Storage Linux Reviews & Articles

There have been 192 Linux hardware reviews and benchmark articles on Phoronix for storage. Separately, check out our news section for related product news.

Early Linux 3.14 kernel benchmarks indicated there might be some slowdowns in disk/file-system performance for this next major kernel release. That early testing was done from an Intel ultrabook with solid-state drive while we're now in the process of carrying out more focused testing of Linux 3.14 on both HDDs and SSDs. In this article are our first hard drive benchmarks from the Linux 3.14 Git kernel compared to the stable 3.12 and 3.13 kernels.

Another day, another new disk drive review at Phoronix. After this week having already shared our Ubuntu Linux test results for the Kingston SSDNow V300, Western Digital WD10EZEX, and Samsung 840 EVO, the solid-state drive for review today is the SanDisk 64GB SDSSDP-064G-G25.

After this week already sharing Linux disk performance results of the Kingston SSDNow V300 SSD and Western Digital WD10EZEX, the latest disk testing done from Ubuntu is with the popular Samsung 840 EVO solid-state drive. If you are curious how this lower-priced SSD compares to various other disks under Ubuntu Linux, here's a number of results within this latest Phoronix hardware comparison.

For those in the market for an affordable, large-capacity hard drive, the Western Digital WD10EZEX offers 1TB of storage for about $60 USD. If you are curious how this low-cost Serial ATA 3.0 hard drive performs against other SATA HDDs and SSDs under Ubuntu Linux, here's a set of new disk benchmarks as we test out this SATA 3.0 HDD.

For those in the market for a solid-state drive, the Kingston SSDNow V300 series offers a 120GB Serial ATA 3.0 SSD for less than $90 USD. How well does this SSD work on Linux? We have benchmarks at Phoronix done under Ubuntu and compared to a range of HDD and SSDs.

After last week delivering SSD file-system tests and HDD file-system tests of the Linux 3.13 development kernel compared to the stable Linux 3.12 kernel. The earlier testing was limited to the popular EXT4, Btrfs, XFS, and F2FS file-systems, but out for your viewing pleasure today is an eight-way Linux 3.13 file-system comparison on Ubuntu.

Our Linux hardware review today is of the Western Digital VelociRaptor, an enterprise-grade HDD that Western Digital claims is the "Fastest SATA Hard Drive On The Planet." The Serial ATA 3.0 disk drive spins at 10,000 RPM, but how's its Linux performance?

The latest piece of hardware up for testing at Phoronix is the Seagate ST1000DX001, a 1TB Solid State Hybrid Drive (SSHD) that retails for less than $100 USD. But how well does this 1TB hard drive that has 8GB of MLC flash memory work with Linux? Let's find out.

For those curious where the common Linux file-systems stand performance-wise for the Linux 3.9 kernel, here are benchmarks from a solid-state drive and hard drive when comparing the EXT4, Btrfs, XFS, and F2FS file-systems from this yet-to-be-released Linux kernel.

Benchmarks up this afternoon are of a Western Digital RE4 WD1003FBYX, an internal enterprise hard drive, being tested from Ubuntu 13.04 with the Linux 3.8 kernel. This Linux disk drive comparison was done with an EXT4 file-system and other disk benchmarks are available from different solid-state and traditional rotating hard drives.

With the current Linux USB stack and file-systems, do USB 3.0 flash drives provide much of a performance gain over USB 2.0 flash drives? In this article are some brief benchmarks from USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 Corsair Flash Voyagers.

Up to this point on Phoronix there have been F2FS benchmarks -- the new Linux file-system designed by Samsung as the Flash-Friendly File-System -- in the context of solid-state storage benchmarking against various other Linux file-systems and also tests done from SDHC storage. In this article are our first tests when benchmarking F2FS from a USB 3.0 flash drive and comparing the performance to other open-source Linux file-systems.

Most often when carrying out any Linux file-system benchmarks -- or really, any benchmarks in general -- on Phoronix it's using solid-state storage. SSDs are just too great to pass up with their incredible performance. However, for those still using rotating media, here's a collection of file-system benchmarks from the new Linux 3.8 kernel when tested on a Serial ATA 3.0 Western Digital hard drive.

