lower end cards. It is a simple trade-off between performance and life expectancy.
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Anton74 - Saturday, December 24, 2005 - link
It should be noted, of course, that I am a representative of the Department of Redundancy Department. ;-)
heulenwolf - Friday, December 23, 2005 - link
At my workplace, we use CF cards for all sorts of things that don't involve cameras. I, for one, am happy to see random access tests. I agree that they should be in addition to sequential tests to give camera users some info.I agree that the graph types need some work. Specifically, the spline (or whatever interpolation function it is) used on page three, "Real World File Copy Test to Media," connects dots between different cards. This interpolation tells us nothing and only confuses the situation by connecting what should be disassociated information. For example, there's no information provided by looking at what the spline says occurs "half way" between an Edge and a Kingston card. If Purav were to switch the graphing inputs around such that the X-axis is file size and make separate lines for each card, then, assuming he'd picked an appropriate interpolation function for the "Real World" transfer times, we might be able to tell something about transfer times for file sizes in between the three tested. If not, then drop the spline and just plot the dots.
Lifted - Friday, December 23, 2005 - link
So where are the RAID benchmarks?mindless1 - Friday, December 23, 2005 - link
"Special thanks to NewEgg for providing us with the CompactFlash cards for this review."Yes, thank you Newegg. I love seeing reviews where Newegg donated parts, since so many of us shop there it seems a win-win for everyone.