Storage Linux Reviews & Articles

There have been 190 Linux hardware reviews and benchmark articles on Phoronix for storage. Separately, check out our news section for related product news.

Corsair MP700 PRO 2TB PCIe Gen5 NVMe SSD
Corsair MP700 PRO 2TB PCIe Gen5 NVMe SSD

Corsair this month released the MP700 PRO NVMe SSD as the company's newest PCI Express Gen5 NVMe SSD. After the initial issues encountered with the Corsair MP700, I was eager to see how well this PCIe 5.0 solid-state drive would perform. Corsair rates their MP700 PRO SSD as capable of reaching up to 12,400 MB/s sequential reads and 11,800 MB/s sequential writes.

28 November 2023 - 24 Comments
Benchmarking Mercury As The "Fastest Firefox Fork" With AVX, AES, LTO + PGO
Benchmarking Mercury As The "Fastest Firefox Fork" With AVX, AES, LTO + PGO

Following the news last week of Firefox outperforming Chrome in SunSpider, a Phoronix reader pointed out Mercury that is an open-source web browser claiming to be the "fastest Firefox fork" and making use of Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) and AES instructions along with compiler features like Link-Time Optimizations (LTO) and Profile-Guided Optimizations (PGO). The project advertises as being 8-20% faster than upstream Firefox. Curious I ran a couple benchmarks on my end of this Firefox fork.

22 August 2023 - 29 Comments
Corsair MP700: PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD But Not Without Issues
Corsair MP700: PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD But Not Without Issues

Last week Corsair announced the MP700 series as their first PCIe 5.0 NVMe solid-state drives. While the performance is quite speedy for sequential reads and writes, in practice this drive struggled under Linux with real-world workloads. When not adding an after-market heatsink, the MP700 was quick to exhibit EXT4 file-system errors.

9 May 2023 - 16 Comments
Testing The First PCIe Gen 5.0 NVMe SSD On Linux Has Been Disappointing
Testing The First PCIe Gen 5.0 NVMe SSD On Linux Has Been Disappointing

This past week saw the first two consumer PCIe 5.0 NVMe solid-state drives released to retail: the Gigabyte AORUS Gen5 10000 and the Inland TD510. I've been testing the Inland TD510 2TB Gen 5 NVMe SSD the past few days. While in simple I/O testing it can hit speeds almost up to 10,000 MB/s reads and writes, for more complex workloads it quickly dropped against popular PCIe Gen 4.0 NVMe SSD options. In my testing thus far of this first consumer Gen5 NVMe SSD it's left me far from impressed.

5 March 2023 - 59 Comments
Solidigm P44 Pro Linux Performance
Solidigm P44 Pro Linux Performance

A few months back we looked at the Solidigm P41 Plus NVMe SSD from this company that formed when SK hynix acquired Intel's NAND/SSD business. The P41 Plus was a budget-friendly consumer SSD with QLC memory while recently they launched the P44 Pro as a step-up and based on the SK hynix Platinum P41 design. I've been testing the Solidigm P44 Pro 1TB and 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs under Linux to great performance.

26 December 2022 - 29 Comments
Solidigm P41 Plus NVMe SSD
Solidigm P41 Plus NVMe SSD

Up on the review block today is the Solidigm P41 Plus as a value-focused solid-state drive. Solidigm is the US company formed when SK Hynix acquired Intel's NAND/SSD business. Since forming Solidigm at the end of last year they have continued to sell products from Intel's existing SSD product line-up while last month they announced the P41 Plus as their first consumer solid-state drive of their own design. Recently I've been testing out the Solidigm P41 Plus 1TB and 2TB drives under Linux for seeing how these affordable QLC drives perform.

23 September 2022 - 15 Comments
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 1TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD On Linux
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 1TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD On Linux

Last year Sabrent launched the Rocket 4 Plus PCIe 4.0 NVMe solid-state drive and left me puzzled for months finding that the Linux performance was coming in short of expectations under Linux. However, Sabrent recently released a firmware update (v1.2) for the Rocket 4 Plus and now the drive seems to be much better positioned under Linux.

3 August 2021 - 20 Comments
Samsung 980 NVMe SSD Linux Performance
Samsung 980 NVMe SSD Linux Performance

Earlier this month Samsung announced the 980 (non-PRO) NVMe solid-state driver offering a combination of speed and affordability for consumers. Many Linux readers have been curious about this Samsung 980 DRAM-less SSD so here are some initial benchmarks of it. Overall, it's been working out well under Linux.

