Intel 750 1.2 tb review: Intel 750 Series 1.2TB NVMe PCIe SSD Review — Tom’s Hardware

Introduction, The Drive & The TestPerformance ConsistencyAnandTech Storage Bench — The DestroyerAnandTech Storage Bench — HeavyAnandTech Storage Bench — LightRandom PerformanceSequential PerformanceMixed Read/Write PerformanceATTO, AS-SSD & TRIM ValidationFinal Words

I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that Intel introduced us to the era of modern SSDs back in 2008 with the X25-M. It wasn’t the first SSD on the market, but it was the first drive that delivered the aspects we now take for granted: high, consistent and reliable performance. Many SSDs in the early days focused solely on sequential performance as that was a common performance metric for hard drives, but Intel understood that the key to better user performance wasn’t the maximum throughput, but the small random IOs that take unbearably long to complete on HDDs. Thanks to Intel’s early understanding of real world workloads and implementing the knowledge to a well designed product, it took several years before others were able to fully catch up with the X25-M.

But when the time came to upgrade to SATA 6Gbps, Intel missed the train. The initial SATA 6Gbps drives had to rely on third party silicon because Intel’s own SATA 6Gbps controller was still in development, and to put it frankly the SSD 510 and SSD 520 just didn’t pack the same punch as the X25-M did. The others had also done their homework and gone back to drawing board, which meant that Intel was no longer in the special position it was in 2008. Once the SSD DC S3700 with in-house Intel SATA 6Gbps controller finally materialized in late 2012, it quickly built back the Intel image that the company had in the X25-M days. The DC S3700 wasn’t as revolutionary as the X25-M was, but it again focused on areas where other manufacturers had been lacking, namely performance consistency.

The first and second generation Intel X25-M

While Intel was arguably late to the SATA 6Gbps game, the company already had something much bigger in its mind. Something that would abandon the bottlenecks of SATA interface and challenge the X25-M in significance in the history of SSDs. That product was the SSD DC P3700, the world’s first drive with custom PCIe NVMe controller and the first NVMe drive that was widely available.

Ever since our SSD DC P3700 review, there’s been massive interest from enthusiasts and professionals for a more client-oriented product based on the same platform. With eMLC, ten drive writes per day endurance and a full enterprise-class feature set, the SSD DC P3700 was simply out of reach for consumers at $3 per gigabyte because the smallest 400GB SKU cost the same as a decent high power PC build. Intel didn’t ignore your prayers and wishes and with today’s release of the SSD 750 Intel is delivering what many of you have been craving for months: NVMe with a consumer friendly price tag in a 2.5″ form factor via SFF-8639 or a PCIe add-in card.

Even though the SSD 750 is built upon the SSD DC P3700 platform, it’s a completely different product. Intel spent a lot of time on redesigning the firmware to be more suitable for client applications, which differ greatly from typical enterprise workloads. The SSD 750 is supposed to be more focused on random performance as the majority of IOs in client workloads tend to have random patterns and be small in size. The sequential write speeds may seem a bit low for such high capacities for that reason, but ultimately Intel’s goal was to provide better real world performance rather than focus on maximum benchmark numbers, which has been Intel’s strategy ever since the X25-M days.

At the time of launch, the SSD 750 will only be available in capacities of 400GB and 1.2TB. An 800GB SKU is being considered, but I think Intel is still testing the waters with the SSD 750 and thus the initial lineup is limited to just two SKUs. After all, the ultra high-end is a niche market and even in that space the SSD 750 is much more expensive that existing SATA drives, so a gradual roll out makes a lot of sense. I think for enthusiasts the 400GB model is the sweet spot because it provides enough capacity for the OS and applications/games, whereas professionals will likely want to spring for the 1.2TB if they are looking for high-speed storage for work files (video editing is a prime example). 

The SSD 750 utilizes Intel-Micron’s 20nm 128Gbit MLC NAND. The die configuration is actually fairly interesting because the packages on the front-side on the PCB (i.e. the one that’s covered by the heat sink and where the controller is) are quad-die with 64GiB capacity (4x128Gbit), whereas the packages on the back-side of the PCB are all single-die. I suspect Intel did this for heat reasons because PCIe is more capable of utilizing NAND to its full potential, which increases the heat output and obviously four dies inside one package generate more heat than a single die. With 18 packages on the front-side and 14 on the backside, the raw NAND capacity comes in at 1,376GiB, resulting in effective over-provisioning of 18. 8% with 1,200GB of usable capacity.

The controller is the same 18-channel behemoth running at 400MHz that is found inside the SSD DC P3700. Nearly all client-grade controllers today are 8-channel designs, so with over twice the number of channels Intel has a clear NAND bandwidth advantage over the more client-oriented designs. That said, the controller is also much more power hungry and the 1.2TB SSD 750 consumes over 20W under load, so you won’t be seeing an M.2 variant with this controller. 

Similar to the SSD DC P3700, the SSD 750 features full power loss protection that protects all data in the DRAM, including user data in flight. I’m happy to see that Intel understands how power loss protection can be a critical feature for the high-end client segment as well because especially professional users can’t have the risk of losing any data.

The Form Factors & SFF-8639 Connector

The SSD 750 is available in two form factors: a traditional half-height, half-length add-in card and 2. 5″ 15mm drive. The 2.5″ form factor utilizes an SFF-8639 connector that is mostly used in the enterprise, but it’s slowly making its way to the high-end client side as well (ASUS just announced TUF Sabertooth X99 two weeks ago at CeBit). The SFF-8639 is essentially SATA Express on steroids and offers four lanes of PCIe connectivity for up to 4GB/s of bandwidth with PCIe 3.0 (although in real world the maximum bandwidth is about 3.2GB/s due to PCIe inefficiency). Honestly, aside from the awkward name, SFF-8639 is what SATA Express should have been from the beginning because nearly all upcoming PCIe controller designs will feature four PCIe lanes, which renders SATA Express useless as there’s no point in handicapping a drive with an interface that’s only capable of providing half of the available bandwidth. That said, I wasn’t at the table when SATA-IO made the decision, but it’s clear that the spec wasn’t fully thought through. 

The SFF-8639 connector

Similar to SATA Express, SFF-8639 has a separate SATA power input in the cable. That’s admittedly quite unwieldy, but it’s necessary to keep the motherboard and cable costs reasonable. The SSD 750 requires both 3.3V and 12V rails for power, so if the drive was to draw power from PCIe it would have required some additional components on the motherboard side, which is something that the motherboard OEMs are hesitant about due to the added cost, especially since it’s just one port that may not even be used by the end-user.

The motherboard end of the SFF-8639 cable

As the industry moves forward and PCIe becomes more common, I think we’ll see SFF-8639 being adopted more widely. The 2.5″ form factor is really the best for a desktop system because the drive location is not fixed to one spot on the motherboard or in the case. While M.2 and add-in cards provide a cleaner look thanks to the lack of cables, they both eat precious motherboard area that could be used for something else. That’s the reason why motherboards don’t usually have more than one M. 2 slot as the area taken by the slot can’t really be used for any other components. Another issue especially with add-in cards is the heat coming from other PCIe cards (namely high power GPUs) that can potentially throttle the drive, whereas drive bays tend to be located in the front of the case with good airflow and no heat coming from surrounding components. 

Utilizing the Full Potential of NVMe

Because the SSD 750 is a PCIe 3.0 design, it must be connected directly to the CPU’s PCIe 3.0 lanes for maximum throughout. All the chipsets in Intel’s current line up are of the slower PCIe 2.0 flavor, which would effectively cut the maximum throughput to half of what the SSD 750 is capable of. The even bigger issue is that the DMI 2.0 interface that connects the platform controller hub (PCH) to the CPU is only four lanes wide (i.e. up to 2GB/s), so if you connect the SSD 750 to the PCH’s PCIe lanes and access other devices connected to the PCB (e.g. USB, SATA or LAN) at the same time the performance would be even further handicapped.

Intel Z97 chipset block diagram

Utilizing the CPU’s PCIe lanes presents some possible bottlenecks for the users of Z97 chipset because the normal Haswell CPUs feature only sixteen PCIe 3.0 lanes. In other words, if you wish to use the SSD 750 with a Z97 chipset you have to give up some GPU PCIe bandwidth because the SSD 750 will take four lanes out of the sixteen. With a single GPU setup that’s hardly an issue, but with SLI/CrossFire setup there’s a possibility of some bandwidth handicapping if the GPUs and SSD are utilizing the interface simultaneously. Also, with NVIDIA’s PCIe x8 requirement, it limits itself to a single NVIDIA card implementation. Fortunately it’s quite rare that an application would tax the GPUs and storage at the same time since games tend to load data to RAM for faster access and especially with the help of PCIe switches it’s possible to grant all devices the lanes they require (although the maximum bandwidth isn’t increased, but switches allow full x16 bandwidth to the GPUs when they need it).  

Intel X99 chipset block diagram

With Haswell-E and its 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes, there are obviously no issues with bandwidth even with an SLI/CrossFire setup and two SSD 750s. Unfortunately the X99 (or any other chipset) doesn’t support PCIe RAID, so if you were to put two SSD 750s in RAID 0 the only option would be to use software RAID. That in turn will render the volume unbootable and I had some performance issues with two Samsung XP941s in software RAID, so at this point I would advice against RAIDing the SSD 750s. We’ll have to wait for Intel’s next generation chipsets to get proper RAID support for PCIe SSDs.

