Rant: Whats the big deal about 4k Writes?

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nitrobass24

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - December 2009
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I just dont understand why all of a sudden 4k writes are a big deal?
I mean no one and I mean no one ever benched or gave two shits about 4k writes until SSD's came around.

Im just so tired of all these thread that are like is ok to get xxx SSD I heard it has slower 4k writes compared to the Intel.
Then the Intel FanBoi's chime in saying that all the other SSD's are garbage because they are not as good at 4k writes.

Who the HELL cares???
I mean yes the Intel SSD is better....I know that but for avg joes laptop there is absolutely ZERO need to spend the money for an Intel SSD.

My reasoning is if you compare any Indilix based SSD against any HDD the SSD is gonna way outperform the HDD.
Yes the Intel is better...but its not noticeable.

Heres some SS's....my sequential throughput is limited by my ich7 controller in my laptop.
But It still shows the comparison well IMO because its the same exact computer both with a fresh Install of Win7

OCZ Vertex 120gb
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WD 250GB
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Man those are really close...I dunno if I could recommend a SSD besides the Intel:rolleyes:
 
It is ANY random I/O that people are thrilled about. Platters are terrible with random I/O, while SSDs are fantastic. So the relevant metric for SSDs are, how good is their random I/O? That is the strong point of SSD, so a drive that doesn't stack up to other drives in that department is objectively worse at the one metric it should be good at.

All the other metrics are good enough on platters, if you need fast sequential, get a few platters in a RAID. If you need Fast I/O, get an SSD. Which SSD? The one with the best Random I/O. There is still a cost/benefit analysis to be done, some choose Vertex to save money, some choose the Intel for the best available performance where SSDs are supposed to excel.

Do you want a Viper or a Civic? They both have their place, but the Viper is definitely the better performer.
 
Most people would say that the civic is any spindle, and the viper is any ssd.
 
Why are you so angry? Are you feeling insecure about justifying your purchase?

nitrobass24 said:
I just dont understand why all of a sudden 4k writes are a big deal?
I mean no one and I mean no one ever benched or gave two shits about 4k writes until SSD's came around.
Click to expand...

Servers beg to differ

I know that but for avg joes laptop there is absolutely ZERO need to spend the money
Click to expand...

You mean your laptop.

My reasoning is if you compare any Indilix based SSD against any HDD the SSD is gonna way outperform the HDD.
Yes the Intel is better...but its not noticeable.
Click to expand...

And there are other SSDs that outperform HDDs. It seems like you are particularly bothered that the Intel is better than your Vertex.

My sequential throughput is limited by my ich7 controller in my laptop.
Click to expand...

Apparently average joe's laptop doesn't need it, because your laptop's bandwidth is exceeded. Last time I checked there are laptops with better chipsets.
 
astrallite said:
Why are you so angry? Are you feeling insecure about justifying your purchase?
Click to expand...

Its not Anger, or myself justifying my purchase....Im very happy with my purchases. Ive upgraded all my main PC's system disks to SSD's.

I am simply trying to understand why people make such a fuss about random 4k writes on this new technology?
When before it was never discussed.
 
First of al read all 31 pages of this article, by far to date the most in-depth http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531 to give you an understanding of the issue. Now extrapolate that to an OS, where the install base will be close to the size of the average SSD , and factor in the thousands upon thousands of small writes an OS/apps make and you will understand why it is an issue. This is why I have been running a SCSI subsystem for a number of years - simply the seek and random access was faster than IDE/SATA. Now decent SSDs for OSs are available I will be upgrading soon.
 
Sigh. People need to learn basic principles before pitching fits.

4K is a big deal, because the default and maximum block size for NTFS is 4k. Overriding and aligning requires manual intervention, which most users will not bother with. Go ahead. Check a default formatted 2k3, XP, Vista, and/or Windows 7 install.
 
AreEss said:
Sigh. People need to learn basic principles before pitching fits.

4K is a big deal, because the default and maximum block size for NTFS is 4k. Overriding and aligning requires manual intervention, which most users will not bother with. Go ahead. Check a default formatted 2k3, XP, Vista, and/or Windows 7 install.
Click to expand...

Yea again I realize this....but theres not a single thread mentioning 4k random writes, unless its relating to SSD's
 
I think the best explanation to your question is the first SSDs basically were all JMicron based. People bought these and had tons of real world performance issues. Turns out comparing seq read/write to spindle disks does not model real world experience well. Looking at 4k writes the JMicron were insanely slow, much slower than spindle drives. People seem to now rely on this benchmark more as it translates better to real world performance. I do agree there is now and over importance put on 4K writes as basically all other performance measurements seem to be ignored.
 
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