IOPS vs Read Write Speed: Which Is More Important for SSDs

You may see IOPS and read write speed when purchasing an SSD. Which one is more important for SSDs? This post from MiniTool Partition Wizard explains IOPS vs read write speed to you.

I do have some questions about drive specs, particularly IOPS vs Write Speeds. One drive writes slower but can do many more IOPs using 4K blocks. The other is just the opposite, fast write but a lower IOPS rating. The one with "faster" write speeds is more expensive…Which spec really matters with an SSD?https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/iops-or-write-speed-which-is-more-important-in-a-ssd.1154686/

When you buy an SSD, the SSD vendor will tell you the sequential read write speeds and the IOPS of the SSD. In this post, I will explain IOPS vs read write speed to you and hope this will help you.

What Is Read Write Speed?

In most cases, the read write speed usually refers to sequential read write speed, which means that the hard drive accesses data in sequence. When we watch videos or copy video files of more than tens of GB, the sequential read write speed of the hard drive will affect the video-watching or file-copying experience.

What Is IOPS?

IOPS is short for Input/Output Operations Per Second. When we talk to IOPS, it usually refers to the IOPS of random read write.

Sequential read and write also has IOPS, but that is not important for sequential read and write. As we all know, the unit of sequential read write speeds is MB/s.

However, IOPS is very important to random read write. It is the unit of random read write speed.

The random read write means that data is not read and written in the order of files. The hard drive can jump to a random file node for read and write operations. The random read write speed is very important for running programs, virus scans, small file storage, mail servers, OLTP database, etc.

IOPS vs Read Write Speed

Although both IOPS and read write speed are important for SSDs, I recommend you choose the SSD that has a larger IOPS, instead of the SSD that has a faster sequential read write speed. The reason is that the PC booting time and program running speed are much more important than file copying in our daily lives.

In addition, when an SSD has been used for a period of time, data has been continuously written and deleted. As time goes by, a lot of scattered storage space will naturally be generated in the SSD, or the data storage addresses will not be concentrated in a certain continuous space.

At this time, the method of reading and writing data becomes random reading and writing.

How to Measure SSD’s IOPS and Read Write Speed

You can use MiniTool Partition Wizard. It can test SSD speed for free. Here is the guide:

MiniTool Partition Wizard FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Step 1: Launch MiniTool Partition Wizard and click Disk Benchmark on the tool bar.

Step 2: Select a drive, set parameters, and then click Start to test the disk performance. The recommended parameters are as follows:

Transfer Size: 4 KB to 4 KB.
Queue Number and Thread Number: Make sure the two are multiplied to 1, 32, or 64 (Q1T1, Q32T1, Q8T8, etc.).
Test Mode: Sequential & Random.

Tips:

Regardless of HDD or SSD, the sequential read and write speed is dozens to hundreds of times greater than the random read and write speed.

Bottom Line

The above is all I know about IOPS vs read write speed. If you know more, share it with us in the following comment zone.

About The Author

Linda Follow Us

Position: Columnist

Linda has been working as an editor at MiniTool for 5 years. She is always curious about computer knowledge and learns it crazily. Her articles are simple and easy to understand. Even people who do not understand computer can gain something. By the way, her special focuses are disk management, data recovery and PDF editing.