As for older chipsets, Intel isn’t guaranteeing compatibility with 8-series chipsets and older. The main issue here is that the motherboard OEMs aren’t usually willing to support older chipsets in the form of BIOS updates and the SSD 750 (and NVMe in general) requires some BIOS modifications in order to be bootable. That said, some older motherboards may work with the SSD 750 just fine, but I suggest you do some research online or contact the motherboard manufacturer before pulling the trigger on the SSD 750.

Bootable? Yes

Understandably the big question many of you have is whether the SSD 750 can be used as a boot drive. I’ve confirmed that the drive is bootable in my testbed with ASUS Z97 Deluxe motherboard with the latest BIOS and it should be bootable on any motherboard with proper NVMe support. Intel will have a list of supported motherboards on the SSD 750 product page, which are all X99 and Z97 based at the moment but the support will likely expand over time (it’s up to the motherboard manufacturers to release a BIOS version with NVMe support). 

Furthermore, I know many of you want to see some actual real world tests that compare NVMe to SATA drives and I’m working on a basic test suite to cover that. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to include it in this review due to this and last weeks’ NDAs, but I will publish it as a separate article as soon as it’s done. If there are any specific tests that you would like to see, feel free to make suggestions in the comments below and I’ll see what I can do.

AnandTech 2015 SSD Test System
CPU	Intel Core i7-4770K running at 3.5GHz (Turbo & EIST enabled, C-states disabled)
Motherboard	ASUS Z97 Deluxe (BIOS 2205)
Chipset	Intel Z97
Chipset Drivers	Intel 10.0.24+ Intel RST 13.2.4.1000
Memory	Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1866 2x8GB (9-10-9-27 2T)
Graphics	Intel HD Graphics 4600
Graphics Drivers	15. 33.8.64.3345
Desktop Resolution	1920 x 1080
OS	Windows 8.1 x64

• Thanks to Intel for the Core i7-4770K CPU
• Thanks to ASUS for the Z97 Deluxe motherboard
• Thanks to Corsair for the Vengeance 16GB DDR3-1866 DRAM kit, RM750 power supply, Hydro H60 CPU cooler and Carbide 330R case

Performance Consistency
Introduction, The Drive & The TestPerformance ConsistencyAnandTech Storage Bench — The DestroyerAnandTech Storage Bench — HeavyAnandTech Storage Bench — LightRandom PerformanceSequential PerformanceMixed Read/Write PerformanceATTO, AS-SSD & TRIM ValidationFinal Words

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Intel SSD 750 1.2TB Review

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Our Verdict

Excellent performance and big capacity, but pricey.

at a glance

(+) Flash
Superb performance; simple to use; huge capacity.
(-) Too Much Cash
Extremely expensive; 2.5-inch version needs rare connections.

This article was published in the July 2015 issue of Maximum PC. For more trusted reviews and feature stories, subscribe here.

Is this the second coming for SSDs?

Wipe the slate clean. Forget the SATA interface and forget the AHCI protocol. This is high bandwidth NAND Flash-specific storage of the highest order. This is solid state all grown up and forging its own path.

Since the first consumer SSDs hit our PCs, they’ve been piggy-backing highlatency mechanical drive tech in terms of their interfaces and protocols. In the beginning of the SSD revolution, running across the 600MB/s limit of the SATA 6Gb/s interface wasn’t much of a problem. But quickly our SSDs became more trustworthy and more capable, and suddenly they were bumping their heads against the limits.

Along came PCIe-based drives, but they were mostly still smaller SATA drives connected to a PCIe RAID controller. Then came actual PCIe interfaces specifically designed for SSDs. The new wave of Flash storage had begun. The M.2 socket and the still mostly unused SATA Express arrived with the Z97 and X99 chipsets.

But breaking clear of the bandwidth limitations of the SATA interface is only one strand in unlocking the true potential of solid-state storage. The other is all about getting around the legacy setup. The AHCI protocol was introduced when SSDs were a mere twinkle in an old USB stick’s eye, and has been almost inextricably linked to high latency spinning platters.

That setup still works fine for mechanical drives, but the legacy commands in AHCI still have to be run through, even when an SSD is in place. The drive then has to go through each legacy command, even if they have no relevance to high-speed SSDs. That wastes an awful lot of CPU cycles. When Intel introduced its enterprise level DC P3700 NVMe drives, it used the Linux AHCI stack as an example of the wasted time and power that goes into running an SSD across the legacy protocol. Using a quad-core i5, the Linux stack runs to 27,000 CPU cycles, meaning it needs a full 10 Sandy Bridge-level cores to drive one million IOPS (input/ouput operations per second). With the streamlined NVMe Linux stack, that’s cut by around a third, needing only 10,000 CPU cycles to reach the magic million figure.

The Gigabyte’s Era

That enterprise drive is important, not just for providing an example of how powerful the NVMe protocol can be. It also forms the basis of this first consumer NVMe drive. The bespoke controller at the heart of the P3700 is the same 18-channel controller as the one that makes the SSD 750 so speedy. That controller is kept honest with a hefty 2GB of DDR3 cache on this 1.2TB version.

Its top speed? The peak sequential numbers from ATTO are unprecedented. The reads were almost 2.7GB/s and the writes were 1.3GB/s. The scores on the harder AS SSD benchmark were lower, but 2.1GB/s and 1.2GB/s respectively isn’t bad. We’re shifting from talking in MB/s here…

There are some interesting scores when we get to the 4K random read/write performance. At 38MB/s, the 4K random read speed isn’t amazing, but the write performance of 200MB/s is stunning, nearly twice as quick as the closest competing drive. Compare all that with the fastest PCIe drive we’ve previously tested, the Samsung XP941, and you can see where the AHCI protocol is holding things back. Its 4K write performance is a quarter of what the SSD 750 can achieve.

There we have it then. The 750 is the fastest SSD we’ve ever tested, and by a comfortable margin. But it’s also one of the most expensive. The problem with being a brand new technology, and being first to market, is that it will always command a high price tag. That’s especially true given there’s still no NVMe competition. Couple that with the fact it’s Intel, and prices were always going to be sky-high. This is like the Extreme Edition CPU of solid-state drives.

But there’s a certain justification. Intel has had to invest heavily in the ecosystem of NVMe, working to ensure all mobo makers are able to get BIOS support for their Z97 and X99 boards. The SSD makers who will follow up with inevitably cheaper NVMebased SSDs won’t have that R&D cost.

There’s a little bit of the Titan X about the SSD 750. It shares the basic core silicon with its pro-class brethren, the P3700, so it’s got similar levels of performance. But the 1.6TB enterprise drive is well over $5,000, while this high-capacity, high performance drive is just $1,030. Looking at the cost per GB makes it look less extortionate. When Intel released the X-25M, the first real performance SSD (for all its subsequent faults), it cost $3.72 per GB. This 1.2TB drive delivers a far lower 86c/GB.

And prices will tumble. This is the birth of NVMe. The ecosystem is there now, so you can bet NVMe-based SSDs will be appearing from everyone by the end of the year. It’ll go crazy once Marvell and SandForce’s controllers are out there. June’s Computex is likely to be built upon a sea of NVMe drives. Plus, we doubt this is as fast as an NVMe drive can go. The 750 sure looks lightning-fast, but we’ll know more once competing NVMe controllers are out in the wild. For now though, this is as quick as it gets.

$1,030, www.intel.com

Best scores are bolded. Our testing platform is a stock-clocked Intel Core i7-4770K on an Asus ROG Maximus VII Hero Z97 motherboard with 8GB Corsair Dominator DDR3 at 1,600MHz.

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Intel SSD 750 Review | Trusted Reviews

Verdict

Pros

• Astonishing performance
• Uses the future connection standard for SSDs
• Can still be booted to and used as main drive

Cons

• Expensive
• Limited compatibility with current hardware
• Not a straighforward swap for existing drives

Key Specifications

• Review Price: £800. 00
• 20nm MLC Intel/Micron Flash NAND
• PCIe and 2.5in SFF-8693 form factors
• 400GB and 1.2TB sizes
• Up to 2,200MB/s read and 1,200MB/s write
• New NVMe interface/controller

What is the Intel SSD 750?

The Intel SSD 750 Series is the first set of consumer SSDs to use the new super-fast NVM (non-volatile memory) Express standard, bringing a new level of performance to everyday computer users.

Available in either 1.2TB or 400GB sizes they don’t come cheap, plus they’ll work to their full potential on only certain systems. However, these are the first of a future standard and, moreover, if you’re simply looking for the fastest storage around then nothing else comes close.

Intel SSD 750 – Features and Setup

The Intel SSD 750 Series is so cutting-edge that most PCs simply won’t be able to either accommodate them at all or use them as a main bootable drive. So let’s first establish what you can and can’t do with them.

The Intel 750 Series is available in two form factors: a half-height PCI Express expansion card and what looks like a standard 2.5in drive. However, the latter isn’t a typical 2.5in SATA drive, and in fact uses a new SFF (small form factor) 8639 connector that’s designed especially for this new drive type.

SEE ALSO: Samsung 850 Evo SSD Review

It’s likely that your PC won’t have one of these connectors, so you can install the 2.5in drive via an M.2 slot instead – but there will be a slight performance impact as a result. To do this you’ll need the drive, an SFF-8639 to SDD-8643 (mini SAS) cable that Intel provides, and an M.2/SATA power connector adapter. The latter is necessary since the M.2 doesn’t require the power needed by the drive.

