News Researchers boost SSD read speeds

I wonder how much is "considerably" - 2:6 suggests tripling the read performance. The SATA3 bus will saturate at 750MB/s, won't it?

SSDs are already hitting 550MB/s.

 

Isn't 2:6 the same as 1:3? And it's odd to show the ratio that way - surely the improvement is 3:1, rather than 1:3?

 

An improvement of a third would take modern drive almost to the limit of SATA3.

 

750MB/s is theoretical maximum speed, but probably a speed that can never be achieved, realistically. Also, 550MB/s for read speeds on current SSDs is under the most optimal conditions possible. From what I noticed, the average SSD in most real-world environments runs at around 60% it's advertised speed.

So, I guess when they say "considerably", it probably means that on average, your SSD runs closer to its advertised speed and probably won't ever exceed it. Think about it like this - if a SSD can reach 550MB/s, the following conditions probably apply:
* You're writing a big block of consistent data (like all 0s)
* The disk is brand new and completely formatted
* There are no errors during the error check
* The SATA controller is not a bottleneck
* The filesystem itself is not a bottleneck

So considering the average person:
* Has more exciting data than just zeroes
* Doesn't consistently format their disks
* WILL have errors during read/write
* Likely doesn't have the world's best SATA controller
* Is probably using NTFS
performance never reaches it's maximum. But if this research group can knock out the error check problem, that's a great start.

 

If you are not running your OS on an SSD you do not know what you are doing.

 

Not sure if you're referring to me, but in case you are:
My desktop has 2 SSDs (one for linux, one for windows) and my laptop has a SSD. TRIM is enabled, firmware is fully updated, no paging/swap, no indexing, no prefetching, no hibernation, no defrag, all 3 drives on SATAIII, first block starts on n^2 byte, formatted in either NTFS or ext4, etc. My drives are about as optimized as you can get.

 

That was not directed at you in any way, a general statement to PC Gamers.

 

Ah ok. Well, I partially posted what I said to inform others how to get an optimal SSD setup. I may have forgot a few things here and there. Windows in general is a real PITA when it comes to SSDs. In linux you basically just edit /etc/fstab, add the word "discard" to the options of the SSD's device listing, reboot, and you're all done.

 

If their fractions are anything to go by they need to work on those before they start letting rip on ssd wear levelling..