26 March 2021 - 43 Comments
Samsung 870 EVO Linux Performance Benchmarks
Samsung 870 EVO Linux Performance Benchmarks

For those continuing to rely on SATA 3.0 storage, last week Samsung introduced the 870 EVO as their latest solid-state drive in the very successful EVO line-up. For those curious about the Linux performance of the Samsung 870 EVO or wanting to run your own side-by-side benchmarks against the data in this article, here is a review looking at the Samsung 870 EVO 500GB SSD.

29 January 2021 - 23 Comments
Western Digital WD_BLACK SN850 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD Linux Performance
Western Digital WD_BLACK SN850 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD Linux Performance

This month Western Digital introduced the WD_BLACK SN850 as the latest PCI Express 4.0 solid-state drive hitting the market. The WD_BLACK SN850 is a surprisingly strong performer if looking to upgrade to PCIe 4.0 solid-state storage, competing with the fastest of the consumer drives currently available.

30 November 2020 - 20 Comments
Samsung 980 PRO PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD Linux Performance
Samsung 980 PRO PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD Linux Performance

The Samsung 980 PRO PCIe 4.0 NVMe solid-state drives are now available from Internet retailers. For those wondering how these SSDs compare with EXT4 under Linux against other PCIe 4.0/3.0 drives, here are a variety of benchmarks.

26 October 2020 - 32 Comments
Samsung 870 QVO SSD Performance On Ubuntu Linux
Samsung 870 QVO SSD Performance On Ubuntu Linux

The Samsung 870 QVO solid-state drives announced at the end of June have begun appearing at Internet retailers. The Samsung 870 QVO is the company's latest QLC NAND solid-state drive offering 1TB of storage for a little more than $120 USD all the way up to 4TB for $500 and an 8TB variant for $900. For those curious about the EXT4 file-system Linux performance out of the Samsung 870 QVO, here are some benchmarks.

29 July 2020 - 18 Comments
Sabrent USB 3.2 Enclosure + Sabrent Rocket Q 2TB NVMe SSD On Linux Performance
Sabrent USB 3.2 Enclosure + Sabrent Rocket Q 2TB NVMe SSD On Linux Performance

For those looking at an NVMe PCIe M.2 solid-state drive enclosure for connecting to USB 3.1/3.2 systems, Sabrent offers a nice option with their EC-TFNB enclosure that is constructed out of aluminum, 100% tool-free, and runs well. I recently bought this Sabrent USB 3.2 enclosure along with the Sabrent Rocket Q 2TB NVMe solid-state drive, which offers nice performance for a PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD and the 2TB capacity can be found for just about $250 USD.

20 July 2020 - 13 Comments
XFS / EXT4 / Btrfs / F2FS / NILFS2 Performance On Linux 5.8

Given the reignited discussions this week over Btrfs file-system performance stemming from a proposal to switch Fedora on the desktop to using Btrfs, here are some fresh benchmarks of not only Btrfs but alongside XFS, EXT4, F2FS, and for kicks NILFS2 was also tossed into the mix for these mainline file-system tests off the in-development Linux 5.8 kernel.

3 July 2020 - 69 Comments
Linux 5.4 EXT4 / XFS / Btrfs RAID Performance On Four HDDs
Linux 5.4 EXT4 / XFS / Btrfs RAID Performance On Four HDDs

Recently a Phoronix reader inquired about seeing some fresh hard drive RAID benchmarks on the current kernel release and using Btrfs / EXT4 / XFS. While we don't often look at HDD RAID performance these days compared to speedier SSD testing, since the reader was a generous Phoronix Premium member I was happy to oblige to his test request. Here is a look at the Linux 5.4 HDD RAID performance per his request with Btrfs, EXT4, and XFS while using consumer HDDs and an AMD Ryzen APU setup that could work out for a NAS type low-power system for anyone else that may be interested.

28 December 2019 - 26 Comments
Sabrent Rocket 4.0 NVMe Gen4 Linux Benchmarks Against Other SATA/NVMe SSDs
Sabrent Rocket 4.0 NVMe Gen4 Linux Benchmarks Against Other SATA/NVMe SSDs

When it comes to PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs, the drives we have been using are the Corsair Force MP600 that have been working out great for pairing with the newest AMD Ryzen systems. But a Black Friday deal had the Sabrent 1TB Rocket NVMe 4.0 Gen4 PCIe M.2 SSD on sale, so I decided to pick one up to see how it was performing on Ubuntu Linux. Here are benchmarks of the Sabrent Gen4 NVMe SSD, which in the 1TB capacity can be found for $150~170 USD.

14 December 2019 - 20 Comments
Corsair Force MP600 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD Benchmarks On Linux
Corsair Force MP600 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD Benchmarks On Linux

One of the first PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSDs to market has been the Corsair Force MP600. AMD included the Corsair MP600 2TB NVMe PCIe4 SSD with their Ryzen 3000 reviewer's kit and for those interested in this speedy solid-state storage here are some benchmarks compared to various other storage devices on Ubuntu Linux.

