System Storage Benchmarks
3DMark
We are using 3DMark’s Storage Benchmark which tests common gaming workload traces. The benchmark tests loading Battlefield V, Call of Duty Black Ops 4, and Overwatch. It tests moving games by copying a Steam folder for CS:GO, and installing Outer Worlds from the Epic Games Launcher, and saving game progress in The Outer Worlds. It tests recording a 1080p gameplay video at 60FPS with OBS while playing Overwatch. We will graph the Overall Benchmark Score, higher is better.
In the 3DMark storage test, we are getting an overall score of 2060. This score is of course not as fast as a dedicated M.2 NVMe internal SSD, but it isn’t too far off the mark to be honest, if you hop over to this graph, you’ll see that this external drive would fall at the bottom, but really not too far off the mark from the slowest internal M.2 SSDs. This actually makes it a viable drive to play games from.
PCMark 10
Running PCMark 10’s quick system drive benchmark, which tests small workload traces, the overall score is 2328 with an access time of 55. That access time is not terrible, for this being an external drive, that isn’t bad at all. This score would also be on the lower end of internal SSD performance, but once again, not too far off from the bottom.
PassMark PerformanceTEST
We are using PassMark’s PerformanceTEST Disk Mark benchmark only. This test benchmarks Disk Sequential Read, Disk Sequential Write, IOPS 32KQD20, IOPS 4KQD1 tests and outputs an overall score (higher is better.)
The overall PassMark PerformanceTEST result is 31,375, which again does place it at the bottom of internal M.2 NVMe SSDs, but honestly, closer to what PCIe Gen3 SSDs offered; it’s not a terrible score.
Discussion (3 replies)
Join Discussion →So I took a old 1tb PCIE 3.x nvme drive in an 17 dollar external USB C enclosure. And tested. My speed results are here:
Then for giggles I pulled out my Sandisk 1TB external NVME drive. (supposedly faster and is encrypted and ran the same test.)
So that is without modifying disk settings or anything along those lines. Each test the drive was plugged into the same USB4 compatible USB-C port.
My system is in my sig. Just as a comparison.
Oh I for fun I did one pass in 'performance' mode on the drive to see how it would behave. The sandisk drive.
As you can see no REAL difference in speed. I'm not sure why your test was so vastly different with that setting on or off.
I am running this build of windows:
Perhaps that makes a difference?
It's more to do with USB 40Gbps drives; the faster the external drive, the greater the effect. It also has no affect on the MSI DATAMAG 20Gbps drive, in my testing, only the ADATA SE920, so it is definitely related to the maximum speed of the drive, and the interface speed it runs at.
The recommendation is also listed on ADATA's website, which is where I got the link from:
[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.adata.com/us/consumer/category/external-ssds-and-hard-drives/external-solid-state-drive-se920/[/URL]
If you scroll down on their webpage, you get this message in asterisks:
** When using external storage devices, following the two Windows principles of "Quick Removal" and "Improve Performance" is recommended. Please see link.
And so I tested it both at default, without changing anything, and then manually changed the option, and showed that result.
Interesting. Yea I guess I don't have a true USB 4.0 drive yet. Don't really feel a need for one.