Alternatively, you can get the PCIe expansion card, which is easier to install. It simply requires an x4 (or higher) PCIe 3.0 connector. Just drop the card in and away you go. The only minor stumbling block is that, because this SSD taps straight into your processor’s PCIe 3. 0 bus, it will be nabbing four of the lanes. For Intel LGA 1150 systems – where the processor has only 16 lanes – this could have a potential impact on graphics performance, since graphics cards usually take up all 16 of those lanes.

For most systems, the real-world impact should be minimal. It’s likely that only SLI/CrossFire setups, where bandwidth is limited by the reduced number of lanes, will encounter issues. Moreover, X99 systems have 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes so it shouldn’t be an issue here.

Next, you’ll need to consider whether you want the drive to be bootable. As it is, the drive will be usable but only as secondary storage. If you want to use it as your main boot drive you’ll need to ensure your motherboard’s BIOS supports NVMe. At the moment this is fairly limited, with only Intel Z97 and X99 chipset motherboards supporting the drives. Intel has provided a list of NVMe-compatible motherboards that it has verified, but some others also work so it’s best to check with your motherboard manufacturer.

Lastly, you’ll also need a compatible operating system. Windows 8.1 and above have pre-installed NVMe drivers, but Intel also provides its own – which improve performance.

Intel SSD 750 – NVMe and what’s inside

Before we dive into our performance testing, a quick word on what NVMe actually is and what hardware lies at the heart of the Intel 750 Series.

NVMe , or Non-Volatile Memory Express, is a new communications interface/protocal developed especially for SSDs. This is unlike all previous storage standards that were developed with hard drives in mind.

Put together by a consortium of vendors that includes Dell, Intel, Samsung, SanDisk and Seagate, the NVMe specification includes such things as requiring only a single message for 4KB transfers as opposed to two, and a huge uplift in queue numbers and depth (from 1 command queue with 32 commands to 64K queues with 64K commands per queue). The chief benefit of these changes is intensive parallel processing tasks akin to those on servers, but there’s also a general improvement in day-to-day operations such as large files transfers and random access times.

Away from the NVMe interface, the actual NAND employed by the Intel 750 Series is Intel’s 20nm, 128Gbit MLC technology. On the PCIe card version, these are actually distributed into different-sized packages: the chips under the heatsink are all quad-die 64GiB, while the chips on the rear are single-die. This is presumably for reasons concerning heat, although performance must play a part too.
A total of 18 chips on the front and 14 on the rear equates to 1,376GiB in total, making for 18.8% over provisioning for this 1,200GB drive.

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Intel 750 PCIe SSD Review (1.2TB) — 1st Consumer 2.4GB/s NVMe SSD Set To Change The Industry

You know how we said in previous reviews that the enthusiast market hasn’t had much action and is just starting to take off? Well, right when we thought we were starting to see some fast PCIe SSDs, Intel decides to step in and release a beast. “A beast you say?” Yes, a fast, high capacity, NVMe, PCIe lane destroying beast! A beast of which those stories about things that go bump in the night could not have prepared you for. Let us introduce you to Intel’s latest disruptive monstrosity, the 1.2TB Intel 750 PCIe SSD.

Glorious isn’t it? We sure think so, and not just because of looks or capacity, but the speed it pushes and the technology behind it. By utilizing PCIe 3.0 x4 and Intel’s latest 18-channel NVMe flash controller, the Intel 750 was able to achieve speeds of nearly 2.7GB/s during our testing! That is more than four times that of the highest end SATA 6GB/s SSDs on the market, and even faster than the fastest M.2 PCIe SSDs available! This type of performance is an enthusiast’s dream come true!

After the Intel DC P3700 series received so much attention by enthusiasts in our review , it was only a matter of time until Intel released a consumer variant. Not only is the Intel 750 the first consumer released NVMe SSD, but also, it is Intel’s first PCIe Gen3 x4 SSD developed for the client enthusiast and workstation market. That is right, a powerhouse SSD envisioned for high-end systems and not your typical mom and pop’s builds. If you are looking for bleeding edge performance and top value in the consumer segment, look no further. Just wait until you see the price! This Intel PCIe SSD simply takes the crown.

WHY NVME OVER PCIE AND SATA?

We have covered PCIe and NVMe SSDs a few times in the past. These two technologies are much more apparent in the enterprise class segment of the market, however, there are benefits to us in the consumer segment. For those who are not in the know, we will cover these technologies once again.

The PCIe interface allows for SSDs to achieve faster overall throughput as they are not limited by the SATA interface. The latest PCIe Gen3 architecture furthers performance by removing much of the overhead that there was in PCIe Gen2, as well as doubling the bandwidth. With PCIe 2.0, there was basically a 20% loss in performance due to 8-bit to 10-bit encoding. Also, bandwidth is limited to about 500MB/s per lane. With PCIe 3.0, they removed the 8-bit to 10-bit encoding scheme and replaced it with a more efficient 128-bit to 130-bit encoding scheme. This drops the overhead from 20% down to a mere 1.54%. In terms of bandwidth, it is effectively doubled from the 500MB/s to 1GB/s per lane. Thus, overall PCIe 3.0 allows for actual transfer speeds of about 985MB/s per lane versus about 400MB/s over PCIe 2. 0.

Now, let’s move onto NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) and explain why it came about and how it benefits us. Years ago before flash went mainstream, there was the AHCI interface. This was designed for use with high latency, slow performing hard drives. SSDs, on the other hand, are low latency, high speed devices. The AHCI logical interface for SSDs, while highly compatible, is very inefficient. NVMe was built from the ground up to replace the AHCI logical interface over the PCIe bus to allow greater performance out of flash storage devices. It better exploits parallelism, and provides lower latency due to a streamlined storage stack. Its command structure is much smaller as it has ten admin commands for queues and transport and three I/O commands for SSD functionality. With less latency there is also a reduction in CPU cycle usage by over 50%.

Overall, NVMe allows for a cooler running machine, higher IOPS, much better reliability. The fact that NVMe is a native technology agnostic protocol from which manufacturers can build on, rather than work around as they do with SATA, make this host controller interface a standard for years to come when NAND flash becomes a thing of the past.

With these two technologies combined with a direct path to the CPU, end users can expect more speed and responsiveness out of their storage. In terms of OS support, Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 R2 both support NVMe straight out of the box, however, older versions need a driver for support. Other operating systems such as Linux and even Chrome OS support NVMe as well.

COMPATIBILITY AND EASE OF INSTALLATION

When testing the Intel 750, we were able to install Windows 8.1 onto the device with ease. No special drivers or additional software were needed, and it was detected immediately during the storage selection prompt during installation. In order to install the OS onto the Intel 750, we first went into the UEFI, disabled CSM support and booted off our install media via the “UEFI: <install media name>” option. After Windows installed, the main boot option shows as “Windows Boot Manager.” This also means that it can be utilized with both hardware fast boot modes and Windows fast boot feature. The only issue we encountered was that it had longer boot times than typical SATA drives. Check out our review to see our analysis on boot time utilizing the 400GB model to learn more.

Bootability verification goes for both our Z97 and X99 systems. Beyond these, we are unable to verify system support. Intel lists OS support for Windows 7 64-bit, Windows 8 64-bit, and Windows 8.1 64-bit and it requires motherboards to have UEFI 2.3.1 or later.

SPECIFICATIONS, PRICING, AND AVAILABILITY

The Intel 750 series of SSDs are available in two form factors, 2.5″ 15mm with a SFF-8639 connector and the half-height, half-length (HHHL) add-in card form factor such as we have on our bench today. The 2.5″ form factor will be better utilized in prosumer server and client systems rather than your typical desktop PC. Capacities are available in 400GB and 1.2TB. This seems quite limited but here’s the kicker; the MSRP on the Intel 750 Series is $389.00 for the 400GB and $1029.00 for the 1. 2TB. That is right, Intel is releasing this SSD into the retail market at or under $1 per GB! Sequential read and write for the 1.2TB model is rated for up 2,400/1,200MB/s for while random 4K performance is rated for up to 440K/290K IOPS read/write. The 400GB model is rated for up to 2,200MB/s read and 900MB/s write and up to 430K/230K IOPS read/write. Intel is definitely pushing the boundaries by offering such a great price to performance ratio.

Intel is also including an updated version of the Intel Toolbox with the release of their 750 Series NVMe SSD. It includes a bunch of useful tools and features such as SSD health monitoring, diagnostic scans, a firmware updater, a secure erase function, and a system tuner.

In terms of power, the 2.5″, and add-in card form factors, utilize both the 3.3v and 12V rails, rather than the 5V rail as we see with most consumer SATA SSDs. These are rated for an average read and write wattage of 12W read and 9W write for the 400GB model and up to 22W read and 10W write for the 1. 2TB model at a QD128 under sequential read and write workloads with 64KB data. Both have an idle power draw of 4W.

This SSD features your standard TRIM and garbage collection support as well as power-loss protection, however, it does not come with any type of hardware encryption; Intel has saved that feature for its enterprise class SSDs. Finally, the endurance is rated for up to a maximum of 219TB written and the Intel 750 series is backed by a 5-year limited warranty.

