VisionTek Data Fusion PCIe SSD Review (480GB) – A Very Low Price and High Performance SSD Choice

TSSDR TEST BENCH AND PROTOCOL

 SSD Testing at TSSDR differs slightly depending on whether we are looking at consumer or enterprise SSDs.  For consumer SSDs, our goal is to test in a system that has been optimized with our SSD Optimization Guide, although CPU C States have not been changed at all.  Benchmarks for consumer testing are also benchmarks with a fresh drive so, not only can we verify that manufacturer specifications are in line but also, so the consumer can replicate our tests to confirm that they have an SSD that is top-notch.  We even provide links to most of the benchmarks used in the report.

Enterprise testing is significantly different as we explore performance in steady state, explore drive latency, and do our best to follow SNIA test protocol. As Visiontek is retailing the Data Fusion as a client/consumer PCIe solution,  we are going to be following our regular consumer review tests and, if need be, we can later return for additional testing.

SYSTEM COMPONENTS

This new PCIe Test Bench build was the result of some great relationships and purchase; our appreciation goes to be quiet, Corsair, Crucial, Intel, EVGA and InWin for their support in our project.  Our choice of components is very narrow, in that, we choose only what we believe to be among the best available and links are provided to each that will assist in hardware pricing and availability, should the reader be interested in purchase.

PC CHASSIS:	InWin D-Frame Open Air Chassis
MOTHERBOARD:	ASUS Maximus VI Z87 MotherBoard
CPU:	Intel Core i7-4770K CPU
CPU COOLER:	Corsair H100i CPU Cooler
POWER SUPPLY:	be quiet Dark Power Pro 10 1000W PSU
SYSTEM COOLING:	be quiet Silent Wings 2 PC Fans
GRAPHICS CARD:	EVGA GTX 770 Superclocked with ACX Cooler
MEMORY:	Crucial Ballistix Tactical Tracer 1600Mhz Memory
KEYBOARD:	Corsair Vengeance K95 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard
MOUSE:	Corsair Vengeance M95 MMO/RTS Laser Mouse
ROUTER:	NetGear R6300 AC1750 Dual Band Gigabit WiFi Router
HBA	HighPoint RocketU 1144C 4 x USB 3.0 20Gb/s HBA

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BENCHMARK SOFTWARE

The software we will be using for today’s analysis is typical of many of our reviews and consists of ATTO Disk Benchmark, Crystal Disk Info, Crystal DiskMark, AS SSD, Anvil Storage Utilities,and PCMark Vantage.  In consumer reports, we prefer to test with easily accessible software that the consumer can obtain, and in many cases, we even provide links. Our selection of software allows each to build on the last and, also, to provide validation to results already obtained.

ATTO DISK BENCHMARK VER. 2.46

ATTO Disk Benchmark is perhaps one of the oldest benchmarks going and is definitely the main staple for manufacturer performance specifications. ATTO uses RAW or compressible data and, for our benchmarks, we use a set length of 256mb and test both the read and write performance of various transfer sizes ranging from 0.5 to 8192kb. Manufacturers prefer this method of testing as it deals with raw (compressible) data rather than random (includes incompressible data) which, although more realistic, results in lower performance results.

Initial ATTO performance is just below manufacturers specifications but these scores are still very impressive. This is a great start and makes us wonder how the Data Fusion will fare when testing with incompressible data.

CRYSTAL DISK BENCHMARK VER. 3.0 X64

Crystal Disk Benchmark is used to measure read and write performance through sampling of highly compressible data (oFill/1Fill), or random data which is, for the most part, incompressible. AS we are using a LSI SandForce solution, we have provided test results using random, or highly incompressible data, on the left and that of very compressible data on the right.

These results are actually rather surprising as we are so used to there normally being such a deviation between high sequential speeds.

AS SSD BENCHMARK VER 1.6

Up until recently, AS SSD was the only benchmark created specifically for SSD testing and it uses incompressible data.  AS SSD, for the most part, gives us the ‘worst case scenario’ in SSD transfer speeds because of its use of incompressible data and many enthusiasts like to AS SSD for their needs. Transfer speeds are displayed on the left with IOPS results on the right.

It is unusual that the high sequential result of 704MB/s exceeds that of the previous tests conducted and, in fact, I think this is the first I have seen of this.  AS well, the Total Score could have come in a bit higher but the low 4 K random write IOPS of 82583 IOPs is pretty decent.

Similarly, transfer of an .ISO file and game in the AS SSD Copy Benchmark was very impressive but we would have like to see higher performance and a quicker result for the transfer of a program.  Program transfer is always the most difficult as there are so many small files of varying data types.