Samsung 860 QVO 2TB SSD review - SSD Performance File Copy Tests

SSD Performance

In this round of benchmarks, we start off with our real-world file copy tests. Currently, certain controllers benefit from compressed files, while others don't. Certain storage units hate small files, others work well with them. So it only makes sense to do some manual tests on that. Any storage unit's nightmare, whether that is an HDD or SSD, is storing really small files as fast as possible.

File Copy

The most basic and simple test anyone can perform. We drop a 38 GB compressed MKV file onto the SSD for it to copy and write. That write number starts at 1 GB/sec and remain that way. So there is no visible TLC/QLC write drop off.

38 Gigabyte File copy 

However, as we just learned, this 2 TB SSD has an SLC cache of roughly 78 GB. Let's increase the test file towards a 110 GB file and copy it onto the SSD:

110 Gigabyte File copy @ almost 80 GB performance drops

So for the 1 TB SSD that SLC cache roughly 40 GB and for the 2TB and 4TB SSDs that would be almost 80 GB. How often do you write files that large continuously?  Yeah, me neither but still, here we are exposing the Achilles heel of QLC and TLC, more bits per cell slows down the writing process. Is this a big deal for normal PC workloads? No, not at all.

Performance Game Load Times

Here at Guru3D.com, the audience catered to is primarily made up of gamers. And as such, I'd like to start offering real-world performance game tests. During game load, a lot of things happen in the system. The CPU is hard at work, your SSD loads up executables, binaries, shaders, textures and what not while the system memory process it all. Thing is, with a fast SSD you can really decrease the overall load time of your games and levels.

We now measure based on game sequence load and translate that into the number of MB/s the storage unit can manage and load. Higher is better in this chart.

** we are aware of the high score here, it's an anomaly we're investigating with this particular test.

Performance Application Load Time

Here we emulate the loading of complex software like Photoshop, Internet Explorer, Word, PowerPoint etc. So how many applications / dlls / hooks / etc. simultaneously in MB/s this storage unit can cope with. High IOPS storage units will score better here as it can manage more files in less time.