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1.2TB15mm2.5″20nm20nm MLC400GB460K IOPSAICHHHLIntelIntel 750 SeriesIntel PCIeIometerMicronMlcNon-Volatile Memory ExpressNVMePciePCIe 3.0 x4PCIe x4sff-8639Solid State DriveSSD 2015-04-02

Intel SSD 750 Overview | Reliable Reviews

Pros

• Amazing Performance
• Uses future SSD connectivity standard
• Can still be booted and used as a primary drive

Cons

• Expensive
• Limited compatibility with modern equipment
• Not an easy exchange for existing drives

Key features

• Recall Price: £800. 00
• 20 nm MLC Intel / Micron Flash NAND
• PCIe and 2.5″ SFF-8693 form factors
• Sizes 400 GB and 1.2 TB
• Up to 2200 MB/s read and 1200 MB/s write
• New NVMe interface/controller

What is the Intel SSD 750? The

Intel SSD 750 Series is the first set of consumer SSDs to use the new ultra-fast NVM (Non-Volatile Memory) Express standard, delivering a new level of performance for everyday computer users.

Available in 1.2 TB or 400 GB sizes, they are not cheap, and they only reach their full potential on certain systems. However, this is the first standard of the future, and besides, if you’re just looking for the fastest storage, then nothing else will do.

Intel SSD 750 Features and Setup The

Intel SSD 750 Series is so advanced that most PCs simply won’t be able to fit it at all, nor use it as a primary boot drive. So let’s first figure out what you can and can’t do with them.

The Intel 750 series is available in two form factors: a half-height PCI Express expansion card and what looks like a standard 2. 5-inch drive. However, the latter is not a standard 2.5″ SATA drive and actually uses the new 8639 SFF (small form factor) connector designed specifically for this new type of drive. Samsung 850 Evo SSD Overview slight performance degradation. To do this, you will need a disk, cable SFF-8639- SDD-8643 (mini SAS) provided by Intel and M.2/SATA power connector adapter. The latter is necessary because M.2 does not require the power required by the drive.

Alternatively, you can get a PCIe expansion card that is easier to install. It just requires a x4 (or higher) PCIe 3.0 slot. Just throw a card and you’re off. The only minor stumbling block is that since this SSD plugs directly into your processor’s PCIe 3.0 bus, it will grab four lanes. For Intel LGA 1150 systems where the processor only has 16 lanes, this can have a potential impact on graphics performance as graphics cards typically take up all 16 lanes.

For most systems, the actual impact should be minimal. There will probably only be issues with SLI/CrossFire setups, which are bandwidth limited by the reduced lane count. What’s more, X99 systems have 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes, so this shouldn’t be a problem.

Next, you need to consider whether you want the disk to be bootable. As such, the disk will be used, but only as secondary storage. If you want to use it as your primary boot drive, you’ll need to make sure your motherboard’s BIOS supports NVMe. At the moment it is quite limited — only motherboards based on Intel Z9 chipsets7 and X99 support discs. Intel has provided a list of NVMe-compatible motherboards that it has tested, but some others work as well, so it’s best to check with your motherboard manufacturer.

Finally, you will also need a compatible operating system. Windows 8.1 and above have NVMe drivers pre-installed, but Intel also provides its own that improve performance.

Intel SSD 750 — NVMe and what’s inside

Before we dive into performance testing, let’s briefly talk about what NVMe is and what hardware underpins the Intel 750 series. drives. This is different from all previous storage standards that were designed with hard drives in mind.

Composed by a consortium of vendors including Dell, Intel, Samsung, SanDisk, and Seagate, the NVMe specification includes such things as requiring only one message to transfer 4 KB instead of two, and a huge increase in the number and depth of queues (from 1 command queue with 32 commands per 64K queues with 64K commands per queue). The main benefit of these changes is intensive parallel processing tasks similar to those on servers, but there is also a general improvement in day-to-day operations such as large file transfers and random access times.

Unlike the NVMe interface, the real NAND used in the Intel 750 series is Intel’s 20nm 128-bit MLC technology. In the PCIe version of the card, they are actually distributed in different sizes: all the chips under the heatsink have a quad-core 64GB die, while the rear ones are single-core. This is likely for heat related reasons, although performance should also play a role.
A total of 18 chips on the front and 14 on the back add up to 1376 GB, which is 18. 8% more than the allocation for this 1200 GB drive.

Unlike other sites, we thoroughly test every product we review. We use standard industry benchmarks to properly compare features. We will always tell you what we find. We never, ever accept money for a product review.
Tell us what you think — send your letters to the editor.

Intel UHD Graphics 750 with DDR4-3200 and DDR4-3600 versus GT 1030, UHD 730, UHD 630 and Vega 8 in 16 games in 2021 GECID.com. Page 1

::>Processors
>2021
> Intel UHD Graphics 750 with DDR4-3200 and DDR4-3600 vs GT 1030, UHD 730, UHD 630 and Vega 8 in 16 games in 2021

06/24/2021

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This material is a continuation of the series on current AMD and Intel embedding capabilities, as well as ultra-budget AMD and NVIDIA discrete graphics cards. It is they who are forced to be a reality for many users, unlike the mythical video cards of the GeForce RTX 30 and Radeon RX 6000 series with exorbitant price tags.

Let us briefly recall that you will find UHD Graphics 730 and 750 on the Intel Xe (Gen12) architecture in the 11th generation Intel Core desktop processors, they are also Rocket Lake-S. The first is used only as part of the Core i5-11400 and i5-11400T. The rest of the Core i5, i7 and i9 series can boast a more powerful UHD Graphics 750 iGPU. that is 33% more. I would really like to see a proportional increase in productivity, but wait to be fascinated, so as not to be disappointed later.

We will get acquainted with the UHD Graphics 750 using the example of the Intel Core i5-11600K processor. Thanks to the Brain store for it. In it you will always find a wide range of products you need — from components and peripherals to finished PCs and laptops. A loyalty program will help you save some money on your purchase.

The processor has 6 cores in 12 threads with a frequency formula of 3.9 — 4.9 GHz. The multiplier is unlocked, which paves the way for overclocking experiments. The video core operates at a base speed of 350 MHz and accelerates up to 1300 MHz if necessary.

The test bench looks like this. The relatively inexpensive motherboard ASRock B560 Steel Legend was taken as a basis. It can not only overclock memory, but also processors with a locked multiplier thanks to base frequency boost technology.

We weren’t going to overclock the processor, but its TDP already reaches 125 W at the base frequency. That is, you can’t do without a good cooler. So we did not regret that we immediately took a compact and efficient dropsy be quiet! PURE LOOP 120mm single 120mm fan with 80,000 hours of reliable Rifle bearing. And this is more than 9 years in the round-the-clock mode 24/7.

Another advantage of the CBO is that it does not limit the height of the RAM modules. You can safely install, for example, a 16-gigabyte kit DDR4-3600 Patriot Viper Steel . The height of its modules exceeds 44 mm due to the aluminum radiator. But you don’t have to worry about cooling efficiency.

OS and game clients were written to an inexpensive M.2 SSD Patriot P300 with a capacity of 512 GB. It does not have its own radiator. The TBW is up to 160TB and the warranty is 3 years.

Games were recorded on a 2.5-inch SATA SSD Patriot P210 2 TB for convenience.

Without a discrete video card, the config turned out to be not very powerful, but we still took the power supply with a margin — the “golden” be quiet! PURE POWER 11 FM 750W . Its peak power is declared at 820 W, and the efficiency reaches almost 9four%. Also pleased with the modular cable system and quiet 120mm turntable.

All these components looked beautiful in the be quiet! Pure Base 500 Window Black . It comes with two interchangeable top caps. The classic version with soundproofing material is great for creating quiet builds. Under CBO and powerful gaming assemblies, it is better to put a lid with maximum ventilation. Also included are two 140mm turntables.

Gameplay recorded by external system with AVerMedia Live Gamer 4K i.e. without loss of performance.

The first question in our test is whether to invest in more expensive RAM for the video core. We ran four benchmarks in two RAM modes: DDR4-3200 and 3600 MHz. The conclusion is unequivocal: for now, the bonus from a higher RAM frequency is more of a pleasant exception than the rule. Basically, the difference does not exceed 1-3 FPS, which you will not notice in reality.

Now let’s move on to the main program — testing against internal and external competitors. To do this, we added the results of the GeForce GT 1030 with 2 GB of GDDR5 memory and the integrated video cores UHD Graphics 730, UHD Graphics 630 and Vega 8. When summing up, we will compare the performance of the new product with Vega 7 and Vega 3 for completeness.

First in line — Cyberpunk 2077 . It runs just as dull and hard as with UHD 730. The bonus of 1-3 FPS is not felt at all, although in relative units it reaches 50%. The built-in capacity is clearly not enough for this game.

The simpler CS:GO averages around 90 FPS in Full HD with responsive controls. But it’s not very comfortable to play because of the lags in the video sequence. The increase compared to UHD 730 does not exceed 5%. And the novelty breaks away from the UHD 630 by 41% in terms of average speed.

If you do not pay attention to starting dullness, then Dota 2 runs very cheerfully and well. The average frame rate exceeds 110 fps. This is even slightly higher than that of Vega 8, although the rest of the statistics are better for the AMD embedded.

Forza Horizon 4 has problems with loading and texture mapping, as well as with the smoothness of the video sequence. But on the other hand, it perfectly shows the progress of Intel graphics. The UHD 750 is at least 33% ahead of the UHD 730. The advantage of the novelty over the UHD 630 exceeds 70%. This is a godsend for marketers!

