To test the real-life performance of a drive we use a mix of folder/file types and by using the FastCopy utility (which gives a time as well as MB/s result) we record the performance of the drive reading from & writing to a 256GB Samsung SSD 850 Pro.
We use the following files/folders:
- 100GB data file.
- 60GB iso image.
- 60GB Steam folder – 29,521 files.
- 50GB File folder – 28,523 files.
- 12GB Movie folder – (15 files – 8 @ .MKV, 4 @ .MOV, 3 @ MP4).
- 10GB Photo folder – (304 files – 171 @ .RAW, 105 @ JPG, 21 @ .CR2, 5 @ .DNG).
- 10GB Audio folder – (1,483 files – 1479 @ MP3, 4 @ .FLAC files).
- 5GB (1.5bn pixel) photo.
- BluRay Movie – 42GB.
- 21GB 8K Movie demos – (11 demos)
- 16GB 4K Raw Movie Clips – (9 MP4V files).
- 4.25GB 3D Printer File Folder – (166 files – 105 @ .STL, 38 @ .FBX, 11 @ .blend, 5 @ .lwo, 4 @ .OBJ, 3@ .3ds).
- 1.5GB AutoCAD File Folder (80 files – 60 @ .DWG and 20 @.DXF).
The 980 Pro Heatsink handled our real-life file transfers without any problems, particularly when dealing with the larger file size transfers, averaging 543MB/s for writes and 456MB/s for reads when dealing with these file types.
To get a measure of how much faster PCIe NVMe drives are than standard SATA SSD we use the same files but transfer to and from a 2TB Kioxia Exceria Plus drive:
This saw transfer speeds rocket and overall transfer times dropped dramatically. Eleven of the transfers topped well over 2GB/s when writing to the drive, while the remaining two transfers topped 1GB/s. The drive did seem to have a bit of a struggle when reading the 100GB data file however.