SD Card Benchmarks

[semtex]

I've installed the disk utility (palimpsest) on my RasPi and everything works except for the benchmarking... Which does nothing when I try to run either read or read/write test

[AndrewS]

Is there a version of these testing programs that will run directly from the Pi?

http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... =29&t=6180
The 'speed figures' on the RPi are going to be totally different to the Windows testing figures though... http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... 342#p80342 (but are obviously a better real-world benchmark)

[honda4life]

TakeMS Micro SDHC Class 6 32GB 92789 is absolute crap

I was very very wrong, bad card reader.
Colclusion: The only way to benchmark sd is in the pi itself!

[Nogsx3]

"SanDisk Mobile Ultra 16GB MicroSDHC Memory Card with SD Adapter"

Class 6 cards, as a guide the Crystal Disk Mark scores. 4k write of 2 mb/s aren't bad.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 18.457 MB/s
Sequential Write : 8.096 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 18.065 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 0.670 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 2.867 MB/s [ 700.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 2.015 MB/s [ 491.8 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 2.688 MB/s [ 656.2 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.248 MB/s [ 60.5 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [H: 0.0% (0.0/14.8 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2012/06/06 18:11:48
OS : Windows 7 SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

[yaconsult]

root@raspberrypi:~# hdparm -t /dev/mmcblk0

/dev/mmcblk0:
Timing buffered disk reads: 14 MB in 3.23 seconds = 4.33 MB/sec

Is there a version of these testing programs that will run directly from the Pi?

[radegand]

Hi,

I had the same problem - which card to get...I've tested two cards, both Sandisk, one is 16GB 30MB/s Ultra class 6 micro SDHC with adapter and the other one was standard size SD 16GB Extreme 45MB/s, class 10.

None of them worked with stock debian install (debian6-19-04-2012), but they both worked when I updated the kernel.img and start.elf files to the latest available (from yesterday ).

With CrystalMark they showed very similar performance, with random writes around 1-1.3MB but I was curious if I could get some better benchmarks. I found a great tool - fio (http://freecode.com/projects/fio) that can be run on the Pi itself - you just need to use apt-get to install it.

It would be interesting to see what other cards can do. I've created three very simple tests, read, write and read/write and put my results on my blog, if anyone is interested:
http://hardenedgentoo.blogspot.co.uk/20 ... cards.html

Cheers,
radegand

[pjc123]

I found a great tool - fio (http://freecode.com/projects/fio) that can be run on the Pi itself - you just need to use apt-get to install it.

Nice find and detailed write-up! My remaining pi external parts arrive today and I plan on doing a performance test before and after I do a kernel/firmware update to see what the improvements are.

[Preamp]

Here are some more cards.
I chose the SanDisk .
Regards, Lasse

[ptrenh]

I just got my R-Pi and I was looking for a discussion about this... Booting an OS from SD reminds me of the Nook Color booting CM7 from a uSD. There's an interesting older discussion in another forum that originates from CM7 on the NC:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthr ... ?t=1005633

Long story short, it was Sandisk class 2 and class 4 uSD that were highly coveted due to faster random writes and reads, not the sequential.

It doesn't seem like a large number of people are reporting that this is an issue with the RPi yet, but I think it'll be relevant in terms of performance. It was definitely noticeable on the Nook Color.

and P.S. I can confirm that a uSD with an adapter works on the R Pi

[ech0]

I just purchased 2 SD Cards which arrived this morning.
One is a SandDisk Ultra and the other one is a Kingston.

I just finished the tests and this is the results, I kinda have to go with the SanDisk don't I?



I'm stunned about the 4K write results of the Kingston, holy...how can it be this bad.

Do you guys think I can still run 1080p movies from the Kingston card or maybe that's based on the seq result since it's a larger file?

[danh]

Have we a set of benchmarks on the pi that we can use as a standard way to measure sdcard speed. I am just about to buy some sd cards (probably 2 upto 32G) and i am not too bothered about speed but I will post my results if there is a standard benchmark

Dan

[milhouse]

Do you guys think I can still run 1080p movies from the Kingston card or maybe that's based on the seq result since it's a larger file?

Don't see why not, the read performance of the two cards seems fairly comparable - it's the write performance that's a disaster on the Kingston, which suggests it would take a lot longer to populate the media library if you were running something like XBMC. Copying your 1080p movie to the Kingston card will also take a fair bit longer than it would on the San Disk... but playing it back, probably very little difference.

[adi518]

Anyone tested a Sandisk Ultra 16GB 30MB/s Class 10 ? I've seen only Class 6 benchmarks and although it seems to be good, I can't find a Class 6 in any of the local stores as they seem to carry only the Class 10 version. I just need to know before I throw my money on it, it's a 25$ card.