900p is even harder to play, but the UHD 750 maintains a significant advantage over its domestic opponents. But external competitors look better. For example, the GT 1030 outperforms it by at least 48%.

If you want to run around in Fortnite , then the video sequence is more or less smooth in 720p, although it does not do without frame drops. Still, the average speed is 20% faster than the UHD 730 and 44% faster than the UHD 630.

At 900p, on-board footage becomes even worse. And then the owners of the UHD 750 can only look towards Vega 8 with envy and sadness: its average speed is 77% higher, and the rest of the statistics are 3 times better.

Overview of the 1TB WD Black SN750 NVMe SSD

2018 Test Methodology

The first NVMe-enabled drives appeared on the market about four years ago, but did not claim mass distribution. And later, many manufacturers perceived this segment as something top-end and “premium”, sincerely adding 30-50% to the price of a SATA SSD with the same amount of the same memory, which, obviously, did not add popularity to devices.

But now everything has changed: NVMe SSDs are getting cheaper faster than SATA, so price parity is expected by the end of the year. Of course, this is achieved primarily by expanding the budget range (up to the use of QLC memory) — but this is a general trend. In addition, the issue of compatibility is no longer relevant — there are fewer and fewer computers in which it is impossible to install one or more NVMe drives. And in such conditions, SATA continues to lose ground — it is no longer needed. For SSD, in any case, hard drives do not need to change the interface. Another question is that they themselves are used less and less …

Drive manufacturers understandably don’t just respond to these trends, they shape them. In particular, if earlier Western Digital had only one NVMe line and two SATA lines in its assortment, now there will be two each. The main novelty is the inexpensive WD Blue SN500 — with PCIe 3.0 x2, no DRAM buffer and a capacity of 250 or 500 GB. It is clear that the device cannot completely replace WD Blue 3D SATA — if only because there are 2 TB models in this family, but an inexpensive alternative will be offered. Along the way, the company also modernized its top drive a bit.

WD Black SN750 1TB

However, “modernized” is too loud: both last year’s Black 2018 (as it is now commonly called) and the new Black SN750 are based on the same hardware platform: SanDisk’s own controller 20-82-007011 (only in full configuration — along with DDR4-2400 capacity at the rate of «megabytes per gigabyte») and 64-layer BiCS3 3D TLC NAND crystals are also of our own production. In models up to a terabyte, they have a capacity of 256 Gb (as before), a 2 TB modification is new in the line — but it just goes to 512 Gb crystals.

What else has changed is the delivery kit with solid heatsinks. It seems to us that it’s already too late — most modern motherboards are already equipped with heatsinks for M.2 slots anyway. And quite effective — we carried out a small express test: we failed to “overheat” any of the drives on any board. The branded heatsink is solid and beautiful — but problems with installing a drive with it are already possible, and such a solution will definitely not fit into laptops. Therefore, most modifications can be bought with or without a heatsink — only those who are looking at 250 GB are deprived (they do not need a heatsink), but we think that this model will be discontinued over time anyway. Although now it looks good, the benefit of the company is that the company has made the conditions for maintaining the warranty more lenient (TBW of 200 TB for five years — older models have 150 TB for every 250 GB), and it is inexpensive. But already it almost does not differ from last year’s collection at all 🙂

In fact, all the main changes are firmware. Unfortunately, buyers of Black 2018 will not receive updates. On the other hand, it is obvious that it is still impossible to radically change the speed and other characteristics of the device programmatically.

An interesting feature of the new family is the disablement of sleep. What for? It’s no secret that solid-state drives spend most of the time in a typical computer in this state. Occasionally they wake up, respond to a system request and … fall asleep again. Initially, they tried to do this even with hard drives, but they spin up very slowly if they stop, which has always annoyed everyone. And the SSD does not wake up from the deepest sleep instantly, so the first operations will be performed with a delay of about 30 ms — which is even more than the average for hard drives. It would seem that turning off sleep should be a useful thing. But . .. This is the first request after a long period of inactivity, and, in principle, it is still possible to evaluate it only with tools — hard drives prevented from living because they had delays of the order of 20 ms on a regular basis: even during intensive work.

However, there are no contraindications to the use of the «game mode» (that’s how it was officially called): the idle power consumption may only slightly increase, but in a desktop computer it will not be noticeable against the background of other components. Everything is done simply — download the proprietary program, install — run. For the first time we see a standard interface — the same as when using any other WD SSDs.

Having recognized the presence of Black SN750 at the first launch, the second time the application will start with a new “skin” — and with the desired slider in the main window. For fun, we conducted tests in both modes, although a priori we prepared for the fact that there would be no or almost no difference: after all, the applications used generate a mostly stable load, so there is not much time to “sleep”.

Comparison samples

Intel 760p 1024 GB

Samsung V-NAND SSD 970 Evo Plus 1TB

These drives belong to the same group as our main character — so it is necessary to compare it with them, since the results have long been obtained.

WD Black 512 GB

WD Black 2018 500 GB

And we also need the previous development of the company, but there are already nuances here — we did not test a terabyte, and capacity usually matters. Therefore, this point should be taken into account. But at the same time, we added the very first Black to the list of test subjects. Formally, at that time, the best WD SSD was generally the best, since its capacity was also the maximum in the line. Only last year, as already mentioned, they reached 1 TB, and this year — up to 2 TB. Therefore, it makes sense to look at the evolution of the company’s drives from this angle.

Testing

Testing procedure

The procedure is described in detail in separate article . There you can get acquainted with the hardware and software used.

Application performance

The traditional and time-honored unanimity in results. However, their small overall «scatter» was expected — but here the attention is drawn to the complete identity of the Black SN750’s performance in normal and «game» modes. Still, we hoped that in such a scenario (taking into account delays from other components of the system), something could be squeezed out due to “refusal of sleep”. But no.

Potentially — you can squeeze out a whole 1% 🙂 The oldest Black was the obvious outsider here, which is once again noticeable, but it differs from the «newer» one and a half times. But they are almost identical to each other — adjusted for capacity. A little faster than the Intel SSD 760p, a little slower than the Samsung 970 Evo Plus (but almost on par with the 970 Evo without a plus, by the way).

But in the previous version of the package, which operates with more «light» loads, modern WD Black (with «historical» everything has long been clear) is a little slower than both devices taken for comparison. Which, however, as usual, has only a theoretical meaning — even middle-class SATA drives with such scenarios cope jokingly and with a margin, and even the «historical» Black is faster than all of them. I.e. it’s just a stock of even more future.

Sequential operations

It has been regularly said, said and will be said that these results have almost no practical significance — but many pay attention to them. A habit from the time of hard drives — in the case of which the performance on such operations is also practically not significant, but at least it can be measured (and it does not matter that the measurement results in everyday scenarios are never achievable in principle). Accordingly, manufacturers also pay considerable attention to these figures — in this case, WD directly stated that the Black SN750 has an increased reading speed compared to Black 2018. And about 3470 MB / s of reading data is written right on the package — that’s about what we got ( even a little more). On the record, everything is more modest, but also not bad. However, a terabyte NVMe drive in this test does not currently have a completely “bad” one. In more complex cases — we’ll see a little later.

Random access

In principle, all our heroes in these tests are very similar to each other. Only the “old” original Black stands out, but the reasons for this are clear. The rest of the four «butt» almost on an equal footing — even the capacity does not prevent the Black 2018 from doing this. The trio of terabytes is even closer, the position in the trio varies depending on the specific scenario, but in general it can be argued that on average our newcomer is faster than the Intel SSD 760p, but still a little slower than the Samsung 970 Evo Plus. In general, a normal result.

Disabling power saving traditionally does not affect anything — after all, synthetic tests do not always generate a large, but always stable flow of requests, so there is simply no time to “sleep” here.

Working with large files

Reading — almost exactly like last year’s model (although it is smaller in capacity), which is no wonder: after all, both the controller and the memory are still the same.

Recording, at first glance, has significantly accelerated — but here the capacity is important, so one should not rush to conclusions. In any case, the Black SN750 is a state of the art high performance solution. It may not be the fastest drive on the market, but it is noticeably above average.

And when writing simultaneously with reading the same remarks. It is clearly seen that last year the company really needed to carry out serious work on the bugs — the first Black had every chance to fall behind the «good» SATA drive. This problem has been solved. But something else to noticeably improve is already difficult.

Ratings

In principle, low-level «parrots» have not changed much — despite the different capacities. And it is clear why — for these benchmarks, half a terabyte is generally enough with such crystals. Here 250 GB is not always enough, but such a capacity has long become minimal in “decent” lines, so everything is clear with it. In addition, drives with dynamic SLC caching demonstrate the maximum dependence of performance on capacity. What are the reasons for high performance 970 Evo Plus 1 TB — recall that at high speed this one can record more than 40 GB of data, and not only synthetic benchmarks, but also 146% of practical cases fit perfectly into this volume. The WD Black SN750 (as well as the Intel SSD 760p) has only a static cache, and a small one, with all the consequences.

But this, we repeat, still allows you to get performance above the average level — even if you compare the device only with «classmates», not to mention SATA drives. Which was achieved last year, of course.

