Are these Performance Benchmarks normal?

[LadyA]

Kind of a noob here... just put a new primary SSD and secondary SSHD (hybrid) drive into my Dell XPS8500 desktop PC. The SSD came with software called "Samsung Magician," which has tools for OS Optimization and also tests your Performance Benchmark. I have no idea about benchmarks and what's normal. Just curious if these results are okay/normal, or what they should be, etc? Here's screenshots:

Other specs of my system are:
Windows 10 64-bit
Intel Core i7-3770
12GB RAM
Nvidia GeForce GT 640
AHCI enabled
TRIM enabled
RAPID mode enabled

Thanks in advance!

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, LadyA.

Those benchmark tests seem completely normal in my opinion . The reason for you to get such high numbers for your SSD is that you have RAPID mode enabled. When you have this mode enabled, part of your memory (RAM) is used for storage and this speeds things up significantly. You can turn it off in order for you to have the full capacity of your RAM available at all times, but having in mind you have 12GB I really don't think this will be a problem unless you're using photo/video editing software which sometimes can be quite demanding in terms of RAM. If you re-test the drive with RAPID mode disabled, you should get the speeds that the SSD is capable of.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD

 

[LadyA]

Oh, I see, thanks! So even those seemingly low values on the SSHD drive are pretty standard? (I don't have any frame of reference, this is the first time I've even done or seen a benchmark on my system.) I expected the SSD to be faster for obvious reasons, but didn't expect there to be such a HUGE difference.

Hmm, I actually do deal with pictures a lot. I use Adobe Photoshop Elements 14 & Premiere Elements 14, too (one is for editing photos and one is for editing videos). It's more mellow(?), and cheaper, in comparison to full-blown Photoshop or Illustrator or whatnot, but the Organizer window has to load thousands of thumbnails and stuff.

Based on what you said, I figured I should just disable RAPID mode then, so I googled a bit to see if I need to do anything special before or after disabling it... and I ended up finding the FAQ sheet for it (something I probably should have read before I even enabled it! hah).

It says:

4) What happens when my applications require more memory?
RAPID mode will release and re-acquire system resources seamlessly based on system activity and requirements. RAPID mode consumes at most 25% of the installed DRAM, up to a maximum of 1GB.

Do you think that means that I don't need to worry about the photo editing then, and should just leave RAPID mode enabled? That sounds like even if my photos need more memory then it will just give it to them automatically? And a maximum of 1GB of the installed RAM sounds like nothing for my system since I have 12GB.

Thanks again for your help!

 

[Boogieman_WD]

You should be fine with RAPID mode enabled if this is the case and as I've mentioned 12GB should be enough for everything.
The SSHD's values seem OK. Those are based on the HDD part, so I'd say that they are fine. The small SSD part of the SSHD is used for caching, which means it automatically stores programs and files you regularly use in order for you to be able to access and load them faster, but the overall speed of the SSHD does not change for everything else. That's why SSHD's are mainly used as OS drives in order for you to be able to fully take advantage of their performance. However in your case you have an SSD, which is much much faster than that, so it's OK to have your SSHD as a secondary storage drive.

Cheers!

 

[LadyA]

Sorry about the late reply... thank you for your help! I feel better about the setup now that I know a bit more about it all.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Sure think, don't hesitate to ask if anything else comes up. 😉