Phison Pascari X200E 6.4TB Enterprise SSD Review - Mixed Workload Champion

TweakTown Rating: 99%

Our Verdict

Phison's Pascari X200E 6.4TB enterprise SSD represents the new standard in mixed workload performance and sequential throughput.

Pros

• Availability
• Sequential throughput
• Mixed workloads

Cons

• None

Should you buy it?

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Introduction and Drive Details

Phison advertises its Pascari portfolio of enterprise SSDs as being built on over two decades of experience driving innovation in NAND technologies. The Pascari portfolio enables highly customized and off-the-shelf solutions to address specific storage deployment scenarios and workloads. With turnkey solutions for every enterprise application, Phison enables its partners and customers to identify and make the most of emerging opportunities across the data storage ecosystem.

Phison describes its Pascari Performance X-Series as follows: Our highest performing enterprise-class SSDs designed for extreme write intensity with vast capacity options allowing for scale and efficiency while reducing operating costs. Pascari X-Series comes in the latest form factors and is unmatched in features, giving you custom SSD results with an off-the-shelf buying experience. The Phison X200 exists to support your diverse requirements in a single series. X200 delivers both single port and dual-port modes while shipping in U.2 2.5? and E3.S form factors to give your datacenter reliable and predictable performance that exceeds industry standards.

The fabless controller company further touts its Pascari X200 Series as having already attained design wins across the computing spectrum. These design wins include high-performance computing to video delivery platforms by hyperscale customers. The X200 platform currently serves a wide range of workloads in enterprise environments and datacenters worldwide.

For us, the X200E stands out as a readily available turnkey solution offering unmatched sequential throughput along with a higher level of mixed workload prowess than we've seen previously. So, let's get into the review and find out exactly what the Pascari X200E 6.4TB enterprise SSD can do for you by the numbers.

Specs/Comparison Products

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Phison Pascari X200E 6.4TB PCIe Gen5 x4 U.2 SSD

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Phison's Pascari X200 Series SSDs are available at capacity points ranging from 1.6TB -30.72TB in both the 15mm 2.5-inch U.2 form factor, and E3.S form factor. The drive we have in hand is U.2 15mm, 6.4TB - Phison PS5302-X2-66 16-channel controlled and is arrayed with Hynix 176-Layer eTLC flash. These SSDs are compatible with major operating systems such as RHEL, SLES, CentOS, Ubuntu, Windows Server, and VMware ESXi.

Test System Specs & Enterprise Testing Methodology

Enterprise SSD Test System

Prior to the AI revolution, datacenter SSDs' normal operating range would typically never exceed QD32. With AI data pipeline storage being directed by GPU, high queue depth performance has become paramount. Queue depths in the thousands are now commonplace, which is why we've changed our test platform, methodology, and operating system. Our charted upper queue depth range has been revised from QD256 to QD4096 for random data and up to QD1024 for sequential testing.

Testing Methodology

TweakTown strictly adheres to industry-accepted Enterprise Solid State Storage testing procedures. Each test we perform repeats the same sequence of the following steps:

1. Secure Erase SSD
2. Write the entire capacity of SSD 2x (2 loops) with 128KB sequential write data, seamlessly transition to the next step (sequential testing skips step 3)
3. Precondition SSD by filling the drive twice with 4K or 8K random writes
4. Run test-specific workload with a 30-second ramp up for 5 minutes at each measured Queue Depth, and record average result

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Benchmarks - Sequential

128K Sequential Write/Read

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We precondition the drive using 100 percent sequential 128K writes at QD256 using 1-thread for 2-drive fills, receiving performance data every second. We plot this data to observe the test subject's descent into steady-state and to verify steady-state is in effect as we seamlessly transition into testing at queue depth. A steady-state is achieved after 1-drive fill. Average steady-state 128K sequential write performance at QD256 is approximately 8,700 MB/s.

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Phison specs its Pascari X200E 6.4TB SSD as capable of delivering up to 8,700 MB/s 128K sequential write throughput. We are getting exactly 8,700 MB/s, so the factory spec is spot on. The drive delivers tremendously at QD1, which is something we highly value. Additionally, its consistency is rock steady at queue depths of two or more. Excellent.