Total

In principle, Black 2018 could have been safely sold further, but the company decided to do at least something. It is clear that the effect of this is small — if the line is transferred to a new memory (which is possible in the future), the changes will be immediately noticeable, but for now there is no where to come from. There is nothing wrong with that — and last year’s family was extremely successful, which radically differed from the original Black. New is no better. But not to say which is better. Parity. With minor improvements and the ability to turn off energy saving — the effect of which is negligible (and comparable to the measurement error), but at least something can be tuned. Since the model is aimed at gamers and enthusiasts, it doesn’t hurt. However, the broad masses of workers are unlikely to be disappointed with such a drive — as already mentioned, it is, after all, a little faster than the average level, not to mention budget models (especially with a SATA interface). So the only thing that can hinder sales is the price. But for now, the drive is not widely represented in retail, so it will need to be monitored separately. At the time of this writing, in any case, the WD Black SN750 was almost never sold in Moscow, and where it was found, it cost noticeably more than the Black 2018. In this situation, there are, of course, no incentives to prefer it. And at an equal and / or lower price — they will appear.

Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 Server Overview

We recently published an article on our blog with an overview of the 15th generation of Dell servers and the latest non-numbered generation of HPE servers. In it, I went over all the new products, highlighted the main advantages and innovations, but it was impossible to consider each server separately within the framework of that article because of the volume. It’s time to correct this misunderstanding. Moreover, there is a great reason — we have a Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 server in stock.

Why only now, if the Dell Technologies presentation took place back in March? It’s simple — at that time, the latest Intel Xeon Scalable 3 processors had not yet been released, and Dell engineers and developers were fine-tuning the products.

Contents

• Server specifications + comparison with R740

• What’s with the refrigeration

• Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 design and architecture

• Disk subsystem

• Scalability and network

• How the Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 performs in real world tests

• SQL Server Performance

• Sysbench MySQL Performance

• Dell R750 Variations: xa, xs

• Summary in a nutshell

Dell R750 vs.

Dell R740 Specifications and Comparison

The Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 is a 2U enterprise-class 2-socket rack server. Let me remind you that 1U = 44.45 cm, and therefore the R750 is still a compact device that does not take up much space in a rack or cabinet.

This server was created to solve business problems, and therefore it is impossible to review it in isolation from dry technical characteristics. But so that this section of the article does not cause yawn attacks, like boring user agreements for 100 pages, I will try to be shorter, and also compare the new product with the previous generation — Dell R740. Let’s get started.

As can be seen from the table, the internal layout of the components in the R750 has become more dense, which made it possible to install more RAM slots.

Dell R750 with 16 RAM sticks installed

Dress warmly, it will be cold

The cooling system has also been significantly redesigned. Now the air flows are distributed more evenly, reducing the number of “hot spots”.

In addition to stream optimization, fans have been improved, they have become more powerful and more reliable — three levels (instead of two), five blades (instead of three).

Left fan from R740, right from R750

Dell engineers also implemented Multi-Vector Cooling (MVC) 2.0 technology in the R750, which analyzes the temperature of the air flows at the inlet and outlet, processes this data, and then transfers it to the user for finer cooling settings. And this is in the presence of built-in automation, which works in case of critical overheating of processors, graphics accelerators, memory and other components.

MVC 2. 0 using R750 as an example

For high-density environments, where it is difficult or impossible to implement traditional air cooling, there is a add-on option — DLC (Direct Liquid Cooling). And since liquid cooling can potentially harm server hardware, cause short circuits and even fire, the R750 has a leak detection system built into it. It is able to instantly shut down the system, shut off the flow of coolant and notify the system administrator. And while the likelihood of a cooling circuit failure and leakage is extremely small, it’s good to know that Dell engineers have worked on this point as well.

Otherwise, the changes are evolutionary, but no less significant: modern Intel Xeon Scalable 3 processors, faster memory, improved disk subsystem, PCIe 4.0 and an upgrade of existing technologies.

Dell R750 Miscellaneous

Server
DELL R750 16SFF

2x Intel Xeon Silver 4310 (10C 18M Cache 2. 10GHz) / 64GB (2*32GB) 3200MHz DR RDIMM, PERC / H745 / 1×2.4TB SAS 12Gbps 2.5″ Hyb Carr 3.5″ / 2x800w

Server
DELL R750XS 12LFF

2x Intel Xeon Silver 4310 (12C 18M Cache 2.10GHz) / 64GB (2*32GB) 3200MHz RDIMM, PERC / H755 / 1×1.2TB SAS 12Gbps 2.5″ Hyb Carr 3.5″ / 2x800w

Server
DELL R750 12LFF

2x Intel Xeon Gold 5315Y (8C 12M Cache 3.20GHz) / 32GB (2*16GB) 3200MHz DR RDIMM, PERC / H745 / 1×2.4TB SAS 12Gbps 2.5″ Hyb Carr 3.5″ / 2x1100w

Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 design and architecture

Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 with bezel installed

Servers are a functional business tool to get things done, which is why the Dell R750 is not painted in 17-3938 (Very Peri), Pantone’s Color of the Year 2022. Almost all elements are primarily functional, and lastly — aesthetic. Because of these factors, server design doesn’t change much from generation to generation.

It’s not about smartphones though.

The only decorative element is the bezel. This is a kind of false panel for the front of the server, which is purchased separately. However, it also carries a functional load — the front bezel can lock the front interfaces, disk baskets, etc. with a key.

As for architecture. The front panel has a classic power button, status indicators for visual identification of emergency situations, USB type A and Micro-USB for control via iDRAC (both versions 2.0), as well as VGA. Where without him? 🙂

Disk subsystem

R750 has 4 variants of disc baskets on the front:

Version with front basket for 24 SFF discs

• Up to 12 x 3.5″ SAS/SATA (HDD/SSD) up to 192TB

• Up to 8 x 2. 5″ NVMe (SSD) up to 122.88TB

• Up to 16 x 2.5″ SAS/SATA/NVMe (HDD/SSD) up to 245.76TB

• Up to 24 2.5″ SAS/SATA/NVMe (HDD/SSD) up to 368.84TB

And two more options for the rear compartments:

• Up to 2 x 2.5″ SAS/SATA/NVMe (HDD/SSD) max. 30.72 TB

• Up to 4 x 2.5″ SAS/SATA/NVMe (HDD/SSD) max 61.44TB

There are no big differences in disk baskets with previous generations, but there is one important feature — support for PCIe 4.0 drives, as well as the U.2 form factor. This opens up the possibility of installing modern drives with very high read and write speeds. For example, a 3.84 TB Intel U.2 D7-P5510 SSD, which delivers up to 6500 Mb / s for reading, up to 3400 Mb / s for writing and 170000 IOPS when writing 4Kb files with a queue depth of 32.

Another interesting solution is the new BOSS-S2 boards with hot plugging through a special cassette on the back side. If earlier this procedure required disassembling the server, now the service is very fast. By the way, the cassette is very small, smaller than the sled for 1.8-inch SSD 🙂

BOSS-2 hot swappable

Scalability and network

Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 with cover and air ducts removed

Eight PCIe 4.0 slots, six of which are x16, speak for themselves. Throw in a new optional SNAP I/O module that splits an x16 slot into two x8 slots and you have the perfect high performance computing (HPC) server. For example, thanks to the SNAP module, a network card will be able to interact with two processors at once.

And since we are talking about networks, it is worth mentioning 2 built-in gigabit ports 8P8C and OCP 3.0 (it replaced rNDC in R740). What does it give in practice? With the R750, you don’t have to choose between 1 Gb/s or 10 Gb/s (or other speeds). You can use multiple ports at the same time. Yes, in the R740 the additional PCIe 3.0 board solved the problem, but the slot can be useful for another task. Therefore, the novelty unconditionally wins.

How the Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 performs in real world tests

We will take a very powerful platform for tests (only on order):

• CPU — 2 x Intel Xeon Scalable Gen 3, model 8380;

• RAM — 32 x 32GB DDR4 3200 MT/s;

• Drives — 8 x Intel P5510 3.84TB Gen4 SSD;

• ESXi 7.0u1 ;

• CentOS 8.2 .

Dell R750 Miscellaneous

Server
DELL R750 16SFF

2x Intel Xeon Silver 4310 (10C 18M Cache 2.10GHz) / 64GB (2*32GB) 3200MHz DR RDIMM, PERC / H745 / 1×2.4TB SAS 12Gbps 2.5″ Hyb Carr 3.5″ / 2x800w

Server
DELL R750XS 12LFF

2x Intel Xeon Silver 4310 (12C 18M Cache 2. 10GHz) / 64GB (2*32GB) 3200MHz RDIMM, PERC / H755 / 1×1.2TB SAS 12Gbps 2.5″ Hyb Carr 3.5″ / 2x800w

Server
DELL R750 12LFF

2x Intel Xeon Gold 5315Y (8C 12M Cache 3.20GHz) / 32GB (2*16GB) 3200MHz DR RDIMM, PERC / H745 / 1×2.4TB SAS 12Gbps 2.5″ Hyb Carr 3.5″ / 2x1100w

SQL Server Performance

Each SQL Server VM is configured with two virtual disks: 100 GB for boot and 500 GB for database and log files + the following resources: 16 vCPUs, 64 GB DRAM, and an LSI Logic SAS SCSI controller. SQL tests are aimed at studying the response time.

SQL Server test configuration (for each virtual machine):

• Windows Server 2012 R2;

• Storage size: 600 GB allocated, 500 GB used;

• SQL Server 2014:

• Test duration: 3 hours:

For SQL Server, our Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 configuration showed a latency of 1ms during the entire testing period with eight VMs.

