Choosing the Right Solid State Storage Device: A Case Study of the SNIA SSSI Performance Test Specification

The Storage Networking Industry Association’s (SNIA) Solid State Storage Initiative (SSSI) has released the first version of its Solid State Storage Performance Test Specification (SSS PTS)i . The SSS PTS, combined with a good reference test system, is an important tool for system integrators to use to find the right solid state drive (SSD) for their intended application. This white paper illustrates how the SSS PTS can effectively be used to compare a number of SSDs. The paper describes test results from 17 SSDs currently on the market. Although SSDs are generally specified to perform much faster than hard disk drives (HDDs), SSD performance usually degrades over time, while HDD performance remains the same over the life of the product. In some cases an SSD can underperform an HDD. Actual SSD performance can vary greatly depending upon the product design (especially the controller and controller firmware) and the application workload.