I decided to join the modern era and swapped a FireCuda “Hybrid” drive for a full fat NVMe disk. For those wondering what the performance differences are, let’s run a quick winsat:
Segate FireCuda 1TB
C:\Users\jhpsi>winsat disk -drive c
Windows System Assessment Tool
Running: Feature Enumeration ”
Run Time 00:00:00.00
Running: Storage Assessment ‘-drive c -ran -read’
Run Time 00:00:13.45
Running: Storage Assessment ‘-drive c -seq -read’
Run Time 00:00:09.02
Running: Storage Assessment ‘-drive c -seq -write’
Run Time 00:00:05.38
Running: Storage Assessment ‘-drive c -flush -seq’
Run Time 00:00:03.52
Running: Storage Assessment ‘-drive c -flush -ran’
Run Time 00:00:04.42
Dshow Video Encode Time 0.00000 s
Dshow Video Decode Time 0.00000 s
Media Foundation Decode Time 0.00000 s
Disk Random 16.0 Read 1.60 MB/s 4.0
Disk Sequential 64.0 Read 166.32 MB/s 7.2
Disk Sequential 64.0 Write 173.37 MB/s 7.2
Average Read Time with Sequential Writes 3.872 ms 6.4
Latency: 95th Percentile 9.810 ms 5.7
Latency: Maximum 34.080 ms 7.9
Average Read Time with Random Writes 5.342 ms 5.9
WD Blue SN550 NVMe SSD 1TB
C:\Users\jhpsi>winsat disk -drive c
Windows System Assessment Tool
Running: Feature Enumeration ”
Run Time 00:00:00.00
Running: Storage Assessment ‘-drive c -ran -read’
Run Time 00:00:00.77
Running: Storage Assessment ‘-drive c -seq -read’
Run Time 00:00:03.16
Running: Storage Assessment ‘-drive c -seq -write’
Run Time 00:00:01.81
Running: Storage Assessment ‘-drive c -flush -seq’
Run Time 00:00:00.39
Running: Storage Assessment ‘-drive c -flush -ran’
Run Time 00:00:00.38
Dshow Video Encode Time 0.00000 s
Dshow Video Decode Time 0.00000 s
Media Foundation Decode Time 0.00000 s
Disk Random 16.0 Read 350.82 MB/s 8.1
Disk Sequential 64.0 Read 2083.30 MB/s 9.1
Disk Sequential 64.0 Write 2118.63 MB/s 9.1
Average Read Time with Sequential Writes 0.066 ms 8.9
Latency: 95th Percentile 0.219 ms 8.9
Latency: Maximum 0.606 ms 8.9
Average Read Time with Random Writes 0.067 ms 8.9
This is the WD “Blue” variant which is inexpensive and still a massive improvement over spinning platters and standard SSD. there are versions buy the usual vendors that promise 3-4 times the speed of the one I use, but you pay a premium.
My advice is that you make NVMe a must-have when shopping for your next motherboard. For reference, my board is a humble MSI B450M PRO-VDH MAX.
