Raspberry Pi 4b mSata-SSD vs MicroSD

I just wanted to see if it was faster... And.... It is.

I order the cheepist mSATA 5030MM 480GB by TOROSUS and the Geekworm Raspberry Pi 4 mSATA SSD Adapter. The Micro-SD is a Samsung Evo Select 256gb. All from amazon.com

I started with the normal flashing to the 256gb Micro-SD. Pretty Simple. It Booted right up. I did the setup and stuff like that (wifi, blah, ect).

I just cloned Micro-SD ext4 partition to the SSD and expanded it, cloned the FAT32 partition to a spare 2gb micro-sd card i had, with gParted. I had to fiddle with the

/etc/fstab

on the SSD and the

cmdline.txt

file in the Micro-SD. And did a search to find out how to get PARTUUID (as UUID is not the same) for the new clones as gParted changes them.

And YAY I got it to boot using the SSD. So lets get to the results!

Results with the Micro-SD, Samsung Evo Select 256gb

pi@raspberrypi:~/workspace/testFS $ sysbench --test=fileio --file-test-mode=seqrewr run
sysbench 0.4.12:  multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark

Running the test with following options:
Number of threads: 1

Extra file open flags: 0
128 files, 16Mb each
2Gb total file size
Block size 16Kb
Periodic FSYNC enabled, calling fsync() each 100 requests.
Calling fsync() at the end of test, Enabled.
Using synchronous I/O mode
Doing sequential rewrite test
Threads started!
Done.

Operations performed:  0 Read, 131072 Write, 128 Other = 131200 Total
Read 0b  Written 2Gb  Total transferred 2Gb  (27.696Mb/sec)
 1772.57 Requests/sec executed

Test execution summary:
    total time:                          73.9446s
    total number of events:              131072
    total time taken by event execution: 70.6863
    per-request statistics:
         min:                                  0.02ms
         avg:                                  0.54ms
         max:                               2990.25ms
         approx.  95 percentile:               0.06ms

Threads fairness:
    events (avg/stddev):           131072.0000/0.00
    execution time (avg/stddev):   70.6863/0.00

pi@raspberrypi:~/workspace/testFS $

Results With the SSD, mSATA 5030MM 480GB by TOROSUS

pi@raspberrypi:~/workspace/testFS $ sysbench --test=fileio --file-test-mode=seqrewr run
sysbench 0.4.12:  multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark

Running the test with following options:
Number of threads: 1

Extra file open flags: 0
128 files, 16Mb each
2Gb total file size
Block size 16Kb
Periodic FSYNC enabled, calling fsync() each 100 requests.
Calling fsync() at the end of test, Enabled.
Using synchronous I/O mode
Doing sequential rewrite test
Threads started!
Done.

Operations performed:  0 Read, 131072 Write, 128 Other = 131200 Total
Read 0b  Written 2Gb  Total transferred 2Gb  (96.355Mb/sec)
 6166.70 Requests/sec executed

Test execution summary:
    total time:                          21.2548s
    total number of events:              131072
    total time taken by event execution: 20.7933
    per-request statistics:
         min:                                  0.03ms
         avg:                                  0.16ms
         max:                               2067.69ms
         approx.  95 percentile:               0.07ms

Threads fairness:
    events (avg/stddev):           131072.0000/0.00
    execution time (avg/stddev):   20.7933/0.00

pi@raspberrypi:~/workspace/testFS $

Well in Conclusion, the boot-up time is the same but In all reality its time to find another use for this 256gb Micro-SD.

Thanks for the Read!

UPDATE: August 2020

Well its time for a update, So today I decided to update my Pi setup.

I recently seen there was eeprom updates for USB Boot Support for the Raspberry Pi 4b @ github.com~rpi-eeprom-firmware/release-notes.md , So I decided to give it a shot!.

I found a guide Here, Using same mSATA 5030MM 480GB by TOROSUS

I changed out my USB/MSATA adapter, to a 10$ one i found on amazon. @ https://www.amazon.com/~/dp/B075FR3ZD4

So here is the new Results!

pi@raspberrypi:~/workspace/benchmark $ sysbench --test=fileio --file-test-mode=seqrewr run
sysbench 0.4.12:  multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark

Running the test with following options:
Number of threads: 1

Extra file open flags: 0
128 files, 16Mb each
2Gb total file size
Block size 16Kb
Periodic FSYNC enabled, calling fsync() each 100 requests.
Calling fsync() at the end of test, Enabled.
Using synchronous I/O mode
Doing sequential rewrite test
Threads started!
Done.

Operations performed:  0 Read, 131072 Write, 128 Other = 131200 Total
Read 0b  Written 2Gb  Total transferred 2Gb  (279.41Mb/sec)
17882.03 Requests/sec executed

Test execution summary:
    total time:                          7.3298s
    total number of events:              131072
    total time taken by event execution: 6.8980
    per-request statistics:
         min:                                  0.03ms
         avg:                                  0.05ms
         max:                                 32.38ms
         approx.  95 percentile:               0.04ms

Threads fairness:
    events (avg/stddev):           131072.0000/0.00
    execution time (avg/stddev):   6.8980/0.00

pi@raspberrypi:~/workspace/benchmark $