We like PCMark's Storage 2.0
benchmark module for its real-world application measurement approach to testing.
PCMark offers a trace-based measurement of system response times under various scripted workloads of traditional client / desktop system operation. From simple application start-up performance, to data streaming from a drive in a game engine, and video and photo editing with
Adobe applications, we are comfortable that these tests reasonably illustrate the performance profile of SSDs in an end-user / consumer PC usage model, more so than a purely synthetic transfer test.
The OCZ RC100 drives trailed the pack in the trace-based PCMark tests, though they were right in the mix overall. With the actual application workloads used in these tests, sequential transfers are less important and low queue depth, random reads have the largest impact in performance. And that's exactly where the RC100 is more competitive.
