Crucial MX100 256GB Solid State Drive Review

IOMeter

IOMeter is an I/O subsystem measurement and characterization tool for single and clustered systems. It is used as a benchmark and troubleshooting tool and is easily configured to replicate the behaviour of many popular applications. One commonly quoted measurement provided by the tool is IOPS.

IOMeter allows the configuration of disk parameters such as the ‘Maximum Disk Size’, ‘Starting Disk Sector’ and ‘# of Outstanding I/Os’. This allows a user to configure a test file upon which the ‘Access Specifications’ configure the I/O types to the file. Configurable items within the Access Specifications are:

• Transfer Request Size
• Percent Random/Sequential distribution.
• Percent Read/Write Distribution
• Aligned I/O’s.
• Reply Size
• TCP/IP status
• Burstiness.

Unconditioned Read / Write

Conditioned Read / Write

Like every other test, the IOPs performance is barely affected by the volume of data that is stored on the drive – a great thing to see on a drive that is as cheap as this.

Drive Comparison

For the purpose of drive comparison I use the performance figures from both unconditioned and conditioned tests with 0% data fill.

Like the sequential speeds, the IOPs performance figures are comfortably above those outlined by Crucial, nearing those set out on the 512GB drive.