I did find a 30MB/s Class 6 version on ebay on what seems to be LEGIT Chinese seller:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SANDISK-GENUINE ... 896wt_1399

[ren41]

I have a 16gb Sandisk microSD card with adapter and it seems to be quite responsive. I haven't benchmarked it so can only go by comparison with other members' comments and my own experiences compared to other (non-Linux) machines.

At the moment I'm running the Squeeze version of Linux and I want to try out Wheezy, and RiscOS too. I want to get 1 x 32gb storage and 1 x extra 16gb storage. Has anyone tried booting and running from SD card, and compared it with running from USB drive after boot? I'm not expecting a definitive answer as to which is quickest but some informed opinions would be good - I can only afford to go down one route and I don't know if USB drives are significantly quicker or if the new SD card drivers that are being written will radically speed things up, to the point where there's not much difference. Has anyone been testing both?

thanks

ren

[FlangeMonkey]

It appears its getting harder and harder to get a Sandisk class 6. Although I am finding Sandisk Class 6 in microSD. Other class 6 cards are also running more expensive... dam you all for buying them and pushing up the prices ...

I have read quite a few posts and reviews, but I'm still finding it hard to clarify, which is the best of the breed and I might have missed something, like class 10 performs well.

Can anyone please give me some clarify on which is the main runner in performance? Any additional info will also be appreciated. Like how class 10 cards will performance on random reads/writes.

Thanks,

[ech0]

Can anyone please give me some clarify on which is the main runner in performance?

Yeah, I think it would be great if we could sum this up and try finding the ultimate card for the Raspberry Pi.

[adi518]

Can anyone please give me some clarify on which is the main runner in performance?

Yeah, I think it would be great if we could sum this up and try finding the ultimate card for the Raspberry Pi.

+1

[dukla2000]

Has anyone tried booting and running from SD card, and compared it with running from USB drive after boot? I'm not expecting a definitive answer as to which is quickest but some informed opinions would be good - I can only afford to go down one route and I don't know if USB drives are significantly quicker or if the new SD card drivers that are being written will radically speed things up, to the point where there's not much difference. Has anyone been testing both?

Yup - started out with my Pi using a no-name brand class 10 micro-SDcard in an adapter in May. Quickly found it was much faster in a USB converter, then went and bought an 8GB USB stick and ran with that for a while.

With all the work done on the SDcard driver decided to try revert to using an SDcard and have an 8GB Sandisk Extreme on order, but today put the 16GB no-name back in its adapter and quite frankly it runs similar speed to the USB stick. So figure for now SDcard is perfectly OK.

ps - my researches also turned up the theoretical max speed of memory in a USB2 slot is around 22MB/sec which is remarkably similar to the 22MB/sec folks are now getting our of the Pi SD-slot.

Have we a set of benchmarks on the pi that we can use as a standard way to measure sdcard speed. I am just about to buy some sd cards (probably 2 upto 32G) and i am not too bothered about speed but I will post my results if there is a standard benchmark

In terms of benchmarks figure this thread (testing on Windows) is missing the point. I have been using f3write/read (as a basic sanity test of the device), hdparm -t gives a fair read guess, bonnie++ tries hard but I find the results inconsistent and quite frankly figure Terje's dd script to be pretty cheap, cheerful & worthwhile.

Code: Select all

sync; rm -rf testing*; sync; time ( for item in `seq 1 1000`; do dd if=/dev/zero of=testing.$item bs=16k count=10; sync; done; )

Just remember to delete the testing* files afterwards as well. Basically it writes 1,000 small (160k byte) files to disk and gives you a time for that. As you wrote 160M bytes by the total seconds to get a write MB/sec . Read speed isn't a big deal - most reasonable cards should be OK.

My USB memory stick gives hdparm -t 25.35MB/sec, dd as above ran in 162.7 seconds i.e. not much better than 1MB/sec writes!
My 16GB no-name gives hdparm-t 18.92MB/sec, dd as above ran in 85 seconds i.e. closer to 2MB/sec
Running Raspbian, arm_freq=850.

Am busy re-building the USB stick with the partition aligned as per Terje's blog in the hope it's write speed will improve.

[willd]

Results for 3 cards I have. I'm mainly using the SanDisk 8GB Class 4 and the performance seems OK and much better than the Kingston 16GB class 4.

