Beyond Sprandom: Further Reducing Preconditioning Time for Full Performance Suites

Sprandom significantly reduces the preconditioning time for a Random write workload, and allows the drive to reach random workload steady state at near sequential write speeds.  If sequential testing is required prior to random tests, Sprandom forces a full drive write, meaning any prior sequential write to the drive needs to be rewritten. By modifying the Sprandom algorithm to perform a logical write modification to an already sequentially preconditioned drive, a full drive write can be removed from a performance test cycle.  

The drive can be sequentially preconditioned allowing any Sequential Write or Sequential Read tests to be performed.  Once that testing is complete, a SSprandom (Short Sprandom) modification write pattern can be applied to the drive which will transition the drive to a random precondition steady state with a minimal set of targeted writes to the already sequentially written drive.

This modification to the Sprandom algorithm will allow further preconditioning test time reductions, with the associated PE cycle reduction to preconditioning, and further enhance the Sprandom method.  As drives continue to increase in size, additional precondition improvements will be necessary, and this method continues to improve on the original Sprandom algorithm.