Sequential Read Performance
Our first test of sequential read performance uses short bursts of 128MB, issued as 128kB operations with no queuing. The test averages performance across eight bursts for a total of 1GB of data transferred from a drive containing 16GB of data. Between each burst the drive is given enough idle time to keep the overall duty cycle at 20%.
The Team Group MP34's newer firmware brings a few percent improvement to the burst sequential read speed, but the Phison E12 drives are all still stuck below 2GB/s while Silicon Motion SM2262(EN) drives are around 2.5GB/s at QD1.
Our test of sustained sequential reads uses queue depths from 1 to 32, with the performance and power scores computed as the average of QD1, QD2 and QD4. Each queue depth is tested for up to one minute or 32GB transferred, from a drive containing 64GB of data. This test is run twice: once with the drive prepared by sequentially writing the test data, and again after the random write test has mixed things up, causing fragmentation inside the SSD that isn't visible to the OS. These two scores represent the two extremes of how the drive would perform under real-world usage, where wear leveling and modifications to some existing data will create some internal fragmentation that degrades performance, but usually not to the extent shown here.
On the longer sequential read test, the Phison E12 drives including the Team MP34 are all at a clear disadvantage to the Samsung or Silicon Motion based competition. However, in the worst case scenario of reading data that was written as random writes, the MP34 performs reasonably well: ahead of the Silicon Motion drives but still slower than Samsung.
The power efficiency of the Team MP34 is naturally better than the Gigabyte Aorus SSD with RGB LEDs, and it is almost tied with the Samsung 970 EVO 500GB. In absolute terms, the power draw by the MP34 during the sequential read test was lower than any other high-end NVMe SSD, but still clearly higher than SATA and entry-level NVMe drives.
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Like other Phison E12 drives, the Team MP34 is hurt by sequential read performance that stays basically flat until queue depths increase beyond QD4, and our scores above focus specifically on low queue depths. At sufficiently high queue depths, the MP34 reaches reasonable speeds for a high-end drive.
The sequential read speeds from the Team MP34 span a wide range of speeds, depending on queue depth. At low and high queue depths, it operates with reasonable efficiency, but for low queue depths there are several entry-level NVMe drives that offer better efficiency for similar or better speeds.
Sequential Write Performance
Our test of sequential write burst performance is structured identically to the sequential read burst performance test save for the direction of the data transfer. Each burst writes 128MB as 128kB operations issued at QD1, for a total of 1GB of data written to a drive containing 16GB of data.
The 1TB Phison E12 drives have some of the best scores on our burst sequential write test, but the 512GB drives like the Team MP34 offer less than half of the performance. The MP34 manages just over 1GB/s while the Plextor M9Pe hits 1.7GB/s with the same NAND and the 500GB Samsung 970EVO is well over 2GB/s.
Our test of sustained sequential writes is structured identically to our sustained sequential read test, save for the direction of the data transfers. Queue depths range from 1 to 32 and each queue depth is tested for up to one minute or 32GB, followed by up to one minute of idle time for the drive to cool off and perform garbage collection. The test is confined to a 64GB span of the drive.
On the longer sequential write test, there are fewer 512GB-class drives that beat the Team MP34, but the Samsung and Silicon Motion drives both manage to do so by a wide margin. As with the burst sequential write performance, the MP34's newer firmware gives it only a tiny advantage over the Gigabyte drive with older firmware.
The power efficiency of the Team MP34 on the sustained sequential write test is pretty good for a 512GB-class drive, but pales in comparison to what the good 1TB drives offer. As usual, the MP34 is the least power-hungry high-end NVMe drive in this bunch, but in this case its performance isn't quite up to high-end standards.
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As with most drives on this test, the Team MP34's performance doesn't vary with capacity. The 1TB Phison E12 drives and a few others show variable performance because they are sometimes able to complete most or all of one of the test phases using just their SLC cache, but the SLC cache on the 512GB MP34 is too small for this test.
The sequential write performance of the Team MP34 is well above SATA levels and power efficiency is about average for the speeds it attains, but larger NVMe drives can provide vastly higher write speeds.
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