MySQL Sysbench performance

Each Sysbench VM is configured with three virtual disks: one for boot (~92 GB), one with a pre-built database (~447 GB), and a third for the database under test (270 GB) + the following resources: 16 vCPU, 60 GB DRAM and an LSI Logic SAS SCSI controller.

Sysbench MySQL benchmark measures average data transfer rate (transactions per second or TPS), average latency, and average latency by 99th percentile (p99-metric).

Sysbench test configuration (for each virtual machine):

• CentOS 6.3 64-bit;

• Percona XtraDB 5.5.30-rel30.1;

• Database tables: 100:

• Database size: 10,000,000;

• Database threads: 32;

• RAM buffer: 24 GB.

• Test duration: 3 hours:

TPS metrics.

Sysbench OLTP measured a score of 29174 TPS for eight VMs (each VM ranging from 3631 to 3665 TPS). If we take 16 virtual machines, we get 26838 TPS (each VM from 1662 to 1690 TPS).

The performance degradation pattern is quite common as loads increase, as there is a point of congestion for every platform (although many hosts like to abuse this). But at the same time, it is clear that the new 8380 Intel Xeon Scalable 3 processors show excellent performance and have some headroom. Old processors at the same loads would work at the limit of their capabilities.

Regarding the average delay.

Eight VMs showed a combined 8.77ms (each VM from 8.73ms to 8.81ms). 16VM gave a figure of 19.1 ms (each VM — from 18.87 ms to 19.24 ms).

p99-metric.

In the worst case scenario, the latency of 8VM was 15.2ms, and 16VM was a whopping 35.4ms.

Variations Dell R750

The Dell R750 server has two twin brothers: Dell R750xa and Dell R750xs . These models are in many ways reminiscent of their older brother, but created for other tasks. Therefore, some technical features have been changed so that end users do not overpay for unnecessary functionality.

Comparison table

Summary in a nutshell

Many of my assembly and purchasing colleagues have gone through the Dell EMC PowerEdge R740, Dell’s most popular and reliable servers with huge potential and incredible performance. Interestingly, the R740 handles existing tasks so well that in 2022 there are no prerequisites for its obsolescence. Therefore, in the coming years, it will not disappear from our range. To be honest, it was hard to imagine what Dell would surprise with the 15th generation of servers.

But Dell Technologies engineers don’t eat their bread in vain 🙂 The R750 turned out to be a worthy successor, in which almost every item has been finalized and improved. Particularly captivating attention to detail and elaboration of trifles. Anyone can thoughtlessly screw on the new Xeon Scalable 3 processors, but not every company is able to perform all aspects of their products at the highest level of quality. And Dell is just such a company.

Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 Server Overview

The review system was equipped with mid-range processors. They have been upgraded to the 8380, the top of the 3rd generation Intel Xeon Scalable line. The R750 is also equipped with the latest Intel Gen4 SSDs — P5510.

Dell EMC PowerEdge R750

Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 Server Specification:

0

Processor

up to two 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, up to 40 cores per

processor

Memory

32 DDR4 DIMM slots, supports RDIMM max 2TB or LRDIMM max 8TB, speed up to 3200MT/s

Up to 16 Intel Persistent Memory 200 series (BPS) slots, max.

Supports registered ECC DDR4 9 DIMMs only0041

Storage Controllers

Internal controllers: PERC H745, HBA355I, S150, h445, H755, H755N

Boot Optimized Storage (BOSS-S2): HW RAID 2 x M.2 SSDs 240 GB or 480 GB

External PERC (RAID): PERC H840, HBA355E

Drive Bays

Front compartments

up to 12 x 3. 5” SAS/SATA (HDD/SSD) max 192 TB

up to 8 x 2.5″ NVMe (SSD) max 122.88 TB

up to 16 x 2.5” SAS/SATA/NVMe (HDD/SSD) max 245.76 TB

up to 24 x 2.5” SAS/SATA/NVMe (HDD/SSD) max 368.84 TB

Rear compartments

up to 2 x 2.5” SAS/SATA/NVMe (HDD/SSD) max 30.72 TB

up to 4 x 2.5” SAS/SATA/NVMe (HDD/SSD) max 61.44 TB

Power supplies

800 W Platinum AC/240 HVDC

1100 W Titanium AC/240 HVDC

1400 W Platinum AC/240 HVDC

2400 W Platinum AC/240 HVDC

Cooling options

Air cooled, optional CPU liquid cooling

Fans

Standard Fan / High Performance Fan SLVR / High Performance Fan GOLD

Up to 6 hot swap fans

Dimensions

86. 8 x 482 x 758.3 mm

Form factor

2U rack server

Integrated control

iDRAC9

iDRAC Service Module

iDRAC Direct

Quick Sync 2 wireless module

Panel

Optional LCD bezel or protective bezel

OpenManage Software

OpenManage Enterprise

OpenManage Power Manager plugin

OpenManage SupportAssist plugin

OpenManage Update Manager plugin

Mobility

OpenManage Mobile

Integrations and connections

OpenManage Integrations

BMC Truesight

Microsoft System Center

Red Hat Ansible Modules

VMware vCenter and vRealize Operations Manager

OpenManage connections

IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus

IBM Tivoli Network Manager IP Edition

Micro Focus Operations Manager

Nagios Core

Nagios XI

Security

Firmware with cryptographic signature

Secure Boot

Secure Erase

Silicon Root of Trust

System lock (requires iDRAC9Enterprise or Datacenter)

TPM 1. 2/2.0 FIPS Certified CC-TCG, TPM 2.0 China NationZ

Integrated network card

2 x 1 GbE LOM

Network parameters

1 x OCP 3.0 (x8 PCIe lanes)

GPU settings

Up to two 300W double-width accelerators, four 150W single-width accelerators, or six 75W single-width accelerators

Ports

Front ports

1 x Dedicated iDRAC Direct micro-USB

1 x USB 2.0

1 x VGA

Internal ports

1 x USB 3. 0

Rear ports

1 x USB 2.0

1 x Serial (optional)

1 x USB 3.0

2 x RJ-45

1 x VGA (optional for liquid-cooled configuration)

PCIe

Up to 8 PCIe Gen4 slots (up to 6 x16) supporting SNAP

I/O modules

Operating system and hypervisors

Canonical Ubuntu Server LTS

Citrix Hypervisor

Microsoft Windows Server with Hyper-V

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

VMware ESXi

The Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 is a 2U server. At first glance, the look and feel of the PowerEdge line has remained fairly unchanged over the past few years. However, under the front panel everything is a little different.

There are 24 bays on the front of the server that can support PCIe Gen4 drives (you can also equip the R750 with 3.5″ hard drive bays). The server contains a conventional power button, status LEDs, a USB port, a VGA port, and an iDRAC port on the front panel.

By flipping it to the back, users can add up to four more 2.5″ bays for even more NVMe storage. There are up to 8 PCIe slots, six of which are x16. There are two 1GbE ports for networking. And the most interesting thing here is access to the BOSS card, which allows you to RAID two M.2 SSDs for booting. The R750 supports SNAP I/O as an option, allowing you to split one x16 slot into 2 x8 slots.

When you open it, the first thing you notice is the cooling circuit. These new processors need to be cooled. Four risers close the cooling system, but they provide users with all the inputs/outputs described above on the rear panel.

Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 server configuration:

2 x 8380 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors;

32 x 32 GB DDR4 3200 MHz;

8x Intel P5510 3.84TB Gen4 SSD;

ESXi 7.0u1;

CentOS 8.2.

The Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 is a two-socket server that takes full advantage of the latest 3rd generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors. These processors support the new PMem and PCIe Gen4 modules, which provide much higher performance than Gen3 slots. In this review, we used Gen4 on the storage side. In addition to using Intel Gen4 SSDs in the system, as we did, there are several other ways to set up storage. The R750 also brought NVMe hardware RAID to market with the new PERC11 card, which has been quite a challenge so far. The server is packed to the brim but also has a pretty nifty cooling scheme to keep everything running smoothly without excessive airflow or hot spots.

To improve performance, the Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 was launched in both application workload analysis and VDBench workloads. With average SQL Server latency, the server could sustain 1ms latency on 8 VMs. For Sysbench, the 8VM install had cumulative scores of 29,174 TPS, an average latency of 8.77ms, and a worst-case latency of 15.2ms. With 16VM, we got cumulative estimates of 26,838 TPS, 19.1ms for average latency, and 35.4ms for worst-case latency. So it flexed a bit under higher load, but the 8VM performance is really impressive, which is one of the highest 8VM devices that have been recorded.

The R750 showed very high performance with low latency in VDBench. Key specs include 5.7M IOPS at 4K read, 3.4M IOPS at 4K write, 40.3 GB/s at 64K and 15.8 GB read / s when writing 64 KB. These SQL workloads experienced peaks of 1.8M IOPS, 1.96M IOPS for SQL 90-10, and 1.85M IOPS for SQL 80-20 .

Oracle workloads experienced peaks of 1.97 MIOPS, 1. 69 MIOPS for Oracle 90-10, and 1.6 MIOPS for Oracle 80 -twenty.

The Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 exceeded all expectations in terms of performance. It’s great to see that the new generation of Intel-based servers is finally out and showing the world what they can do. Although the number of cores is still less than its competitor, the 3rd generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors have advantages in PMEM support and other areas. The R750 server was not only a powerful engine, but also a fantastic design change, especially with regards to airflow and NVMe RAID. There are also new BOSS rims and the legendary iDRAC control.

