In a nutshell: Squeezing each little bit of efficiency out of a PC – whether or not for sport or from a worth place – is what overclocking is all about. Ramping up clock speeds, rising voltage settings, and tightening reminiscence timings are all widespread methods to make CPUs, GPUs, and reminiscence run sooner, however do you know it is technically attainable to use a few of these identical methods to solid-state drives?
YouTuber Gabriel Ferraz not too long ago showcased what kind of features one might anticipate with the suitable mixture of {hardware}. On this occasion, he went with a lowly RZX 240 GB 2.5-inch SATA drive powered by a Silicon Movement SM2259XT2 controller that runs Xioxia TLC BiCS4 96-layer NAND.
Out of the field, the SSD is rated for sequential reads of as much as 540 MB/s and sequential writes of as much as 450 MB/s with random learn and write IOPS of 61,000 and 72,000, respectively. Clearly, a lot sooner drives exist already utilizing different interfaces at very cheap costs so if all-out pace is your objective, this is not the place to begin. Fairly, Ferraz is solely demonstrating what is feasible.
Ferraz additionally famous that the controller on this drive is rated to run at as much as 550 MHz however was clocked at simply 425 MHz by default. Moreover, the flash is rated for as much as 400 MHz / 800 MT/s however was operating at 193.75 MHz and 387.5 MT/s. Maybe the producer wished to scale back energy consumption and warmth in order that they clocked it decrease, or possibly the {hardware} did not meet sure high quality management requirements to run at sooner speeds.
The modder utilized a SATA-to-USB 3.0 adapter to make life a bit simpler and began by flashing customized firmware onto the drive. Utilizing software program known as SMI Mass Manufacturing Device, Ferraz was in a position to modify numerous settings and dial in a secure tune.
Ultimately, he was in a position to get the controller operating at 500 MHz and the Kioxia NAND at 400 MHz, enhancements of 17.6 % and 106 % over inventory, respectively. Benchmark testing was hit and miss – in some checks and eventualities, the drive carried out slightly higher than it did out of the field whereas in others, the SATA bus ended up carry the limiting issue.
Worse but, the modded drive drew practically twice as a lot energy as inventory regardless of the clock pace bumps. Even nonetheless, it topped out at simply 45 levels Celsius or practically 10 levels Celsius of its thermal throttle level so no worries there.
As interesting as it could be to extract each ounce of efficiency out of your {hardware}, SSD overclocking will not be well worth the effort for many. SATA drives are already a number of instances slower than NVMe drives, which use controllers and NAND flash which can be often optimized for efficiency. What’s extra, tinkering with the underpinnings of a storage drive is a recipe for information corruption, voided warranties, or worse. Ferraz’s drive is an ideal instance: throughout one benchmark, the drive gave up the ghost and refused besides.
