Buyer Beware: Asynchronous vs. Synchronous NAND Flash SSD Performance
Check out NAND Flash Faces Off - Synchronous vs. Asynchronous | [H]ard|OCP for a fascinating article that deals with real world performance differences with newer solid state drives when the drives are filled with 25 - 75% of data.
Bottom line, there is a modest price premium for the better performing synchronous drives, where the slightly less expensive asynchronous drives will often have only 50% - 66% of the performance of the synchronous NAND drives.
A web search using Asynchronous vs. Synchronous NAND Flash provides additional information.
The OCZ Technology Agility 3 240GB SSD Review :: TweakTown USA Edition review compares the OCZ Agility3 asynchronous ssd with the OCZ Vertex3 synchronous ssd and reports on the significant real world performance differences. Their conclusion on the last page of the review says it all. The TweakTown article was published one month before the HardOCP article.
The bottom line:
asynchronous drives = inferior performance.
synchronous drives = superior performance.
2012-03-24 update:
The following link was posted by Wazza300 in another thread on 2012-03-11:
The 6 page thread has detailed SSD controller and NAND information for a large number of current models.
2012-04-01 update:
from NAND SSD Data Base thread at XtremeSystems, post #1:
Thanks to Acebmxer for providing these links in post #4
Check out NAND Flash Faces Off - Synchronous vs. Asynchronous | [H]ard|OCP for a fascinating article that deals with real world performance differences with newer solid state drives when the drives are filled with 25 - 75% of data.
Bottom line, there is a modest price premium for the better performing synchronous drives, where the slightly less expensive asynchronous drives will often have only 50% - 66% of the performance of the synchronous NAND drives.
A web search using Asynchronous vs. Synchronous NAND Flash provides additional information.
The OCZ Technology Agility 3 240GB SSD Review :: TweakTown USA Edition review compares the OCZ Agility3 asynchronous ssd with the OCZ Vertex3 synchronous ssd and reports on the significant real world performance differences. Their conclusion on the last page of the review says it all. The TweakTown article was published one month before the HardOCP article.
The bottom line:
asynchronous drives = inferior performance.
synchronous drives = superior performance.
2012-03-24 update:
The following link was posted by Wazza300 in another thread on 2012-03-11:
cool site listing all the ssd synchronous and asynchronous types plus reviews ect,
esential read for anyone thinking of buying an ssd
SSD Reviews Thread @ StorageReviews.com
esential read for anyone thinking of buying an ssd
SSD Reviews Thread @ StorageReviews.com
2012-04-01 update:
from NAND SSD Data Base thread at XtremeSystems, post #1:
I thought it might be useful to build a data base of NAND types as it affects speed, endurance and data integrity. It’s hard to come across manufactures product specs sheets, but if you find one and want to add details to the data base it can be found here:
SSD NAND Google Docs Spreadsheet
SSD NAND Google Docs Spreadsheet
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