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Here, the drive is factory spec'd for up to 14,800 MB/s 128K sequential read throughput. We are hitting up to 15,025 MB/s, which is a new lab record for sequential read throughput. Impressive. Additionally, the performance curve here is excellent.

Benchmarks - Random

4K Random Write/Read

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We precondition the drive using 100 percent random 4K writes at QD256 for 2-drive fills, receiving performance data every second. We plot this data to observe the test subject's descent into steady-state and to verify steady-state is in effect as we seamlessly transition into testing at queue depth. A steady-state is achieved after 1-drive fill. Average steady-state 4K random write performance at QD256 is approximately 925K IOPS. The pattern observed here is quite good. Its tight and consistent pattern with no outliers attests to its high QOS design.

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Our 6.4TB contender is rated at up to 880K for 4K random write IOPS. We are getting up to 925K, so again, this is excellent. As the chart demonstrates, our test subject delivers overall the second-best performance curve of any SSD appearing on our chart. Impressive.

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Factory spec here is up to 3,200K IOPS at QD512, which is exactly what we are getting with our configuration. As we view it, the Pascari X200E 6.4TB is delivering the third best performance curve here of any flash-based SSD we've tested. Excellent.

4K 7030

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Here, we find our 6.4TB contender battling it out with Solidigm's PS1030 6.4TB for mixed workload supremacy. The PS1030 does ever so slightly better at queue depths of up to 256, but above that, the X200E 6.4TB shatters lab records. Based on this result, we are crowning the Pascari X200E 6.4TB, our new mixed workload champion. Impressive.

4K 5050

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Exactly what we witnessed at 4K 7030 - more lab records fall, and this time in an arguably more spectacular fashion. It's a mixed workload specialist, for sure.

8K Random Write/Read

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We precondition the drive using 100 percent random 8K writes at QD256 for 2-drive fills, receiving performance data every second. We plot this data to observe the test subject's descent into steady-state and to verify steady-state is in effect as we seamlessly transition into testing at queue depth. A steady-state is achieved after 1-drive fill. Average steady-state 8K random write performance at QD256 is approximately 460K IOPS. The pattern observed here again is exactly what we love to see. Its tight and consistent pattern attests to its high QOS design.

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We expect 8K random to track pretty much the same as 4K random here, just at a lower IOPS rate because it's moving twice the amount of data. Here we find our test subject delivering overall the third best performance curve of the SSDs appearing on this chart.

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Although it's not the best performance curve appearing on this chart, our 6.4TB contender does indeed deliver another lab record for 8K random throughput. Impressive.

8K 7030

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8K 7030 is representative of a common database workload. On the low end our test subject delivers average at best. However, at queue depths of 16 or more, it's cranking out more performance than any SSD appearing on our chart. More evidence as to why we are crowning the 6.4TB X200E as our new mixed workload champion. This is the first time any flash-based SSD has attained over 1000K IOPS with a database workload. Incredible.

8K 5050

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Everything just stated about its performance curve at 8K 7030 applies here as well, and even more so. Absolute domination with this crushing mixed workload. Amazing.

Final Thoughts

Phison's Pascari X200E 6.4TB delivers excellent, pure random performance, pretty much on par with most of the top competitors currently in circulation. However, there is more to enterprise workloads than just pure random throughput. Mattering much more are mixed random workloads and this is where we find our test subject able to deliver without equal for a flash-based SSD. Our test subject delivered new lab records for every mixed workload we threw at it, including, for the first time, eclipsing a million IOPS with a database workload.

Additionally, its 128K sequential read throughput of over 15,000 MB/s is another lab record and definitely one of significance for enterprise applications. We had assumed that 14,850 MB/s was the speed limit for PCIe Gen5, but Phison proved our assumption wrong.

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It's the new standard in mixed workload performance and sequential throughput, earning Phison's Pascari X200E 6.4TB our highest award. Editor's Choice.