OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS - 75,000 IOPS???

[JohnnyLucky]

Yesterday morning OCZ released the OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS solid state drive which boosts maximum IOPS to 75,000.

In an official OCZ press release, OCZ CEO Ryan Peterson is quoted as saying:

"Vertex 3 Max IOPS drives increase random write performance, and are the ideal storage solution for applications that require high aggregate workloads and increased IO throughput."

What would a typical home user, a gamer, or an enthusiast be doing that would require such an enormous IO throughput capability? Is there software or a game that could make use of it? I have not read about about anything like that for home use or gaming.

There are two ways to measure IOPs. The first is the typical benchmark which measure how many I/O's a solid state drive can process in one second. That is the benchmark we almost always see. The second way involves measuring the actual IOPS while doing something like playing a game or editing an image in Photoshop. That is the measurement that we typically do not see. Luckily there are a few reviews that provided the second measurement. In those benchmarks the IOPS rarely exceed 4,000.

I've never seen an article that reported unusually high IOPS for typical home use or while gaming. Anand over at AnandTech suggested 20,000 IOPS is the practical upper limit for ssd's.

What do people do on their home computers or while playing games that require such high capabilities?

FTR - Over on the business enterprise side there are SSD's that are capable of 1 million IOPS but they are highly specialized ssd's for highly specialized applications. They are not suitable for home use or gaming. Don't even ask about the price.

 

[flong]

I think that we are just beginning to see an explosion in speed. OCZ just won an enterprise contest where the SSD was capable of 3 GB/s. That is staggering performance but it is already a reality. This was a speed contest and so I don't think it is mainstream by any means - still it shows us what is on the horizon.

Already we hear rumors that Ivy Bridge will be something like 30- 50% faster than Sandy Bridge and bandwidth transfers will be 2-5 times faster. I'm not sure that my numbers are exactly right but Ivy Bridge which is just a few months away comes close to doubling the speed of the 2600K and the 2600K, a $300 CPU, beats the I-7 990 when properly overclocked.

We are quickly moving to the point where we will be talking to computers. Already vlingo, which works with Iphones and Android phones, already allows amazing voice control of the phone. You can compose email and SMS messages and send them. You can ask it to search the web for items. It will read back email and SMS messages to you. Can this control be very far from personal computers?

I believe we are not that far from having personal super computers that will make the computers we have now like the primitive 1980 computers. IBM's watson is going to be a gold mine for IBM. Imagine to be able to harness the power of a supercomputer and ask it any question you want about your business, the economy, job costs, material costs - anything. Huge amounts of critical information will be as simple as asking.

If we want to create a database - we just direct "Watson" to assemble the data that we want into an array for future reference. Then we can ask Watson to remind us about the information.

I want to surf this revolution like a wave. I want to understand it and master it because knowledge is power. Already for my business, understanding how to communicated efficiently with PDFs and email, rather than faxes and snail mail gives me an advantage over my competition. It enables me to move faster, work less and do more than companies that have not adapted.

In order for me to be excellent in my business and supply my clients with first-class service, I must be be competitive in a computer and knowledge based world. If I am not, then I will be left behind. To pay for such services can be very costly for a small business like mine and I enjoy the challenge of doing it myself. I trained myself to diagnose and work on my own work trucks because I did not want to pay $120 per hour for a mechanic whom I really don't trust that much anyway.

So though I am a civil engineer, I am self-educating myself in the world of electrical engineering and computer science. It is frustrating because often I struggle through technical articles stopping every 30 seconds to look up a technical term and three other related technical terms.

How much is enough? Enough is to stay cutting edge and literate and intelligent in this fast changing world. I know that fast SSDs are a part of that answer right now because they will save me valuable time.

 

[flong]

BTW, I do know that we can talk to computers now, but I mean in an AI way.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

What you want is a computer like the one installed in the Federation Starship Enterprise.

Two to beam up Scotty!

 

[flong]

What you want is a computer like the one installed in the Federation Starship Enterprise.

Two to beam up Scotty!

Yeah, ha, ha I'm a Trekky (just how do you spell "Trekky" anyway)? No seriously, we already almost have that in IBM's Watson. Watson is nearly what we see in Star Trek's first series.

No seriously, I believe to be successful in any business as we move into this century a company will have to be computer literate. For me it is kind of a hobby and it is interesting. It is kind of a 3D Sudoku puzzle (I love really hard Sudoku puzzles). Only this puzzle has a tangible benefit. I stay on top of cutting edge computer advances and I am able to craft them to aid my company 🙂.

 

[flong]

BTW, I think its "Trekkie" 🙂

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Trekkie is correct.

I watched the original tv show when I was in high school. This past weekend one of the TV stations had a Star Trek movie marathon. I watched all of the movies for the umpteenth time.

Live Long and Prosper!

 

[flong]

"I have and will always be your friend" 🙂