Re: [gentoo-user] Performance: WD vs. Samung SSD vs. M.2 SSD

[Rich Freeman]

On Wed, Dec 2, 2020 at 1:33 PM Frank Steinmetzger <Warp_7@×××.de> wrote:
>
> Am Tue, Dec 01, 2020 at 02:46:56PM -0700 schrieb thelma@×××××××××××.com:
> > Nothing scientific, but I was surprised how fast M.2 disk so decided to
> > time how fast  GnuCash will load my accounting, her it is:
> >
> > Box 1.)
> > WD (spinning disk) CPU AMD-8150 (8-core), 16GiB
> > Time to open GnuCash - 23sec.
> >
> > Box 2.)
> > Samsung SSD 850, CPU AMD Ryzen 5 1400 Quad-Core, 16GiB
> > Time to open GnuCash - 15sec.
>
> I can hardly believe that. Does your duration include the entire boot
> process? If so, the times look quite alright, but that’s not what
> description says.
>

Keep in mind these are different hosts, probably running different
software with different workloads/optimizations, with different CPUs,
differing amounts of RAM, and different storage technologies.

It isn't particularly controversial to suppose that M.2 (NVMe) is
going to be faster than SATA-based SSD, which is going to be faster
than spinning disks.

When you want to get to the exact differences you need to test on
configurations that are otherwise identical, and also account for
stuff like caching.

Note also that M.2 is a form-factor, and you can find SATA-based M.2
drives which aren't going to perform any better than any other
SATA-based drive.  Also, since NVMe is far more capable than SATA/AHCI
it matters even more exactly what NVMe drive you're talking about.
The storage device itself, and the PCIe version can make a difference,
and of course you need a CPU/MB that can actually take advantage of
the drive's full capability.

You might not need the max performance NVMe is capable of, but it is
something you should be aware of if you want to benchmark it.

-- 
Rich