18 July 2019 - 35 Comments
Benchmarking Five ~$30 USD Solid-State Drives Under Ubuntu Linux
Benchmarking Five ~$30 USD Solid-State Drives Under Ubuntu Linux

With falling memory prices, there's multiple solid-state drives available for around the $30 USD price point that offer 240~256GB capacities. Here are benchmarks of five such drives, four of which are SATA 3.0 SSDs and even one NVMe SSD. There are also comparison points to more premium SSD products.

6 June 2019 - 26 Comments
FreeBSD ZFS vs. ZoL Performance, Ubuntu ZFS On Linux Reference
FreeBSD ZFS vs. ZoL Performance, Ubuntu ZFS On Linux Reference

With iX Systems having released new images of FreeBSD reworked with their ZFS On Linux code that is in development to ultimately replace their existing FreeBSD ZFS support derived from the code originally found in the Illumos source tree, here are some fresh benchmarks looking at the FreeBSD 12 performance of ZFS vs. ZoL vs. UFS and compared to Ubuntu Linux on the same system with EXT4 and ZFS.

24 April 2019 - 18 Comments
Linux Tests Of The QNINE M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure To USB-C Adapter
Linux Tests Of The QNINE M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure To USB-C Adapter

In the past few months a number of M.2 NVMe SSD to USB adapters have been appearing on the market. Curious about the performance potential on Linux of an NVMe SSD drive attached to a USB 3.1 connection, I recently picked up a QNINE NVMe solid-state drive enclosure for benchmarking.

25 March 2019 - 33 Comments
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB NVMe Linux SSD Benchmarks
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB NVMe Linux SSD Benchmarks

Announced at the end of January was the Samsung 970 EVO Plus as the first consumer-grade solid-state drive with 96-layer 3D NAND memory. The Samsung 970 EVO NVMe SSDs are now shipping and in this review are the first Linux benchmarks of these new SSDs in the form of the Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB MZ-V7S500B/AM compared to several other SSDs on Linux.

15 February 2019 - 7 Comments
FreeBSD ZFS vs. TrueOS ZoF vs. DragonFlyBSD HAMMER2 vs. ZFS On Linux Benchmarks
FreeBSD ZFS vs. TrueOS ZoF vs. DragonFlyBSD HAMMER2 vs. ZFS On Linux Benchmarks

With TrueOS offering daily snapshots built against the "ZFS on FreeBSD" code derived from OpenZFS / ZFS on Linux, I decided to run some benchmarks to see how the performance compares to that of FreeBSD 12.0 with its ZFS file-system support, DragonFlyBSD 5.2.1 with its HAMMER2 file-system alternative, and then Linux with ZFS/ZoL and other file-system options.

26 January 2019 - 18 Comments
Linux 5.0 File-System Benchmarks: Btrfs vs. EXT4 vs. F2FS vs. XFS
Linux 5.0 File-System Benchmarks: Btrfs vs. EXT4 vs. F2FS vs. XFS

With all of the major file-systems seeing clean-up work during the Linux 4.21 merge window (now known as Linux 5.0 and particularly with F2FS seeing fixes as a result of it being picked up by Google for support on Pixel devices, I was curious to see how the current popular mainline file-system choices compare for performance. Btrfs, EXT4, F2FS, and XFS were tested on a SATA 3.0 solid-state drive, USB SSD, and an NVMe SSD.

7 January 2019 - 61 Comments
Samsung 860 QVO SSD Linux Benchmarks: 1TB SATA 3.0 SSD For $150 USD
Samsung 860 QVO SSD Linux Benchmarks: 1TB SATA 3.0 SSD For $150 USD

After being announced a few weeks back, the Samsung 860 QVO series is beginning to ship as a new, lower-cost SATA 3.0 SSD offering. The Samsung 860 QVO series offers four bit per cell flash memory to usher in a new era of lower-cost solid-state storage with the now-shipping 1TB model costing just $150 USD while the 2TB version coming soon at $300 USD and $600 USD for a 4TB edition.

23 December 2018 - 15 Comments
FreeBSD ZFS vs. Linux EXT4/Btrfs RAID With Twenty SSDs
FreeBSD ZFS vs. Linux EXT4/Btrfs RAID With Twenty SSDs

With FreeBSD 12.0 running great on the Dell PowerEdge R7425 server with dual AMD EPYC 7601 processors, I couldn't resist using the twenty Samsung SSDs in that 2U server for running some fresh FreeBSD ZFS RAID benchmarks as well as some reference figures from Ubuntu Linux with the native Btrfs RAID capabilities and then using EXT4 atop MD-RAID.

14 December 2018 - 35 Comments

190 storage articles published on Phoronix.