Sequential v IOPS for general use

[awesomes8wc3]

Title pretty much says it. For a boot drive running OS/apps which is the more important factor, talking about a mechanical drive here by the way. I've always gone with IOPS for boot and seq for data drives but hey I could be wrong. Enlighten me!

[Enderman]

Depends what apps.

Stuff like video editing will require a ton more sequential.

[awesomes8wc3]

Just now, Enderman said:

Depends what apps.

Stuff like video editing will require a ton more sequential.

What if we're talking pretty much just OS, web browser and some basic games

[Enderman]

1 minute ago, awesomes8wc3 said:

What if we're talking pretty much just OS, web browser and some basic games

Then 4k speeds are more realistic.

But with an SSD it is already not a bottleneck, so paying more for faster speeds will literally make 0 improvement.

 

For example a NVME SSD which has multiple times better sequential and 4k speeds than a sata SSD, but still gets no improvement in boot time or program launch times.

[DocSwag]

Do you mean sequential vs randoms?

 

IOPs stands for Inputs Outpus Per second, and is a measurement of performance just like MB/s. Sequential performance can be measured in IOPs.

[JoostinOnline]

3 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Then 4k speeds are more realistic.

But with an SSD it is already not a bottleneck, so paying more for faster speeds will literally make 0 improvement.

 

For example a NVME SSD which has multiple times better sequential and 4k speeds than a sata SSD, but still gets no improvement in boot time or program launch times.

Unless it's one that's got like 10-20MB/s read speeds.  You'll notice a difference at boot up.  If you open up Resource Manager right away it will be at 100% usage.

[awesomes8wc3]

3 minutes ago, DocSwag said:

Do you mean sequential vs randoms?

 

IOPs stands for Inputs Outpus Per second, and is a measurement of performance just like MB/s. Sequential performance can be measured in IOPs.

Sorry yes. I'm using CrystalDisk so Sequential MB/s vs 4K IOPS.

[PianoPlayer88Key]

3 hours ago, Enderman said:

Then 4k speeds are more realistic.

But with an SSD it is already not a bottleneck, so paying more for faster speeds will literally make 0 improvement.

 

For example a NVME SSD which has multiple times better sequential and 4k speeds than a sata SSD, but still gets no improvement in boot time or program launch times.

 

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned, and I would really like to know, is...

 

When you run out of RAM (& can't install more because your motherboard is maxed out), and have to use on-disk swap,

 

What is more important to lessen the "slow to a crawl" effect that you get on a spinning-platter HDD when swapping?  Sequential, or 4K/random?  I'm primarily talking about SSDs here.  (Also, what about SATA vs NVMe in that scenario, & how much difference vs platters...)

Spoiler

I'm guessing 4K/random IOPS is more important when linux swap / windows pagefile is involved.  Is that right?

 

[Enderman]

4 hours ago, JoostinOnline said:

Unless it's one that's got like 10-20MB/s read speeds.  You'll notice a difference at boot up.  If you open up Resource Manager right away it will be at 100% usage.

There is no difference between a sata 3 SSD and an NVME SSD for boot or launching programs or anything like that.

There is only a difference when doing stuff like video editing, data analysis, etc.

[JoostinOnline]

48 minutes ago, Enderman said:

There is no difference between a sata 3 SSD and an NVME SSD for boot or launching programs or anything like that.

There is only a difference when doing stuff like video editing, data analysis, etc.

I can tell you from personal experience with a ton of different SSD models, there is a noticeable difference.  I've even tested it with cloned drives.  An NVMe drive can have slower boot performance compared to a SATA drive, but it's rare.  Usually the random read speeds are faster on NVMe drives.

 

At a certain point the drive is fast enough that it doesn't max out during boot and you don't see a difference.

[Enderman]

3 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

I can tell you from personal experience with a ton of different SSD models, there is a noticeable difference.  I've even tested it with cloned drives.  An NVMe drive can have slower boot performance compared to a SATA drive, but it's rare.  Usually the random read speeds are faster on NVMe drives.

 

At a certain point the drive is fast enough that it doesn't max out during boot and you don't see a difference.

Nope, that's called a placebo effect.

There is no difference and there are literally dozens of benchmarks on the internet that prove that.

Storage speed is not a bottleneck of boot time.

[JoostinOnline]

Just now, Enderman said:

Nope, that's called a placebo effect.

There is no difference and there are literally dozens of benchmarks on the internet that prove that.

Storage speed is not a bottleneck of boot time.

I guess I totally imagined timing different drives.

 

And here:

 

[Enderman]

5 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

I guess I totally imagined timing different drives.

 

And here:

 

Oh well if you're talking about the intel 750 then sure, everyone knows that one's pretty slow.

I mean like equivalent drives, from the same brand, like an 850 vs 950.

All are within margin of error.

[JoostinOnline]

14 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Oh well if you're talking about the intel 750 then sure, everyone knows that one's pretty slow.

I mean like equivalent drives, from the same brand, like an 850 vs 950.

All are within margin of error.

Those have fast 4K read speeds.  No Samsung drive is going to max out at boot.  They're top of the line.  I would count those differences as within the margin of error.  When you start getting to the budget TLC ones (especially the brands nobody has ever heard of), you start seeing a difference.  Now granted, it's not huge.  You'll save probably save 5 seconds at most by getting a high end drive over a crappy one.  I would never tell someone to get an NVMe drive for a boot drive, unless there was some crazy sale.

 

My laptop came with a relatively slow SSD (18MB/s on the 4K reads), and replacing it yielded better performance.

 

PS: You should read the poorly translated description on the drive I linked. "we will do replacement or refund"