Samsung EVO SD card benchmark peculatiry

pkl

Junior Member
Jul 23, 2014
1
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I've been testing a Samsung EVO 32GB SDHC card and have been seeing some strange benchmark results on write speeds. I'm using a SanDisk All-In-One USB 3.0 reader with a setup that tests other SD cards consistently (up to 85MB/s writes), so I don't think equipment is an issue here.

To begin, the Samsung EVO SD card is new out of the package, never written or formatted.

Code:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.3 x64 (C) 2007-2013 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]


           Sequential Read :    46.325 MB/s
          [B]Sequential Write :    19.457 MB/s[/B]
         Random Read 512KB :    41.880 MB/s
        [B]Random Write 512KB :    35.283 MB/s[/B]
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :     4.623 MB/s [  1128.6 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :     1.084 MB/s [   264.8 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :     4.691 MB/s [  1145.2 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :     1.210 MB/s [   295.3 IOPS]


  Test : 1000 MB [I: 0.0% (0.0/29.3 GB)] (x5)
  Date : 2014/07/21 14:26:39
    OS : Windows 7 Professional SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

The relatively slow sequential large writes and faster random 512KB writes was unexpected. However, I noticed similar results in another article here ( 19.0MB/s sequential write / 31.6MB/s random large block write ).

Perhaps this card was doing some initialization that slowed down the first sequential test. So I went ahead and ran the same test again.

Code:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.3 x64 (C) 2007-2013 hiyohiyo
                           Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]


           Sequential Read :    46.465 MB/s
          [B]Sequential Write :    27.873 MB/s[/B]
         Random Read 512KB :    42.091 MB/s
        [B]Random Write 512KB :    23.261 MB/s[/B]
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :     4.596 MB/s [  1122.2 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :     1.668 MB/s [   407.3 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :     4.675 MB/s [  1141.3 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :     1.680 MB/s [   410.1 IOPS]


  Test : 1000 MB [I: 0.0% (0.0/29.3 GB)] (x5)
  Date : 2014/07/21 15:11:21
    OS : Windows 7 Professional SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

Sequential is faster, random is slower. CDM is reporting the best of 5 passes so these results might not tell the whole story. I ran some more single pass tests and they continued about the same as the second one. At this point I did a full overwrite format using SD Formatter 4.0 and then ran some more single tests. Performance was basically unchanged after the format.

I then ran ATTO and this is where things got strange again:

AED3m4v.png


ATTO is using uncompressed data for testing, maybe that had an effect. Anyway, I went on and ran the same test using another reader. Lexar SR1 USB 3.0:

4JL2JZV.png


That didn't go as well. So I put it back in the SanDisk All-in-One:

7GQGted.png


And now I'm starting to wonder what is happening, but I run the same test again:

OUjZUel.png


And back on the Lexar SR1:

Q8TYCKO.png


Is there something going on with the card controller here? Is it confused and/or adjusting to these benchmark tests?

For some some real world tests I copied a few sets of 24 RAW images over (40-50MB each) from a SSD. I was seeing writes in the 20MB/s to 25MB/s range.

Running CDM with some sequential writes:
Code:
50MB
          Sequential Write :    40.442 MB/s
          Sequential Write :    24.013 MB/s
          Sequential Write :    24.057 MB/s
          Sequential Write :    24.098 MB/s
100MB
          Sequential Write :    26.904 MB/s
          Sequential Write :    26.811 MB/s
          Sequential Write :    24.025 MB/s
          Sequential Write :    26.439 MB/s

I actually had 2 tests report 40MB/s but didn't capture the first result.

QuickBench:

Code:
---- Standard Test Details: 4 Kbytes - 1024 Kbytes (1 Megabyte) ----


Transfer Size       	Sequential Read  	Sequential Write 	Random Read      	Random Write     

     4 KBytes    	020.729 MB/sec    	001.644 MB/sec    	005.002 MB/sec    	002.026 MB/sec    
     8 KBytes    	028.290 MB/sec    	002.359 MB/sec    	009.367 MB/sec    	004.079 MB/sec    
    16 KBytes    	034.782 MB/sec    	003.429 MB/sec    	015.316 MB/sec    	005.515 MB/sec    
    32 KBytes    	039.438 MB/sec    	004.038 MB/sec    	017.935 MB/sec    	005.910 MB/sec    
    64 KBytes    	041.665 MB/sec    	007.705 MB/sec    	022.122 MB/sec    	015.389 MB/sec    
   128 KBytes    	043.196 MB/sec    	011.038 MB/sec    	029.451 MB/sec    	027.101 MB/sec    
   256 KBytes    	043.790 MB/sec    	013.657 MB/sec    	035.087 MB/sec    	029.988 MB/sec    
   512 KBytes    	044.171 MB/sec    	017.420 MB/sec    	038.876 MB/sec    	016.973 MB/sec    
  1024 KBytes    	044.223 MB/sec    	016.935 MB/sec    	041.440 MB/sec    	032.143 MB/sec    

Test Average:      	037.809 MB/sec    	008.692 MB/sec    	023.844 MB/sec    	015.458 MB/sec    

 Lowest Mark:      	020.729 MB/sec    	001.644 MB/sec    	005.002 MB/sec    	002.026 MB/sec    
Highest Mark:      	044.223 MB/sec    	017.420 MB/sec    	041.440 MB/sec    	032.143 MB/sec    



---- Large Test Details: 2 MB - 10 MB ----


Transfer Size    	Read Speed       	Write Speed      

  2 Megabytes      	044.361 MB/sec    	035.919 MB/sec    
  3 Megabytes      	044.229 MB/sec    	035.626 MB/sec    
  4 Megabytes      	044.420 MB/sec    	035.561 MB/sec    
  5 Megabytes      	044.219 MB/sec    	035.571 MB/sec    
  6 Megabytes      	044.269 MB/sec    	035.418 MB/sec    
  7 Megabytes      	044.085 MB/sec    	020.436 MB/sec    
  8 Megabytes      	044.194 MB/sec    	016.862 MB/sec    
  9 Megabytes      	044.054 MB/sec    	017.775 MB/sec    
 10 Megabytes      	044.186 MB/sec    	019.074 MB/sec    

Test Average:      	044.224 MB/sec    	028.027 MB/sec    

 Lowest Mark:      	044.054 MB/sec    	016.862 MB/sec    
Highest Mark:      	044.420 MB/sec    	035.919 MB/sec

Code:
---- Large Test Details: 2 MB - 10 MB ----


Transfer Size    	Read Speed       	Write Speed      

  2 Megabytes      	044.192 MB/sec    	029.758 MB/sec    
  3 Megabytes      	044.366 MB/sec    	029.170 MB/sec    
  4 Megabytes      	044.323 MB/sec    	035.429 MB/sec    
  5 Megabytes      	044.254 MB/sec    	035.470 MB/sec    
  6 Megabytes      	044.360 MB/sec    	035.263 MB/sec    
  7 Megabytes      	044.051 MB/sec    	018.434 MB/sec    
  8 Megabytes      	044.155 MB/sec    	019.499 MB/sec    
  9 Megabytes      	044.092 MB/sec    	018.765 MB/sec    
 10 Megabytes      	044.138 MB/sec    	019.146 MB/sec    

Test Average:      	044.215 MB/sec    	026.771 MB/sec    

 Lowest Mark:      	044.051 MB/sec    	018.434 MB/sec    
Highest Mark:      	044.366 MB/sec    	035.470 MB/sec

What is going on with this card? Could this be a normal(?) controller behavior, or possibly an issue with the card/error correcting.