##############################################################
SanDisk Extreme SDHC I Class 10 16GB - connected to USB Adapter
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 20.576 MB/s
Sequential Write : 19.416 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 20.139 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 3.868 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 3.339 MB/s [ 815.1 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.903 MB/s [ 220.4 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 3.866 MB/s [ 943.7 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.805 MB/s [ 196.6 IOPS]

Test : 50 MB [G: 0.0% (0.0/14.8 GB)] (x1)
Date : 2012/07/08 10:15:51
OS : Windows 7 SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)



#######################################################################
Kingston SDHC Class 4 16GB - connected to USB Adapter
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 17.280 MB/s
Sequential Write : 10.909 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 16.474 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 0.901 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 2.927 MB/s [ 714.6 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.006 MB/s [ 1.5 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 3.264 MB/s [ 796.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.007 MB/s [ 1.7 IOPS]

Test : 50 MB [G: 0.0% (0.0/14.9 GB)] (x1)
Date : 2012/07/08 10:25:28
OS : Windows 7 SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)




#######################################################################
SanDisk SDHC CLASS 4 8GB - connected to USB Adapter
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 10.783 MB/s
Sequential Write : 6.236 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 10.622 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 1.641 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 2.226 MB/s [ 543.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 1.124 MB/s [ 274.4 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 2.858 MB/s [ 697.6 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.281 MB/s [ 68.6 IOPS]

Test : 50 MB [G: 0.0% (0.2/7572.0 MB)] (x1)
Date : 2012/07/08 10:49:40
OS : Windows 7 SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

[Athoz]

From USB reader
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 20.042 MB/s
Sequential Write : 19.425 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 19.713 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 4.667 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 3.690 MB/s [ 901.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 1.171 MB/s [ 285.9 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 3.678 MB/s [ 897.9 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 1.185 MB/s [ 289.3 IOPS]

Test : 50 MB [J: 0.0% (0.0/7572.0 MB)] (x5)
Date : 2012/07/11 20:28:07
OS : Windows 7 [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)
SanDisk Ultra SDHC 8GB Class 10 30MB/s

[krisg1984]

Sandisk Ultra 30MB/s SDHC Card 8GB (Class 6)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000QUUFRM

Benchmarked on 2011 MacBook Air card reader using Xbench

Sequential
Uncached Write 8.98 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 7.35 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 4.34 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 33.64 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Random
Uncached Write 2.32 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 0.61 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 3.21 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 33.10 MB/sec [256K blocks]

[naartjie]

Here is a cheapy that works for me (R40.00- RSA)
KingMax 8Gb MicroSD Class 4

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 17.924 MB/s
Sequential Write : 4.568 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 17.672 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 3.107 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 5.325 MB/s [ 1300.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.968 MB/s [ 236.3 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 5.423 MB/s [ 1324.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 1.152 MB/s [ 281.4 IOPS]

Test : 50 MB [J: 0.0% (0.0/7570.0 MB)] (x5)
Date : 2012/07/19 10:40:05
OS : Windows XP Professional SP3, v.5657 [5.1 Build 2600] (x86)
KingmaxMicroSDHC8Gb Class4 (KM08GMCSDHC41A)

[runeks]

[...]
Colclusion: The only way to benchmark sd is in the pi itself!
[...]

Is there a version of these testing programs that will run directly from the Pi?

Yes. The most valuable benchmarks are done on the Pi itself. The program to use is called iozone. It's installable on my Ubuntu box using apt-getv via the iozone3 package. I'm not sure if it's available in Debian on the Pi, but I assume it is. iozone can test almost anything. Just cd to a folder that resides on the sd card and run iozone. Here are some example switches that will resemble the CrystalDiskMark tests (50 MB file size, sequential read/write, 512k+4kb random read/write):

Code: Select all

iozone -e -I -a -s 50M -r 4k -r 512k -i 0 -i 1 -i 2

Example results for my SSD:

Code: Select all

	Command line used: iozone -e -I -a -s 50M -r 4k -r 512k -i 0 -i 1 -i 2
	Output is in Kbytes/sec
	Time Resolution = 0.000001 seconds.
	Processor cache size set to 1024 Kbytes.
	Processor cache line size set to 32 bytes.
	File stride size set to 17 * record size.
                                                            random  random
              KB  reclen   write rewrite    read    reread    read   write

           51200       4   24685   26740    76735    76388   22259   27553
           51200     512   37419   43406    91667   217910  244109   39846

[AlVal]

I'm happy to report my new sandisk extreme pro 8gb 95mb/s card

http://www.pixmania-pro.co.uk/gb/uk/119 ... -mb-s.html


works excellently

[AlVal]

myscore.jpg (59.59 KiB) Viewed 15711 times

here's my crystal diskmark x64 3.01c score from laptop sd card reader for my

sandisk extreme pro 8gb (95mb/s version) which I refer to above