At the request of Phoronix readers, and that the default I/O scheduler may change, here's a comparison of the CFQ, Deadline, and Noop schedulers on three systems and covering both rotating media (HDD) and solid-state storage (SSDs).

After recently testing the SilverStone RVS02 2.5-inch SATA enclosure, here is a look at the SilverSton TS07 3.5-inch SATA 3.0 SATA external enclosure.

For those in the market for a 2.5-inch external hard drive enclosure that supports Serial ATA 3.0 and works well with Linux while being a well-designed and effective product, being looked at today on Phoronix is the SilverStone Raven RVS02 disk enclosure.

Last month I wrote a review on the OCZ Vertex 3 240GB solid-state drive, which was a very impressive Serial ATA 3.0 SSD. The performance of this solid-state drive was terrific and a huge improvement over previous-generation SATA 2.0 SSDs and over SATA 3.0 hard drives. All of that testing was done when the drives were formatted to the common EXT4 file-system type, but in this article are more benchmarks from the OCZ Vertex 3 as it's tested with Btrfs and various mount options.

It's been a while since last providing a Phoronix review of a solid-state drive from OCZ Technology, but now with Serial ATA 3.0 support becoming more prevalent on modern Intel and AMD motherboards, they have been releasing a number of updated products to take advantage of SATA 3.0. In the review we have our hands on an OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD as we see how this SATA III SSD performs under Ubuntu Linux.

Back with Ubuntu 7.10 an option was added to Ubuntu's alternate CD installer to easily setup an encrypted LVM during the Ubuntu installation process. This would better protect your personal data in the case your laptop or mobile device was ever stolen or misplaced as the Ubuntu Linux installation cannot boot if the encrypted LVM cannot be mounted with the encryption pass-phrase. Of course, encrypting the entire root partition can cause a performance penalty as some of our earlier results have shown while introduced in Ubuntu 9.04 was support for home encryption where only your SWAP and home folder is encrypted and this is done using eCryptfs. This continues to be Canonical's preferred method of encrypting user data with it being available from the standard Ubuntu installer while even three years later only the install-time encrypted LVM support can be accessed from their alternate installer. For those serious about encrypting their disk drive on Linux, we have new benchmarks from Ubuntu 10.10 showing how an encrypted LVM will affect your file-system performance.

Back in April we reviewed the SilverStone HDDBOOST, which was an innovative product from this manufacturer known for their computer cases that allows you to pair a solid-state drive and a hard drive in an attempt to experience the best of both worlds when it comes to storage performance. The purpose of the HDDBOOST is to increase the disk performance by enabling SSD speeds on the host hard drive while reducing write times to the SSD. From our Linux tests in that article we had a hard time getting this small device to provide any measurable performance gains, but in fact it caused some performance losses. In June, we then had results from SilverStone when they tested it under Ubuntu Linux with the Phoronix Test Suite. Since then we have been trying out a new HDDBOOST unit and it now seems to be working right.

As solid-state drives are becoming very popular with enthusiasts and a common choice for those interested in high-performance data storage, at Phoronix we have reviewed many SSDs from OCZ Technology including the Agility, Agility EX, Vertex, and Solid 2. Today we are reviewing the next-generation Vertex SSD, which is the Vertex 2, and it promises to offer much faster reads and writes, is rated to last an extra 500,000 hours beyond the 1.5 million hour MTBF of the original Vertex, and is available in capacities up to 480GB.

With the benchmarks recently looking at the performance of ZFS on FreeBSD versus EXT4/Btrfs on Linux having generated much interest and a very long discussion, this morning we are back with more benchmarks when running ZFS on FreeBSD/PC-BSD 8.1 and Btrfs and EXT4 on an Ubuntu Linux 10.10 snapshot with the most recent kernel, but this time the disk benchmarking is being done atop a high-performance solid-state drive courtesy of OCZ Technology and the CPU is an Intel Core i7. The drive being tested across these three leading file-systems is the OCZ Vertex 2 that promises maximum reads up to 285MB/s, maximum writes up to 275MB/s, and sustained writes up to 250MB/s.

