JMicron JMF667H Reference Design (128GB & 256GB) Review
by Kristian Vättö on May 29, 2014 9:00 AM ESTRandom Read/Write Speed
The four corners of SSD performance are as follows: random read, random write, sequential read and sequential write speed. Random accesses are generally small in size, while sequential accesses tend to be larger and thus we have the four Iometer tests we use in all of our reviews.
Our first test writes 4KB in a completely random pattern over an 8GB space of the drive to simulate the sort of random access that you'd see on an OS drive (even this is more stressful than a normal desktop user would see). We perform three concurrent IOs and run the test for 3 minutes. The results reported are in average MB/s over the entire time.
Once again there is quite a big difference depending on what NAND is used. With Toshiba NAND, the JMF667H is at the same level with the high-end drives but IMFT NAND drops it to the lower-end. From what I have heard, Toshiba's NAND is faster in general and the higher die count further boosts performance.
Random write performance is fairly average. I'm guessing the controller/firmware introduces some bottlenecks because the performance isn't really affected by the NAND other than in the 128GB configuration.
Sequential Read/Write Speed
To measure sequential performance we run a 1 minute long 128KB sequential test over the entire span of the drive at a queue depth of 1. The results reported are in average MB/s over the entire test length.
Sequential performance is also average. There is some variation especially in write performance depending on the NAND but even the IMFT version performs relatively well.
AS-SSD Incompressible Sequential Read/Write Performance
The AS-SSD sequential benchmark uses incompressible data for all of its transfers. The result is a pretty big reduction in sequential write speed on SandForce based controllers.
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mflood - Thursday, May 29, 2014 - link
Looks like a great product for last year. This might help JMicron capture some of the OEM market - maybe even some budget enthusiast SSDs. What JMicron didn't do was swoop in with a M2 x4 PCIExpress controller. I'm done with 6Gbps SATA.romrunning - Thursday, May 29, 2014 - link
Ahhhh.... JMicron - like a phoenix from the ashes. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...Oh well, someone has to be at the bottom of the barrel.
romrunning - Thursday, May 29, 2014 - link
I guess their selling point would be that they're cheaper than the Crucial M500. So if pricing is all-important to you (and why are you buying a SSD if price is all-important), then they would be a contender.The_Assimilator - Thursday, May 29, 2014 - link
Please stop insulting barrels.moridinga - Thursday, May 29, 2014 - link
"The JMF667H is not perfect and there are a couple of things I would like to see. The first one is support for TCG Opal 2.0 and IEEE-1667 encryption standards."IEEE-1667 is not an encryption standard. Perhaps you meant IEEE-1619
Kristian Vättö - Thursday, May 29, 2014 - link
Nope. IEEE-1667 is for storage devices, at least the version I'm looking at.http://www.ieee1667.com/download/informational-doc...
moridinga - Friday, May 30, 2014 - link
Yes, it is authentication and discovery for storage devices (particularly removable/portable ones). It says nothing about encryption.Gigaplex - Saturday, May 31, 2014 - link
IEEE-1667 is a requirement for Microsofts Bitlocker eDrive, which is encryption.KAlmquist - Thursday, May 29, 2014 - link
Contrary to the history given in the introduction, it was with the the Indilinx "barefoot" controller that was the game changer. Once Indrilinx entered the market, SSD's based on the J-Micron controller could only be sold to consumers who didn't understand what they were buying. The name J-Micron became toxic because if you wanted to advise somebody on buying an SSD, your first and last words would be, "whatever you do, don't buy and SSD with a J-Micron controller."In contrast, Sandforce's first generation controller was an incremental improvement over what came before it. There's nothing wrong with that, but the term "game changer" doesn't apply.
HisDivineOrder - Thursday, May 29, 2014 - link
Seems like that early history explanation really misses the point that Indilinx was the first real competition to Intel back then.Sandforce came along and was the first company to put Intel down. But Indilinx was the first company that convinced people they could live with non-Intel SSD's and not... be JMicron'ed.