LSI WarpDrive SLP-300 300GB PCI Express SSD Review

LSI WarpDrive – IOMeter

Iometer is an I/O subsystem measurement and characterization tool for single and clustered systems. It was originally developed by the Intel Corporation who has since discontinued work on Iometer and it was ultimately turned over to the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL).

Iometer version 2006.07.27 was used for testing with file sizes that best reflect many of the Windows transactions with the vast majority at 4kB, then 128kB / 512B, then the rest. Very few Windows applications use transfers larger than 128kB. We began the test by filling the drive completely full of data first and then testing 100% random IOPs in a 4KB region. We set the queue depth to 16 for this test which is not going to be the WarpDrive’s strongest area but it’s a lot closer to what we’d see on more user oriented systems.

SEQUENTIAL READS

RANDOM READS

Benchmark Results: The LSI WarpDrive excels in the sequential reads but the RevoDrive X2 fared a little better at this queue depth, particularly with smaller file sizes.

SEQUENTIAL WRITES

RANDOM WRITES

Benchmark Results: The writes really showcase more of the WarpDrive’s muscle, especially on the random test where it blew away the RevoDrive X2. This was especially true with the smaller file sizes.

Let’s wrap this up with some real world tests and give our final thoughts.