More detailed information about Dell server hardware, as well as the possibility of ordering the Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 server, can be obtained from our online store StorServ.ru

Testing nine external hard drives. Choosing the best drive / Habr

In the modern world, mobility and free access to information are highly valued. Therefore, the issue of storing user data and simultaneously accessing it, for example, for all family members, is very acute. Undoubtedly, the best solution for this is network storages installed indoors. If earlier this required a separate computer, now it is not difficult to organize it on the basis of a wireless router. In addition, modern models are produced based on ARM processors and have support for USB 3.0 ports, which inexpressibly increases their capabilities. And what could be better for households than using a shared network resource at home, and then taking it with you on vacation and entertaining yourself with watching movies from an external drive? Here we will deal with the choice of an external disk for these tasks.

For testing, I managed to get nine models of external hard drives with a capacity of 1 TB or 2 TB:

• ADATA HD710, 2 TB
• HGST Touro Mobile MX3, 1 TB
• Seagate Expansion Portable, 2 TB
• Seagate Expansion 2TB
• Silicon Power Armor A80, 1 TB
• TOSHIBA Stor. E Basics, 1TB
• Transcend StoreJet 25h4, 1TB
• Western Digital My Passport Ultra 2TB
• Western Digital Elements, 2 TB

All hard drives have a USB 3.0 interface. Two of them (Seagate Expansion and Western Digital Elements) are large 3.5” form factor. Along the way, during the review, we will find out whether it makes sense to purchase these drives, which are large and require external power, for this type of task.

Hard drives tested connected to USB 3.0 port of Intel NUC using Crystal Disk Mark. Testing as a network storage was performed on the basis of an ASUS RT-AC68U wireless router. An external drive was connected to a USB 3.0 port and then read and write speeds were measured using NAS Performance Tester for 100, 200, and 1000 MB files.

ADATA HD710

This series of external hard drives is available in 500 GB, 1 TB and 2 TB in blue, yellow or black. All of them are waterproof (IPX7) and shockproof.

The USB cable fits into a special groove around the drive case for easy storage. The length of the interface cable is 31 centimeters.

The overall dimensions of the disc are 132×99×22 mm and the weight is 220 grams.

HGST Touro Mobile MX3

This model of external hard drives is produced in 500 GB, 1 TB and 1.5 TB. The case of a disk is made of opaque plastic. There are no rubber feet to deal with vibration.

The length of the USB cable is 43 cm.

The dimensions of the disc are 126×80×15 mm.

Seagate Expansion Portable

Seagate’s Expansion portable series of external hard drives comes in a 2.5” form factor. The model range has three drives with a capacity of 500 GB, 1 TB and 2 TB. The case of disks is made of matte plastic and has no rubber feet.

The length of the USB 3.0 interface cable is 44 cm.

The overall dimensions of the disc are 122.3×81.1×15.5 mm and the weight is 170 grams.

Seagate Expansion

Seagate Expansion external drives have a large 3.5” form factor. As a result, they have larger dimensions and need additional nutrition. The case of a disk is made of opaque plastic. To combat vibrations, there are four rubber feet on the bottom of the case. The model range of this series includes drives with a capacity of 1 TB, 2 TB, 3 TB, 4 TB and 5 TB.

The length of the USB 3.0 cable is 118 centimeters.

The disc is powered by a 12V DC power adapter with a maximum current consumption of 1.5A.

Silicon Power Armor A80

Silicon Power Armor A80 external hard drives are waterproof (IPX7) and shockproof. The outer surface of the body is made of matte anodized aluminium. Rubber feet, to dampen vibrations and give additional stability, are not available on the case. Disks are available in capacities of 500 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB.

Unlike all the other drives presented Silicon Power Armor A80 has not one interface cable in the kit, but two. The first cable has a length of 78 centimeters, and the second 8 centimeters. A short cable can be stored in a slot in one of the ends of the case.

Another difference between these drives is the use of a USB 3.0 A socket on the drive case. All other drives use USB 3.0 Micro-B sockets.

Disc dimensions are 139.45 × 94 × 18.1, and the weight is 270 grams.

TOSHIBA Stor.E Basics

The body of the disc is made of black matte plastic. There are four rubber feet on the bottom of the case. These drives are available in 500 GB, 750 GB and 1 TB.

The USB interface cable is 52.5 centimeters long.

The overall dimensions of the drives for the 500 GB and 750 GB versions are 118.9×79×13.5 millimeters and the weight is 150 grams. The 1TB version of the drive is 16.5 millimeters thick and weighs 180 grams, but otherwise the dimensions are identical to the less capacious models.

Transcend StoreJet 25h4

Transcend’s StoreJet 25h4 external hard drives feature a rubber-coated housing that can withstand shock loads. Available in 500 GB, 1 TB and 2 TB models in blue or purplish black.

The length of the USB cable is 45 centimeters.

The drive features a quick reconnect button that allows you to use a securely removed USB drive without unplugging and replugging the port.

The 500 GB and 1 TB models measure 131.8×80.8×19 mm and weigh 216 grams. The 2TB version is 24.5mm thick and weighs 284 grams.

Western Digital My Passport Ultra

The case of hard drives Western Digital My Passport Ultra is made of black matte plastic. It has four rubber feet on the bottom. The top case cover can be black, red, blue or metallic, depending on the model. Drives are available in 500 GB, 1 TB, or 2 TB.

The length of the USB cable is 46 centimeters.

The drive comes with a velvet pouch for easy storage and portability.

The 500 GB version measures 110 x 81.6 x 12.8 mm and weighs 130 grams. The 1TB version measures 110.5×82×15.4mm and weighs 160 grams, while the 2TB version measures 110.5×82×20.9mm and weighs 230 grams.

Western Digital Elements

The casing of the Western Digital Elements external hard drive is made of glossy plastic and is designed for vertical installation. On sale you can find drives with a capacity of 2 TB, 3 TB, 4 TB and 5 TB.

USB cable 126 cm long is used to connect the drive.

The disc is powered by a 12V DC power adapter with a maximum current consumption of 1.5A.

Crystal Disk Mark

Based on the data obtained, when testing drives in Crystal Disk Mark, the following diagram was built:

Of course, two models of large form factor drives became leaders in this test. Seagate Expansion external hard drive became the absolute leader. It is followed by Western Digital Elements, with a backlog of about 30 MB / s, for read / write operations.

Leading the way in small form factor storage is the ADATA HD710 hard drive. Literally on the heels of its results comes the Seagate Expansion Portable drive, lagging behind the leader by less than 10 MB / s. The difference between small form factor and large form factor drives is about 45-50 MB/s compared to Seagate Expansion and about 20 MB/s compared to Western Digital Elements.

The rest of the drives failed to break through the 120 MB / s mark and they formed a rather dense group. The weakest drive according to the test results was the Western Digital My Passport Ultra drive. Slightly better results were shown by HGST Touro Mobile MX3 and TOSHIBA Stor.E Basics. Even better results were shown by Silicon Power Armor A80 and Transcend StoreJet 25h4. But there is no need to talk about their clear advantage over the same Western Digital My Passport Ultra.

NAS performance tester 9 drive test0003

The next step was testing the drives as a network drive based on the ASUS RT-AC68U wireless router. Before testing, all disks were molded in NTFS. Then they connected to the USB 3.0 port of the router and using the NAS Performance Tester program measured the speeds for read and write operations for files of 100, 200 and 1000 MB.

Based on the data obtained, the following diagram was built:

As external drives were tested as a network drive, the picture became clearer and duller with each new drive. Regardless of the disk used, their results were practically the same. That was until it was the turn of the Transcend StoreJet 25h4 drive. Its results are out of the general range of all tested drives. If on read operations for 100 MB files the measured speeds are the same as those of competitors, then for 200 MB files the read speed is 1.5 times higher, and for 1000 MB files it is 2 times higher. On write operations, the results differ already for files of 100 MB. For the Transcend StoreJet 25h4 drive, they are about 1.4 times higher for files of any size.

Based on the results of this test, we can conclude that even when using one of the most powerful routers with a dual-core ARM processor, 256 MB of RAM and a USB 3.0 port, its performance is not enough to unlock the full potential of external hard drives as a network storage device. Therefore, if you want to organize network storage based on a router, then it does not matter which disk you will use for this. The only exception is the Transcend StoreJet 25h4 drive, the results of which turned out to be the best in this type of testing.

Purchasing large form factor external drives for this task becomes simply ill-considered. They demonstrate absolutely identical results for small form factor drives, but they are large and require additional power.

If you select some drives from the total mass, then they can be:
• The Seagate Expansion is a large form factor drive with the fastest read/write speeds of any competitor. This drive is perfect for those users who need to expand the amount of stored information and have access to it at the highest possible speeds.

• The ADATA HD710 is a small form factor drive with the fastest read/write speeds in a small form factor drive. This drive is suitable for those who use portable devices (laptops, ultrabooks, etc.) and need to expand their storage capacity at the highest possible speeds.

• The Transcend StoreJet 25h4 is a small form factor drive that has demonstrated the fastest read/write speeds when used as a network drive based on the ASUS RT-AC68U wireless router. This drive will perfectly cope with the task of using it as a network drive.

• The Western Digital My Passport Ultra is a small form factor drive, although the worst performer, I think it has the most attractive design, the widest color gamut in the model range and the presence of a velvet pouch in the kit. This drive is perfect as a gift, especially if the user cares about the appearance, not performance.