Mushkin Scorpion Deluxe PCIe SSD Review (480GB) – Wicked 2GB/s Performance at a Great Price

REAL WORLD TRANSFER SPEED TESTING

For this test, all three PCIe SSDs were compared, as well as the Samsung 840 Pro SATA 3 SSD for a basis of comparison.  This test entailed placing 25GB files of video, ISO and data samples, on each drive and then copying them into another folder on the same SSD.

In conducting actual transfer tests of video, ISO and OS files, the Mushkin Scorpion Deluxe PCIe SSD bettered the KingSpec MultiCore, however, was beaten by the Revo 3×2 which had its first true showing in this report.  Having the best 4k performance throughout, the Revo 3×2 was a natural for the movement of OS files.  Just as a point of interest, the OS files consisted of a total of 38086 files within 34092 folders.

TESTING IN STEADY STATE METRICS – 4 CORNERS

Steady state testing consisted of running four tests for a period of one hour each with our goal being to obtain the absolute best throughput and IOPS possible.  For throughput, we started with a 128KB file at 100% read and write, 0% random with four workers at 64 OIO each, and expanded that to a 1GB filesize at 100% read and write with 100% random data.  IOPS utilized 4K 100% write 100% random with the same worker setup.

As remarkable as it is that the KingSpec is still capable of hitting that 2.5GB/s mark in steady state, full points have to go to all the PCIe cards for their solid performance.

It was not until seeing the OCZ results in the excel results (and confirming them 5 times) that we remembered that the OCZ Revo 3×2 IOPS specification is 200,000.  We were very surprised that it stood up to that after all this time.  With respect to the Mushkin Scorpion Deluxe, it easily surpassed the KingSpec MultiCore in write IOPS and met its specification, even while in steady state.

TESTING IN STEADY STATE – SERVER METRICS

Last but not least came our server profiles which are configured to present the drive with more complex workloads tailored to enterprise environments.  Most of these profiles are heavy on reads, but with just enough writes to give lesser flash controllers problems.

Although the KingSpec had a healthy jump in Web Server testing, the Mushkin Scorpion Deluxe definitely showed its colors in Database and WorkStation analysis, leading the pack in both.