We have reviewed a number of OCZ solid-state drives at Phoronix including their Vertex, Agility, and Agility EX series. In this review we are taking our first look at OCZ's new Solid 2 SSD series. The Solid 2 series is part of OCZ's value-based SSD line-up, but they do offer a surprisingly good level of performance.

Back in April we reviewed the SilverStone HDDBOOST, which was a unique device that allows a solid-state drive to be combined with a traditional hard-drive to create a "virtual super storage solution" whereby SSD transfer speeds are enabled on the host hard drive while the write times to the SSD are reduced. Unfortunately, we were not able to get this unique contraption working well under Ubuntu Linux even though theoretically it should work just fine. However, SilverStone seems to have the device working within their labs and it is producing some interesting results.

While SilverStone has long been revered for their range of uniquely high-end computer enclosures like the Fortress FT02, Temjin TJ10, and Sugo SG04 all with original designs, occasionally they have dabbled with other products outside of their computer enclosure and power supply expertise. We previously have reviewed such products like the SilverStone Raven mouse and an RFID-secured SSD/HDD enclosure, but their newest peripheral in this area is by far the most unique product that we have encountered from SilverStone. The SST-HDDBOOST product allows you to connect a solid-state drive and a traditional hard-drive via their custom PCB to experience the benefits of both types of storage.

A few weeks back we reviewed the Corsair Flash Voyager 32GB. This 32GB flash drive was very nice just like Corsair's other flash memory products and it boasted an impressive capacity with great read/write speeds, but its price at over $100 USD is not for everyone. For those that can make do with a smaller capacity and are looking to just spend a few dollars in comparison, there is the OCZ Zee. The Zee flash drive is available in capacities up to 16GB, has a more conventional housing, and is backed by a two year warranty (in comparison to Corsair's ten-year backing), but the prices for the Zee USB 2.0 drivers are much more affordable.

It's not often that we steer away from our graphics card, motherboard, processor, driver, and software benchmarking to look at other products like computer peripherals, but occasionally we are up for it, particularly when it's an offer from a manufacturer we have never heard of before with running their products on Linux. An example of this is Eagle Tech Computers, which is a US-based company that makes a variety of drive enclosures, speakers, and power supplies. Eagle Tech is no SilverStone Technology, but we decided anyways to check out their Consus ET-CS2PESU2-BK, which is a 2.5" external enclosure that offers USB 2.0 and eSATA connectivity.

It was nearly five years ago that we tested the first Corsair Flash Voyager that offered just 512MB of memory, but at the time it was quite a modest amount of storage for a USB 2.0 flash drive. The Flash Voyager was unique though from the other flash drives on the market in the respect that it was waterproof and far more durable than any other flash drive. As time has passed, more manufacturers have adopted designs similar to that of the Flash Voyager. The capacity of flash drives has also increased and we have tested out the 4GB, 8GB, and 16GB versions of the Flash Voyager and their newer and faster Flash Voyager GT series too. We have also reviewed other innovative Corsair flash memory products like their Flash PadLock and we happened to be the first publication to deliver a review of the Corsair Flash Survivor GT. Now though we are back with the Corsair Flash Survivor GT as we test out one of their newer versions with a 32GB capacity.

In past articles we have delivered plenty of file-system benchmarks from testing out EXT4 to Btrfs to NILFS2. We have also delivered benchmarks from traditional hard drives to solid-state drives. One area though where we have not published any file-system benchmarks is for USB flash drives. Most users end up staying with the default FAT32 file-system for flash drives, but are there any performance advantages to using EXT3, EXT4, XFS, Btrfs, or ReiserFS? We have the benchmarks today to share atop the latest Linux 2.6.32 kernel build.

Back in August we reviewed the OCZ Agility SATA 2.0 SSD, which we found to be a reputable solid-state drive that offered nice performance under Linux. However, a step up from the Agility series is the Agility EX line. The OCZ Agility EX is designed to offer maximum performance with its SLC NAND-based storage and Indilinx controller. How though does the performance of this $400 SSD for just 60GB of storage compare to their other MLC-based SSDs under Linux? We have the benchmarks.